Beaded Belts

Since I have had so much fun beading recently, I thought I would start another project.  My velvet dress  was not labor intensive enough for me, so I added beading to the mix! 

For this belt, I decided on simple linear rows of beads.  All the preparation needed was a few rows of lengthwise basting to keep things on track.

These beads have been living in my beading box for an eternity - I believe they originally came from a garage sale lot that my mom picked up.  Pink is one of my favorite colors, but for beading projects, I usually gravitate toward purples and blues.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to use pink!

To help tie in the fabric for my velvet dress, I added a flower (which also covers the closure).  First, I penciled the design on paper. 

Two flowers were cut out of paper, one of which was trimmed down.  This process was repeated until I had four different sizes.  This templates were then used to trace on scraps of velvet.

A bit of Fray Check was dabbed along the edges and the pieces were layered one on top of the other.

To finish things off, I added a few beads at the center before attaching the flower to my new belt.