Spring To Summer Beads & Pearl For June

1st June 2024

See us Saturday 8th June at the Kent Bead Fair, Farringham Village Hall, High Street, Farningham DA4 0DE.  Free entry & refreshments. Only 5-minutes from M25 J3 or M20 J1 – very easy from South East London.

See our latest semi precious beads just imported, along with seed beads & findings by Southampton Bead Shop.

MrBead Shop: https://mrbeadshop.com. For bead fairs booked so far click Bead Fairs 2024.

Content:
Cheshire Bead Fair
Spring To Summer Beads
Summer Beads
Summer Bead Fairs
Cornish Bead Fair Report
Secrets Of Pearls – For June Jewellery
2024 Bead Fairs
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15% Off All From MrBead
Enjoy 15% off anything with no minimum order. Shipping is free too on UK orders over £35. International shipping from £7.

Can only be used at the NEW shop & not with any other coupon. To get the discount Key KENT at checkout now, as offer ends Friday 7th June. Use at https://mrbeadshop.com.

Cheshire Bead Fair

See at at the new Cheshire Bead Fair, Sunday 16th June, Goodwill Hall, Faddiley CW5 8HY. Semi precious by MrBead, crystal beads & finding from Southampton Bead Shop, plus the Make It Company & Beading Amazing. Everything for the home jewellery maker.

Changing Spring To Summer Beads

Summer in the UK, begins 20th June. As the season shifts from spring to summer, jewellery trends undergo a metamorphosis – mirroring the landscape of nature. While temperature rises and days grow longer, designs become bolder. Vibrant colours, and dynamic textures.

Transitional Jewellery
Bridge the gap between seasons with versatile pieces that seamlessly complement a variety of looks – and convertible jewellery that can be worn in multiple ways. Necklaces with detachable pendants, earrings that transform from studs to drops, and bracelets that double as anklets.

Delicate floral motifs of spring transform into bold tropical designs reflecting the spirit of summer. Jewellery with nature-inspired elements, seamlessly transition between the seasons, capturing the essence of both.

Layered jewellery remains a timeless trend. Mix delicate chains with bolder statement pieces, adding depth and dimension to any look.

Summer Boldness
Use bold, eye-catching designs demanding attention. Chunky bracelets, oversized earrings, and statement necklaces – adorned with tropical motifs, shells, or bright enamel beads.

Vibrant hues inspired by the sun, sea, and lush landscape. Turquoise, coral, and citrine – infusing energy and warmth. Texture’s important too. Try mixing materials like woven straw, raffia, and beaded accents to create beachside bliss and laid-back elegance.

Summer Beads

Bright colourful bold colours are for summer jewellery. Take a look at our calsilca beads – every one is different.

To See What We Stock Click: Summer Beads
For Bold Bright Beads Click Calsilica Beads
For Starfish Beads Click Fishy Beads
See Also Citrine Beads & Amber Beads

Summer Bead Fairs

June is a busy month for bead fairs. Shows are great fun! Plan your visit by walking round looking before buying, and take a trolley, as beads get heavy. Bring some cash, in case of a weak signal for card payments.

Talk to the vendors and other visitors to inspire new design ideas. Make a note of what you paid for beads, and keep exhibitors’ business cards and leaflets.

For the shows booked so far, click: 2024 Bead Fairs

Cornish Bead Fair Report

We all love it in Cornwall. So after the New Forest show, we stayed a few days before Probus. The show was very busy for the first 3-hours, then slowed down. However, good attendance and good sales. We’ll be back in Cornwall at Wadebridge on Saturday 31st August For details click: Cornish Bead Fair.

The Secrets Of Pearls – For June Jewellery

The pearl is the queen of gems and the gem of queens

To make quality, impressive jewellery that’s appreciated, go for pearls. Everyone loves pearls. They’re versatile and always look good. Pearls are expected to be expensive as they’re usually natural and in short supply. Prices have gone up 400% over the past 4-years – so don’t sell your pearl jewellery cheap!

However, since the 1950s, natural pearls have been cultivated by man – making them more affordable. More profit for the jewellery maker! Cultural freshwater pearls are not inferior to sea pearls.

They form in mussels for the same reason. Farmers’ slit the mussel and insert small pieces of tissue from another mussel. To reduce irritation, the mollusk coats the intruder with nacre it uses for shell-building.

Pearl Jewellery Sells!

Pearls are expected to be expensive and in short supply

Pearl jewellery sells because people understand pearls are natural. However, since the 1950s, natural pearls have been cultivated by man – making them much cheaper to buy. This means that including them in jewellery, you will make you even more profit!

What are Cultured Pearls?
Cultural pearls are more durable and less sensitive to environmental change than sea pearls. Cultured freshwater pearls occur in mussels for the same reason saltwater pearls occur in oysters. The least expensive cultured pearls today rival the most expensive natural pearls ever found.

Foreign material inside a mussel can’t be expelled. To reduce irritation, the mollusk coats the intruder with the same secretion it uses for shell-building, nacre. To cultivate a pearl, farmers slit the mussel and insert small pieces of live tissue from another mussel.

The ancient Chinese practiced this technique, but the first real cultured freshwater pearls originated from Japan in the 1930’s. Japanese farmers by Lake Biwa achieved natural colours previously unseen in saltwater pearls.

The most desirable colours are pastel pinks, roses, lavenders, and purples. Natural colour take the colour of the shell in which they form. However, permanent dyes are used today for saturated colours.

The Best Pearls
Good pearls have thick overlapping layers of nacre. This can be tested by viewing its “lustre”. Roll the pearl with a pen in bright light – the best pearls will reflect the pen more.

A large pearl is only more valuable if it’s the same quality as a smaller one – the rounder the better. Being an organic gem, grooves, pits, or dents are expected.

What is Mother-of-Pearl?
The shining, playful, reflected light of mother-of-pearl has attracted attention since ancient times. The natural material has always been popular.

From then, different technology has turned mother-of-pearl into many uses, apart from jewellery. Today, it’s dyed every colour under the sun – creating attractive jewellery at affordable prices.

The mollusk forms mother-of-pearl as a protective shell. Like the pearl it’s a secretion of the mantle, composed of alternate layers of calcium carbonate and conchiolin.

See our Mother of Pearl Beads

Glass Pearls
These are coated glass to look like the best quality pearls. Any pearl that’s a perfect round shape without grooving, will either cost thousands or made of glass! However, glass pearls are fantastic value for money and are popular for affordable fashion jewellery. To see our colourful range of glass pearls at under £1.25 a string, click here.

Matching Pearls
Matching pearls isn’t easy. Try to buy all the pearls for a project at the same time, as later batches may not match. When balancing pearls for jewellery, you need to consider:

• How the pearls blend together in colour, shape, lustre, size and surface perfection.
• How smooth the size increase is of pearls in graduated strands.
• If a necklace is part of a set, all of its pearls on earrings, bracelets or whatever, must match. However, don’t put too much attention perfectly matching against other factors.

See All Our Pears At: Pearl Beads

KNOTTING A PEARL NECKLACE

You’ll see tiny knots in between each pearl on a good necklace. This prevents the pearls rubbing against each other – and if the necklace breaks, beads won’t fly. Knotting also makes the necklace drape nicely and adds length so you need less pearls.

Pearls should be restrung every few years, depending on wear and exposure to hair spray, perfume, body oils, lotions, moisture, and perspiration. This weakens the silk and cause a potential break point for the strand.

There’s a few ways to knot a beaded necklace, but this is the easiest. First choose your cord: either silk or nylon. Silk is traditional, however it can snag and fray.  Both come in different colours and sizes – thicker cord for larger beads. For beginner’s technique, two strings are put through each bead, so use a thinner size. For 6mm beads, use size 2 for this technique, and try to match the colour of the cord with the colour of the beads.

A popular way to start any beaded necklace is with bead tips. The only difference here is that two strings of the cord are inserted through the bead tip instead of one. This is easier than using one strand of cord, and the results look almost the same.

• Once the necklace is started, string on a bead, and make an over hand knot.
• Make the knot tight so it’s snug up against the bead.
• Continue to do this: string a bead, make an over hand knot, string a bead, make an over hand knot.
• Finish the necklace as you would any beaded necklace whether it’s knotted or not.

HOW TO TELL REAL FROM FAKE PEARLS

You can identify fake pearls by what they’re called: simulated, faux, glass, plastic, resin, artificial, manmade. Genuine pearls are called natural, cultured, freshwater, or sea.

Real pearls can be either freshwater or saltwater, and it’s very difficult to tell which. There’s also shell pearls and genuine pearls which have been artificially coated or dyed.

Professional Testing
If you want to buy expensive pearls that are perfectly matched, a gemmologist certificate is essential. It costs about £100 for a test, as opposed to thousands for the type that warrant the test. An x-ray will show variations in density inside of the pearl and the characteristic shapes of drill holes.

The Tooth Test
Rub the surface of the pearl over your teeth – a real pearl feels gritty, while a faux pearl feels smooth. Real pearls are made up of layers of nacre that are deposited like sand on a beach. The slight waves in the nacre give a bumpy feeling against the teeth. However, dye can fill in natural depressions.

Close Inspection
Look at the pearls in bright light. Unless they’re very expensive, genuine pearls have slight variations in shape, size and colour – along with grooves in their nacre, with ridges or pits. If any are perfect sphere or grainy smooth: they’re suspect. Cutting a pearl open reveals everything. Natural pearls are comprised of many layers of nacre. Cultured pearls have a mother-of-pearl shell core covered with a thin layer of nacre.

Pearl Holes
Examine drill holes to see the nacre layers and what lies beneath. Real pearls are usually drilled from both sides to meet in the middle – making the hole appear wider at the outside edges. Holes of fake pearls are usually strait and are more likely to be larger.

Other Clues

Real pearls are heavier for their size than fakes. A genuine pearl necklace is more likely to be knotted and set in gold or silver. You can examine clasps for stamps in the metal. The clasp should have a safety mechanism – no one would use insecure clasps on good pearls.

Faux Pearls
Faux pearls, although manmade, are not necessarily a cheap substitute to the real thing. They have genuine beauty of their own, looking “almost” the same as natural pearls costing thousands. They’re created by coating the outside of glass with pearl powder. This is then dipped into various solutions of pearl film to simulate the lustre of a natural pearl.

Pearl Care
Special care is needed for pearls. Since they are naturally porous, ensure they don’t absorb cologne or hair spray. Although oils from your skin help keep the pearls from drying out. Pearl jewellery is often in a felt pouch – keep the pearls in this to prevent scratches. To clean pearls, wipe gently with a damp cloth, not using jewellery cleaners .

Click To See All Our Many Pearl Beads

2024 Bead Fairs

Bead fairs are fun. A good way to lean how to make jewellery chatting with other visitors – and there’s nothing like actually seeing the beads ‘in the flesh’.

See the latest semi precious from our recent shipment. We try to cover all the UK: from Cornwall to Scotland, Wales to Norfolk, London, and all in-between!

Next Bead Fairs 2024

Sunday 8th June: Kent Bead Fair, Farningham Village Hall, High Street, Farningham DA4 0DE
Sunday 16th June: Cheshire Bead Fair, Goodwill Hall, Wrexham Road. Faddiley, Nantwich CW5 8HY
Saturday 22nd June: Lincoln Bead Fair, North Kyme Village Hall, Vacherie Lane, North Kyme LN4 4DL
Sunday 23rd June: Essex Bead Fair, Great Bromley Village Hall, Parsons Hill, Gt Bromley CO7 7JA
Sunday 30th June: Norwich Bead Fair, George Brest Western Hotel, Arlington Lane, Norwich NR2 2DA
Saturday 6th July: Worcester Bead Fair, Omersley Village Hall, Sandys Road, Omersley WR9 0DY

For the shows booked so far, click: 2024 Bead Fairs. More To Follow!

15% Off All From MrBead
Enjoy 15% off anything with no minimum order. Shipping is free too on UK orders over £35. International shipping from £7.

Can only be used at the NEW shop & not with any other coupon. To get the discount Key KENT at checkout now, as offer ends Friday 7th June 2024. Use at https://mrbeadshop.com.

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