BeadForge news
BeadForge Accounts & Community: Save, Share, Remix, and Build Your Maker Profile
BeadForge started with a simple promise: turn an image into a useful fuse-bead pattern without making the artist fight the software. The next chapter keeps that free creative core and adds 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.
This is an early feature preview, not a claim that every item is live today. Accounts, storage, and community features are being tested on a separate development branch before release.
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.
A private workshop and a public maker profile
Every account is planned 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.
- Sign in your way: email/password first, with Google and Apple prepared as optional providers.
- 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.
Achievements that make progress visible
Achievements should reward healthy community behavior, not spam. Planned milestones include sharing a first creation, reaching 10, 50, or 100 shared designs, giving 100 likes, receiving 25 or 100 likes, making an attributed remix, and inspiring other makers to remix an open design.
Founding-maker badges
The first 100 complete maker profiles are planned to 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.
Free Maker and BeadForge Pro
| 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 |
The current launch target is $5.99 per month or $49 per year. Billing is not active, and the final offer will be tested before anyone is charged.
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 is being built before release
- Convex Auth with verified email, password recovery, and prepared Google/Apple providers.
- 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.
- Stripe entitlement wiring only after the free and premium workflows pass real testing.
Nothing is being rushed into production
The account branch remains separate from the live site until authentication, private-file access, uploads, publishing, deletion, and moderation have all passed their launch checklist.
The community is new, but the creation tools are already here. Start a pattern now and keep the draft in your browser while account sync is prepared.
Start a free patternFrequently 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. The product and entitlement system are being built before Stripe billing is activated. Any previewed price or limit may be adjusted before launch.
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.