About Mandolin Handmade
Made by an engineer mom for fuse bead lovers everywhere.
The idea for Mandolin Handmade’s Fuse Bead Designer started with my own kids. I built this site because I wanted an easier way to turn their ideas into custom fuse-bead patterns.
Fuse beads are super nostalgic for me. I love having such a simple, hands-on activity that the kids can get creative with. There’s something relaxing about placing the beads one at a time and watching the design come together. Then we end up with a fun little keepsake.
The Fuse-Bead Designer grew out of that. I wanted a quick way to take our ideas and make them into a starting point for patterns. It was their idea to add the filters for swapping out the color schemes.
I’ll share some of the patterns we make along the way, and the designer is here for anyone who wants to create their own.
I hope it helps you make something fun!
What’s on the site
The Fuse-Bead Designer is the main tool: draw a pattern, edit colors, count beads, and print an exact-size template. Import Image, inside the Designer, converts a photo on your device into the site’s bead palette so you can clean it up before printing.
Community Patterns is a public gallery you can open and customize. Projects saves designs on this device and combines their bead counts into one shopping list. The two are separate: Projects stay private in your browser, and community patterns are shared starting points.
Step-by-step guides live on the Learn page: turning a photo into a pattern, choosing a grid size, and printing at actual pegboard scale.
Keeping the site going
Mandolin Handmade is supported by advertising and affiliate links. If you purchase something through certain links on the site, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
That revenue helps cover the cost of keeping the site online and continuing to improve the free design tools and patterns.