Bead Fair Reports, Halloween & Autumn Beads
2nd October 2021
See us this Sunday, 3rd October at Beads Up North, Haydock Racecourse, 10am to 4pm – just off the M6. Over 17 bead, lace & craft exhibitors. Refreshments from 10am -3pm. Largest bead fair north of England.
Great venue between Liverpool & Manchester. Try making jewellery in our free ‘Ave-a-Go room with tuition. Tickets from just £2 on the door (over 60’s).
Online orders will be delayed a couple of days after Haydock, while we visit Snowdonia until Tuesday 5th October. See us the following Sunday, 10th Oct at Norwich Bead Fair.
All Bead Fairs 2021 & Our New MrBead Shop: https://mrbeadshop.com
Content:
Beads Up North
Bead Fair Reports
Spooky Halloween Beads
Skull Beads
Orange & Black Beads
Gems For the Fall
Bead Fairs Confirmed On
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Enjoy the new shop with 15% off anything with no minimum order. This is £15 off £100 worth of beads – the more you spend: the more you save! Only once per customer.
Shipping is free too on UK orders over £30 – under this UK P&P is just £2.50. International shipping from £5. Can only be used at the NEW shop & not with any other coupon.
To get the discount Key SKULL at checkout now, as offer ends Friday 8th October 2021. Use at https://mrbeadshop.com.
Beads Up North
If you live ‘up north’, you must visit Haydock Racecourse this Sunday 3rd October, near the M6 between Liverpool and Manchester. Not to be missed!
We’ve sold really a lot of online tickets and there’s a coach ordered full of visitors: so should be a buzz. A hall is available with refreshments, for visitors to stretch, chat and relax – and the venue will be spaced out for your protection.
Get your car filled right away – there’s fuel out there if you drive around and queue!
A long-standing bumper show with 18 exhibitors selling everything for the beader, with lace, textiles, wool and other craft supplies.
Beading workshops & refreshments all day. Open from 10am to 4pm. Easy free parking.
For Full Details Click: Beads Up North
Bead Fair Reports
Brighton Gem n Bead Fair
It’s always fun in Brighton, we get a buzz seeing the sea – but very difficult to park in town! A return to the Brighton fair brought slightly less than usual visitors.
Along with a new layout, so each exhibitor had less display space – a post-lockdown Gem n Bead trend.
Luton Bead Fair
Very busy at Luton, despite a gas station right opposite the hotel blocking the road with queues. Some guests said they had to wait 40-minutes to get to us from a few hundred yards away!
As usual at Luton, most arrived from London, with some from Milton Keynes and Bedford. The venue is only 5-minutes from M1 J10.
Cambridge Bead Fair
Our best MrBead-only show ever. Really packed! If we’d had know it would be so busy, we’d have ordered extra help serving guests – sorry about long queues to pay. A beautiful new hall for us with easy set up and lots of room. We’ll be back in the spring, and twice every year.
Click for all our shows: Bead Fairs 2021
Spooky Halloween Beads
Skull Beads
Skull jewellery is once again popular. Especially with the young, who wear skull rings on their fingers and hang skull pendants on their bags. The media adds to the craze with many celebratory discreetly showing skulls.
Buddhism
Skull jewellery at one time was only for Buddhists. Skulls have a negative context in Western culture, but to Buddhists they remind them to focus on reaching Nevada. The ultimate rebirth, when one finally escapes the suffering of terrestrial life – the final goal of their cycles of death and rebirth. Seeing skulls prevent Buddhists from wasting time building their ego or wealth, which is useless after death.
Gothic
Modern gothic culture has similarities to the Buddhist. Goths like to highlight suffering: to contrast from living and create an optimistic outlook. This similarity is rather like the oriental concept of yin and yang – opposite and constant flowing forces. Increase yin, and yang with decrease, and vice versa. Likewise, draw attention to death, and life brightens.
Why wear skulls?
To others, skulls remind that we all have to die. Skulls show that life is not permanent and are a symbol that we are all flirting with death.
In this context they represent a quest to survive, a reminder to be careful. For the same reason hot-rodders’ hang a furry dice inside their cars’ representing danger.
Rock Stars
In the world of rock music, skulls have always been worn. Every rocker sports a white metal skull ring, or a skull bracelet or necklace. Keith Richards has worn a skull ring since the early seventies. Ozzy Osbourne and Axel Rose would never be seen without skull jewellery. To them skulls don’t just represent a fling with death, but a symbol of survival.
Rebels
Some link the skull image to rebellion, like pirates fly the skull and cross bones. Outlaws to society want to show they live by their own values, and will not be forced into a way of thought by others who have an alternate and often immoral motive.
Skull beads are ideal for Halloween, and students have been hanging them on their rucksacks all year. Skulls remind that we all have to die. Skulls show that life is not permanent and are a symbol that we are all flirting with death.
Click To See Our Many Skull Beads
Our Black Beads
ORANGE & BLACK BEADS
With Halloween just around the corner, we thought it fun to look at orange and black gemstone beads. You can’t celebrate Halloween without using these in your jewellery.
They’re also great to wear during autumn since orange matches the beautiful fall leaves, and black is a classy tone that will compliment every colour. The classic gemstones in these colours are orange carnelian and black onyx.
Carnelian gets the brilliant orange colour from iron oxide, and black onyx is usually made by treating chalcedony or agate with a sugar solution and then carbonizing it with heated sulfuric acid.
Colour enhancements for these stones are so common that majority of carnelians and onyx sold today are enhanced agate. However, this makes the stones available in larger sizes and at more affordable prices.
Other stones in these colours are fire opals, pearls, and orange aventurines for sunset tones – and obsidian or jet for black beads. Try combining copper findings with onyx beads.
Click To See Our Carnelian Beads
Or Our Onyx beads
AUTUMN JEWELLERY
When the nights darken, make some classy seasonal jewellery. Amber is ideal for this time of year, along with all types of brown, dark greens, gold, and misty yellow.
Pearls, nature’s treasure from the deep, can be very effective mixed with other beads – especially as they come in autumn colours too. Let fabulous colours with a touch of gold capture your imagination as well as your eye.
Try mixing contrasting colours like brown and gold with blues and green. Some of the most popular gemstones that make fabulous autumn jewellery are listed below.
GEMS FOR THE FALL
To see any of these gemstones in our bead shop, just click the picture.
Agate
Agate is the obvious stone for autumn jewellery. It forms by filling a cavity in its host rock, resulting in round nodules, with bands like the rings of a tree trunk, looking like eyes.
Agate was highly valued as a talisman in ancient times and has been used as a traveler’s amulet for centuries.
It’s believed to bring fortune, health, wealth and long life. Some call its strange patterns ‘cosmic caterpillar tracks’. Others’ swear that wearing these beads can heighten spiritual consciousness and balance the body’s physical and mental states.
Carnelian
Another stone from the quartz family, usually bright to reddish orange. Carnelian is for confidence and is in tune with the energies of the Earth. Making you feel anchored and comfortable.
A stone for people starting new projects or who feel they’re going nowhere. It motivates, allowing you to find the energy to make the most out of life.
Citrine
”Citrine” comes from the French word for lemon, and is any quartz crystal or cluster that’s yellow to orange. The darker, orange colours were traditionally the best, but today people prefer bright lemony shades to mix with pastel colours.
Sunny citrine brightens all jewellery, blending especially well with the yellow gleam of polished gold. The yellow colour is a natural reviver, and citrine focuses the mind bringing a feeling of self-esteem.
Coral
Coral was thought to be a strong talisman against evil spirits and hurricanes. It is also said to reduce blood flow.
Naturally its colour ranges from white to red, but most red coral these days is dyed. It grows in branches that look like underwater trees.
Flake Stone
The most common flaked stone is goldstone: ideal for autumn jewellery. Man-made, first created by alchemists trying to create gold.
However, all material has properties, these are transmitter stones. Causing light to pass through you in order to convey or receive a medium. Revitalizing, energizing, and encouraging a positive attitude and individualism.
Jade
For 5,000 years Imperial China used the word “jade” as something precious. Because jade is said to have all the attributes most valued in society. A symbol of purity and serenity, it is delicate, but will not break – is beautiful, but not impermanent, it can be flawed with lines, but still pleasing.
It’s believed to radiate divine unconditional love and balance the emotions. The most famous type of jade carved in China is from Burma, with shades of green, lavender, yellow, white and grey.
Jasper
Jasper was highly valued in ancient times, not only for its beauty, but also for its magical and medicinal properties. Jasper is known as the “patron stone of counselors and healers”.
Red jasper is an intensely protective stone, stabilizing the aura and bringing contentment. Poppy jasper is dark red with black flecks. Picture jasper is pale brown with darker patterns – named from pictures formed by patterns caused by trapped fossilizes algae. Fancy jasper is creamy brown with lavender or green swirls.
Lapis Lazuli
This gemstone is straight out of fairy tales of the Arabian Nights: deepest blue with golden shining Pyrite inclusions which twinkle like little stars. Through the ages, lapis has been associated with power, wisdom, and love.
The twinkling inclusions are not gold but pyrite, caused by iron. The blue colour comes from the sulfuric content of lazurite. For many people lapis is a stone of truth and friendship. A powerful gemstone that should not be worn by those who lack strength of character.
Malachite & Rhodonite
Malachite is green with irregular black banding. Its stripes have the ability to soothe and bring rest – helping sleep, meditation, circulation and balancing emotions. Copper content helps rheumatism.
The magic of malachite is also thought to attract love and wealth. Some say malachite travels the world in search of energies to change.
Rhodonite is usually pink to red or orange, very popular in 18th-century Russia where it was used extensively to decorate the Russian court. Rhodonite has similar properties to malachite.
Pearl
The least expensive cultured pearls today rival the most expensive natural pearls ever found.
Natural freshwater pearls occur in mussels for the same reason saltwater pearls occur in oysters. 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.
Freshwater pearls are popular for their colours: white, silvery-white, pink, red, copper, brown, lavender, purple, green, blue, and yellow. These are usually dyed these days.
Tiger Eye
Tiger’s-eye is polished to show its characteristic band of pearly luminescence, resulting from light reflecting off its thin parallel inclusions in the quartz. Colours range from a rich golden yellow to dark brown. Tiger’s-Eye is good for those worried about health. It also builds will-power and inner-strength.
Click the picture for more details of each stone inside our bead shop.
Bead Fairs Confirmed On
Please come to visit us and see our beads ‘in the flesh’! Fairs are now allowed, however shows will still be socially distanced with windows open for your safety.
Sunday 3rd October: Beads Up North, Haydock Racecourse, Newton-le-Willows WA12 0HQ
Sunday 10th October: Norwich Bead Fair, Best Western George Hotel, Arlington Lane, Newmarket Rd, Norwich, NR2 2DA
Saturday 16th October: The Big Bead Show, Sandown Racecourse, Esher, London KT10 9AJ
Weekend 30th-31st October: Newton Abbot Gem n Bead Fair, Newton Abbot Racecourse, Kingsteignton, Devon TQ12 3AF
Weekend 13th-14th November: Brighton Gem n Bead Fair, Brighton Racecourse, Freshfield Road, Brighton BN2 9XZ
Full List of All 22 Bead Fairs Booked So Fair at: Bead Beads 2021
15% Off All From MrBead
Enjoy the new shop with 15% off anything with no minimum order. This is £15 off £100 worth of beads – the more you spend: the more you save! Only once per customer.
Shipping is free too on UK orders over £30 – under this UK P&P is just £2.50. International shipping from £5. Can only be used at the NEW shop & not with any other coupon. To get the discount Key SKULL at checkout now, as offer ends Friday 8th October 2021. Use at https://mrbeadshop.com.