Crazy blue beads:

So let’s get in to it!

You need:

• Felt or stiff fabric for a base
• Fabric glue
• Beads
• Ribbon

Cut two long rectangles of felt. The long side should be at least half the circumference of your neck.

Cut them into a collar shape like this. I am using a traditional Peter Pan shape. Basically the inside which touches your neck is a slight curve while the outside is a really exaggerated curve which is more obvious at the front.

When the corners are put together and folded it should sit like this.

For the blue one I had a heap of blue beads I wanted to use up and because there weren’t many of each I decided to make it a more haphazard design.

The main design element was a row of these silver beads though.

So first thing to do is put down glue where the beads will be going. Make sure to use actual fabric glue, not just any glue otherwise it won’t be flexible and have the right hold.

Then stick then down 😀

Then I added a little fancy curve.

After that’s it’s really just a matter of adding more glue and filling in the blanks!

Done!

Let it dry over night.

Once it’s dry, flip it over and add ribb0ns to the back for ties.

You will need something to hold it together at the back too so my suggestion is to use one big long piece of ribbon to go around the whole thing, I didn’t have a dark piece this long so I used a couple and just glued it extra well.

Like this:

Once that’s dry (again overnight) tie it on over your favorite shirt or dress and you’re good to go!

Now for the more elegant version pearls! Again start with roughly the same collar shape. I used some thick polar fleece because I didn’t have any light felt. My stash is so random at the moment XD

My mum bought these glass pearl strings at a market a while ago and didn’t know what to do with them so I… commandeered them 😀

Because the pearls are already strung it makes them much easier to work with. I would suggest stringing any beads you want to put in a straight pattern like this. Start by gluing completely around the edge.

Continue working your way into the middle strand by strand.

Keep going around until you reach the middle. Of course, I ran out towards the end so I filled in a different design with some other whiter pearls I had.

The finished design:

Again, wait for that to dry before flipping and adding ribbon to tie it, join the back and strengthen it.

I used some cheap nylon lace this time.

And that’s done too! If yours looks a little rough around the edges like mine just give it a trim. I didn’t notice until I’d gotten the photos onto the computer XD

Quite an easy craft to do and you could make a whole lot of them to jazz up a plain shirt differently every day of the week 😀 What do you all think?