Editors’ Top Picks for Beading Gifts and Beading Supplies
As the holiday season grows ever closer, the need for quick and easy gifts becomes a necessity. If you are like me, you thought you had more time and then all of a sudden it is a week or two away from your holiday celebration and you are short on gifts. Whether people are begging you for gift ideas or you have another beader on your own list, check out these items hand-picked by the Beadwork staff. Stock up on beading supplies or learn something new through a course or subscription. Find the perfect gift that the beaders on your list will enjoy the whole year.
Top 5 Gifts for Beaders
1. Beading Essentials Kit
As a beginner beader (and being several years out of practice), I know I would LOVE to receive the Beading Essentials Kit for the holidays! Along with providing an abundance of resources — three eBooks, the 2017 issue of Quick + Easy Beadwork magazine, and three pattern downloads — this kit also includes a custom 6×11″ Bead On It Board, a variety of beading needles, FireLine beading thread, and a blend of seed beads. This kit really does have it all.
Even if I weren’t a beginner beader, I would still want to receive this kit as a gift for the holidays. It could help stock me up on supplies that I might have been running low on, and with all the different components in the kit, I could easily learn a new technique or a new trick, or find great inspiration for future projects. The Beading Essentials Kit is the way to go if you need something fairly easy to give (everything is included, so no digging across multiple sites to pull everything together), or if you’re just looking for a set of supplies to help someone stock up again on their essentials.
Maddie Orth
Marketing Specialist, Bead & Jewelry group
2. Stringing Starter Kit
As I continue to experiment with beadwork and jewelry making, stringing tools have worked their way into my crafting must-haves. The Stringing Starter Kit is on my wish list. It has all the necessary pliers, basic findings for just about any project, and the ebook Getting Started Stringing Beads by Jean Campbell—filled with tips, tricks, and projects to inspire any jewelry artist!
Marissa Bouska
Assistant Editor, Beadwork magazine
3. Bead On It Board
A few years back, I picked up a Bead On It Board. I had been using beading mats made from Vellux and swore by them, but was willing to make an investment into what was touted as an improvement to our tried and true mats. Well. I was not disappointed! The Bead On It Board goes beyond the beading mat in a few key ways:
- Beads stay on the board and don’t roll onto the floor when you’re not paying attention.
- Needles can be “set” into the rim around the beading surface for safe keeping and to easily keep a spare.
- The surface is clean and makes it easy to see your beads and tell between similar colors.
- The rim around the board is always made from fun, colorful materials.
I added to my collection of Bead On It Boards and now have one of our own Interweave branded Bead On It Boards. The fabric is fun and holds a key phrase near and dear to many of our hearts, “eat, sleep, bead.” Not keeping this a secret, I will for sure get one of these for each of the beaders on my gift list.
Tammy Honaman
Web Producer, Bead & Jewelry group
4. Beading Course
Are you, like me, a last-minute-Lucy? Or a Procrastinator-Polly? The holidays ALWAYS sneak up and I’m looking at the list of my beady peeps I would LOVE to gift this year. But it’s the week of Christmas when I finally get a moment to take a breath and actually think about what to get! Too late to make them anything fab or ship them a fruitcake. Sound familiar? Interweave to the rescue with online courses anyone can watch in their jammies 24/7! No need to worry about colors, sizes, or whether they will like it. You KNOW they will!
Just give those on your gift list the experience of a top-curated online class so they can learn a new technique or further fill their crafty toolbox of skills. Gift certificates rock and ensure they’ll pick out exactly what they want to learn!
We have seed bead techniques, from Tammy Honaman’s getting started with basic stitches to advanced bead embroidery with Kinga Nichols, and everything in between, like making fabric beads with moi to selling your jewelry with Carolyn Edlund. So, what are you waiting for? Skip on over to the Interweave store, get your gift certificates, and BAM — holiday shopping over!
Kristal Wick
Brand Editor, Bead & Jewelry group
5. Beadwork Subscription
The gift that keeps giving all year long! A subscription to Beadwork magazine is a great gift for any bead artist. Throughout the year they will be inspired by new designs, step-by-step projects, bead trends, and so much more. Plus, it is easy to give if you are a last-minute shopper like me!
Hollie Kuhlmann
Marketing Manager, Bead & Jewelry group
For more gift ideas, visit the Interweave Store.
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