French-Beaded Flowers [Paperback]

Dalene Kelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2002

Author Dalene Kelly expertly guides readers through this beautifully illustrated guide to the timeless art of French-beading--a craft that dates its origins back several hundred years and that now is making a huge resurgence. Includes step-by-step instructions for making 38 different flowers, such as snapdragons, coral beans, pansies, irises, tiger lilies, gardenias, and more. Crafters will quickly learn the techniques for stringing beads and fashioning them into floral works of art and then create these four stunning projects--a cymbidium corsage, rose hair barrette, Shasta daisy napkin ring, and rose bud bridal veil. Crafters and beaders alike will find this book to be innovative and inspiring.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

French beading as a craft dates back to 16th-century European peasants, who made flowers and wreaths from discarded beads. The technique involves stringing seed beads on wires and bending them into three-dimensional shapes. French-beaded flowers are surprisingly realistic and virtually indestructible. These step-by-step projects are for almost 40 individual flowers with leaves that can be placed in vases, worn on hats, or made into corsages. The finished products are quite lovely and unlike any other artificial flowers. This is an excellent choice for public library craft collections.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Kelly has been actively French beading for more than 15 years and teaches the technique to others at her French-beaded Flower business in Ohio.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Krause Publications (January 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873493575
• ISBN-13: 978-0873493574
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book made for beginners and also advanced flower beaders, January 13, 2002

By 

Dylan Weston (California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: French-Beaded Flowers (Paperback)

I have many books on beaded flowers in many languages and have to say that one can follow patterns that are clear in diagram as well as those clear in verbiage. Dalene's book is unpretentious and accessible to any enthusiast or beginner. The method is clearly shown and applies to all flowers alike with some minor variations. Her photos are beautiful and one can clearly see what to aim for when making the flower. I don't expect to be shown or told how to display the flowers nor what beads to use, nor where to buy them as these issues are for the beader to experiment with. I have been beading for about a year and love it. I have used a Russian and a French book extensively and never had difficulty finding and trying various types of beads as well as sizes--thus that Dalene leaves this as a choice to the beader is to permit creative license and experiment by the beader. I personally prefer the Russian, or Danish method as many call it, but that doesn't mean that I never make use of the French method and Dalene's book certainly gives the beader many opportunities and flowers to try and to strive for in regards to her perfect bending and tight wiring method. I am delighted that one more source of beaded flowers has been made available to us, especially as many of the "Bibles" of the likes of Nathanson and others of 30 years ago, are now out of print. I would recommend this book for it's patterns, for it's photos of finished items, and also simply as a source of ideas for one's own work or patterns. I commend Dalene for commiting to publishing when she sells her patterns on line for a reasonable price and also her booklets of patterns and I feel sure that she made more money for herself that way than this--but we her audience of beaders will be forever grateful for her most generous act--that of sharing her own intellectual property and for under $20!! The book is also very pleasing to the eye and worth looking at to see how varied beaded flowers can be--look at the picture for e.g. of the bleeding heart flower.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Millenium Collection - a treasure to a new beader, January 13, 2002

By 

Nancy Bumgardner (Northwest Arkansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: French-Beaded Flowers (Paperback)

Dalene Kelly has put together a beautiful, informative and helpful book. Upon deciding to take up the art of French Beaded Flowers, it was frustrating to not have current and resonably priced resources available to begin learning to make these beautiful creations. As my intent was to start with full-size flowers rather than miniatures, the publication of her book was greatly appreciated.

I have purchased and read Dalene's French-Beaded Flower book and made flowers from three of the patterns. As one new to this craft, I was not sure if this was something that would be beyond my abilities. However, I was able to work through the patterns and come up with very pleasing results. I appreciated the way Dalene used color suggestions and left actual color choices up to the individual. This allows some creativity on the part of the user even though they are following the flower design of the writer.

The clear photographs are beautifully done with vivid colors. Dalene has included a good variety of flowers, some more challenging than others, which appears to be designed for a wide range of talents. Although experienced beaders can skip over the well written basic instructions and general information about bead sizes and wire guage, new beaders will find this section extremely helpful. I also appreciated the website references which were included at the end of the book, but will note that people without computer access will not be able to take advantage of this information and including addresses and phone numbers of these resources would have been helpful for them.

I consider this book the perfect beginning of my beaded flower resource library.

36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your money!, April 7, 2002

By 

"pprq" (Iowa, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: French-Beaded Flowers (Paperback)

This book stinks! When I first saw it, I was impressed w/ all the diagrams - until I realized that the same diagram was repeated on each page to pad out the book. It omitted essential information (such as which size/cut beads are best for different areas of the flowers/leaves)and seems solely designed to make a buck. Don't waste your money; instead, buy Virginia Nathanson's recently reprinted masterpiece, Helen McCall's paperback, the forthcoming Beads in Bloom, the gorgeous Italian book translated into English, etc. They'll provide much better directions (to say the least), much more variety (and ways to display them), essential info Ms. Kelly omits, etc.

I was on Dalene Kelly's beaded flower mailing list when someone posted that there was a negative review here on Amazon, and said that, although she hadn't seen the book, Dalene was her friend, so she was going to post that that review wasn't helpful, and post her own glowing review of the book she'd never seen, and recommended that everyone else do the same. I see that they have. That sort of garbage taints Amazon's reviews; people should be able to post sincere reviews based on actually seeing the book, not post something glowing just because the author is a friend. I use Amazon reviews to decide whether or not I'd be interested in a book (which I may want even if the review is negative, if the complaint is clear, and doesn't involve something I care about), so making up things just to help the author hurts everyone, since people like me will stop buying books by unknown authors if we think the reviews are tainted by friends/family who haven't even seen the books they're raving about.

I honestly believe that this book stinks, and that you'd be much wiser to buy one of the growing number of outstanding books on this subject. This author seems to just want to make a buck, period, and is more interested in selling books and getting new students to join her classes than in teaching people to make beaded flowers. At best, this is the paint-by-number version of flower beading, leaving you dependent on the author for everything you do. The other authors provide tools with which to adapt or even create your own designs. Don't waste your money on this one!