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Content:
Latest Bead Fairs
June Jewellery
The Secrets Of Pearls
Knotting a Pearl Necklace
Sue Cock’s Shell Beads
Bead Fair Report
2025 Bead Fair
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Cambridge Bead Fair The following Sunday, we’re at the popular Cambridge Bead Fair, Harston Village Hall, CB22 7PX – Close to J11 of the M11. MrBead, Southamton Bead Shop & other traders. Free entry & refreshments! 11am to 4pm, easy free parking.
Both shows with the latest semi precious beads & pearls by MrBead, seed beads & findings by Southampton Bead Shop, and other traders.
Pearls are June’s birthstone. Try using freshwater pearls in minimalist earrings or layering delicate pearl-accented necklaces for a breezy, beachy look. Incorporate natural elements like shells, translucent beads, and soft pastels—mint, lavender, and peach are great choices. Keep designs light and wearable. Think dainty anklets, charm bracelets, or simple threader earrings. June jewellery should feel like a breath of fresh air.
Click To See Our Pearl Beads Click To Choose Beads By Colour
To make quality, impressive jewellery that’s appreciated, go for pearls. Everyone loves pearls. They’re versatile and always look good. Pearls are expected to be expensive as they’re usually natural and in short supply. Prices have gone up 400% over the past 4-years – so don’t sell your pearl jewellery cheap!
However, since the 1950s, natural pearls have been cultivated by man – making them more affordable. More profit for the jewellery maker! Cultural freshwater pearls are not inferior to sea pearls. They form in mussels for the same reason. Farmers’ slit the mussel and insert small pieces of tissue from another mussel. To reduce irritation, the mollusk coats the intruder with nacre it uses for shell-building.
Pearl Jewellery Sells!
Pearls are expected to be expensive and in short supply
Pearl jewellery sells because people understand pearls are natural. However, since the 1950s, natural pearls have been cultivated by man – making them much cheaper to buy. This means that including them in jewellery, you will make you even more profit!
What are Cultured Pearls?
Cultural pearls are more durable and less sensitive to environmental change than sea pearls. Cultured freshwater pearls occur in mussels for the same reason saltwater pearls occur in oysters. The least expensive cultured pearls today rival the most expensive natural pearls ever found.
Foreign material inside a mussel can’t be expelled. To reduce irritation, the mollusk coats the intruder with the same secretion it uses for shell-building, nacre. To cultivate a pearl, farmers slit the mussel and insert small pieces of live tissue from another mussel. The ancient Chinese practiced this technique, but the first real cultured freshwater pearls originated from Japan in the 1930’s. Japanese farmers by Lake Biwa achieved natural colours previously unseen in saltwater pearls.
The most desirable colours are pastel pinks, roses, lavenders, and purples. Natural colour take the colour of the shell in which they form. However, permanent dyes are used today for saturated colours.
The Best Pearls
Good pearls have thick overlapping layers of nacre. This can be tested by viewing its “lustre”. Roll the pearl with a pen in bright light – the best pearls will reflect the pen more.
A large pearl is only more valuable if it’s the same quality as a smaller one – the rounder the better. Being an organic gem, grooves, pits, or dents are expected.
What is Mother-of-Pearl?
The shining, playful, reflected light of mother-of-pearl has attracted attention since ancient times. The natural material has always been popular. From then, different technology has turned mother-of-pearl into many uses, apart from jewellery. Today, it’s dyed every colour under the sun – creating attractive jewellery at affordable prices. The mollusk forms mother-of-pearl as a protective shell. Like the pearl it’s a secretion of the mantle, composed of alternate layers of calcium carbonate and conchiolin.
See our Mother of Pearl Beads
Glass Pearls
These are coated glass to look like the best quality pearls. Any pearl that’s a perfect round shape without grooving, will either cost thousands or made of glass! However, glass pearls are fantastic value for money and are popular for affordable fashion jewellery. To see our colourful range of glass pearls at under £1 a string, click here.
Matching Pearls
Matching pearls isn’t easy. Try to buy all the pearls for a project at the same time, as later batches may not match. When balancing pearls for jewellery, you need to consider:
See All Our Pears At: Pearl Beads
There’s a few ways to knot a beaded necklace, but this is the easiest. First choose your cord: either silk or nylon. Silk is traditional, however it can snag and fray. Both come in different colours and sizes – thicker cord for larger beads. For beginner’s technique, two strings are put through each bead, so use a thinner size. For 6mm beads, use size 2 for this technique, and try to match the colour of the cord with the colour of the beads.
A popular way to start any beaded necklace is with bead tips. The only difference here is that two strings of the cord are inserted through the bead tip instead of one. This is easier than using one strand of cord, and the results look almost the same.
Professional Testing
If you want to buy expensive pearls that are perfectly matched, a gemmologist certificate is essential. It costs about £100 for a test, as opposed to thousands for the type that warrant the test. An x-ray will show variations in density inside of the pearl and the characteristic shapes of drill holes.
The Tooth Test
Rub the surface of the pearl over your teeth – a real pearl feels gritty, while a faux pearl feels smooth. Real pearls are made up of layers of nacre that are deposited like sand on a beach. The slight waves in the nacre give a bumpy feeling against the teeth. However, dye can fill in natural depressions.
Close Inspection
Look at the pearls in bright light. Unless they’re very expensive, genuine pearls have slight variations in shape, size and colour – along with grooves in their nacre, with ridges or pits. If any are perfect sphere or grainy smooth: they’re suspect. Cutting a pearl open reveals everything. Natural pearls are comprised of many layers of nacre. Cultured pearls have a mother-of-pearl shell core covered with a thin layer of nacre.
Pearl Holes
Examine drill holes to see the nacre layers and what lies beneath. Real pearls are usually drilled from both sides to meet in the middle – making the hole appear wider at the outside edges. Holes of fake pearls are usually strait and are more likely to be larger.
Other Clues
Real pearls are heavier for their size than fakes. A genuine pearl necklace is more likely to be knotted and set in gold or silver. You can examine clasps for stamps in the metal. The clasp should have a safety mechanism – no one would use insecure clasps on good pearls.
Faux Pearls
Faux pearls, although manmade, are not necessarily a cheap substitute to the real thing. They have genuine beauty of their own, looking “almost” the same as natural pearls costing thousands. They’re created by coating the outside of glass with pearl powder. This is then dipped into various solutions of pearl film to simulate the lustre of a natural pearl.
Pearl Care
Special care is needed for pearls. Since they are naturally porous, ensure they don’t absorb cologne or hair spray. Although oils from your skin help keep the pearls from drying out. Pearl jewellery is often in a felt pouch – keep the pearls in this to prevent scratches. To clean pearls, wipe gently with a damp cloth, not using jewellery cleaners .
Click To See All Our Many Pearl Beads
London Luton Bead Fair
This was much better. A slow start lead to a packed hall and a bumper wholesale order from a group of ladies North London ladies. This popular show always attracts visitors from as far away as Bedford, Milton Keynes and Reading – plus many along the M1 from North London. We’ll be back at Luton on Saturday 18th October. Details at London Luton Bead Fair.
For this years full list, click: 2025 Bead Fairs.
New venues at North Yorkshire, Penrith, Windsor and Swindon.
For the shows booked so far, click: 2025 Bead Fairs.
To get the discount Key PEARL at checkout now, as offer ends Friday 30th May 2025. Use at https://mrbeadshop.com.
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