Seed Beads 

Seed beads are colorful and extremely versatile, just waiting to be transformed into elegant creations.  They are uniformly round shaped, spherical, ranging in size from under a millimeter to several millimeters. "Seed Bead" is a generic term for any small bead. They may be used for simple stringing, or as spacers between other beads in jewelry. Larger seed beads are used in various fiber crafts for embellishment, or crochet with fiber or wire.

Seed bead machinery uses glass rods softened to a red heat, fed into a steel die stamp that forms the shape of the bead with a reciprocating needle that forms the hole.  

Seed Bead Sizes

Seed bead size is measured either in millimeters or traditionally in aught size.  A size 11 seed bead is actually an aught size 11/0. The higher the aught size, the smaller the bead. This unit of measurement relates to how many beads will fit in a given area.

Buying Seed Beads
Seed beads can be sold by quantity, weight, or hank.  A hank is normally 12 strands of beads or fewer.  However, the amount of beads, and the sizes of the strands can vary enormously among manufacturers and size.

Buying by Weight

Note: conversions in these tables are approximate.

To see MrBead's seed beads click MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk