How To Make Tiny Beaded Geckos

When I was a teenager I was given a gecko key chain made of pony beads and ribbon by a friend. It lived on my backpack and was about six inches long. The pattern was easy to duplicate on a purely visual basis and given my love of miniatures I used it to make several of my own with wire and seed beads.

My math teacher posed several of them in her cactus garden at home and I made jewelry with some of them too.

Every once in a while when I am feeling a bit nostalgic I still pick up the seed beads and beading wire to make a few more.

This is a great craft for both adults and children and the pattern can be used to make a gecko of any size depending on what sort of beads you have available. 

Materials

9/0 seed beads
0.3mm beading wire

I’ve made this tutorial for a two color gecko with a third color for its eyes. You can make the coloring as simple or as complicated as you wish.

The finished gecko will be about 2.25 inches from nose to tail.

This pattern consists of 19 rows of beads. Starting at the nose the rows are listed below, you will need to come back to this list as a reference.

1 bead
2 beads
3 beads (outer beads are eyes)
2 beads
(front feet go here – 5 beads each leg)
3 beads
4 beads
4 beads
4 beads
3 beads
(back feet go here – 5 beads each leg)
2 beads
1 bead
1 bead
1 bead
1 bead
1 bead
1 bead
1 bead

First cut yourself no less than 10 inches of wire. Longer is better if you plan to attach the finished gecko to something.

Now you’re going to string your first bead. Each row is made by crossing the wire through the beads. I find thin wire wonderful to work with because it’s strong and it allows you to shape the finished product. If you aren’t gentle however, the wire can break so as you’re beading remember to be firm to get the rows tight but still gentle enough that you don’t break the wire. Also be very careful not to put any kinks in the wire because they create weak points that are likely to snap.

Refer to the photos above and below which illustrate how you should cross the wire through the nose.

Next you’ll be stringing the snout, do the same thing that you did for the nose but use two beads instead of 1. Pull the wire nice and TIGHT between layers.

Next you’ll be stringing the eyes so make sure that you choose two beads that are very similar in size. Seed beads are fairly standardized in terms of size however you’ll notice that there is a fair bit of deviation between the beads in a pack.

Woohoo! You have a face :3

Next you make the neck and after the neck things get a little complicated because you’ve reached your first pair of legs.

The legs and feet can make or break your gecko and it’s extremely important that you are very careful to ensure the wire is pulled as tight as possible.

String 5 beads as pictured above. If you have any particularly small beads it’s good to save them for the toes!

Next bring the wire back through the two beads that are closest to the body to form a loop as pictured above.

Pull slowly and carefully until the loop makes the toes splay out in an adorable trio and the arm is nice and tight.

Then just repeat for the other side and follow the rest of the pattern where you’ll do the exact same thing for the other set of legs.

Once you’re down to the last tail bead you can loop it through a couple of times for strength, twist the wires together and snip them off.

If you want to attach the gecko to some earrings or if you want to use it as a charm or an ornament use the extra wire to fasten it to whatever you like.