Beads - How Many Types Are There?

If you have been working with beads for long you know there are there are thousands of them. It can be overwhelming being at an arts and crafts show or standing in a craft store and trying to decide what to buy. It may even be difficult to tell just exactly what the difference is between each package. There are so many types that no matter how hard you try to answer the question of, "How many...?" you never will. I too struggled through this when I first began but eventually found a few key things that have helped me avoid seeing merely a mass wall of chaos but instead individualized package of art.

1. Start with the color - Beads come in all sorts of colors. And as you go in to a crafts store or to a show specifically geared for arts and crafts you probably have an idea of what colors you are looking for. We are fairly good at seeing the colors we like and the color schemes that work together. Because of this color is a great place to start when trying to figure out which package or strands of these little works of art do you want to buy.

2. Know the basic materials - Once you have narrowed down the myriad of choices you have by finding the colors you like you can then further narrow down your choices by knowing the basic materials beads are made of. Each of these materials has their time and place along with their good and bad points. The first material is plastic. This material is great because it is durable and it is often less expensive. But it may not look as nice as the others. The second is glass. This steps it up a notch and looks very nice but with that step up there is a slight step up in price. They also can be a little more likely to break. The final material these little works of art come in is clay. Clay will look a lot like glass after it is made into a finished product but the difference is these are usually handmade. The plus of this is that these often fall into the category of fair trade but again they are a little more pricey.

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