Tuesday, April 22, 2014

How To Clean French Beaded Flowers

Seed beads make beautiful flowers for elegant arrangements, but they need cleaning, occasionally. See how dull and dusty these flowers look?



The problem is that they can't be immersed in water or the wires could rust, the florist's tape could get soggy and fall off, and any ribbon or other accessories could get ruined. I tried several options and here are the results:




This is what I did:

  • I started with a clean, sturdy makeup brush.

  • I brushed the flowers, carefully, but thoroughly. Sometimes this is all you need, and the brush can be used on bows, trim, and just about anything else that might be in the arrangement, but sometimes it's still not good enough.
  •  My flowers were still dusty, so I sprayed the brush with window cleaner and went at them again. That did the trick. I would NOT recommend spraying the flowers directly, but you can saturate the brush and work the cleaner into the flowers that way. 
The technique for making these beautiful flowers is called "French beading." Love Your Pet Expo Sanctuary has several listings for flowers, leaves, and beads on OLA, with all proceeds going to the their special needs animals.

Seed beads are also good for other crafts and jewelry making. Here are all the seed bead listings on OLA. The Christmas ornament is really cute.


If you love seed beads, and would like to share your expertise, projects, etc., please visit the Love Your Pet Expo Seed Bead page and send them an email.