#roller bead fidget

Pet Paradise Beaded Animals - Part One

Previous Post: Pet Paradise Bead Kit

I’ve made the first five animals from the bead kit, and I thought I’d take the time to talk about the making of each. I noticed that the instructions don’t say how much cord to use per animal, so I’ve mentioned that below.

I used the beads that came with kit but my own cord, as the holes in these beads are wider than most pony beads, and the box image shows a thicker cord in use, not the narrow rattail that came with the kit. I thought the beads would sit better on thicker cord. The beads are not quite uniform, so they don’t always fit flush in each row, giving the creatures a clumsy look. I plan to remake some of these with my own beads for this reason.

The instructions do not say how to properly tie off the animals when finished. With the gecko, you can knot at the base of the tail, but for the other creatures, I learnt that you’re better off to take one end of the cord, thread it through the second row of beads from the bottom, and then take that end and the end from the bottom row and knot them together. Using a sewing needle makes it easier to run the cord through the second row of beads.

Gecko: 1 metre of cord works easily. This isn’t any different from the standard tutorial. My kit didn’t have the metallic green beads on the box front, so I used metallic gold. I hope I picked the right replacement colour, as my beads have two colours not shown on the box and are missing one.

Frog: I’d use no less than 1.25 metres of cord. I made this identically to the box image save for the last row, where I threaded the cord through all the beads instead of just some of them. I think this looks neater. The legs with one bead skipped are a little awkward, and I’m honestly not sure this is a necessary step. This isn’t too much different to the gecko in thread patterns. After the frog and gecko, there are eight green beads left over.

Penguin: 1 metre of cord works well. This is the easiest animal here, as you’re beading simple rows without additional limbs, so I’d recommend doing this one for the first non-pattern creature. I made no changes to the pattern.

Ladybird: 90 cm of cord is enough, as this is quite a small design. I had to change the pattern because the one on the box has rows that go from five beads to seven beads, and adding two extra beads per row made the beads bunch up horribly. (I’ve seen this on other patterns as well; I don’t like it.) I only go up or down one bead per new row on my version, which lessens the bunching and looks much nicer to me. Please note that this ladybird is much smaller than the pattern I linked on the first post.

Bunny: 1.25 metres of cord at minimum, but you may wish to go up to 1.5 if you want a lot of play in the cord for the final knot. I struggled to tie mine. My only change to the pattern was to swap a white bead for a pink bead for the feet, as the structure of the feet is almost identical to the ears, and I wanted them to look a little more distinct.

So far, I’ve had enough beads in all colours save for the one missing colour. The penguin was easiest to make, but I like the frog the best. The wider animals are really good for rolling flat between palms.

(If proper tutorials for any animal here are wanted, let me know and I can add it to the eventual to do list.)

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Some more assorted rodent stim toys,plus two bonus unrelated diy stim toys. The beaded rat is also a diy,I made all three of those diy toys for myself. I just finished making the rat tonight! Super proud of how he turned out.

Rat plushie was custom made for me/commissioned by me,seller is citrine mouse.

Pet Paradise Bead Kit - Chemist Warehouse, $6.50 AUD.

No online listing is available.

This is currently on half-price sale; the full price is $12.99 AUD. If you’re after a kit to get you started on making animal-themed bead fidgets, I think this is a pretty decent way to begin--with one big proviso.

If you buy this, don’t throw out the box. Or do what I did, which was to cut off the front panel (easier to store) and then recycle the rest. Don’t throw out the box, because if you do, you won’t be able to make the animal fidgets.

Despite the back of the box saying “easy to follow instructions”, the instruction sheet only tells you how to thread a single row of beads. If you’ve made any of these before, it’s not so difficult to look at the images on the box and copy them, but if you haven’t, you’d be lost. If you do what I tend to do and open the kit, recycle the box and then go to make the bead fidgets some time later, you’d be beyond lost with no image references. The instructions aren’t easy to follow and there are no real, specific instructions for copying the animals on the front, rendering them useless.

I’ve previously posted tutorials for the beaded gecko and the beaded ladybird. There are also more tutorials on this reblogged post, which have options for butterflies. I would make these first, using those tutorials, just to get the feel of how to thread the beads together. Only then would I copy the other animals from the front of the box.

I have to say that I do like that the kit comes with a storage box. Everything fits within it and it makes it easy to store the beads. It also comes with a good array of colours, and the metallic beads are gorgeous. For the sale price, it isn’t a bad way to start, since you get everything you need but scissors and instructions.

I plan on making the animals in this kit, so I can later discuss things like if they provided the right amount of beads and how easy the animals are to make from copying the box image.

I do like this kit, but I was expecting to get clear instructions on how to make the different animals--it’s most of the reason I bought it, as I have plenty of beads already. If you have no beading experience, it is still a good way to get started, but the lack of instructions provided is absurd.

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Ultimate Beaded Lanyard Tutorial

Apologies for the lousy second photo, but this was too long to photograph without a mirror and my mirror is nowhere near a window!

I’m aware that this sits in the because I can category of crafting, but this is what happens when I decide to make a wearable roller bead lanyard with a bead ring on the end and then attach a beaded gecko to that ring. I really like it! While I find that while this is a little long for walking around in, the gecko sits on my knee such that I can roll it without dropping it or holding it. It’s pretty functional, doesn’t require me to clench or grasp it to use, and it offers me several different ways of stimming with the beads. Plus it’s easy to shorten by using fewer beads for the lanyard part, if you’d rather wear a shorter version.

Components

Regular pony beads in whatever colours you like (I used 87 different beads)

Rattail cord (you’ll want about 3 metres)

A giant pony bead or a wooden bead (the hole needs to be large enough to hold four strands of cord)

A couple of star or flower shaped beads for the top of the lanyard and the end of the gecko’s tail (if you’re fancy)

Thread and a sewing needle for a few overstitches (or glue)

Clear nail polish or glue for finishing the end of the lanyard and the knot on the gecko’s tail (this keeps the cord from unravelling)

Instructions

First, make a bead ring, a roller bead fidget/lanyard and a beaded gecko using these linked tutorials. Don’t try to put these together - just make one of each so you’re familiar with the process of making them. This tutorial assumes you know how to make each of those three things. It will not make sense if you don’t learn those three tutorials first.

Second, make the lanyard. I cut 1.5 metres of cord (taller people may want it longer still), folded it in half, threaded two pony beads on each end and then threading both ends through a star bead (but any pony bead will do). This just finishes the top of the lanyard nicely. I shifted those three beads down the cord, leaving enough space to pull the lanyard over my head, before I added however many beads I wanted in the normal way of a roller bead lanyard before leaving the usual gap of unthreaded cord. I then threaded on four beads (three rounded pony beads and one giant pony bead or wooden bead) over both ends of the cord (in the way you normally finish a roller bead lanyard) and cut the cord. Dab the cut ends of the cord with clear nail polish or glue. Do not knot the ends. Put the lanyard aside.

Third, make the bead ring in the normal way (threading beads onto a split ring).

Fourth, make the gecko in the normal way. Instead of using a new split ring, I slipknotted the cord for the gecko (I use 1.1 metres of cord) around the bead ring I made, halfway between the beads.

(I diverge from the linked tutorial in that I add a fancy bead like a star or a flower at the bottom of the tail, just because I like how it looks. I also use slightly smaller pony beads for the gecko’s claws, because I think that looks a little better. Neither of these things is necessary, though. I also seal the knot at the end of the tail with clear nail polish to make it a little sturdier.)

Firth, I join the bead-ring-and-gecko fidget to the lanyard. I push the beads at the bottom of the lanyard up to the bottom-most woven pony bead, wrap the cut edges of cord around the top of the ring and sew or glue them together, forming a closed loop of thread. Make sure the edges of the cord, the ones sticking up past the ring, are not longer than the length of your large bead - the purpose of the giant bead is to hide the cut edges of cord!

(If sewing, you’ll want the thread to go in and out of all four pieces of cord, sewing them to each other so they firmly hold the ring. I then coat the sewing with clear nail polish or glue. If gluing, make sure all four pieces are firmly glued to each other.)

Sixth, side the large bead over the four sewn or glued pieces of cord, hiding the join of the lanyard cord around the bead ring gecko - and that’s it!

Mine took less than an hour to make, was quite easy on my hands and only required a tiny bit of handsewing.

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Anon, I’ve had something like twelve hours of sleep over four nights. My brain is not functioning. So, to be honest, I don’t know if you mean spinning an earbud, as in twirling an ear section from a headphone set, or spinning an earbud, as in twirling a cotton bud in your ear. (I have a feeling I should know, but I don’t.) If it’s the former, I can make suggestions; if it’s the latter … I don’t know. If you’re after the feel of something to spin in your hands, it’s less difficult, but if you’re after the feel of the bud turning in your ear, I have absolutely no idea as how to replace that. I might have to come back to that one when my body decides it’s willing to sleep again!

(To make it worse, it’s not really recommended that people use cotton buds in ears anyway, so anything that replaces it runs into the same problem of not being great in your ears.)

So, to cut down on blank staring at the computer screen and attempt some measure of usefulness, I’ll discuss the things I can figure out.

The problem is, I think, that if you’re spinning the earbud from a headphone set in your hands, and that’s annoying, most other replacement stims that you can spin and twirl are also like to annoy people. I’ve got a list of things you can spin or make to spin here, but I really don’t see how spinning your earphones is any different from twirling a Tangle or the end of a roller bead lanyard over your fingers and through the air. Unless it’s a small thing like a spinner, that can be held low in your hands and kept more unobtrusive, these things are potentially extremely annoying to others.

(This said: anon, if this is a stim you really like, give yourself some private time in which to do it. Five minutes spinning the earbud before you go to sleep, for example. We’ve all got stims that annoy or impact others, but that doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t enjoy them when there’s nobody else around to irritate. I think you’re that much more likely to be willing to replace the stim around others when you know that you’re not being denied the stim entirely. And, assuming this is a headphone, if you’ve got space and are careful of not hitting objects - just be a little mindful about how you do it - this really isn’t a harmful stim. We can acknowledge that some stims are annoying for those around us while still acknowledging the truth that they aren’t dangerous or problematic! Give yourself private space to do this stim and enjoy it, please.)

So. In all honesty, I don’t think we can replace the spinning. I think our best bet is to give you something to do with your hands, which means looking at more standard, unobtrusive fidget toys. In particular, I’m thinking toys that have greater movement of your hands and fingers are more like to be successful for you - just stroking a soft toy, for example, isn’t like to occupy you as a replacement and is like to just leave you unconsciously reaching for the earbud.

The toys I’m thinking are:

(Note: all links go to tags collecting posts about where to find that particular item.)

- Spinners. They’re everywhere at the moment, so finding one to try shouldn’t be a problem. You can hold these close to your body, so it should be less distracting, and since you need to hold it in one hand and spin it with the other, it should keep both hands occupied.

- Tangles. Now that there’s a flood of knock-offs on eBay, it’s pretty easy for most people to get their hands on a Tangle. (The differences are ones of texture, noise and weight, not function.) Note that I need two hands to work a Tangle Jr, but most people find it only occupies one hand, so if you want to engage both hands, try looking for the larger Tangles (Therapy, Jumbo, etc). There’s a post here on how to use a Tangle, if you need some inspiration.

- Fidget Cubes. Likewise, these are also getting pretty easy to access, if you don’t mind a knock-off (which seem to vary widely in quality, ease of use and noise, so getting a good one is a little pot luck). If you like a lot of small, very repetitive movements, this is an ideal fidget for you and should keep your hands and fingers very occupied.

- Puzzles: wood puzzles, snake puzzles, serpent puzzles. These all give you some of the movement of a Tangle plus the challenge of trying to make particular arrangements and shapes. Again, very good for keeping the hands occupied and moving.

- Chain fidgets. Again, very good for constant hand movements, as you’re just constantly turning the fidget over and over. I’ve seen these available in a variety of sizes, and if you DIY these, you can make them as big and small as you like or need. These aren’t as accessible as some of the items here, but I’ve seen them on eBay and Etsy, and they’re available in many OT and stim toy shops.

- Bead Rings and Roller Bead Lanyards. Also easy to DIY! The rings can be noisy depending on the types of beads used (plastic pony beads are quieter; metal-lined glass beads are louder) but, like a spinner, require you to continually turn the beads around and around. The lanyards can be rolled across a knee or bench/table, but clicking the beads up and down the strand requires one hand to hold the end and the other hand to move the beads, giving you a lot of hand movement. Plus the lanyards are easy to attach to a bag or belt loop, if you don’t want to make a wearable lanyard.

- Twiddle. This is rather like a Tangle, just thinner, longer and with clips easier to pull apart. It’s designed to be either twisted like a Tangle, scrunched, or pulled apart and put back together in different shapes, making it like the fabulous child of a Tangle and a snake puzzle. This is more expensive a fidget than most things on this list, and mostly only available from stim toy and OT stores, but it’s great for occupying the hands. Here’s a post on how to clip the Twiddle pieces back together!

I’m not sure how good an answer this for you, anon, but I hope it helps. Feel free to ask again if I’ve approached this in the wrong direction for you; I’ll try to do better the second time around. If our followers have ideas, please feel free to comment!

[image description: a coil of variegated rainbow rattail cord held down against a white tabletop by a hand wearing black nail polish.]

This is a pretty well-laid-out tutorial showing how to make the beaded-animal creatures (that work as rolling-bead fidgets) with lanyard attachments for bags, zipper pulls and belt loops.

Here’s a tutorial for a roller bead ladybird fidget/keychain, similar to the lizard/gecko tutorial I’ve featured before. It looks even easier to make, as it only requires threading the cord back and forth in straight lines, no threading-back for legs or limbs.