BeadForge news
BeadForge Accounts Are Here: Free Cloud Projects, Community, Achievements & OG Badges
BeadForge started with a simple promise: turn an image into a useful fuse-bead pattern without making the artist fight the software. The new free accounts keep that creative core and add what serious makers asked for around it—a home for their work, a public identity, a friendly community, and tools that remember where they left off.
Accounts, cloud projects, profiles, achievements, starter inventory, community likes, and creator-controlled remixing are here. The original no-account generator and exports stay free, so signing up adds a hub without putting the creative tool behind a wall.
The product rule
Free should feel complete; Pro should feel powerful. A free maker should be able to create, export, save a useful number of projects, and participate in the community. Pro earns its price by removing organizational limits and solving repetitive problems for active hobbyists and sellers.
What your free account includes now
Every account is built around two different spaces. The private dashboard is the workshop: drafts, saved projects, duplicates, inventory, storage use, and “continue editing” controls. The public profile is the gallery: a chosen display name, unique @username, avatar, membership tier, featured achievements, and only the creations the maker deliberately publishes.
- Simple account access: create an account with email and password, then land directly in your maker dashboard.
- Choose your identity: set a unique username, separate display name, short bio, starter avatar, or your own uploaded image.
- Control visibility: a whole profile may be public or private, while individual projects remain private unless explicitly shared.
- Resume instead of restart: open recent work, duplicate a design before experimenting, and keep the original safe.
A community feed built around making—not arguments
The first community release focuses on creations, likes, private favorites, discovery, and remixing. A rate-limited comment system has also been prepared with removal and reporting controls, but it stays disabled until moderation is ready. That keeps the initial launch manageable while preserving a safe path to discussion later.
When publishing, the creator chooses one of two permissions:
| Sharing choice | What another maker can do | What BeadForge preserves |
|---|---|---|
| Locked design | View, like, and share the public page | The creator’s ownership and public post |
| Open for remix | Import a private copy and change it | A permanent link to the original project and creator |
A remix becomes a new project owned by the remixer, but it does not erase its origin. The original maker receives remix credit, and the new project displays where the idea began. This gives generous creators recognition while letting others learn and experiment.
From inspiration to your canvas
When a creator marks a project remixable, choose Open in Studio. BeadForge creates a private attributed copy, loads its actual bead grid onto your Studio canvas, and lets you recolor, redraw, cloud-save, or export PDF, PNG, SVG, WebP, CSV, and JSON. A flat preview is never the end of the workflow.
Achievements that make progress visible
Achievements reward healthy community behavior, not spam. Progress is calculated from real actions and appears in the dashboard cabinet. Makers choose which earned badges to feature on a public profile.
| Achievement path | Milestones | How to earn it |
|---|---|---|
| Creator | First Spark; Maker 10, 50, 100 | Publish 1, 10, 50, or 100 creations |
| Supporter | First Heart; Community Cheerleader | Give 1 or 100 genuine likes |
| Audience | Crowd Favorite; Bead Icon | Receive 25 or 100 likes |
| Remixer | Remix Rookie; Remix Artist | Create 1 or 10 attributed remixes |
| Inspiration | Inspiration; Trend Setter | Inspire 1 or 25 remixes of your work |
Founding-maker badges
The first 100 maker profiles receive an OG Maker badge, with a rarer Founding 50 badge for the earliest group. Membership numbers are assigned by the backend rather than typed by users. Free members can feature several earned badges; Pro members can display a larger cabinet.
Plenty for free makers, with premium later
| Feature | Free Maker target | BeadForge Pro target |
|---|---|---|
| Core generator and Studio | Included, with no account required | Included |
| Cloud projects | Up to 25 | Up to 500 |
| Cloud storage | 100 MB | 5 GB |
| Retention | 90 days after each project’s last meaningful edit, with warnings | Retained while subscribed |
| Community publishing and likes | Included | Included |
| Remix controls and attribution | Included | Included |
| Featured achievements | Up to 3 | Up to 6 |
| Bead inventory and shortage check | Up to 25 saved colors | Complete multi-brand stash |
| Folders, tags, categories, and search | Included with practical limits | Expanded workflow |
| Exports | PDF, PNG, SVG, WebP, CSV, and JSON | Higher limits, unbranded, and seller-ready options |
| Advertising | Possible respectful ads later | Ad-free |
There is no paid-plan requirement today. We plan to offer premium plans later for larger libraries, more storage, deeper inventory management, history, and seller workflows. The free tier remains the complete place to generate, edit, export, save a practical library, earn achievements, and join the community.
Inventory that understands the pattern
A Free maker can record a starter inventory of 25 colors, while Pro is planned to unlock the complete multi-brand stash. BeadForge compares those quantities with the exact color totals in a saved pattern and shows three answers before the first peg is filled: what you have, what the pattern needs, and what is missing.
- Save your bead bags and approximate loose quantities.
- Open or generate a project.
- See shortage amounts per exact catalog color.
- Turn only the missing quantities into a shopping list.
Future shopping links may include Amazon affiliate links. If used, they will be clearly disclosed. A later multi-item cart handoff will only ship if the retailer’s current rules and APIs allow it; BeadForge will not use fragile or misleading cart automation.
Tools for bead-art sellers
Many BeadForge makers also sell custom portraits, magnets, ornaments, and finished wall art. A future seller workflow could pass a project’s dimensions, bead count, palette, finishing method, photos, and price into an Etsy listing assistant. The assistant could draft a clear title, description, materials, personalization questions, processing time, and tags while the seller stays responsible for accuracy and intellectual-property permission.
That feature may become part of a later seller tier or a separate Eleven North product. Until then, the free Etsy selling guide and pricing guide remain available to every maker.
What shipped in this account release
- Secure email/password account access backed by Convex Auth.
- Private Cloudflare R2 storage for approved project files, previews, exports, and uploaded avatars.
- Server-side ownership, quota, visibility, remix-permission, and attribution checks.
- A searchable community gallery with categories, tags, likes, private favorites, liker lists, and feature-flagged comments.
- Midi/Mini sizing, bead/pixel Studio views, multi-format exports, inventory shortages, and printable needed-bead checklists.
- Account deletion, moderation, rate limits, retention warnings, and safe two-phase file cleanup.
- A premium-ready entitlement model, with billing intentionally left off until future plans are ready and clearly explained.
Free stays useful
You can still generate and export without signing in. Create a free account when you want continuity: cloud projects, a dashboard, profile, achievements, inventory, community participation, and attributed editable remixes.
Start without an account. When the pattern looks right, use the signup prompt to preserve the editable draft and go straight to your dashboard.
Create a pattern and join freeFrequently asked questions
Will BeadForge still work without an account?
Yes. The core photo generator and Studio remain usable without an account. An account adds continuity, community identity, cloud projects, sharing, and optional paid workflow tools.
Can another person copy my shared pattern?
You choose. A shared creation can be locked for viewing only or opened for remixing. An allowed remix keeps a permanent attribution link to the original project and creator.
What happens to private projects?
Private projects stay out of public profiles, the community feed, and search metadata. Publishing is a separate explicit action that can be reversed.
Is BeadForge Pro available now?
Not yet. Every feature in the Free Maker column is available without a paid plan. We plan to add premium workflow and storage options later, and will publish final pricing before billing begins.
Will free accounts have ads?
The first account release is focused on reliability and community. BeadForge may test respectful ads later on the free tier; a paid plan would remain ad-free.
Ready to make your own pattern?
BeadForge turns any image into a printable fuse bead pattern with bead counts and pegboard sizing — free, in your browser, no signup.