Beading Reading

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

The holiday season is a wonderful time to slow down, get organized, and most importantly – catch up on some leisurely reading! Reading a sci-fi thriller or a romance novel can be fun, but we suggest you to take this extra time to read up about your work and/or hobby.  Whether you are new to working with beads or a jewelry making professional, you will benefit from staying up-to-date on the latest industry news.  Reading about your craft can provide you with tips to make your work more efficient, and may even inspire your next big jewelry making project.

There are a number of diffeBeadwork Magazine Coverrent sources that you could go to in order to learn more about beading and the jewelry making industry. However, one of the greatest resources that you might consider is  magazines. There are a lot of advantages to reading industry magazines. Once you are familiar with them, you might consider a subscription and incorporating them into your schedule. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on the latest beading happenings!

To help you get started in your search for resources, we have put together a list of several magazines we find beneficial to those interested in beading and jewelry making.

Bead & Button Magazine offers a variety of beautiful jewelry projects for every skill level. This is a good resource for those of you who love stringing, bead weaving, wirework, polymer clay, bead crochet, and other unique jewelry-making techniques. This magazine is published 6 times a year, and has some really useful online components as well, including: tutorials, videos, blogs, forums, and newsletters.

Stringing Magazine provides stylish and intriguing jewelry designs for the fashion conscious beader. Creative inspiration for fashion jewelry, and  beading your own earrings, bracelets and necklaces. This magazine is published 4 times a year.

Bead Unique Magazine showcases how beads can accent every aspect of life. Each includes projects with easy-to-follow step-by-step photos and well written instruction, as well as an explanation of the creative inspiration behind the featured beadwork. There is lots of useful information about working with crystal beads and glass beads. There are also many member exclusive online resources. This magazine is published 6 times a year.

Art Jewelry Magazine presents today’s most unique and distinctive jewelry, along with concise step-by-step how-to instructions. This magazine has a strong focus on education. It also showcases a wide variety of materials including wire, metal, metal clay, gemstones, and other media. Subscriptions are available for 6, 12, and 18 months.

We hope these suggestions help you get started in your quest for reading material to match your interests. When you find something you like, sit back,  have a cup of hot chocolate, and savor the free time the holiday season has allowed you by enjoying some good beading reading. Don’t forget, most magazines let you purchase gift subscriptions. So, if you know someone with an interest in any of these topics, a magazine subscription makes a great holiday gift!

Brazos Collection in China II: The Empire of beads strikes back

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Welcome to part II of our blog series. If you haven’t read the first part, A New Hope, go do it now!

Having seen the town and structures, the adventure moved forward to beads and other fashion jewelry components. As it turns out, the two countries aren’t that different after all. They still have a core foundation of beading and fashion jewelry makers who live for all sorts of beads, stones, pendants, and other jewelry components. In fact, the similarities started to become noticeable in other aspects of the trip. We even saw a Chinese Papa John’s and McDonalds, complete with Chinese Big Macs!

As the trip progressed, we started noticing some of the weirder, different things that we hadn’t really seen before. Check out some of food and sights that really caught our eye…






We saw some huge beads that were as big as our hands, and some large natural stones that stood up to the torso! We encountered more of the piles upon piles of wholesale beads in countless bags. It almost looked like you could swim in them, hah!




Even though we did see a lot of interesting new sights in China, we still think that there is more in common with the two countries than most people realize. Regardless of the differences, we can appreciate that we share a common interest in expressing the beauty of our surroundings and releasing the creative visions via crafting jewelry and beading. At the end of the day, we all just want to whip out our beading supplies and tools and pour ourselves into the craft, whether we’re making ornate necklaces out of cracked glass beads, or just a simple piece from some jade beads. Beaders of the world, assemble! Thanks for checking out our post, and if you like it, feel free to leave us a nice comment!

Our last installment in our Brazos in China series will be coming soon, complete with even more pictures and videos. Next time, we’ll be focusing on the people we encountered and some of the finished and stringed bead pieces that we found. Until then, have a great day and don’t forget to sign up for the free beading classes this Saturday before the spots fill up.

Brazos Online Beading Class: Necklaces

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

In our last lesson we learned how to make earrings. Today we are going to teach you how to make a beaded necklace to match.

Handmade jewelry is a great Mother’s Day present. Hopefully by following our tutorials you can get a head start on your Mothers Day shopping.

Follow the instructions in the video below to learn how to make your own bead necklace.


CLICK HERE to Download this lesson in PDF format.

Get your business buzzing! How to bead out the competition.

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Every business has to have some sort of marketing strategy.  But when you think of marketing events, what usually comes to mind?  Most likely something to do with coffee shops, leaflets, and emails.

Here’s some food for thought: coffee shops smell of burnt beans, leaflets are trash can fodder, and the natural habitat of the email is a spam folder.

It’s time to kick it up a notch with some beading!  Few people can resist the natural allure of shiny, beautiful glass beads and other such components of fashion jewelry, so why not use it to your advantage?  That’s right, we’re talking about bringing beading to your next marketing event.

Of course, this all depends on your type of business and whether or not you think that it will fit your business aesthetic and model, but if you think a beading event might be right for your business, here are some ideas of what you can do to highlight your business.

Let’s say you work as a web designer and you have a booth or a table setup at a conference or exposition.  You can have a little session of a simple beading exercise while you talk about your services!  It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, and it can tie in with your business.  Perhaps a bracelet made of cracked glass beads colored with your business colors.  You can have your crowd follow along with you while you create your item.

You can even have it as something more functional, like a bookmark!  This way, the person is creatively involved while you tie in your services with the jewelry (or whatever else) that you’re making.  If you’re good, you can get some pendants and put your business name on it.  The purpose is having something that people can take away and associate with your business while they use it (hopefully) in their everyday activities.  The next time they need a web designer, they’ll be sure to call you!

You get the idea!  If you’re in a creative industry, you could also make something yourself while people looked on.  Imagine the crowd you could generate by skillfully looping wires through gorgeous tiger eye and semi precious beads instead of just waving paper at people.

Don’t know how to bead?  Come check out one of our free beading and jewelry making classes!  At Brazos Collection, we know that beads are more about just jewelry. It’s about expression, and we’d love to help you out.  Who would of thought you could bolster your business with beads!

Brazos Online Beading Class: Earrings

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Today we are going to focus on teaching you to make a custom earrings using beads you bought from Brazos.  After all, the more you know the more you can make yourself.  Follow the instructions in the video below to learn how to make your own bead earrings.


What you will need:

  • 2 Frenchwires
  • 2 Headpins
  • 4 Spacers
  • Beads that you want to use for the earrings
  • Round Nose Pliers
  • Scissors or Wire Cutters
  • Needle Nose Pliers

CLICK HERE to Download this lesson in PDF format.

Wholesale beads for you and for me.

Friday, March 19th, 2010

As you might already know, Brazos Collection began buying directly from China in 2007, and we have been importing the highest caliber of quality beads, components, and all types of fashion jewelry ever since, receiving around 6 shipments of 600 boxes every year in addition to other smaller shipments all year long.

That’s right, wholesale isn’t just for Costco and Sam’s Club, but for fashion jewelry makers and bead enthusiasts everywhere! (You don’t even need a membership with us!)

Why is this important? Not only do we prides ourselves in that our goods are of the highest quality, but we like to pass on the savings to our customers. We’ve scoured the world for only best, and we’ve done our homework enough so that we can offer our customers the absolute lowest prices for beads and other fashion jewelry components.

Our business savvy ways in the world of beads enable us to offer great prices on such products as: crystal beads, glass beads, natural stones, tiger eye beads, cracked glass beads, clay beads, jade beads, mother of pearl beads, miscellaneous fashion jewelry components, and any other beads or stones for jewelry that you can think of.

As you can tell, Brazos Collection beads are very well traveled. From the land of China, all the way into the heart of Texas. Don’t you think these beautiful beads deserve a home? Close to your heart? Possible… dangling from around your neck? We think you get the idea.

Just look around our store and see what kind of exciting new beads and fashion jewelry components that we’ve wrangled up from China all the way into the Lone Start State! Because when you buy from Brazos Collection, you’re not only getting the highest quality beads around, but you’re also getting the best prices.

Beading is for everyone!

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

What do you think when you think of beading? What do you think other people think of beading?

You know how to make jewelry. Or maybe you don’t and that’s why you’re visiting our website. Either way, you have an interest in fashion jewelry so it might be a little difficult to imagine how other people perceive beading. Heck, they might not even know what beading means! We think its about time people dropped preconceived notions about what beading is and take a look at some practical applications for hobby jewelry making.

Beading for Kids:

The average attention span of children has dwindled over the years, and parents have been struggling to keep up with ways to keep them busy ever since. What about beading? Introducing your children to hobby jewelry making at younger ages can help stimulate creative thought and give them a start on developing the types of thought processes that will help them in school and higher levels of learning.

Not only that, but surrounding a child with glass and crystal beads of all sorts of beautiful colors might actually calm them down enough for mom and take to take a quick breather!

Beading for Adolescents:

So you have a cranky teenager who listens to loud music in their room all day and only ventures into the world to surprise you with inflated phone bills, right? It’s okay, we’ve all been there. How can beading help? Why not make it a bonding activity! Teenagers are all about self-expression, so if you frame the activity in a creative context, they might just take to it! Beading with an adolescent might be an interesting experience… but let me ask you this: Would you rather them adorn themselves with homemade fashion jewelry made of the most beautiful semi-precious stones and crystal beads? Or would you rather them surprise you with an impromptu tattoo? Not only are you bonding with your kids, you’re keeping them out of trouble!

Beading for Adults:

Aside from loving beads and fashion jewelry, adults also love things like accomplishment, money, and the ability to afford food. Why not combine them all? This business started as a sandwich shop and antique store, but we were able to fold in all the things that we loved into what is now the Brazos Collection you see today. If you truly have a deep love for beading and making homemade jewelry, why not try to sell your art? Sure, not everybody can pay the rent with a hobby, but you never know until you try. Plus, you can save yourself some money by making your own designer jewelery! (Hey, you designed it, so you’re a jewelry designer, right?)

Beading for the Elderly:

When you get older, staying active mentally and creatively is a necessity to keeping your mind sharp. Creating your personal jewelry designs and finding new ways to arrange glass beads and semi-precious stones can help boost your mental activity and give you something to do in between visits to relatives and fishing trips. You can also make all your family members unique and creative gifts made from high quality beads that they’ll be sure to love!

No matter how old you are, you’re never to old to explore the world of jewelry making. Beading and making jewelry is not only a means of expressing your artistic thoughts to the world, but it can have practically fulfilling uses too.