A couple of readers have left messages on my “Beading needles” post asking where they can purchase the beads needed for the beautiful beaded embroidery cards. Not all bead shops sell the tiny seed beads suitable for card embroidery. It is a case of seeking out the stores that do…

If you make a lot of stitching cards with beads it is worth getting or making a bead tray. This will keep your beads in one place and stop them rolling away and getting lost on the floor.

The main features of a bead tray are the base covering of material such as felt and raised edges to keep the beads from rolling away. You could make one…

A set of six new Christmas bead patterns are available for purchase from the Stitching Cards web site. The prick and stitch patterns feature bead snowflakes, a bead angel, bead bells and holly, a bead candle and holly, bead holly and a bow and a bead Christmas tree…

When I purchase my beads they usually come in small plastic bags. As my bead collection grew I saw the need for an improved way of storing them. Fortunately most of the shops that specialise in beads sell bead storage boxes.

These boxes come in a variety of sizes…

Small seed beads and bugle beads require the use of a much thinner needle than I use for the non-beaded stitching. I use a size 10 English beading needle. These needles can be tricky to thread due to the small eye. I find it best to use a single strand thread rather than multi-stranded which could split as it is pushed through the eye of the needle…

Following on from my post about seed beads, here is some information about bugle beads. Bugle beads come in a variety of lengths but will always be longer than they are thick. This creates a bead with a tubular shape…

I am often asked about the beads used for my card embroidery patterns on the Stitching Cards web site. I like to use silver lined glass beads because they give a jewel like effect when they reflect the light. The small round beads are usually referred to as seed beads. The beads are 2mm in diameter or 1/8 inch or aught size 10/0 (ten-aught). Various bead sellers uses different measurements when describing the beads so I have given the three most popular…

Mary Corbet tells how she made a beaded flower card on her Needle ‘n Thread website. The design was from a Stitching Cards pattern and it looks stunning.

Mary made the card for her auntie’s 90th birthday. Mary says “I found that I liked poking the little holes in the paper… and so I ended up setting up about 15 cards”. She found that she could easily stack three pieces of card stock and prick them all at the same time…