MrBead Spring UK Bead Fairs

Visit us in the UK this spring, say you're a MrBead Newsletter reader and receive a free gift and a gold & black MrBead bag!

Full list of: our 2015 UK Bead Fairs
See a video of some of our past bead fairs

Sell Hand-Crafted Jewellery To The Wedding Market

Massive Market
Every bride wants to look her best, irrespective of cost. I know, I used to photograph thousands of weddings. The bridal market is huge, with the average wedding costing over £24,000, not including a honeymoon or the rings. Don't miss out - get in now!

What Brides Expect
No one skimps on their wedding. Packages are out. Couples want individualism  to represent them on their special day. A unique design to last a lifetime. Most prefer traditional style, but some like a modern, completely different look. Get to know the couple - ask what they like.

Stuck For Ideas?
For inspiration, look in wedding magazines and blogs. Search Google Images for 'handmade wedding jewellery'.

Make It In Advance
If you would like to exploit the bridal market more, create wedding sets to promote to possible couples. Bridesmaids and the other-in-law will want jewellery as well. Plus, the maid of honour would love matching jewellery to the bride. Make your pictures and designs stand out from other wedding designers - use dramatic styles or pictures. Match your beads to the colour of the dress.

Promote
Market yourself as a wedding jewellery designer. On Twitter, Facebook, and design a bridal website. Sell cheap wedding jewellery on eBay, then try to get buyers to spend more on individual designs. 

What to Make
White is the obvious colour, but pinks and other pale colours can work too.

• Bracelets
• Necklaces
• Earrings
• Tiaras
• Hair bands, pins & combs
• Sew tiny pearls or crystal beads onto the bride and bridesmaid gowns
• Jewellery sets in a beautiful box - ideal for gifts to the mothers
• Tiny matching designs for the flower girls
• Cuff links & cravat tie pins - for the bridegroom and gifts for the best man and ushers
  

Materials

• Pearl beads
• Crystal beads
• Heart beads
• Silver thread and beads
• White and pink flower beads
• Light amethyst beads
• Small AB and sparking beads
• Gold thread & beads
• Flower, star or icicle beads
• White feathers
  
  For our pearl beads go to MrBead.co.uk or MrBead.com
  Our crystal beads: MrBead.co.uk or MrBead.com
  Flower beads: MrBead.co.uk or MrBead.com
  Heart beads: MrBead.co.uk or MrBead.com
  Icicle beads: MrBead.co.uk or MrBead.com

Diamond April's Gemstone 
April's birthstone is the diamond. Diamonds are a wonder of nature. Their cold sparkling fire has held us spell-bound for centuries with myths of romance, power, greed, and magic. Ancient Hindus, finding diamonds washed out of the ground after thunderstorms, believed they were created by lightning bolts. Today, the diamond is a symbol of enduring love.

Diamonds are the rich cousins of graphite, both crystalline forms of pure carbon. The enormous difference in their properties is a result of the way that carbon atoms are bonded together. In graphite, carbon atoms are arranged in sheets that easily slide past each other, making them ideal as lubricants. Diamond crystals, are a tight-fisted network of carbon atoms securely held in four directions, making it the hardest naturally-occurring substance.                       

Man-made Diamonds       

Up until a few years ago De Beers controlled all the worlds diamonds - by stockpiling tons at a time, they greatly increased the value of a relatively-common crystallized rock.

However, it is now possible to artificially grow diamonds, the same way they are formed over millions of years. Using high-pressure and high-temperature in crystal growth chambers, the size of a washing machine. Within each chamber, a tiny sliver of natural diamond is bathed in a molten solution of graphite and a metal-based catalyst at approximately 1,500 C. Slowly, carbon precipitates onto the diamond seed crystal. A gem-quality, 2.8-carat rough yellow diamond grows in just under three-and-a-half days. This can then be cut and polished to give a gem larger than 1.5 carats. (One-half carat is equal to 100 mg of diamond about the size of a kernel of corn.).

To say these cultured stones are not real diamond is false. Chemically they are identical to mined diamonds, but they do have different growth patterns and a lack of inclusions that would draw suspicions to a qualified a jeweler. However, those bits of minerals that are enclosed in a natural diamond as its forms are regarded as flaws; a lack of inclusions is actually a good thing. For a jeweler to tell for sure, De Beers has designed a machine for around $10,000.     

  Cubic Zirconia            
A much cheaper way of making a stone that looks like diamond was created by Russian scientists. Cubic Zirconia is a dense clear material through which laser light can be reflected. When melted at high-temperature and an incredibly-high electrical current sent through it, the compound crystallizes, forming chunks similar to rough diamonds, which are then be cut and polished to exact specifications.

Using the naked eye, even a trained jeweler cant detect the difference between good cubic zirconia, genuine or cultured diamonds. And even diamond experts have been fooled between cubic zirconia and a five-million-dollar diamond - concluding that both were fakes! All are fully faceted, cut and polished the same.                                                         to top

To see our cubic zirconia rings click MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk

Quartz Crystal - April's Alternate Gemstone

Diamonds are too expensive for most to make jewellery, but a gemstone with similar charectristics for April is quartz crystal.

The Mayans, Druid priests, and Tibetan monks all knew the spiritual power of crystal. The ancients used it to strengthen the sun’s rays to bring heat, and the Chinese science of feng-shui teaches that arranging crystals around the home retains positive energy.

Crystals became important to these people because of the belief in their capacity to store and amplify any power source fed into them - physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. Today’s crystal therapists say that the stones' ability to work as a conductor allows energy to be focused via a person's thoughts to stimulate healing. And many people use crystal to focus attention on what they want. With a little imagination, you too can use crystal's energy to access a higher level of consciousness and turn a desire into reality.

All types of crystal have this magical power, but individual colour crystal is believed to have other uses too. Rose quartz, the stone of unconditional love, is great for emotional healing. Red, yellow, and orange stones are said to produce energy; clear and aquamarine stones are healers; and lavender and blue-violet are calming stones.

Pure rock crystal is clear, but usually quart comes in a variety of opacity. Milky quartz is cloudy because of microscopic inclusions of fluid embodied in the crystal at the start of its life - creating an attractive effect of a crystal within a crystal, giving the interior a ghostly appearance. Smoky Quartz is caused by natural radiation from nearby granite rocks which have a small amount of radioactivity.

See our crystal beads at MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk
Our quartz beads at MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk