Lately, I’ve been making glass-beaded spiders to gift to friends and co-workers just for fun. Spiders are a great beginner beading project because they’re easy to make but look very impressive and pretty when finished. There are hundreds of different types of beaded spiders online—some use gems or stones for the body, others add a flourish of wire wrapping, and some turn the spiders into suncatchers, Christmas ornaments, or brooches. Personally, I like the styles that bead the body rather than using a large gemstone or pearl, so I decided to try and recreate some I saw online.
It’s usually pretty easy to figure out how something is made—the challenge is typically making sure you have the right tools/materials on hand to make it happen. In this case, I could tell the wire needed to be thin enough to go through the beads multiple times, especially the bugle beads used for the legs, but not break when bent. Luckily, I knew 28-gauge craft wire is very thin but still holds shape when bent and it actually worked out really well. I made myself a quick little bead pattern to follow (shown below) and made about 20 tiny glass spiders total. Everybody I gave them to loved them and thought that they were very cute. In the future, I’d love to mix it up and try different beads for the legs and body— and maybe even make some brooches to wear.
Credit: Some of the beaded spider pictures I liked best online were from
BeadJeweledSpiders, but they don’t sell any patterns, just finished products. I found similar spiders in other shops/tutorials/videos online, so I’m not sure who originally came up with this idea/style, but credit where credit is due. I am happy to acknowledge that wherever these beaded spiders first originated, they are absolutely adorable and I hope more people try to make them.
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