11/7/05 | BeadStyle Magazine Review
Summary: Wide variety of simple necklace, bracelet and earrings projects plus basic techniques
Price: Cover price - $4.95
Product Rating: 3.5/5
Pros: Plenty of useful photos in how-to projects. Fairly cheap.
Cons: Occasionally unfocused. Only 6 issues/yr. Lots of ads.
The Bottom Line
This is a good beginner magazine to get when you’re first starting off beading or making jewelry. Clear and detailed instructions plus a handy “basics” guide. More advanced jewelry makers will probably only glance at the projects for ideas.
Description
Bead Style Magazine has 6 issues a year. The magazine is devoted to beginner jewelry and beading projects, usually 6-10 full step-by-step project articles of which a few contain 5-10 “mini-projects” related to the article. Sections include a Fashion Forecast, Reader Tips, Project Articles, What’s New section, Beader’s Glossary, Basic Techniques, Calendar, and Shop Directory. Approximately 100-130 pages long
Review
When we first started out making our own jewelry, we had almost no idea where to start. There are millions of books out there that contain projects and how-to guides but so many of them were far beyond our abilities at the time. So we decided to give BeadStyle Magazine a shot and subscribed for a year’s worth of issues.
In the beginning, this was an excellent way to get ideas on how to make simple projects. The magazine’s focus is indeed on the beginning beader and jewelry maker. Most of the projects require only the beading materials and simple wire techniques, such as Making a Plain Loop and Simple Wirewrapping.
Once in awhile there are projects that show how to do slightly more advanced things like making and hammering your own clasps out of silver wire but for the most part they stick with stringing colorful beads together.
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One of the most overlooked parts of this magazine is the handy "Beader's Glossary" and "Basic Techniques" section at the end of the magazine. The Beader's Glossary gives you a sort of visual guide to the different types of tools, stones, beads and findings that are featured in that particular issue of the magazine in case you have any doubt as to which ones to use. The Basic Techniques reference contains several step-by-step jewelry techniques with photos. Though the pictures are small and it's extremely brief, these were very helpful when we didn't know what the heck we were doing.
As time went on, however, we found that we weren't paying as much attention to working through all the actual projects rather than getting design and technique ideas. In addition, we found that because of the HUGE variety of styles touched upon, we would in general only be interested in maybe 2-3 of the 30 projects in the magazine. But that weakness is also it's greatest strength; you're bound to find at least ONE project in each magazine that strikes your fancy.
I have to say that there seem to be a TON of ads in the magazine, but then again: what modern magazine doesn’t have millions of ads? And that’s how they make their money of course.It was also a bit of a disappointment when we first got the magazine that it didn’t come monthly but rather every other month. We’d eagerly devour the articles in a few days and then after trying them out the next 2 weeks, we’d have about 5 weeks left until the next one showed up. I would recommend that they make 12 issues but streamline the mag a bit so it’s about 80 pages instead of above 110.
In conclusion
The step-by-step pictures of the projects are particularly nice. In general though, most beaders won’t need more than the 1 year subscription and right when they’re starting off. After about a year when you have basic techniques down, you’ll find you’re only looking at the pictures for ideas. And in that case, you are probably better off surfing the web for inspiration or looking into some illustrated books that deal with more advanced techniques.
