~ Cross Stitch · 456 DMC Colors ~
Cross Stitch Pattern Maker
Turn any photo into a counted cross stitch chart matched to real DMC embroidery floss — 456 shades, symbol-coded cells, and a floss shopping list with exact thread counts. Free, instant, and entirely in your browser.
Bead Pattern Examples
Every card below is the photo converted by our pattern maker — real brand colors, 87 beads wide, exactly what you get. Click one to load it into the tool.
How to Make a Bead Pattern from a Photo
01
Upload or Pick a Sample
Drop in any photo or choose one of the samples. Everything runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded to a server.
02
Match Your Brand
Pick the brand you own — Perler, Hama, Artkal S, Nabbi or MARD. Every cell snaps to a real color code you can actually buy. Adjust width in whole pegboards.
03
Export and Craft
Download a zoomable PNG pattern sheet or a print-ready PDF: overview, bill of materials, and one page per pegboard with color codes in place.
Bead Pattern Maker Features
715 Real Brand Colors
Perler, Hama, Artkal S, Nabbi and MARD palettes with authentic color codes — 715 colors in total, each verified against the community beadcolors registry.
Bill of Materials
Know exactly what to buy: per-color bead counts and percentages, updated live as you tweak the pattern. Shop once, craft without interruptions.
Multi-Board PDF
Large patterns split across standard 29-bead pegboards automatically. The PDF prints one page per board with guide lines, rulers, and symbol-coded colors.
My Bead Set
Only own part of a palette? Check the colors you have and the pattern is built exclusively from your stash — with a matching bill of materials.
Color Limit
Cap how many distinct colors a pattern uses. A smaller palette is cheaper to buy and easier to sort — great for kids' projects.
Private and Free
No sign-up, no watermark, no upload. Decoding, matching and PDF rendering all happen locally in your browser.
What Are Perler Beads?
Perler beads (also called fuse beads or Hama beads in Europe) are small plastic tubes placed on a pegboard one bead at a time, then fused with a household iron. What starts as a grid of loose beads becomes a solid pixel-art piece you can hang, frame, or turn into a coaster.
The craft is essentially physical pixel art: each bead is one pixel, each pegboard is 29×29 beads. That is why photos must be simplified before crafting — a phone photo has millions of pixels, while a large bead project might have a few thousand. A bead pattern maker does that simplification for you: it resamples your image to the bead grid and maps every cell to the closest color your brand actually sells.
Brand matters because colors are not interchangeable: Perler carries 103 colors, Hama 92, Artkal S 199, Nabbi 30 and MARD 291. The same photo produces three different patterns depending on which catalog it is matched against — so pick the brand you own, and the maker guarantees every bead in the pattern has a real code on that brand's chart.
Who Is This For?
Counted cross-stitch stitchers
You buy patterns less often than you'd like because good ones cost $5–15. Your own photos become full charts with DMC codes, floss counts, and 14-count fabric sizing — free.
Pet & family portrait makers
The most commissioned cross stitch is portraits. Convert a photo, check the floss list against your stash, and start stitching this evening.
Pattern designers
Test which photos chart well before investing hours in hand-correcting. The 456-color DMC matching does the first 90% of the work.
Gift stitchers
Wedding dates, newborn announcements, house portraits — personal charts beat purchased patterns for gifts, and the 50-stitch chart pages keep your place on the couch.
Stash busting
The color budget slider limits any chart to the DMC colors you already own. Stitch from stash, buy nothing.
Returning stitchers
Coming back after a break? The glyph double-encoding (shape + code in every cell) means you can follow the chart under lamp light without squinting at subtle floss shades.
Why This Bead Pattern Maker
Why cross-stitchers choose this chart generator over pattern shops and other converters.
| Feature | This tool | Typical competitors |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free charts, unlimited | $5–15 per pattern is the market norm; 'free' generators watermark |
| DMC codes | All 456 DMC strands matched, codes in cells and legend | Small fixed palettes or unnamed colors |
| Floss budgeting | Exact stitch counts per DMC code — one skein ≈ 1,500–2,000 stitches | No counts; you buy blind |
| Fabric sizing | Live cm readout for 14-count aida (the default), board-page pagination at 50 stitches | Pixel grids with no physical reference |
| Print quality | Glyph + code double-encoding for B/W printing, 5-stitch guide lines | Color-only charts that fail on printers and aging eyes |
| Privacy | Photos stay local — important for client baby photos | Upload required |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a bead pattern maker?
It converts any photo into a fuse-bead pattern: your image is resized to a bead grid and every cell is matched to the closest color from a real brand catalog like Perler, Hama or Artkal. You get a pixel preview, a bill of materials telling you exactly how many beads of each color you need, and a printable PDF with one page per pegboard.
How do I choose the right bead brand?
Pick the brand whose beads you actually own — Perler, Hama or Artkal S (5 mm). The maker matches your image only against that brand's real color codes, so what you see on screen is what you can buy and place on the board. Switching brands instantly re-matches the same image.
Can I use only the colors I already have?
Yes. Open My Bead Set and check the colors you own; the pattern will be built exclusively from that subset, and the bill of materials updates accordingly. Clearing the set goes back to the full catalog.
How does the PDF printing work?
The PDF contains an overview page with the finished pattern and the complete bill of materials, then one page per pegboard section enlarged for easy reading with bold guide lines every 5 cells and each bead's color code printed in place. Large patterns are automatically split across multiple standard 29-bead boards.
Are my images uploaded to a server?
No. Decoding, color matching and PDF rendering all happen locally in your browser. Your images never leave your device.
What size are standard Perler pegboards?
The classic square pegboard is 29×29 pegs (about 14.5 cm, one bead = 5 mm). Our width presets are whole boards — 29, 58, 87 and up — so the pattern you print always maps onto real boards with no cut-off rows. Height follows your photo's aspect ratio.
How many beads do I need for my pattern?
The bill of materials under the preview lists the exact count for every color, and the total appears on the PDF overview page. As a rule of thumb, a 29×29 single-board project uses up to 841 beads; an 87-bead-wide photo project often needs 5,000 or more.
Can I convert a photo of a person or a pet?
Yes — that is the most popular use. For best results use a close-up with clear contrast and raise the width to 87 beads (3 boards) or more; small grids cannot carry facial detail. Background removal helps portraits read cleanly on the board.
PNG or PDF — which should I download?
Both, for different moments. The PNG pattern sheet is a single zoomable image with color codes, symbols and a legend — ideal for following along on a phone or tablet. The PDF is made for printing: one page per pegboard with bold guide lines and a cover page with the bill of materials.
Does dithering make better patterns?
Dithering blends colors with scattered pixels, which can help gradients and skies, but it also adds visual noise and makes sorting harder. It is off by default; turn it on for photos with smooth gradients, and compare both versions before buying beads.
Is this a free bead pattern maker app?
Yes — it is completely free with no signup, and it runs in any modern browser on desktop, tablet, or phone, so it works like a bead pattern maker app without installing anything. Convert and download as many patterns as you want.
Can I make seed bead or bead loom patterns?
This maker is tuned for fuse beads on pegboards — Perler, Hama, Artkal, MARD, and Nabbi — where each pattern cell is one bead on a square grid. Square-grid seed bead work (miyuki delica on a loom) follows the same grid logic, so many loom beaders use it as a starting chart; off-loom techniques like peyote or brick stitch need offset grids this tool does not produce.
What's the difference between Perler, Hama, and fuse beads?
They are all fuse beads — small plastic beads fused together with an iron. Perler (US) and Hama (Europe) are brand names; Artkal and MARD are other popular makers. The beads are interchangeable in size (5mm midi), but each brand has its own color catalog — this tool matches your photo against each brand’s real colors so the shopping list is accurate for the beads you actually own.