Happy New Year! Ring in 2020 with a new Shooting Star Tutorial!

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I am making one that I think I can keep: I plan to release a new tutorial every month of the year 2020! That sounds like a lot of work, yes, but I have a bit of a head start. During my reign as a Beadwork Magazine Designer of the Year for 2019, I created 6 designs that I was not allowed to release in my own shop. Now that enough time has passed, I will be releasing them, one at a time, exactly one year after their original publication.

Why would someone want to purchase a tutorial directly from me after it’s been published in the magazine? Well, I’ve found that many of my customers do not subscribe to the magazines and/or they find the instructions in the magazines a bit difficult to follow. If you’re a regular customer of mine, you know that I break down my instructions into many steps with a large, clear diagram and/or photo directly below the written instructions for each step. I also give tips and hints within the written instructions to make it easier for the beader to have success with the pattern. Unfortunately, the magazine does not have enough space for that, so their words are kept to a minimum and their diagrams are condensed to show many steps in the same drawing. A pattern that is 4 pages in the magazine may be 8-12 pages in my tutorial. If you have not yet seen my tutorials, please sign up for my mailing list (see form on this page) and you will get a free tutorial via email so you can “try before you buy”.

I really loved working with the staff at Beadwork and was so happy that I was chosen to create these 6 new designs. Thanks so much to Tammy Honaman, Meredith Steele and Katie Hacker for this incredible opportunity! I feel I’ve improved a lot as a designer by pushing myself to create better and more exciting designs. My tutorial writing skills have also improved dramatically as a result of this experience. I hope that you will see that in the tutorials that I present this coming year.

The first tutorial is available now! My Kite and Cali Shooting Star tutorial can be purchased here.

If you’ve already made any of my designs from either purchased tutorials or from the magazine, please post pics here or on social media and tag me so I can see them! I really love seeing your work, especially when you vary the design or the colors!