Lisani, Bella Online's new papercrafts host is someone who I've admired as an artist for years. I used to chat with her every Monday and come away with tons of new ideas. When I saw her article about artist trading cards on the papercraft site, I was absolutely inspired.

So how to bead one? That was obviously the next question. I decided on a sandwich of paper, perforated 14 count paper , the kind made for crossstitch, and a top layer to make a frame. You could also use wire mesh, or do cardbeading, or whatever else inspires you.

Since these are supposed to be unique, I'm not going to give you a step by step to recreate my design, just an overview of how I did it.

I started by cutting a 2.5x3.5 inch rectangle of the perforated paper, then I measured a half inch in on all sides and drew lines on the paper to mark the edges of my beadwork, then I started beading. I got a bunch of inspiration for what I'm going to do on my next one when I started and thought to myself "HEY! this would have looked neat!"
I looked around my desk for ideas, looking specifically for things that were flat to embellish with, and decided on the flower sequins and on making a word with brass wire. The edges are done in a simple beaded counted cross stitch, and the wire word I slipped the ends of the wire into the paper, and folded them out flat like a brad to hold in place.
Use thread that matches your backing paper.
Then I created my frame on the computer. You could use rubber stamps or paint or whatever inspires you, I made my frame out of a cardstock weight paper, then I glued the layers together.

The possibilities, within the limitations of an artist trading card are endless.

Here's the template for the frame, print at 100 dpi. Right click to
save.