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Free tutorials by online bead vendors
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No matter how creative you are, sooner or later you'll run out of ideas. You'll find yourself surfing through beading sites and checking out other beaders' creations. You'll see a lot of inspiration but many of them will leave you asking, "How'd she do that?" 
Fortunately, several supply vendors who sell their beading materials online are now sharing tutorials on how to create a certain piece of jewelry. Each how-to provides not only inspiration and instructions, but oftentimes also a list of the beads, findings, and tools required to create the piece. This open sharing of ideas and techniques is great for us beaders because we get to learn something for free, and great for the vendors because they get to advertise their products.
Here are some online beading vendors you might want to visit. Grab an idea, learn a trick, and maybe become a loyal customer.
Site: Artbeads.com
Tutorials: Learning Center
Artbeads' Learning Center could be the most extensive I have seen online. Choose from several jewelry types, then choose by theme, color, or style, then choose further until you end up on a page packed with many different options. Each inspiration item includes instructions, components, approximate cost of materials, and estimated time to complete. They have detailed photos of the finished product.
Site: Auntie's Beads
Tutorials: Jewelry Learning Center
Auntie's Beads' Learning Center offers free beading projects and instructions, magazine projects, instructions for sale, beading 101, and other sources of creative ideas. Their beading projects are sorted by jewelry type, then by beading style. They provide instructions, materials and tools, and a photo of the finished product. They also have a section on Jewelry Making Videos.
Site: Harlequin Beads and Jewelry
Tutorials: Project Kits and Instructions
Harlequin Beads offers projects by bead type/category (gemstones, pearls, seed beads, etc.). Each project has sections titled "Instructions" (with detailed instructions and photos of each step), "Recommended Tools" (with a list of tools and pricing), and "Materials List" (with a list of components). Each project has a "Project Kit" price that allows you to purchase all the materials in the quantities required for the jewelry piece.
Site: Fire Mountain Gems and Beads
Tutorials: Free Beading Instructions
Fire Mountain Gems and Beads has a page for patterns and instructions, beading tips, techniques, seed bead patterns, Swarovski Crystal resources and video tutorials. Right now the site boasts more than 6,000 jewelry design ideas, each with a photo of the finished product, a hyperlinked list of materials, step-by-step instructions (some with photos for each step), and additional resources.
Site: FusionBeads.com
Tutorials: Inspiration and Beading Techniques
FusionBeads sorts its inspiration projects per jewelry type, under $25, magazine pieces, bridal jewelry, holiday jewelry, fun pieces, etc. Each project has a photo of the finished product, beading techniques used, list of tools and materials, a PDF of instructions, and "add to cart" links.
There are many more beading vendors sharing their knowledge base online but the inspiration pieces on just these five popular sites should keep us busy for quite a while.
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