How To Make Wine Glass and Mug Makers Using Beads!

Little Wine Glass & Mug Charms are so popular in all the stores right now that we keep having people ask us what's involved in making their own. Here is a simple step-by-step guide on how to make these adorable charms that ensure you always know which glass is yours at all your summer bbq's and parties! 

Here is what you'll need:

1- 6 different colors of seed beads

(These strands of seed beads are just $1.49 each 

and can do about a total of 3 complete sets of charms)  

2- 6 Charms Such as These Little Mice

(These cute little Tibetan Silver charms are just .39 Cents Each) 

3- Jump Rings 

(This bag of a dozen jump rings is just .50 cents 

and, will do 2 complete sets of charms.)  

4 - 6 Wire Charm Hoops

(A bag of 6 wire hoops costs about $1.25)

Making the total cost for this project approx. $12.79 with enough beads left over to do 2 more sets, and enough jump rings to do 1 more complete set. 

Step #1 - String the beads onto the wire hoops. 

1 hoop done in each of the 6 colors. 

Step #2 - Use  jump ring to attach 

the charm onto the hoop. 

Once the charm is attached you're done! 

Total time to make a set of 6 is about 15 minutes. 

This is an easy and fun project. 

Note: the cost decreases from $12.79 to just $7.18 a set if you make 3 sets at a time (the amount the strands of seed beads will make.) 

Drilling & Shaping Beads

One common question we get is "how do they make all the holes in the beads?".  When people make beads at home they usually use some sort of drill press and diamond drill bits and sit for a long time in front of the drill press meticulously drilling hole after hole.  This method is costly, even in China.  So they have developed a system that assembly lines the process.  Many of the shaped beads are cut, ground, and polished by hand and then ran through a machine that uses a sandblaster to blast a hole through the stone in a split second. Using this technique and scrap rock, chip strands can be made very inexpensively. Some bead shapes and materials are not suitable for blasting and must be drilled by hand.  This is usually reflected in the price of the beads. Many pearls are too fragile to drill any other way than by hand. It is because of the labor and difficulty in doing stone that stone beads are more expensive.  Plastic and glass are very easy to work with in comparison with stone.  Hence, they are less expensive.

What Color Are Garnets?

Most of the time when someone mentions garnets you think of a deep red-wine color.  But this is just one of the many colors a garnet can be.

There are 7 different varieties of garnet and a range of colors that is most impressive.

Each variety of garnet has the same physical properties such as hardness, crystal shape (cubic), etc.  The real difference is in the chemical makeup.  All the different varieties of garnet are Aluminum Silicates.  Mg, Fe,Mn, Ca, Cr, and water can all be attached to the front of the formula to change the type of garnet ( and the color ) it forms.  

For example...

Pyrope is red-wine colored by Mg.

Almandine is brown caused by Fe. 

Spessartine is brown to lime green caused by Mn.

Grossular is red-brown to raspberry pink caused by Ca.

Andradite is brownto brown-red caused by Ca-Fe mixed. 

Uvaroviteis a bright green caused by Ca-Cr mix.

Hydrogrossular is unimpressive brown caused by Ca and water.

There are other types of garnets that are sub-species of the species listed above.

Demantoid ( brilliant green with the luster of adiamond ),

Melanite (black), and Topazolite(yellow to yellow-brown) are all forms of andradite. 

Rhodolite is a very rose-red form of pyrope. 

Hessonite(cinnamon colored), Tsavorite (emerald-green colored), andLeuco (clear) are all forms of grossular.

One other interesting habit garnets have is that sometimes the different types will mix together.  So the outside of the crystal is almandine and the inside is spessartine.  This is called "solid solution".  It has to do with the chemistry of the environment when they are forming.

"What are garnets good for?" you ask.  Well they don't have any special purpose.  Most are used for abrasives as they are very hard and tough.   They are also used for gemstones.  Many of the clean stones are cut into gemstones that now sell for hundreds of dollars per carat.  My favorite use is as crystals in my collection.

"Where can you go find a garnet?" you ask. Garnets are not rare on this planet.  In fact, they are abundant.  There are many places in Utah to collect garnets. 

The Alta stock up big cottonwood canyon has a nice deposit of almandine that are not gem quality but show really nice structure.  Gold Hill mine and the surrounding area has lots of garnets. The Thomas Range (Topaz Mountain area) has garnets pseudomorphed to hematite and often have bixbyites attached to them. There is a really nice deposit of pale green grossular garnets in Wah Wah pass just off the road. The mineral mountains near Milford has some beautiful red spessartine garnets that look like pyrope and are found with smokey quartz. One of my favorites is in Ely, Nevada.  You can collect at Garnet Hill and find some very nice ones in the rhyolite.  It is easy collecting and fun for the family.

You can learn more about garnets in "Gemstones of the World" by Walter Schumann. $24.95. 

An Introduction to Stone Beads

Stone beads are the holy grail of beads. They are the beads that hold the greatest value before and after being strung or made into jewelry. Gemstone beads are the most prized of all the stone beads. Stones like sapphire, emeralds, ruby, and diamonds, are all precious gems. That makes beads from them precious stone beads. Amethyst, citrine, peridot, rose quartz, jade, aquamarine, iolite, and garnet are some examples of semi-precious gemstones. Because they are still very appealing to the eye, and they tend to be much more affordable than precious stone beads, they are much more popular in fine beaded jewelry. Of course, affordable is a relative term, and we are relating to plastic or glass beads which are much less expensive.

Stone beads are more expensive because stone is more durable, which translate into "much harder to work". Stone is harder and stronger than glass or plastic. Another component to the value of stone beads is the natural beauty. Gemstones are prized for their beauty. It is amazing that a rock can be found as red as ruby, green as emerald, or as blue as sapphire and formed within the confines of the earth's dynamic environment. These two properties contribute to the intrinsic value of gemstone beads.

Less expensive rocks can be used for beads, too. Agates, jaspers, sodalite, and wonderstone are cut into beads. These beads often compare in price to glass.

One other factor plays into bead values--quality. Not all stones and gemstones are created equal. Just because a stone is called ruby or emerald doesn't mean that it is good quality. The higher the quality the higher the price.  The workmanship of the bead forming (shaping and polishing) is also important in stone bead quality.