It Looks So Good You Could Eat It! Free Candy Beadwork Tutorial.

Really....you can eat it.

New for 2012! Edible beadwork! :-)

I have decided this year to take on a tutorial every week. This will be a huge undertaking for me, but I hope to have a good selection of patterns for sale, freebies, and magazine submissions by the end of it. Therefore, for the first Sunday of every month my readers (you wonderful friends who follow this blog) will get a totally, 100% free photo tutorial to work on. Personal use only, please.

Feel free to submit any images of your creations to vanishingpearl@yahoo.com. I will create a reader gallery (once I figure out how to do it) for everyone to see. :-)

Now, down to business.....

Beaded Gummi Ring

Candy necklaces. Your little niece bounding home on Valentine's Day, covered in glitter and stickers and childhood joy and enough sugar to induce a coma or two. C'mon, admit it: you've eyed them with curiosity, and then dismissed what essentially boils down to nasty sweethearts on a string.
For shame, crafty beader, for SHAME. You know better than that. Now, go get your little niece for some quality bonding time. Get enough thread for two, get a good spot on the couch, tap her on the shoulder, and steal some of that Valentine's stash when she looks the other way to make this necklace.

Materials:

Apple gummy ring (peach if you have different colored beads)

Green candy necklace beads

Coconut flavored Jelly Beans

Floss

Sewing needle (anything really that has a larger eye than a standard beading needle)

Scissors

Step 1: Attaching the floss to a gummy ring.

Make a loop with the tail of your floss using an overhand knot (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Make a lark's head knot around a gummy ring by passing the needle through the ring and the through the loop (Fig. 2). Pull, but be careful not to cut through the gummy ring. Too much tension may slice it in half. If this is the case, eat it, start again, and be more careful next time.

Fig. 2

Step 2: First Round

String two candy beads. Pass the floss under the gummy ring and back through the second bead.

Using this brick stitch technique, continue adding one bead at a time until the ring is stitched with an even number of beads. Pass down through the first bead, under the ring, and back through the first bead. The first round is complete (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Step 3: Round Two

String one candy bead, stab a Jelly Bean  near one end (to make a drop), and string another candy bead. Pass down through the second base bead and up the third (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

Repeat around the ring

Knot and trim the floss.

Your beaded gummy ring is now finished! (Fig. 5)

Fig.5

Step 4:

Consume your delicious, sugar filled creation.

Don't forget to floss your teeth!