Mikki's Favorite Things

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, we're all happy you are here.

In my last post I had mentioned my chart for beads per gram so I thought I would share that with you today aloong with some other tips about measuring and weighing beads for kits, for magazine articles, instructions and just for your own knowledge. There's nothing worse than running out of beads in the middle of a project and having to wait for an oline delivery to arrive. Also when you are buying patterns that give you a bead count this chart tells you how many grams you will need to buy.

You can buy gram scales from FireMountainGems.com and if you make kits they are definitely a good investment. Do remember to check the weights of the beads though...some finishes weigh heavier than others. I usually weigh a gram and then count how many beads are in that gram...then make adjustments as necessary.

Another way to go is to forget the weight and do a count.....once you have your count of beads pop them into a tube and mark the tube with a 'fill to' line and label it with the letter of the bead as it appears in your pattern.

You can do this for each bead in your pattern so you have a quick measure.

Label the tube with the name of the kit and keep it safe so you'll have it when you need it....believe me, it saves a bunch of time.

A great tool for counting larger beads are the counting boards these come in sets of four for 3mm, 4mm, 6mm and 8mm beads.

Well...those are a few of my favorite things when it comes to kit making and prepping patterns for publication. Maybe you will be adding one or both of those to your list to Santa:)