I grew up in Mexico; and doing research for this post definitely brings back lots of memories. In my home-town of Valle de Bravo there is a high rock formation called “La Peña” (The Peak)

which overlooked the entire town as well as the lake. I have fond memories of the entire family heading up for picnics and enjoying the view. These trips also sparked an interest in archaeology, as thousands of years ago La Peña was a site for many indigenous rituals. Almost every time we went there we would find an idol, the handle or piece of a clay pot, the obsidian tip of a spear, and more. Even in the late 90’s you could always find a little piece of history while walking up “La Peña’s” roads. Growing up with such tangible history really made me take a special interest in the development of cultures. A lucky find on my most recent trip inspired me to write this article – I had originally set out to cover Mexico, Central America and South America, but because it’s so much information I will break it down into 2 posts.
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It’s always a happy day for me when I can say this! I love new products, they fill my head with ideas and make me forget all about the other things I need to do.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!


Also, since we are feeling super generous at the moment, our free shipping offer for the holidays is extended to January 4th, so order now to take advantage!
Happy New Year!
Just a quick note to say ‘hi’ and I hope everyone is well – its certainly been busy around here; crafting up some Christmas presents and baking our traditional sugar cookies! New products are coming soon tho, as well as a new blogger or two and an awesome little contest idea we have cooked up.
Don’t forget we still have free shipping for the holidays so order now before its too late!
Happy crafting!
Hello again!
Before we get started, I completely forgot to mention that we are offering FREE SHIPPING for the holidays so order now!

I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s Christmas Tree tutorial ’cause here we go again! Its time for part 2: Christmas Wreaths!
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Don’t you just love the holidays? My mom sure does and her spirit is certainly infectious. This year she asked me to make some Christmas charms for her to give to our family on Christmas Eve. I really like what I eventually came up with and so I thought I would make a tutorial for any chainmaillers who celebrate Christmas (or want to give a small but handmade gift to someone who does.) These are also pretty fast so they make good last minute oops-I-forgot-someone gifts too!
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Hello!
I have been keeping extremely busy with holiday preparations and picking out some awesome new products for the store (don’t you love the vegetable ivory? completely gorgeous and completely animal friendly). More new colors and styles are coming soon too!
For now we have something almost as exciting: new findings! All the little bits you need to put your beads together just how you want them, plus some cute little charms.
I hope you like them!


(We also have some gold ones.)
Before I return to my seemingly endless holiday crafting, here’s a necklace I made the other day with our new vegetable ivory heart pendants!

Welcome to our handy list of easy tutorials from the For the Love of Beads Blog!
Each post below features a step by step tutorial for creating your own piece of jewelry (or something else pretty) as well as a list of supplies required. Happy crafting!
Once your done, I’ll bet you want to get some good photographs of your work. If you need some tips, head on over to our helpful photography guide and get snapping!
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Welcome to our photography guide; first in a series of Do-It-Yourself Instructions to help you show off and sell all your beautiful jewelry creations!
The first post will walk you through the steps for building a lightbox, a simple tool for getting great lighting in unlikely situations; the second talks about how to use your cameras settings to achieve the look you want; and the third is a discussion of composition and background choices.
Part 1: DIY Lightbox Tutorial
Part 2: Aperture & Other Camera Settings
Part 3: Backgrounds and Composition
Part 4: Best Photos From the Blogosphere
But before you can get a good picture, you need something cool to take a photograph of so if you need some inspiration to get started, check out our easy and fun
DIY tutorials and my
experiments with wirewrapping!