When Livemaster announced the week of Van Gogh, I was very happy because it's one of my favorite artists. I've always wanted to make something based on his paintings. And now, this event has pushed me to realizing the dream.

I suggest you a tutorial, where I will try to describe as much details as possible of all the stages of work to create a beaded phone case. And as an example I will use a leather case based on one of the most gorgeous Van Gogh's paintings "Starry Night over the Rhone".

In this tutorial we will address the following stages of work:

• development of a pattern for the size of a phone;
• a pull-out mechanism on tape;
• assembly;
• whipstitch with and without seed beads;
• a sketch for embroidery;
• cabochons and Swarovski crystals in embroidery;
• case and embroidered fragment assembly.

The materials I used:

• natural stone cabochons: sodalite, lapis lazuli, agate with beautiful, sparkling druse;
• Swarovski crystals in blue, yellow and orange shades;
• Czech crystal beads of blue color;
• Japanese seed beads "with a twinkle" by Miyuki Delica and Toho 11 for the sea;
• Japanese seed beads by Miyuki and Toho 11 for the rest part;
• the smallest of the available Preciosa beads 16 to fill small voids;
• genuine black Italian leather;
• Italian high-quality leatherette for the base that does not fray;
• acrylic paints, brushes, a palette;
• Zaponlack;
• a beading needle, including number 16, with a microscopic eye;
• thread for beading;
• 2 cm wide grossgrain ribbon.

First choose a piece of the picture for embroidering. Here is the whole picture. I've chosen the right top part.

We need to make a pattern of leatherette, it will be the interior part of the case. And the outer part will be of leather. First, measure your phone. I have an iPhone 5S, its parameters are 12.5 x 6 x 0.8 cm

Make a pattern of the inner part of leatherette. It will be long and include two lengths of the phone, the height of the rim and additional 1 cm to "hide" the case.

The height of the pattern:

12.5 + 12.5 + 0.8 + 1 + 1 = 27.8 cm (I round to 28, as 2 mm at the top will have no effect)

The width of the pattern:

6+ 0.8 + 1 (0.5 for seams) = 7.8 cm (here we add the width of the phone, one height of the rim and 1 cm for seams)

Thus we have an internal pattern — 28 x 7.8 cm.

Make a pattern of the outer part of leather.

It should be just 2-3 mm bigger than the interior pattern on all sides. Thus, the size of the exterior pattern will be 28.4 x 8.2 cm.

Check our patterns by applying them on each other.

Make rounded corners on the inner pattern. Do that only on the inner pattern because the top part will be adjusted after glueing.

Work with the internal pattern of leatherette. Find the center, draw on the reverse side.

From the middle to one side we step 6.5 cm and draw a 2.3 cm long line. Step from the middle to the other side by 5 cm and 8 cm, on these points draw a 2.3 cm long line. On the pattern they are marked with dotted lines. My ribbon is 2 cm wide, so I make 2.3 cm long slits for it so that it could easily go through them and move. Make slits along the dotted lines.

Now you need to thread the ribbon. Cut 24 cm of ribbon. Put it from the side with one slit. Take it out from the inside, putting it to the front, and from there put it in the next slit, and again through the last slit to the front. After pulling there must be a 2 cm long end. Finally, we have the ribbon that starts on the inside and ends on the front side.

Now, we sew it near the first slit. All 2x2 cm pieces that look out from the slit must be first glued to the inside, and then sewed around the perimeter. If you make a case without embroidery, try to make an invisible knot, because in the future when you will be glueing the inner and the outer part of the case, this knot will be like a bump on the front of the case.

To process the second end of the ribbon you need a piece of leather with a size of 2 x 3 cm.

We decorate the end of the ribbon with this little piece of leather. First glue it, as if "hugging" the ribbon on two sides, 1.5 cm on each side. I use transparent jewelry glue, but "Moment" transparent gel will be fine. When you apply glue, try not to touch the edges, apply it only on the center of the leather part and then glue it. When the glue dries stitch the leather and the ribbon with a solid seam stepping back from the edge about 1 cm. Hide the knot inside.

Our internal part of the case is ready.

At this stage, if you need to sew something on the back side of the case — it's time to do it :) Fold the leather pattern in half, mark the spot of embroidery and embroider. I embroider here my logo.

Now glue both bases. Here I use shoe cream as it is the most suitable for the work. Apply glue only to those places where there is a diagonal cross-hatching on the photo. It is very important not to glue the ribbon, it should move.

Smear glue across the first half of the pattern and glue it to the leather. Now another important point — before gluing the second part, we need to fold the inner pattern in half to create the shape of the case. If we glue the inner and outer parts unfolded, then the further folding of the case will deform it by pulling the leather. Please note that when we glue the first part, we put the top of the patterns edge to edge, leaving no margin of the leather. Fold the internal pattern, smear glue across it, cover it with the leather and the leather is tightened, the left allowance of a few millimeters disappears. If you still have excess leather, carefully cut it to the length of the inner part. I have no excess.

Here you can see that after this gluing, if you unfold the pattern, it will not be even, there will be a pronounced bend. And so it should be. Phew, I hope this is not very confusing :)

Now cut the corners of the leather to the rounded corners of the inner pattern.

Begin to sew our case with a serging seam. It is usually used to sew bags and shoes, it is the most popular and, in general, the easiest seam. I recommend to take a longer thread, so that the entire perimeter of the serging is without additional knots. It is also important that the thread is very durable and sturdy. I recommend to put the ribbon inside the case during this process, it can be touched by a needle. In the photos I pulled it out, but while sewing it was hidden.

Put a needle from the inner to the front side of the case (where we will have the embroidery) and hide a knot there.

Now make the first stitch through all four layers of the case. Put a needle from the back side and take it out on the front, at the same point where you put the first thread (not to make unnecessary punctures in the leather, it will be more aesthetic like this).

Do not pull the thread, pass it through a needle.

And only then tighten it firmly. Since the outer leather case is a couple of millimeters wider than the internal one, when tightening, the inner layer of the leather should be hidden under the outer layer. Only the leather must be visible.

So, stitch by stitch go to the rounded corners. Try to make even stitches at the same distance from each other. If necessary, you can use a ruler to make a layout, marking the location of future punctures with dots. At the initial stages it can be very helpful.

Now sew with a serging seam with the beads not four layers, but only two layers of the back wall of the case (which is not for embroidery).

To do this, put a seed bead on a needle and put the thread through two layers of the back wall, we take out the needle inside of the case.

Now back the needle to the bead and pass through it one more time.

Tighten, as if "putting" the bead flat on the seam.

Thus, we sew the edge with beads across the top of the case to the point where the rounding of the second corner ends.

And continue to whipstitch without beads to the end.

Make a few discreet, neat knots and withdraw the needle along our stitched seam, and then cut. If you cut the thread close to the knot, the whole seam might soon fall apart.

To make our whipstitch stronger and more reliable, I put a drop of glue on the inside of the case at the bottom before making the last stitch, to leave the anchoring knot less chances to come loose.

Try our case with a phone. If the pattern is calculated exactly, the phone will sit tight in the case, without hanging, it will be easy to put it in and out thanks to the ribbon. Our case is ready. In fact, you can stop here, if you don't like embroidery, or you can continue and make it even better :)

Get armed with acrylic paints, brushes, a palette and paints. I always embroider listening to classical music. Therefore, I recommend to turn it on. Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky really help to be creative and set an additional mood of inspiration.

I already wrote in the previous tutorial that for embroidery I use high quality Italian leather. It is dense enough to hold the shape and knots of threads, it is easy to draw on it, it does not fray, and in general it is very pleasant to work with.

At first I try to draw a test pattern on paper to "rehearse" the application of images on the basis of embroidery. After that, we transfer the dimensions of the front wall of the case of leatherette which we will embroider and draw our image on it. If your embroidery does not have a strong picture and is free, you don't need this stage. In such cases, merely schematically apply a general pattern for embroidering on the basis with a washable marker. My task is to embroider pieces of the picture, so I can't do without drawing.

Forgive me, the artists, and it is good that Van Gogh can't see this creativity. I didn't learn to draw, so I draw how I can and I ask readers to be indulgent :) By and large, it was important to at least roughly show the color areas to understand what color of seed beads we need. In these works a pattern is needed to make the background of other color in possible small gaps between the beads not visible. This makes the product much more harmonious.

Another point — the drawing has a bit to go beyond the boundaries of the pattern. Then the excess will be cut off, and there will be no "dangling" pieces without a pattern.

When the paint is dry, cover everything with Zaponlack lacquer. If you don't have it (although it can be easily bought at hardware stores), you can cover with usual colorless nail polish. In this case, first, after lacquering the paints will get their true color (they are very pale on imitation leather), and, secondly, they will not crumble after drying.

Now you can play with stones. Use cabochons (gems or beads with flat bottom), otherwise, our pattern will be deformed, and this is unacceptable. Look and try on, where you can place the stones.

Once their location is chosen, stitch stones with beads, giving them a frame in which they are securely fastened.

Another tip — when you work with embroidery, round all sharp edges of the basis. In this case, the thread will be much less cling and confused.

The stones are securely sewn on and now it is the time of sparkling Swarovski crystals and Czech crystal faceted beads. The yellow crystals became stars, the orange — bright windows of houses, and the dark blue turned into the flowing sea waves. I sewed blue beads on the right side of the sky, but in the future I will remove them, as the sky should be more uniform, translucent, with no excess shine. Only stars will shine in the sky.

Usually, embroiderers cover the "frame" of the product to make the beading around the perimeter. And in most cases I do that and recommend you. It will be easier to sew and not to make a mistake with the size like this. But I had to create an illusion of the painting, the canvas. A frame would be superfluous here.

Working with water, it was very important to capture the texture, the shine, the reflection, the movement and the roughness of the waves. Therefore I chose seed beads with a flame, which provides the necessary reflection. To make a smooth image of water, as in embroidery on canvas, I diluted the limes of embroidery with small seed beads of the 15 and 16 sizes, creating the effect of waves. The main part of the embroidery is done with Delica beads.

In the process of embroidery, I recommend to strengthen with glue each fully embroidered area on the reverse side. The thread will be stronger and more reliable like this. After you embroidered the sea, smear glue on the underside.

Next, embroider the houses and the sky with the stars, picking up the the seed beads in accordance with the pattern.

When the embroidery is completely finished, before it is removed, smear glue along the edges of the embroidery one more timem. Thus, if we damage it when cutting the thread, the embroidery will not begin to crumble in our hands, and only 1-2 beads that are easy to sew in place will drop (but be sure to process repeatedly the whole row, which has been damaged, even if it is not falling apart). Another tip — embroidering the edge of the item, insert a needle at an angle inside the embroidery to put the thread as far away from the edge as possible.

Gently, very close to the embroidery cut our cloth with sharp, preferably nail or a special professional scissors.

Now we need to glue the embroidery to the case. Before doing this, insert any non-fibrous material inside the case, dividing the front and the back walls not to glue them together, if suddenly there will be excess glue. It is better to use a piece of the same leather. Put the phone in the case under this piece. It is desirable to glue the embroidery to the case with the phone inside, to give it initially a correct three-dimensional shape.

Carefully glue the embroidery to the case, adjusting all the edges, everything must come together perfectly.

When the glue dries, begin to sew the embroidery to the case with the same whipstitch with beads that we have considered above. Do this also with the phone inside and start from where we left the unsewn edge, because it is easier to hide a knot there in the beginning and at the end of sewing.

Pass the needle through the case, through four layers, hiding the knot under the embroidered part.

Make a catch seam with the embroidery and put a bead. Put the needle now only through three layers: embroidery, leather, leatherette. Sew with whipstitches the entire part to the end of the corner rounding.

Then sew all five layers: the embroidery and the case.

Make a few hidden knots and bring the thread through the seam as far possible. Cut it and our case is ready! Enjoy the result of your labors and compliments of family and friends :)

All the artists, creators and those who are just getting in the way, I suggest you experimenting! Don't be afraid to do something differently, not like others do. Try to hear yourself, your mood, your energy. Treat creativity with playing — play with textures, shapes, materials. Remember that people will see you in your works. And you are unique. And if you listen to yourself, your works will be as unique, special, distinctive.

I wish you all big and small discoveries, inspiration, creative finds and creative waves!

Sincerely yours, Olga Lavro.