My 5 favorite new things that’re great for the holidays:
1:
Penguin Santa brings beads & things...
2:
...like these, to customize the stockings...
3:
...and stuff...
4:
...while all through the house...
5:
...not a creature is stirring, except these stirring crystal fish!
Happy holiday bead shopping, everyone!
A.k.a. “Shellies”…
...maximize the shine per penny...
…with shell pearls…
...perfectly round every time!
I’ve challenged myself – - write 5 great things about shell pearls – - in 25 words or less 
Does my nerdy enthusiasm for shell pearls shine through? I hope so! Get ‘em in lots of colors & sizes from…well, you know where
This week’s featured beads, just in time for the holiday season, are crystal snowflakes.
Bright stuff coming down!
These crystal pendants are the classic Swarovski #6704 style, perennially popular for the way they gently glisten.
Make your list now, and check it twice! You have enough time to stock up some great styles for Christmas and Hanukkah shoppers.
Like real snowflakes, these come in many forms. Sizes are 20mm, 25mm, 30mm and 35mm — in other words, from nearly an inch to an inch-and-a-half. Choose from “pure” crystal, crystal AB (aurora borealis coating), and crystal/moonlight (also coated).
Crystal snowflakes fit for a princess
PS: You can also get new snowflake beads in raku, as well as other styles. Merry browsing!
Rings & Things has added a bunch of Christmas lampwork beads this year…so that’s the featured bead this week.
For jolly happy souls!
Add goofy grins to the festivities with the snowman-head beads above — or with the fun snowmen, Xmas trees and Santa beads below!
Making spirits bright...and helping mittened fingers zip jackets!
(There’s also a really fun bubble wand in our Design Gallery, featuring these same three beads.)
Besides these designs, check out such festive baubles as lampwork Christmas stockings…
Stocking stuff!
…and many more!
Have holiday plans involing beads? Share the inspiration here!
Spend enough time around beads, and you’ll hear people tossing the phrase ‘trade beads’ around.
What would you trade to have these...?
But what are trade beads (or ‘tradebeads’)? Rings & Things often gets asked this question. I got our bead-loving founder, Russ Nobbs, to talk a little about this…
Q: What are trade beads?
Russ: Generally the term ‘trade bead’ refers to the kinds of beads collected and sold in Africa. In the public perception this includes
So, it’s a catch-all name for what could be called “African beads just because they are found today in African sources.”
Q: What do trade beads have to do with trading?
Russ: When asked if trade beads were really traded, well-known bead researcher Jamey Allen said, “My definition merely says that ‘trade’ beads are ‘beads that were made for exchange purposes, not for use purposes.’ Not all old beads are ‘trade’ beads.”
Very few of the ‘trade beads’ on the market today are truly ‘trade’ beads, in that they were made to sell as commodities. Beads made for the slave and gold trade are from an earlier era than most of what are called “trade beads” on sale today.
Q: What are some major kinds of trade beads that people might enjoy checking out?
Russ: At Rings & Things we tend to describe this category as “African and Trade Beads.” This includes Indian stone and European glass beads made in the 18th, 19th and early 20th century. It also includes the powder-glass beads made currently in Ghana and lost-wax cast metal beads from Ghana and Ivory Coast. These were made in the last century and production continues today.
Thanks to Russ for sharing some thoughts about this. Have another question for our resident bead expert? Ask here!
In which we yank the shroud aside…
Introducing “Search by Color” for crystal beads in our CRYSTALLIZED™ -
Swarovski Elements section! Thanks to Melissa for a ton of hard work to make this happen. (Maybe I should say a gross of hard work…uh…)
Now you’re just a click away from seeing every single crystal bead color that we have, laid out in an attractive table. As you can see, similar colors are grouped together — which makes it easy to build on a color theme, or find a substitute for a color you can’t get.
Let us know how you use “searching by color” in your crystal shopping…
Get to know a multi-faceted, many-faced bead!
The telling of the beads
Reddish-brown rudraksha or rudraksh beads are the seed of the fruit of the rudraksha tree, from India. (This tree, genus Elaeocarpus, also grows in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, some Pacific Islands and Australia.)
Numbers are often mentioned in connection with these beads. Rudraksha beads commonly have 5 mukhs or mukhis (faces of the bead), but you’ll find various numbers of faces on them. There are 108 beads per strand traditionally in a Hindu mala or prayer garland. Malas are used like rosaries in meditative prayer, as well as in traditional Indian medicine.
Go ahead, stare 'em in the face
Rudraksha beads show a great deal of versatility. Because they’re a natural material, they work extremely well with your more organic designs. Because they’re exotic here in North America, they lend a funky, ethnic flair to jewelry. And because of their texture, rudrakshas can pair up in interesting ways with the more unusual beads, like lava, wood or nut beads.
Ever handled rudraksh beads? How would you describe them in 25 words or less? Leave a comment!
Citrine: the November stone
A great thing about citrine is that you’ve got options, options, options. Both the natural stuff and geometrically perfect lab-grown citrine are available, and each has its charms.
Shapes you can only find in natural citrine — small but rugged chip beads:
Bring chips to the birthday party!
Citrine that’s manufactured by humans is much more regular in shape:
Extra-faceted for extra shine: manmade citrine
With artifice comes pizzazz–dig this jazz:
A dash of lime-green quartz!
You’re not dreaming, there are lots of ways to do your citrine-ing! Look what you can do with a megadose of “vitamin C”:
Several milligrams of citrine beads...
Riff on the theme, drop a comment below!
What’s true of clothing is true of beads: basic black never goes out of style.
With jewelry making, “basic” means black glass beads. I want to show you 5 reasons why everyone loves black beads…
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Roll with these!
#1: roller beads
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Cry fire in a crowded jewelry shop, so you can buy up all of these
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Not a UFO, but doubles as a neato spacer
#3: disk beads
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The basic-est of the basics
#4: rounds
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Beadie babies?
#5: E beads
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You know we have scads more black beads. I challenge you to take 10 minutes to search our site for “black beads”, come back here, and post a comment on your favorite new find!
Where we check into possible birthstone plans for the upcoming month…
A great design you can make with tourmaline beads...
Tourmaline beads, the birthstone of choice for October, show some appropriately magical properties. Did you know that if you rub this stone, it generates a charge that attracts small objects like bits of paper or strands of hair? (I couldn’t find an image of this. Bummer. Please submit one if you’ve got one.)
True to its name (which originally meant “stone of mixed colors”), tourmaline is found in a very pretty palette of blue, yellow, pink, red, black, green and clear stones. Here are most of those colors in a strand that we sell:
Rings & Things also sells strands of the nice black tourmaline alone:
Here’s a great idea for using black tourmaline in a rosary:
David's Rosary uses the black tourmaline beads
And don’t forget tourmalated quartz. These beads technically include tourmaline, so they add to your options for “October babies”:
You’ll find lots more neat background reading at our Gemstone Index ‘tourmaline’ entry! And this is the time of year when you can come to our BeadTour bead shows to look for great new tourmaline, tourmalated quartz and many more gemstone beads not found in our catalog!