You See the Best in Me: Beads of Friendship

Hello! I am so excited for the new Beads of Friendship collection from Spellbinders. I have been a jewelry maker my entire life, and I have definitely made many, many beaded bracelets over the years. You can customize the beads with any colors you like, and the alphabet beads can of course spell whatever you wish. Today, I only used colored beads, but you’ll see the alphabets in action soon.

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I started with die cutting the Heart Hands die set using Caucasian and Black skin tones. I wanted to show inclusivity with this card, hence the different colors. I was picturing two besties, making this gesture together. Both layers of the hands were cut with the same colored cardstock, but I deepened the shadow layers with Walnut Stain for the Black hand, and Antique Linen for the Caucasian hand. You cut two hands with these dies, so I have another set for another card.

I worked on my background next, and ink smooshed Broken China, Villainous Potion, Peacock Feathers, and Mermaid Lagoon Distress Inks onto Smooth Bristol Cardstock from Strathmore. I layered the colors a few times and dripped some water on it to lift the color a bit.

For the bracelets, I used My Colors Cardstock and a holographic cardstock from Recollections. The bracelets on the hands come with the Heart Hands die set. The floating bracelets are from the Bestie Beaded Bracelets Die Set. You have SO MANY options with this set, but I kept things simple and only used the large round beads. I also used a sentiment, which was inked with Twilight VersaFine Clair Ink, from the Bestie Sentiments Press Plates and Dies Set. You can also get the sentiments in clear stamp form in the Bestie Alphabet Beads & Sentiments set. I wanted to die cut them, so I inked the sentiment with the stamp, and die cut it with the die from the BetterPress set. They’re the same size, so it worked perfectly. I kept my card base white, because it kept the sentiment from looking out of place.

I really am loving these dies. Recently, I went to town and just die cut a ton of the faux beads, so that I’d be ready to create when I had time to make complete cards. There are so many possibilities, it’s easy to be inspired. I’ll be sharing a lot more using this collection soon. Be sure to visit Spellbinders to see the entire new release. Thanks so much for stopping by. Have an inspiring day!