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The Bead Merchant History

We have been supplying Beautiful Beads by mail order for 15 years. And, as you will see, the site shows lots of gorgeous beads, all manufactured for us by Miyuki Shoji in Japan - who we think make the best quality beads. Many of these beads are exclusive to us, as are ALL of the Bead Treats and Bead Kits, which we have designed and prepared.

We have an enormous range of shades and shapes - 4 sizes of seed beads, Delicas, Double Delicas (which are exactly twice the size of Delicas), 2 sizes of Triangles, Squares, Drops, Magatamas, 2 sizes of Hex, and 3 sizes of Bugles in over 400 different shades. The collection has been designed to give you the largest possible range of colour and texture for your beadwork.

An innovation for these pages is the Bead Index (which you can download), which lists numerically all the beads that we carry (one list for the Delica Beads which have a different numbering system, and one for all the others), with a description of their appearance, and sizes and shapes available. You may like to use the Index in conjunction with the Bead Sample Sheets to compare and cross-reference and we hope that they will be useful for you, and provide many happy hours of contemplation.

Take a look at our Latest products for the very newest additions of beads and kits to the catalogue. There are Sundries, Findings and Books. Exclusive Bead Treats and Bead Kits are available, from our covetable and useful Project Beads, to themed boxes and collections; from basic beginner kits to our newest ultimate bead treat, the Beautiful Bead Box, containing enough beads and information to inspire umpteen projects. Do take time to read through all these delectable treats - we hope you will find them both useful and inspiring, and please be patient with some of the pages which we haven't finished adding photographs to yet! 

Jill Devon, the owner of the Bead Merchant is the founder and first chairman of the Beadworkers Guild, and co-author and co-editor of the popular series of Beadworkers Guild Introduction to Beadwork books. Jill also created the Great British Bead Show, which is now being run by The Beadworkers Guild; and the very successful Beautiful Beadwork Masterclasses (some of which have been incorporated into a new book of beaded flowers which came out in the autumn of 2007).