Posts Tagged ‘beads’
Friday, November 6th, 2009
Crystal fans — heads up!
We can all expect to see small increases in the price of CRYSTALLIZED™ – Swarovski Elements over the next few months.
Still pennies per crystal bead!
Why?
- The value of the Dollar against the Euro continues to worsen.
- Materials costs continue to rise.
- For nearly a year, Swarovski held the currency surcharge at the same level, despite the fall of the Dollar. But in late October Swarovski announced they are increasing the surcharge, thus making Crystallized Elements by Swarovski cost more for all US distributors and retailers.
The effects of the surcharge increase, plus an expected across-the-board price increase from Swarovski in early 2010, will ripple through the jewelry and bead markets as new goods arrive or as vendors implement across-the-board price changes.
Rest assured, Rings & Things plans to keep bringing you genuine Swarovski crystals at the best prices possible!
Tags: bead prices, beads, crystal prices, CRYSTALLIZED - Swarovski Elements, crystals, Swarovski, Swarovski beads, swarovski crystals, swarovski pendants
Posted in Rings & Things products, Trendspotting | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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!
Tags: beads, cinderella at midnight necklace, crystal snowflakes, Featured Bead, let it snow necklace, snowflake beads, swarovski 6704, swarovski snowflakes
Posted in Featured Bead, Rings & Things products, beads | No Comments »
Monday, July 13th, 2009
The humble but endlessly useful spacer bead comes into the spotlight this time…
4mm flower spacer beads
What would you do without these? Spacer beads are the unsung heroes of jewelry making. While other beads are the focus of attention and the center of your designs, spacers hold them in place. Spacers help make your beads and your stringing material match up in length. Flower spacers, like these, pretty up the corners just enough to maintain a certain visual feel throughout the jewelry piece.
In the understated spirit of flower spacers, I’m showing you just two examples, both in demure multi-purpose antiqued silver finish. Both are Bali-style spacers, made by the reliable TierraCast company, with holes large enough to work with most cords.
6mm flower spacers
Whatever color of metal they are, whatever size they are, and whatever pattern adorns them, we salute the flower spacers of the world! Stock up on a good selection and you’l be able to make any design inspiration come to life.
Have a favorite spacer, or a personal tip for using them? Leave a comment!
DON’T MISS OUR June-July giveaway:
* in our online store, find a fave product & review it there, then…
* …leave a comment about it at the contest article in our blog
* On August 3, five winners will receive coveted Rings & Things gift certificates!
* Enter often & see if you win!
Tags: antiqued pewter beads, bali style spacers, beads, Featured Bead, flower spacers, spacer beads, tierracast spacers
Posted in Featured Bead, Rings & Things products | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
They say the name comes from the Greek for “fingernail”. I guess our featured bead does resemble the fingernails of some Gothic types I’ve known!
It would be a grave slight if I didn’t feature black onyx beads in this space. These are a true standby for jewelry designers, with their lustrous gloss and their dark versatility. They’re available in a huge range of styles!
Black onyx beads in a round, 4 millimeter style
If you’re shopping more to stock up your bead arsenal, with no particular designs in mind yet, try black onyx rounds like the 4-millimeter jobbies shown above. By the way, that size is about 6 to the inch. The smallest rounds that you’re likely to find are 3mm (or 8 to the inch); you can get bigger sizes like 6mm, 8mm and up.
Black onyx rounds are a classic bead for certain basics, like evening jewelry or the rosary market. But they look great in higher-fashion environments too! Check out this “Blackberry Necklace” design from Rings & Things’ ever-popular Design Gallery:
The Blackberry necklace, from our Design Gallery
Don’t stop with the smooth rounds, though — faceted rounds of black onyx are some gorgeous beads! Look at how these, in the 6mm size (4 to the inch), catch the light:
Black onyx, 6mm faceted round beads
And other styles, like black onyx tube beads, have lots of promise:
4x13mm black onyx tube beads
I’ll leave you with one last inspiration. One of my favorites in the Design Gallery is the Cute Cubes Squared necklace, which uses various black onyx beads in a dazzling way:
Cute Cubes Squared
I’d love to hear about your own discoveries that you’ve made while designing with black onyx beads!
Leave them in a comment, below!
Tags: beads, black onyx beads, black onyx faceted rounds, black onyx rounds, black onyx tubes, blackberry necklace, cute cubes squared, design gallery, Featured Bead, gemstone beads, onyx beads
Posted in Featured Bead, beads | 4 Comments »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
This week’s featured bead is a huge favorite…
Coin pearls are worth their weight in money!
Coin pearls are loved for a lot of good reasons.
They go great on bracelets, since they’re pretty flat. That nacreous, mother-of-pearly surface feels nice against your skin. And these days, with the booming cultured freshwater-pearl industry, you can get a strand of coin pearls that are neatly matched in shape and size — at a great price.
Besides the luminous-colored offerings in our online store that you see sampled here, you’ll always find our latest purchases of new styles and hues if you attend our BeadTour bead shows. Make sure you’re on our mailing list to get invited!
Have a favorite way to use coin pearls in your designs? Share your inspiration in a comment below!
Tags: bead shows, beads, beads wholesale, BeadTour, buy beads, buy coin pearls, buy pearls, coin pearls, coin pearls wholesale, Featured Bead, freshwater pearls, pearl beads, pearls wholesale
Posted in Featured Bead, beads | 4 Comments »
Monday, June 1st, 2009
Because July’s birthstones are a motley crew (see the end of this post), I’m picking out just one of them to feature, since there’s so much to know about turquoise!
July's featured birthstone: turquoise
Turquoise is the modern, more often seen replacement for the traditional July “Foundation stone”, sardonyx. I’d like to start out by showing you some of the affordable genuine turquoise beads that are available. (I’ll try to show similar-sized beads to make comparison easier.)
For the highest-quality birthstone jewelry, use AA-grade turquoise (natural turquoise) like these delicate 2mm rounds:
Also excelling in their class are A- to B-grade turquoise (stabilized turquoise) beads such as these nice Kingman heishi:
Good Mexican turquoise is also sometimes available. It’s often in nugget forms, like these extra-small beads:
Another variety of genuine turquoise, which is available reasonable prices, is stabilized Chinese turquoise. To illustrate this type, let’s look at some 2-3mm rounds:
For even greater economy, and a wider color range to work with, try some other stones that are called turquoise.
There’s African turquoise (actually a kind of jasper!), like these 3×5mm tubes:
Yellow turquoise (more likely a jasper or serpentine) is a pleasingly-colored stone often imported from China, like these 4mm rounds: 
Block turquoise is manmade from plastic resins and dyes. So it’s often one of the more affordable varieties, like these low-priced 2mm rounds: 
You might also be interested in our economically-priced “turquoise” magnesite. It’s a thrifty alternative and still looks pretty, like these 4mm rounds:
Finally, consider some other stones in the turquoise family (which you can read about in our Gemstone Beads Index). There’s apple-green turquoise and lime turquoise, for example. You can often find specially purchased, special-priced strands of these and similar stones at Rings & Things’ BeadTour bead shows…another great reason to attend when we’re in your town!
Other July birthstones run the gamut: ruby (also Summer’s birthstone), synthetic corundum, emerald (for Cancer), onyx (for Leo), and topaz (St. Matthew’s stone).Thanks once again to Bruce G. Knuths’ “Jeweler’s Resource” book for all of this information!
Tags: a- to b-grade turquoise, aa-grade turquoise, african turquoise, apple-green turquoise, beads, birthstone beads, birthstones, block turquoise, chinese turquoise, composite turquoise, july birthstones, lime turquoise, mexican turquoise, natural turquoise, turquoise, turquoise beads, turquoise magnesite, yellow turquoise
Posted in birthstones | 4 Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
The original Boho!
A staple of the bead world, Czech glass beads come in so many varieties that we couldn’t easily pick one out to feature today. But we’d love to take you on a tour through the history of these great beads.
- Roman times: Beads are already being made in what’s now Bohemia (the Czech Republic).
- 900’s AD: Bohemian graves include local beads.
- 1200’s: Bohemian glass factories make many items, including beads for rosaries.
- 1550’s: A glass industry is founded in the cities of Jablonec, Stanovsko, and Bedrichov. Glass beads are made by cottage crafters for use in major jewelry factories.
- mid-1800’s: Czech “sample men” travel the world, taking notes and sketches of what kinds of beads people want. Back home, the factories make these new designs, which sell well and in turn increase the demand for beads.
- later 1800’s: Technological advances, like multi-bead molds and machines to handle some of this work, make Bohemia a center for pressed-glass beads.
- 1920’s: The Czechs are the leading bead exporters in the world.
The Czech bead industry has had its ups and downs since, due to economic conditions, wars, and politics, but Czech glass beads remain one of the most important elements in the jewelry-maker’s tool kit.
What’s special about the way the classic Czech beads are made? It’s all about the contrast with older bead-making techniques. Previously, beads had been made by winding hot glass around a form, or blowing it (either into a mold or freehand). The Bohemian innovation, around 1860, was to place hot glass into a mold,which was sometimes built into a pair of tongs. The molded glass was then pierced by a rod, slowly cooled, then had the mold “seams” ground off to leave a smooth bead.
Unlike the older techniques, molding or “pressing” was easy to automate, which meant production could increase to meet significant demand and maintain high quality. A less obvious benefit of the pressing technique is that holes for stringing can be put in the beads at any angle imaginable. Even multiple holes are possible. The reason why this only became possible with molded beads is that these are pierced only after being formed — previously, beads were formed around a rod, in effect predetermining where the hole would be located.
Today, Czech glass beads are available in a multitude of forms from the basic to the fanciful. Firepolish beads, one of the earliest imitations of crystal, are beloved for their heat-smoothed faceting. “Fancy” Czech beads range from flower spacers to glass bead caps to faux turquoise, and from leaf-shaped drops to skulls to ladybugs.
Sources:
Suggested further reading:
Want to suggest a featured bead? Leave a comment!
May giveaway:
* You enter by leaving comments this month
* At the end of May, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly, to enter a lot & to see if you won!
Tags: bead, beads, bohemian beads, bohemian glass beads, czech beads, czech firepolish, czech glass beads, Featured Bead, fire polish beads, fire polished beads, firepolish, firepolish beads
Posted in Featured Bead | 4 Comments »
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
Thanks to a number of kind people who talked about Rings & Things in the last week…
Bead Origami has already made some splendid beaded beads she shows in her blog, that use amethyst just bought at our trunk show.
In other tour-related blogging, KJ at the Silver Parrot tantalized us with a promise to show off her discoveries at our latest bead show. AJ at Erthefae managed a mini-vacation to our BeadTour show and to the Bead Museum in Arizona…lucky! SoftFlex Girl Sara also managed to visit us at the Phoenix show, and blogged about it.
Heather at Humblebeads paired some Rings & Things brown lava beads with some cool, lustrous-toned beads and a striking handmade wing pendant in her Earth Angel necklace.
Heather also posted a nice-looking “Luna Flor” (Moon Flower) bracelet design at the Art Bead Scene blog. Dawno at Dawno’s Beaded Badge Lanyards devoted one day’s post to interviewing me. I’m humbled… She also wrote up an informative review of Rings & Things’ black rattail cord!
Tish over at JustATish wrote up a nice project using some of our hammered-oval gunmetal chain for a necklace and matching earrings!
Margot Potter put up a fun design of her own, the Peekaboo mixed-media necklace, at her Impatient Crafter blog.
A discussion over at Etsy about “what free gift do you include in your sent-out orders?” mentioned our candy in a positive light. The conversation generated a huge amount of response, by the way, and is really worth reading to get your marketing gears turning.
Thanks so much to everyone who found us worth talking about this week!
May giveaway:
* You enter by leaving comments this month
* At the end of May, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly, to enter a lot & to see if you won!
Tags: As seen in, bead origami, bead shows, beads, BeadTour, brown lava beads, Dawno, erthefae, gunmetal chain, hammered oval chain, humblebeads, impatient crafter, justatish, lava beads, margot potter, Rings & Things bead shows, silver parrot, softflexgirl, thanks
Posted in As seen in | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
The featured bead this week is the CRYSTALLIZED™ – Swarovski Elements #6906 orchid pendant. Here’s why:
The crystal orchid pendant is lovely to start with. But you can get more for your money, and so can your customers, if you multi-purpose this bead into fashionable steampunk designs.
Given the steampunk affection for making things industrial look pretty, how about a crystal propeller?
This pendant comes in various colors, so blend it into an overall color “blueprint” in your designs. For starters, we’ve thought of using these on leather cuffs from Tafuri Tough. Here’s a similar idea recently made by Cindy Gimbrone using glass beads:
Steampunk "Deconstructed watch" / propellers pendant by Cindy Gimbrone
This is a good illustration of how you can add in some cogs, maybe some wire, watch parts…the sky’s the limit for propeller beads!
Do you have a steampunk inspiration? Lots of components can be re-purposed to use in this style. Share your ideas in a comment!
May giveaway:
* You enter by leaving comments this month
* At the end of May, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly, to enter a lot & to see if you won!
Tags: beads, crystal orchid pendants, Featured Bead, multipurposing, propeller beads, steampunk
Posted in Featured Bead, beads, multipurposing | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
A showroom customer asked about the price of amethyst, particularly the “A” grade amethyst we carry. We had not noticed the recent price of this, so we asked our supplier who specializes in amethyst.
A-grade amethyst beads from Rings & Things...an investment?
She told us,
“Yes, Amethyst rough has kept increasing for the last two-three years. For the same price, we won’t be able to get the same quality rough. Since last year, I notice vendors in [market shops] are now selling the “A” grade amethyst by grams, just like peridot and aqua.”
So take a tip:
FYI for all birthstone / purple lovers. Don’t wait till you’re old to get hold of genuine amethyst beads, if they’re your thing!
Have more insider gemstone tips? You can share them with enthusiastic readers right here, in a comment!
May giveaway:
* You enter by leaving comments this month
* At the end of May, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly, to enter a lot & to see if you won!
Tags: a grade amethyst, amethyst, amethyst beads, aquamarine beads, artificial amethyst, beads, birthstone beads, craft business tips, gemstone beads, Grow Your Craft Business, Grow Your Jewelry Business, lab grown amethyst, manmade amethyst, peridot beads, semiprecious beads
Posted in Grow your business, Trendspotting | 8 Comments »