Hama Bead Hot Air Balloon Picture

8 April 2011, 3:18 pm

This 4 board Hama Bead picture was made on 4 square pegboard. It’s a countryside scene with hot air balloons in a summer sky. I added some patchy detail to one hill with extra bead colours. You can right click on any of the pictures to print them off.

(Ps – there is a tiny error in the top cloud, it needs an extra white bead to stop the top right hand colour being too square :D )

Hot Air Balloons in Hama Beads

I did mine the way I wanted it to be, which of course meant it was backwards (I had baby brain at the time!) so I’ve doe the patterns backwards, which means the main balloon looks more real when you turn it over and less like it is in a drastic wind!

You can use any balloon Hama Bead Colours you like of course but for this picture I used:-

White (01)

Yellow (03)

Red (05)

Purple (07)

Blue (08)

Green (10)

Brown (12)

Grey (17)

Black (18)

Forest (28)

Claret (29)

Pastel Blue (46)

Pastel Green (47)

Winnie (60)

and 4 square boards.

Filed under Hama Bead Projects, Midi Hama Patterns. Tagged , , , ,

Easter Hama Bead Designs

7 April 2011, 10:52 am


Spring has sprung and Easter is coming; it is the perfect time for Hama Beads to come out and fill the house with colour. We’ve got a great page of Hama Bead Easter Eggs, using the Egg Pegboard and we’re creating new designs ready for you over the coming days.

There is a great Hama Bead Easter Mobile Kit and the 3D Chick Kit

Look out for a page using the:-

The Butterfly Pegboard – available at CraftMerrily.

The Flower Pegboard – available at CraftMerrily.

The Rabbit Pegboard – available at CraftMerrily.

The Chick Pegboard – available at CraftMerrily.

I’ve also just unearthed all the patterns for this little set, which I have put into Hama Bead Easter Display page.
main


There are also some lovely designs for Easter in all the Inspiration Books; I’m going to have a go at something like this :) We’ve got a memorial tree in our garden for our little boy who was born last Easter and I think it would look lovely with some of these designs attached.

Duck

I’ll be trawling the archives for everything my girls have ever done but in the meantime, the duck above is from my all time favourite contributor, Shazann :) (Okay, not exactly Easter, but completely gorgeous!)

springflowers
I’m also absolutely loving MooseCastle, who has done some fabulous designs – her Hama Bead Spring Flowers are really great!

spring flowers templates

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Customer Focus on Top That Cards

21 March 2011, 11:01 am

At CraftMerrily we are incredibly extra grateful for our regular customers who buy from us; as a small family business we want to support others doing the same and their regular purchases keep us going. We do our best to ensure that they get their clay (or beads) as quickly as possible and we offer discounts to people buying polymer clay or beads in regular bulk from us too.

This month we are starting a new way to thank our professional customers, by featuring their businesses on our blogs. We’re starting off with Caroline from Top That Cards, who has been buying from us for several years.

I love the simple, yet detailed style of Caroline’s work and her site really reflects her ability to capture character in polymer clay. I’m a big fan of making polymer clay fairies myself and this Sunflower Fairy Card Topper really appeals, especially as sunflowers were our wedding flower and have a particular place in our hearts.

Caroline puts lots of focus on to wedding themed items; again her card toppers are fabulous.

There is also a personalised wedding topper service so you can have a permanent keepsake of the big day after all the cake is eaten. I’ve made a few of these myself and they were nothing like as good, so I take my hat off to Caroline for the detail and perfection in the website examples. I’m in awe!

I was also extremely touched by her Memory pieces; as someone who has lost a baby, I love little pieces of art that allow me to keep a reminder of  the child who didn’t stay. Both  the memory frames and keep sake boxes are truly lovely.

Top That Cards has a Facebook page where you can keep up to date with her most recent makes and additions to the website.

Caroline, thank you for all the support you have given us over the years – I hope this feature goes some way to thanking you for it.

Filed under Customer Spot, Other Crafts. Tagged , , , ,

15% off all Kids Craft Kits in March

10 March 2011, 9:51 pm

Stash some craft kits ready for rainy days and Easter gifts with our 15% off craft kit special offer. We’ve got money off Fimo kits, the brand new House of Crafts range, wooden bead sets from Bead Bazaar and Melissa & Doug, wonderful Djeco Art Kits, sand art and puppet making. There is something for everyone in this section.

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Valentine Hama Bead Patterns – Free Patterns

12 February 2011, 4:23 pm

Valentine’s Day is a great time to do Hama Beads; the Small Heart Pegboard and Large Heart pegboard are perfect for it and easy to use whether you just want to fill a board with a colour or take advantage of an unusual configuration of pegs for more complex designs.

One of the first special kits we put on BeadMerrily was our Pink & Girly Kit, which features 12 designs on a laminated sheet, 5000 beads and both heart pegboards. It is still one our most popular kits but we’ve always offered the patterns freely too and we’ve now added them to our new Hama Bead PDF Free Download section as our Valentine Download.

This week, our 8 year old daughter, Amelie, designed us a board each and they were so good that I have recreated the patterns for you as free designs. Unusually, these look better with the ironed side upwards, as it blends and defines the letters better, so I’ve created these right side upwards. We think her “I love you Mummy” and “I love you Daddy” designs are great – we love you too Amelie :)

We’ve also added some other Heart Designs for Midi and Mini Hama Beads. These have been done on a square pegboard.

Filed under Downloads, Midi Hama Patterns.

Save on Hama Bead Boxed Kits in February

11 February 2011, 9:32 am

To set you up with some great crafting for half term, we have 15% off Hama Bead Boxed Kits throughout the rest of February. This special offer extends across kits in the Mini Midi and Maxi Hama Bead ranges.

Boxed kits are a great way to get a brand new pegboard shape and ideas for using it. Exploring the pattern ideas inside the box helps you discover ways of using the pegboard in different ways, creating great pictures and play pieces along the way. With a mixture of colours and everything you need for a complete project, they are great value.

Our offer also extends to the full Disney Hama Bead Kit range.

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Hama Bead House Patterns

10 February 2011, 5:10 pm

I’ve been taking another look at Hama Beads on Flickr and these really caught my eye. They really show how well cross stitch patterns work in Hama Beads.

My girls and I are enjoying Hama again this week. We’ve used a few ideas from Hama themselves and we’ve started on a collection of our own designs. Here are our first goes from this time and last time (we made a couple of them last year before our little boy was born and turned our world upside down) and we’ve got new ones on the way. When we’ve done as many as we can, we’ll do a pattern page.


I’m quite proud of my cottage design…

and my modern build design (we live in a street like this!)

My daughter designed this as a ‘sweetie’ house.

All of these have been down on the Hama Bead House Pegboard and there is also a fantastic Hama Bead Town House Boxed Kit. There are lots of building designs in the various Inspiration books which can be done on Interlocking Square Pegboards.

Loving this, put together by MooseCastle.

PS Farm House

Filed under All Posts, Midi Hama Patterns.

Free Download Kandinsky Circles in Hama Beads

5 February 2011, 6:06 pm

A few months ago, our kids really enjoyed a project based on the art of Russian artist, Kandinsky. I wrote about this on our family blog and from that days worth of art experience, a Hama Bead alternative version was born!

What started out as this (Kandinsky’s painting!)

became a version in Hama Beads.

I’ve put these designs, with some information and project extension ideas, together into a free download pdf for you to try; which is available at Kandinsky@CraftMerrily as a free product. The section includes suggestions of products you may need to complete the product, thought it can be done with any random Hama Beads and some imagination!

I really hope you enjoy the project – let me know what you think :)

Filed under Downloads, Midi Hama Patterns.

Hama Bead Designs from round the Web

20 January 2011, 6:20 pm

Over the next few days, I’m going to be looking at the innovative designs using Hama Beads that there are on the web. I’ll update this post as I find them.

First up is  SilverDragon, with a Flickr account full of beauties. The 3D Christmas scene first caught my eye and I’m hoping, now I have a Hama Designer CD again, that I’ll be allowed to turn it into a free pattern set.

IMG_3468
My 9 year old made a Club Penguin set one day and we put it on our blog – I love it. It was all her own design :)

I absolutely love this sign from olden days TV – the “there is NOTHING on, sign!”

Keep checking back for more!

Filed under Midi Hama Patterns.

Christmas Opening Times & Xmas Hama Patterns

23 December 2010, 5:33 pm

We’d like to wish our customers a very Happy Christmas and New Year. Thank you for all your support in 2010.

As a family run business, we have important matters of Santa and board games to attend to over the next few days and will be closed for business from 24th-29th December in order to take time with our 4 daughters. Our staff will return to work from 9.30am-12.30 on the 29th, 30th & 31st December and will answer phone calls, emails, pack any orders placed during the festive period and assist with any issues regarding missing parcels or broken items. We open again for business as normal on the 4th January 2011.

We’d like to say a particular thank you to customers who supported our SCBU charity fund this year in memory of our son, Freddie, who was born and died in April this year. This Christmas, £283 was raised and that has been an enormous comfort to us in the run up to this first Christmas without him.

Thank you.

We’ve added some free Hama Bead Patterns with a Christmas theme to our BeadMerrily blog. We hope you like them :)

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