beads of the world RSS

I am a silversmith, and although I primarily hand fabricate sterling and fine silver jewelry, I love natural and enhanced beads to bring beautiful color and texture to jewelry pieces. Beading is also a nice diversion from soldering, sawing, stamping and general studio mayhem from time to time!  When I attend gem shows, it is really just impossible to walk past table after table of gorgeous strands of beads like you see in the photo without taking some home with me.  I hand string all my necklaces myself, they are on a good quality lightweight beading wire for added strength,...