Visit us for a free gift: our 2015 UK Bead Fairs. Next 11th to 12th April at Newton Abbot
15% Discount Off Anything from MrBead
MrBead UK Spring Bead Fairs
Sell Hand-Crafted Jewellery To The Wedding Market
Diamond - April's Gemstone
Cubic Zirconia
Quartz Crystal - April's Alternate Gemstone
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Key code CRYSTALBEADS in the box at checkout to receive 15% Off off anything in our bead shop. Not valid with any other coupon, discount or eBay, and minimum purchase is £12 or $18.
Use NOW as offer ends Friday 3rd April 2015.
Sat & Sun 11th &12th April Newton Abbot Gem 'n' Bead Fair - Newton Abbot Racecourse Kingsteignton, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 3AF 10am to 5pm Sat 10am to 4pm Sun
Sunday 19th April Norwich MrBead Bead Show George Hotel- Arlington Lane, Newmarket Road, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 2DA 11am to 4pm
Sunday 26th April Beads Up North! Haydock Race Course - Newton-le-Willows WA12 0HQ 10am to 4.30pm
Saturday 9th May Luton MrBead Bead Show Stockwood Hotel - 41-43 Stockwood Crescent, Luton, LU1 3SS 11am to 4pm
Sat & Sun 30th & 31st May Wincanton Gem 'n' Bead Fair - Wincanton Racecourse Wincanton, Somerset BA9 8BJ 10am to 5pm Sat 10am to 4pm Sun
Sunday 7th June Cheshire Bead Fair Nantwich Civic Hall - Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 5DG 10am to 4pm
Saturday 27th June Kentish Town MrBead Bead Show, Kentish Town Community Centre Main Hall - 17 Busby Place, London NW5 2SP 11m to 4pm
Full list of: our 2015 UK Bead Fairs
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 'hand '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.
Materials
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.
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.
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.
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
Key code CRYSTALBEADS in the box at checkout to receive 15% Off off anything in our bead shop. Not valid with any other coupon, discount or eBay, and minimum purchase is £12 or $18.
Use NOW as offer ends Friday 3rd April 2015.
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