I should also introduce myself…I am Katie Dean and many of you will already know me as the owner of Bead Flowers. I have been creating and making my own beading designs since 2003, firstly as a hobby that saw me through a serious illness and now as a career that combines everything I love. Before I even started beading, I had a career as a strategy consultant, working for companies that ranged from small start-ups to FTSE100 corporations. My job involved analysing a whole range of different business problems that these companies wanted solved, and then coming up with strategic plans to provide the solution. As you can imagine, I gained a lot of business experience which has been invaluable to me in running my beading business and which I am also sharing with you on here.

I have always loved creating things, for as long as I can remember. My ambition as a very small child was to write a book, an ambition I realised in 2012 when I published my first book of beading designs. Several more have followed since! Alongside many other revelations, beading showed me that I actually love teaching, so when I’m not writing books, creating new designs, beading or updating websites, I also teach a lot of beading classes and workshops. If you want to see or buy any of the beadwork that I personally create, then please visit my website, Bead Flowers. If you are just interested in the world of beads, then I hope this will be the site for you.

When I first started beading I struggled to find basic information about the materials, techniques and generally what I was doing! Back in those days, the internet was a much smaller place, so a lot of what I learned I found out through reading books and magazines and most of all, experimenting. I realised that I now have so much knowledge on which to draw that I’ve been wanting to find a place to record it, both for myself and for others. This is all knowledge that I use every time I create a new design, write up a pattern or teach a workshop. Most of it now comes as second nature to me, but I do still remember the confusion I felt when I started out and the technical terms made no sense at all and I was labouring under the impression that a bead is just a bead – right? Not to mention what to do with all those ‘findings’ (what an odd term!). Now there is a lot more information around on the web, but I find it’s often in disparate places, so I’m aiming to try and bring it all together on one ‘supercool’ site that will give you more or less everything you need!

I hope I will achieve this aim eventually and I hope you will like the results, but feel I must leave you with a quick word of warning…beads are very addictive!…enjoy yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if you find yourself coming back here again and again for ‘another quick fix’.