Looking for a bead store

[redbird]

While doing stuff with beads after elisem left yesterday, I realized that Beads of the Month, while informative and delightful, doesn't leave me with lots of things that want to go together into pairs of earrings. Also, the few beads I picked up at Toho Shoji a while ago don't go well with what I got from Elise.

So, I want more beads. (Also more French hook style findings, but that should be easier.) Do any of you know good bead stores in New York City? Manhattan (especially downtown or the West Side), the West Bronx, or downtown Brooklyn by preference--basically, reachable easily starting in Upstate Manhattan, meaning by the A, 1, or a small selection of buses.

Google finds me lots of listings for bead stores in New York, and I have no quick way of telling the good from the bad.

Comments

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

You could try Metalliferous (34 W 46th Street). They have a bead room and practically every finding one could imagine.

I've always found Toho Shoji to be great for Swarovski crystal and seed beads, but not too much else. There are some other bead stores near there, but I don't have exact addresses. Sorry about that... mostly they were places I'd duck into after work or on my lunch break when I worked on 35th street. Chances are, knowing that neighborhood, they're probably gone by now anyway. :(

The Rio Grande catalog is also good, but they're annoying about making one shell out for it (I think it's $10 or something)

I just found this site listing bead store in NY and the page has nearly the same color background as your lj page. Is it a sign? :)

http://www.guidetobeadwork.com/localstores/states/NY.zip.html

[callunav.livejournal.com]

You might want to consider getting a catalogue from Rio Grande (http://www.riogrande.com/). It kind of depends on what you want - if you're looking for a few pretty or unusual beads, that's not what you need. They're a jewelry-supply place, not just beads, designed for...the serious hobbyist. Not the professional - they're retail, not wholesale prices and quantities - but not the browsing person who only wants five or six cool beads. On the other hand, if you find you want more wire, more earring hooks, a couple kinds of pliers, a few different kinds of staple beads, and this-or-that other items, then they might be just right. I haven't ordered anything from them for several year, but at the time when I last went through the catalogue, it seemed to be going /more/ to the hobbyist end of things, which annoyed me at the time, but might be a good thing for you. Besides, the catalogues are serious hobbyist porn. I used to just go through them marking off fantasy orders for all the things I wanted to make. I composed a gorgeous opal-and-onyx necklace I'll never make, perused the South Atlantic black pearls, and priced the cost of setting myself up with a small work bench with a crucible and blow torch and all the necessary supplies for small-scale lost-wax casting, which isn't going to happen any time in *this* decade. But it was an enjoyable hour spent and cost me nothing for the dreams.

There are probably other places - Oh! The Bead Guy! Let me see if he's still around...he had the most entertaining jewelry-supply web-site /ever/...damnit. Can't find him. Either he went under or I'm using the wrong search terms. Well, anyhow. Mail-order has a lot to recommend it, although it's fun to pour over and actually touch the beads in stores.

It's fun to read about you doing this. I haven't done much jewelry-making for a long time, and you make me miss it in a pleasant kind of way. Hope you'll post pictures of things you make and are pleased with.