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Jewelry Making BeadsWelcome to Beads 101 What are considered There are so many different kinds of jewelry making beads out there today. You have so many different styles, sizes, shapes, colors, and kinds to choose from. Below are some of the basic kinds of beads there are available. In each one, there are a multitude of colors, sizes, shapes and styles. (Get ready to absolutely bead crazy!!) Available Jewelry Making Bead Types Crystal beads are probably the most sparkly jewelry making beads out there! There is nothing more mesmerizing and beautiful than jewelry made out of crystals. (Crystal beads could also fall into the category of Gemstone beads. True crystals can be fairly expensive, though, so most people go with man made crystals.) Crystal beads can range in price from very affordable, to incredibly expensive. Depending on your jewelry project, choose your crystal beads with care. The most popular type of crystal beads are Swarovski Crystals. These have beautiful sparkle and lots of different cuts. A cut on a crystal is nothing more than the shape of the bead (or crystal), itself. The facets are what make them sparkle. (The flat areas on the crystals made at different angles to help catch the light.) All crystal beads will have facets, but some will have more than others. The more facets, usually the more the cost of the bead. The more unique the cut, the more the cost of the bead. The most popular cuts of crystal jewelry making beads are probably the bicone, the round and the briolette, although they do come in many other cuts like square, tear drops, ovals, shapes, etc... The bicone is shaped a little like a three dimensional diamond: pointed on both ends and fatter in the middle. The briolette is a flattened round shape. (If you had a round ball of clay, and squeezed it between your hands so that both sides were flat, but the center was still round, you would have made a clay briolette!) These crystals also come is other styles, for use in jewelry blanks findings. They have flat or diamond backs to fit into the spaces on a blank. You would use industrial strength jewelers glue to secure these crystals into place.
There is something for the raccoon in all of us with crystal beads! Click on the following links to learn how to make the above crystal drop set. Gemstone beads are becoming more and more popular in jewelry making. Beads can be either precious or semi-precious. As these jewelry making beads become more available, the seller competition is becoming more fierce. Which means people like you and I get to buy these more often, without overwhelming our pocket books!! You can go crazy with them, though, so be careful! (These are one of my favorite type of beads to work with. The colors, look and feel of these are very elegant. Some of my favorite pieces have been made out of gemstone beads. Not to mention the healing and energy qualities that gemstones carry.) There are different grades of quality when you are talking gemstones. They are usually given a letter grade. A is the highest quality and clarity, but is also the most expensive. When I purchase gemstone beads, I usually look in the low B to C range. They are usually more affordable, and depending on the bead size and use within your project, the clarity and quality doesn’t really effect the overall finished appearance. The D range is usually the most affordable, but it is a pretty low quality. Sometimes you find that the imperfections and lack of quality are much more noticeable. I have purchased some D quality stones that I’ve not found anything I can use them for. Their color is not uniform and the imperfections so obvious it appears the stone is actually broken. My fear is that if hit or dropped just right, the stone would actually break. On the other hand, I have purchased some D quality stones that are perfectly acceptable, and look just fine to my untrained, non-jeweler, eye. Precious gemstones usually also have a man made equivalent. Not many people can afford to purchase actual precious stones. And definitely not enough of them to make a necklace, bracelet or earrings with! The precious gemstones are stones like diamonds, sapphires and rubies. The man made equivalents usually have the same color and look as the real thing, but are dyed or specially treated semi-precious stones or glass. Some of the man made precious or semi precious stones have better quality than others. The best thing to do when purchasing simulated precious stones is to either purchase from a source that you trust their product quality, or purchase from a store where you are able to handle and view the stone before you purchase it. If neither local store or trusted source is available, sometimes a small purchase, just to see what the clarity and quality of the stone, is about the only thing you can do. Do some internet searches for sources, then do some further checking into the source once you find it. It is usually quite easy to tell which sources get good or bad reviews from their customers. Find out what their return policy is. Make sure they have a policy that will allow you to return products for any reason (100% satisfaction guarantee). That way, if you find the quality is not to your liking, you can return it, and try something, or somewhere, else. Glass beads are probably THE most popular type of jewelry making beads. There are so many amazing and beautiful things they can do with glass. There are so many different types, sizes, colors, shapes, etc.. of glass beads, the choices can be really overwhelming. You can make some really incredible looking jewelry out of these beads. One downfall is the sheer volume of choice. It is hard to choose from these beads without getting completely overwhelmed. There are just so many beautiful designs available! Another downfall is weight. Glass is a little heavy, so a necklace, earrings or bracelet made only of glass beads can be heavy. This isn’t a problem if that’s what you were looking for, but if you’re going for light weight jewelry, these are not the beads for you. Lamp work beads are another form of glass jewelry making beads. These are amazingly beautiful beads. They are usually a little larger than average glass beads, but their designs are usually bolder. These beads can be ceramic, where the design has been cooked into the bead, or they can be hand painted or hand blown glass. Because most lamp work beads are hand made, they are usually more expensive, and not very uniform. There are some commercially manufactured lamp work beads out there, though. Hand blown glass beads are just another style of glass jewelry making beads. These are usually made by individual designers. These beads are usually similar in design, but rarely very uniform in size and shape. Each bead is made individually, and while the designer does try to maintain style, shape and size, it is very difficult with this type of hand made craft. Originality is part of what makes these beads so unique and beautiful. Shaped glass beads are another style of glass beads. These are the really fun ones! They come is so many different shapes and sizes. Anything from A to Z! If you can dream up a shape, animal, vehicle, toy, holiday or product of man or nature, there’s a bead out there in that shape. These beads make really interesting jewelry. Some are more delicate than others, with small parts that can easily break off, but others are very solid. These can either be hand or machine made. Machine made beads are much less expensive than hand-made. Metal jewelry making beads can add great accents and divisions in your jewelry pieces. If you are looking to break up the colors or draw the eye evenly across your piece, metal beads are a great thing to use to do this. There are tons of different finishes from silver to gold and copper to brass. You also have rough, brushed and shiny finishes, and pretty much anything in between. These beads can be combinations of cheaper metals painted to look like the real thing, or they can be the real thing. (Remember, if they are the real thing...it’s going to cost you!) Most of the metal beads you find in your local craft store are going to be combinations of the cheaper metals like tin and nickel. There are also plastic beads that are painted to look like metal beads. The downfall to these kinds of jewelry making beads are, once again, their weight. Even the replicas made out of cheap metals are still heavy. (Although some metal combinations are lighter than others.) Metal beads are also usually on the smaller size. If you are looking for larger metal beads, you will have to go with plastic or resin painted ones, or do some serious internet searching. Don’t forget, the weight of the metal bead is in direct relation to its size. The larger the bead, the more it’s going to weigh. There are so many different kinds of jewelry making beads out there. Some of them are not going to fit exactly into one category or another. 
Like spacer beads. They can be made out of just about anything. Metals, plastic, resin, woods, etc... These beads are for spacing out your more expensive beads. They are usually fairly inexpensive themselves. They are added to jewelry to give it a finished look, but save on those really expensive beads. They can be small round beads all the way to two (2”) or three (3”) tubes. Any inexpensive bead you use to save on using lots of expensive beads in your project becomes a spacer bead. Things like tube beads are another type of misc. bead. They can come in just about any type of bead, too. The distinction of this bead is shape. They are shaped like tubes, instead of a round, square or other standard “bead-like” shape. Shaped beads would be another one. These can also come in any bead style. These beads have a distinct shape, rather than just being a standard round bead. In each category I’ve tried to say whether or not those beads come in shapes, but I think shape beads need their own space, too. You can find beads in any shape you can think of, and in any bead style available, and for that reason, they end up in the misc. jewelry making beads. Beads are made out of many different products, but most of those products are man made. Natural jewelry making beads are made only from things from nature. Bone, seeds, woods, and plants are all examples of what natural beads can be made from. Wood beads are the most popular type of natural beads. Because natural beads are only made from things found in nature, their color choices are usually limited. Mostly the colors are limited to whites, creams, beiges, browns and black. The do offer color dyed natural beads, but sometimes that defeats the whole purpose of the natural bead. If you are looking for natural beads, why would you want a man made dye on it? Sometimes, they will use natural dyes to color these beads. There again, you are limited to the colors of dyes that nature provides. I use natural beads in a lot of my Native American Crafts. Click here to go to learn more about their jewelry. Paper beads are kind of fun. They used to be a really popular style of jewelry making bead, but lost some of their popularity when glass, plastic and resin beads became so readily available. With all of the neat, new kinds of papers flooding the market for scrap booking, this bead style has recently been rejuvenated. Paper beads are light weight, fun and colorful. You can get them (or make your own) in a wide variety of colors. If you can find some paper in your desired color, you can make beads in you desired color. The only downfall to paper beads is there aren’t many suppliers out there that carry them. You usually will have to make your own. Which isn’t difficult, but can be time consuming. Plastic beads are probably the least expensive of all jewelry making beads. These beads are machine made, and come in many sizes, shapes, colors and styles. These are usually fairly light-weight, but you can run across some that are a little heavier. Some of these beads look really fake and cheap, but there are those that have a higher quality and look just fine. You really just have to choose whether or not plastic beads would work with your project. These beads also come in many different shapes. Much like glass beads, you can find plastic beads in just about any shape you could imagine. They’re also available with many different types of finishes. Some of the plastic beads finished to resemble metals work great with projects where you don’t want the weight of a true metal bead, but you want the look. If you are looking for beads with larger holes in them, you will probably end up looking at plastic beads. They offer the largest selection of beads that you can use in crochet, macrame and other projects using larger cords, yarns and strings to bead with. These are really popular and inexpensive jewelry making beads. Although plastic beads are usually cheaper, resin beads can offer the same weight. Resin beads can be made to look like just about any other bead type out there. (Glass, plastic, metal, etc...) These beads come in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors and designs. Since they can imitate any other bead, the possibilities are just about endless. The only downfall to this type of bead is that sometimes they can look fake or cheap. These beads are usually machine made, but resin beads can also be hand made. A little time invested in choosing your beads, and you will easily find resin beads that are perfect for your project. Seed beads can be glass, plastic, resin or metal. Even though seed beads share many qualities, materials and characteristics with other jewelry making beads, I’m putting them in their own category due to their size. They range in size from under a millimeter, to several millimeters. They are categorized in sizes ranging from the smallest 24/0 to the largest 5/0. The most popular size is 11/0. (The sizes you are most likely to find in stores and online will range from 15/0 to 6/0) Seed beads also have many different finishes. They can be solid, opaque, or clear. They can have a lining of a different color or material surrounding the hole. They can be painted or dyed. They can be made to look like metal or glass. Your choices just go on and on with these beads. These are very different jewelry making beads. Because of their size, you don’t very often, use just these beads in a string to make your jewelry. (Unless you make a really long necklace that can be wrapped multiple times around your neck. My daughter has some of these, and they are her favorite necklaces to wear.) More often you will find these types of beads woven or sewn together to create the jewelry. Working with seed beads is an art. Wood beads can be made out of any type of wood. These are a popular type of natural jewelry making beads. They come in many different sizes, styles and shapes. Most of the time wood beads will remain in their natural finish, with just a sealer on them to make them shiny. However, they can come in all sorts of colors, too. Since wood beads are made from a natural product, adding man made dyes can sometimes defeat the purpose of these natural beads. Most wood beads are very light in weight. A lot of the wood beads you will find will be round, but there are some out there with designs carved into them. You can choose from natural, untreated finishes, sealed natural finishes, natural dye colors, and man made dye colors. Wood jewelry making beads range in price depending on the type of woods they are made from. The rarer the wood, the more expensive the bead. Sometimes wood beads can be a little difficult to find, and because they are natural, the grains of wood and look of the beads can vary. I use wood beads in a lot of my Native American Crafts. Click here to go to learn more about their jewelry. There are so many different kinds of jewelry making beads out there. This is where jewelry making gets really creative and fun! Try putting together different materials and patterns. You’ll be surprised at the beauty that is revealed! Check out other jewelry making components and findings. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Want to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Return to Jewelry Gifts
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