Magazine Review: Bead magazine in the UK

What’s Up Wednesday

Autumn Cascade by Stephie Hall

I am so fortunate that Stephie Hall of Stardust & Sparkles contacted me about this new magazine! She’s been watching it develop, and has graciously offered to give us all her review of what she’s seen so far!  You can see Stephie’s work at her website listed above, or buy the beads she uses to make her designs through her eBay store: Princess Jewellery

Bead magazine is a bi-monthly UK publication and relatively young at only 8 issues old. As such it is only just starting to develop into a magazine on par with the larger US publications, moving from what was a shaky start with sometimes bland and uninspiring designs to its current 8 month issue which includes a number of stunning jewelry pieces. Nonetheless, I still find many designs lack dimension and depth.

Aimed primarily at the beginner to intermediate beader, the projects are mainly basic wirework and seed bead designs, easily completed by most beaders. Personally I found nothing in the current issue that would challenge me and I consider myself an intermediate jeweler. Instructions are super-easy to follow with a good selection of accompanying pictures.

Features and articles centre around UK artists and events, which is a welcome change for those of us living in the UK – while we’d all love to attend the Bead & Button show, details of UK events are more useful! The noticeboard section also includes details of numerous UK beading groups, classes and events which is great if you despair of ever finding anyone as obsessed about jewelry as yourself.

Bead magazine also runs their own internet based ‘TV’ channel. The channel features numerous how-to presentations given by expert beaders and is useful for those who like to see a technique demonstrated. Presentations feel quite homey, presented by ‘real’ people which is a refreshing change – they don’t have the intimidation factor that a more highly polished presentation would perhaps give. The programs are available by subscription.
On the whole, I like this magazine and it’s interesting to see it mature. I do find the most inspiring designs come from the readers pages and the artist profile articles rather than the how-to designs though. The magazine is available on subscription worldwide through the Bead website.