9 Replies

the dollar store will be ur best friend when it comes to buying kandi! OH OH OH AND IF U WANT TO START OFF WITH A CUFF U CAN MAKE A SUPER SIMPLE FLOWER ONE!!! just look up on YouTube "flower cuff" and BOOM u got a easy flower cuff that u can remember how to make later on! :3

Buying Supplies- You can get beads at the Dollar Store/99c Store/Whatever's near you sometimes! Same with string. But as you can probably guess, it's not the best quality and you can't get a variety of colors. You can get packs of beads and some good string from Amazon for a decent price, but I wouldn't recommend buying packs of individual colors because, depending on where you live, the shipping tends to be super high. If you wanna splurge a little and buy some special beads, specific colors, or any of that jazz, I'd suggest buying directly from Beadtin.com! They have basic supplies as well.

Starting Out- Because you're just starting, I'd recommend messing around a bit making singles or stars or something. They're small and pretty simple. Another thing you could do is practice making Pacman ghosts, flowers, hearts, and other charms in order to get the hang of the peyote stitch. There's a bunch of tutorials for that on YouTube! Once you're comfortable you can try making a simple flat cuff. It might take a few tries to get the hang of learning the different stitches and stuff, but eventually you'll get it! Don't be afraid to take your cuff apart and start over.

Character Cuffs- Once you know how to make a flat cuff, you can start making character cuffs. You can do this a few ways. Some people like making a single and building it up from the bottom. I like finding the middle of the pattern and using the pyote stitch to weave it cause I find it sturdier. This probably sounds confusing, but you'll get the hang of it. There's plenty of online tutorials to help you.

3D Cuffs- These things probably intimidate you at the moment, but they're not all that difficult. I'd suggest making smaller, simpler ones first. There's not many tips I can think of for these at the moment, but really don't be scared to just tear it apart and try again fresh if you get frustrated.

Tutorials- A YouTuber I'd recommend for these is Vicky's Kandi Shoppe! I also like the website kandicufftutorials.webs.com. Both of them have simple step by step tutorials ranging from important stuff //how to read patterns// to random, fun stuff //how to make a 3d kandi star//.

I hope this helped a little bit! Sorry about the length, it's a bit info-dump-y

i would just start with singles, and I would also look into some of the history of Kandi because it can help you figure out where to start, I would start with getting pony beads in colors u like and letter beads, and really any other fun beads u like, aswell as string stretchy string, i get my string from amazon, its white elastic string, and I get my beads from beadtin, amazon, Walmart, and the dollar tee has letter beads shape beads, and sometimes pony beads, hope this helps

@demonrat: yess i agree beadtin.com has some of the best ponybeads

i suggest looking at beadtin.com for supplies! from the bit of looking ive done, the prices are really good and the beads themselves are nice!