I Heart Tools – Bead Spinner Magic

I love tools, they speed up the tedious parts of jewelry making and leave more time for the fun and creative things.

Glass seed beads combine well in designs with art beads of all types and sizes, they can be so versatile, inexpensive and colorful, very useful to combine with art beads or use in bead crochet to make great necklaces to put through large art beads for a great contemporary look. This beautiful piece is by Beverly in New Orleans at No Easy Beads and is a great example of using the colorful seed beads crocheted into a rope with a beautiful art bead made of raku.

But if you buy seed beads or other small glass beads in tubes unstrung, it is a bit tedious to string them before you can use them. I don’t have a lot of patience for the stringing process, it always seems to take so long and I’m impatient and anxious to start using the strung beads right away.

That’s where a bead spinner comes in, and it’s kind of fun to use it, too. You put the tiny loose seed beads in the container bowl of the bead spinner and twirl it around, and like little soldiers the beads climb up the needle and onto your stringing thread. It’s like magic!

If you’ve never tried it, you won’t believe how fun and cool it is to use one. If you need a lot of small beads like seed beads strung, try out this super tool. With a bead spinner, stringing your beads can be part of the fun of designing. I recommend putting the spinner inside a large plastic bowl with tall sides at first, as there might be some attempts at bead escapes until you get the hang of spinning, but it doesn’t take long before it’s a regular twist of the wrist motion.

Some beadspinners are beautiful pieces of woodwork also, made of exotic wood. The BeadspinnerLady has a website, take a look at some beautiful beadspinner tools, or opt for a simpler model, and never spend your designing time stringing beads again.