Today I shipped a few updates to Toonbead, a small browser-based tool for turning photos into fuse bead patterns.
The first update is a real style library instead of one generic AI look:
- Pet Icon for dogs and cats
- Cute Portrait for selfies and gifts
- Clean Cartoon for people and couples
- Retro Pixel for icons and simple objects
- Pop Poster for bold portraits
- Custom, where you can write your own visual direction
The style choice is explicit. It guides the optional AI restyle, but it does not try to draw the final bead grid. After the AI step, the browser still handles the craft-specific work: mapping to real bead colors, changing the grid and palette, cleaning up small regions, and showing board and bead counts.
I also shipped a browser-local printable PDF export. It includes:
- a project overview
- numbered board-by-board pages
- a color key
- a counted materials list
- concise making notes
That distinction matters to me. A nice image is not automatically a useful craft pattern. The export needs to help someone move from a screen to a bead table.
Uploading a photo still does not call the AI route. The user has to press Generate with AI. Verified accounts get three free AI generations, while local pattern edits and exports stay free and do not use credits. Toonbead does not persist the original or generated image.
I am building this for pet portraits, personal gifts, and beginner-friendly weekend projects. I am still learning how many colors and boards feel manageable for a first-time maker.
Try the updated Maker: https://toonbead.com/maker
See the style library: https://toonbead.com/styles
If you make fuse bead art or build creative tools, I would love to hear what makes a printable pattern genuinely useful.
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