It’s been a while since I last posted about the bead animals from the old art gallery that used to live at this domain. Today I’m covering the cute little mammals and, of course, I’m featuring the pig since we are now in the Year of the Pig. That snout and those ears are just too, too cute. 🙂
Just to reiterate from last time, these are the old photos with new watermarks with the exception of the “featured” image. Most of these animals were created following the patterns of others and so that’s how I decided to group them. Let’s get started!
Marilyne Kéréneur (archive.org)
The site is old (2013), in frames (yuck), in French (Oui!), and gone from the active web (😢) but the patterns are all available for free.
I used a larger plastic bead from an old necklace for the bear’s nose. He’s pretty cute and would make a fun toy for a doll.
This is my favorite pattern of Marilyne’s, I think. I just love his sweet little face. I think it’s a pity no one has made a pattern for Fennec foxes. Although the danger at this size is that someone mistakes it for a chihuahua. LOL
Obviously this photo was taken in a different setting. In fact, these little darlings were never posted on the old site at all because I made them later. I loved the hedgehog pattern so much, but it’s really hard to bead because of all the spikes. Your wire will most likely break a few times. Still, I ended up making two of them so I must have felt it was worth it!
The moose were pretty neat, but they really don’t stand up well at all. More wire is needed to strengthen the legs, especially since the antlers make the head so top-heavy.
I found this pig to be adorably plump and the curly tail was cute, but what I really love is its ears. It also struggles to stand properly on its wee legs.
Random Patterns Mixed With Mine
I found a lot of these patterns online and made up a few of my own. The originals were meant to be used with pony beads, but they translate well with 11/0 seed beads.
I suspect I started with the badger because I liked his little limbs and used them on the squirrel and raccoon patterns. Then I decided I didn’t like the skunk patterns that were out there so I made up my own along with the rabbit. Finally, I beaded the mouse, eliminating one of the beads at the end of each leg so they looked even tinier.
The cow and bull were both patterns I found online, although I beaded the bull so his little horns would stick out. Then I made up my own pattern for the fox with everything I’d learned from making the other animals.
Me
I wanted to make my sister a bead dog, but I couldn’t find any patterns similar to her type of pooch (border collies being one of her favorites). So I took the body from Marilyne’s fox and created my own head, ears, and curly tail.
This was the first bead animal pattern that I made entirely on my own. It took a couple of tries, but I finally figured out how to get the hind legs just so. I still love it.
I felt all of the bead cat patterns I saw looked a little too cartoon-y so I tried making my own. I took what I had learned from making the dog and went to work. I’d make the body less barrel-shaped now, but overall I’m still happy with this one.
What Next?
This is the second group of my bead animals (the first was ocean/water), so we still have birds, bugs/butterflies, fantasy/mythical, and my bead spiders to go! In case you were curious about my nail art, here are four favorites that include some of the animals we looked at today. Or check out the animal tag.
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