Beads and Jewellery Making

  Each month we will be setting ourselves a ‘Beat the High Street’ challenge.  The challenge will be to select jewellery from popular high street stores and make our own version for less. It’s a little known fact that making your own jewellery can be much cheaper than buying from big high street stores. Little independent stores such as ourselves will never be as cheap as Primark, but we can guarantee your designs will be unique, higher quality and still affordable.  The necklace we made has plenty of metal spikes,... Read More

As usual, this year’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations were unrestrained and raucous, with hundreds of celebrations taking place all over the world. The Chicago River was dyed the distinctive shade of green that has made  it world famous and, closer to home, Manchester’s Irish Festival maintained its position as the biggest Irish festival in Europe; this year’s 17 day event was attended by over 200,000 people.   The bright greens of St. Patrick’s Day are also making frequent appearances in this year’s design trends. Pantone are a paint brand who... Read More

London Fashion Week is always a highlight in the fashion calendar, and this year was no exception. With classic houses showcasing their work alongside fresh young designers, there were hundreds of cutting edge new looks in jewellery, accessories and ready-to-wear clothing. To help you discover the best looks of the week, we’ve picked five of this year’s key trends and assembled a handy guide to help you introduce haute looks to your everyday accessorising. We’ll be looking at a few different designers over the coming months, so if you have... Read More

This week’s jewellery kit is our Copper Love Heart bracelet and earrings set designed by Fran. The antique copper plated set showcases earthy tones and features Indian glass beads, Swarovski Crystals, Czech faceted glass beads and charms. Here’s how you make it! For the bracelet, place a gold Czech bead onto a headpin and make a loop. Repeat so you have three in total, then open the loops and attach one to each of the heart and key charms. Place a Swarovski bead and a gold Czech bead on a... Read More

It’s that time of year again and love really is in the air at The Bead Shop!  We wanted to show you some romantic jewellery ideas and whether you love or loathe Valentine’s Day, we’ve got some gorgeous themed jewellery kits that are sure to put a smile on any face. People like to celebrate Valentine’s Day and express their love in many different ways. The more traditional among us write a heartfelt card or say “I love you” with flowers, others go out for a romantic meal for two... Read More

Bead Shop customer Tracy has been busy making some fabulous new jewellery pieces with the prize she received as a result of winning our Facebook competition.  The self-confessed bead addict couldn’t wait to get started when her prize arrived in the post a couple of weeks ago! Tracy has made a bracelet, ring and a pair of earrings from her prize that form a collection entitled “Dark ‘n’ Dirty Angels.” Using a selection of our Miyuki seed beads and glass pearl beads combined with her creative genius and skill, Tracy was able to create the stunning pieces... Read More

We are always really excited when new Swarovski products arrive at The Bead Shop HQ, and when these cute little Swarovski Key Pendants arrived they was no exception. We’ve had them in Crystal and Crystal AB for about a week and we’ve just got our hands on these brand new colours. The keys are now available in Blue Shade, a lovely wintery pale blue, silver night, a very stylish metallic silver, Indian Blue, gorgeous translucent grey/blue, Crystal Copper, very striking copper/orange with a green look in certain lights and Bronze... Read More

It’s always useful to see what other people are doing in the world of fashion, beads and jewellery, so earlier this month The Bead Shop hit the road and took a little trip to London.  With such an eclectic mix of people, London is always a fantastic source of inspiration. In true laid back Bead Shop style, we started our day with coffee and cakes in Covent Garden. There was a surprising lack of jewellery stalls in this area so we decided to head towards Marylebone in search of a... Read More

Everyone at the Bead Shop was really excited when we ordered the book Creating Glamorous Jewellery with Swarovski Elements: Classic Hollywood Designs with Crystal Beads and Stones by Jean Campbell, and when it arrived in the office it caused quite a stir. This amazing book contains lots of designs that recreate some of Hollywood’s most famous pieces of Jewellery as worn by the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, and we just had to have a go. This stunning Violet Opal Necklace is based on... Read More