Beaded Cameo Pin Tutorial

Here are the instructions on how I made my beaded cameo pin. The nice thing about this is that you can make a pin, or you can do the same thing to a button, cabochon, etc. and use it on your crazy quilt. If you make it a pin, you can pin it onto a CQ pillow, pincushion or quilt, give it as a gift or keep it and then pin it onto yourself when you want to wear it. Keep in mind, this is how I made the pin that's pictured - you can have fewer or more rows of beads around the cameo or a different decorative edging around the outside. Sometimes I do beads to match the cabochon for the first 2 rows and then white/cream beads for the lacy decorative edging.

Materials:

Cameo
Felt (about half an inch larger than your cameo, all around)
One inch pin-back
Suede, ultra suede or leather (slightly larger than your felt piece)
E6000 jewelry glue
Seed beads
Flower, leaf and other assorted beads for embellishment

Directions:

Glue the cameo onto a piece of felt, using E6000 jewelry glue. This glue allows the felt to remain flexible, so you can still stitch through it, if need be. I usually choose a color of felt that will match the two rows of beads closest to the cameo, in case there are any small gaps between beads. Wait one to two hours for the glue to dry.

Stitch 2 rows of beads around the cameo, into the felt. I start by stitching down 2 beads in a row, come back up thru the 1st and 2nd, add 2 beads and continue around. When trying to snug beads up against the curve of the cameo, it is better to have one too few than one too many beads. Trim the felt very close to the second row of beads, being careful not to cut any beading threads.

Next, you will glue this onto a piece of suede, ultra-suede or leather (but read on first). I choose a color of suede that will match my beading thread for the beaded border (because this will show on the back). Open up the pin-back. Lay it on your suede and mark just inside the two ends.

Cut 2 vertical slits in the suede about an inch apart so that the pin-back can be glued between the felt and suede and still be functional. I use a one-inch pin-back and position it about a third of the way down from the top of the pin. You can see my slits (especially that huge one on the right side in the picture below) Glue the felt, pin-back and suede together.

Once this glue is dry, stitch a row of beads into the suede, going around your other rows so that you form a third row. This row is the foundation row for the decorative border stitching. Carefully trim the suede very close to your third row of beads.

For my decorative border, I would go thru a bead in the third row, pick up four seed beads, go back thru the third seed bead, add two more seed beads, skip the next three beads in the third row, and go thru the next bead in the third row, over and over again. (See picture below) That fourth seed bead is the "point" that sticks out at every inverted "V". Once this decorative row is done, you can choose an area to add a bunch of flowers and leaves and dangles. This part is really fun.

For this picture, I used giant E beads, so the stitching for the decorative edging would be easier to see. So the effect is not as good as with seed beads, but you can see the details better. The turquoise beads represent your third row.

Have fun with this!