by Marcel Vigh

Hopefully, you've read the first part of the Beading for Beginners and you know what type of beads and wire or nylon fishing line to use for different animals. You will learn here how to make the body of the bead animals.

The main animal beading technique is the 'Back and Forth' technique. It's hard to believe that this is the main technique, because it is so simple. Okay, everything is slower and a small bit more difficulty if you want to do it nicely. However, after you have tried and made it a few times it will be just child's play. Use this technique to make the body of the bead animals (and sometimes the tail of the animals). After you've finished the first row, make the second row by doing the same thing again. In this way, make the rest of the animal's body. Let's get started!

Now, here is an important point:
if you are making an animal that should be flat, then push the rows beside each other (and use wire). However, if your animal supposed to be round (3D), pull each row very tightly to make them overlap. If it doesn't help, then simply put the rows right opposite of each other. After that, if you look at your animal from side, then the rows should look zigzagging.

One more thing: do not forget the eyes or any patterns of the animal, use different colors for them.

If you don't understand something click here for additional help with pictures for each steps.

The next part will explain how to make your animal more lifelike with legs.

About the Author

Marcel Vigh is a 15 years old student of St. Brendan's College in Ireland.
He used to go to an art school, he learned lots of arts and crafts ideas. He made a web page Marcel's Kid Crafts to help the kids finding the amazing way of crafts.