Making Money with Bead Jewelry

Welcome to the Bead Jewelry HubPage, which is built in conjunction with the BeadJewelryBlog.com! I hope to feature all sorts of great bead jewelry discoveries, beading ideas, bead jewelry supplies and more!

If you're serious about running a bead jewelry business from your home then you're going to need some software to help you run it. Here are some of the programs I'd recommend buying to help you run your business:

Office Program: some sort of suite of software that includes a spreadsheet and a word processor will make a good bit of your bead jewelry business easier to run. You'll be able to write up signs for your craft show table, be able to keep track of inventory and sales with the spreadsheet and may even be able to produce some web pages of your products depending upon the software you choose. Microsoft Office is the most well-known office software, but there are other office suite packags that are actually free and just about as good!

Accounting Program: depending upon the size of yours business you may want to expand from using a spreadsheet to a real accounting program like Quicken or Quickbooks to keep track of your sales and inventory. These programs are not difficult to learn but the amount of features might be a little daunting at first.

Beading Business Software: if your business grows enough you may want to invest in some specialized bead jewelry software which allows you to keep track of bead inventory and even prices out the cost of materials automatically in each bead jewelry piece you make. These software packages are not always easy to find but they are generally affordable if you're running a busy home jewelry business.

Every summer fashion pundits try to predict what the hot new fashions will be. If you make bead jewelry to sell at craft shows this is crucial to know so that you can create your jewelry to match upcoming trends and make more sales. Here are some of the trends you can expect:

Big and Bright: Shiny metal is fading but big showy colorful glass beads, faux gems and even real gemstones are still in for the summer. Chunky jewelry is still popular, but with slightly smaller beads than were popular last year. This summer it isn't about big beads as much as it is about big and bright colors!

Keep it Natural and Green: Anything natural or advertised as "green" is really, really big this year. Any sort of bead jewelry resembling plants or animals are still popular from what I've seen. I've noticed more people asking me about beads that are made out of renewable or natural materials, apparently over the concern of plastic beads eventually filling landfills.

Silver is It: With the skyrocketing cost of gold a lot of people are forgoing making jewelry out of anything with gold because it's too valuable to wear anymore! Instead the shiny metal of choice for many bead jewelry projects is silver or silver-toned. Even more popular than silver in many cases are fabric and leather cords, especially when mixed with natural elements.

Far East Influence: Anything that has an exotic or foreign feel to it, real or not, is still very popular in bead jewelry. Asian looking medallions, Indian designs and even Native American artwork all mixed with the natural wood and stone beads that are larger than normal are all very popular. Lately bright and colorful gemstones have been appearing beside dark muted wood beads that appear to be hand cut in a lot of bead jewelry pieces used in magazines and fashion shoots.

Overall the summer of 2008 is looking to be bright and fun time that leaves open a lot of possibilities for all you bead-a-holics out there!