Tyra Smith,Cloud 9, Product Review,Micro Beads, Pennywise Art Supplies

Micro Beads
Author: Tyra L. Smith
(Manufacturer: Pennywise Art Supplies http://www.pennywisearts.com/)

I recently discovered a nifty little product called Micro Beads. After playing with these beads a while, I've found that they are really a very nice addition to my stash of embellishments.

Micro beads are extremely tiny, colored no-hole .5mm glass beads. They come in a large range of both translucent and opaque metallic colors.

I have found these beads to be extremely high quality beads. They appear to be colored glass beads rather than clear glass or plastic beads with a colorant added on top. I've used several methods of affixing the glass beads to various surfaces and have been quite satisfied with the overall results. I did not have any colorant bleed off the beads into the wet adhesives I used, which is a very pleasant surprise.

Sometimes when you work with the tiny no hole beads, you can have problems with static cling on the beads. I experienced NO PROBLEMS with static cling when working with the Micro Beads. The lack of static cling in the beads makes it quite easy to use the beads as add-ins for shaker cards. I never had to worry about the beads sticking to the acetate.

The translucent colors of the Micro Beads were a pure joy to work with. You can use them in so many wonderful ways. One of my favorites was affixing the translucent colors of Micro Beads to glass for a faux stained glass look. You can also achieve the faux stained glass look by affixing the beads to either acetate or clear acrylic shapes. This also leads to stunning lamp shades and/or mini shades for votive candles. I just love the way light bounces off the individual tiny beads and creates a warm glow.

The Micro Beads are also quite stunning when used with UTEE projects. The beads stick beautifully to hot melted UTEE and create awesome visual interest within any piece.

There were three things which impressed me most about the Micro Beads:

1. They are very good quality colored glass no-hole mini beads

2. The size of the beads is .5mm, which is the perfect size to use them as embellishments or alone as the main focus. The small size helps to allow the beads to fill in the space without having areas of beadless space.

3. The quantity of the beads you get for the price just blew me away. You get a LOT of beads.

For those of you who enjoy working with no-hole beads, I can highly recommend this product. For those of you who have never worked with no-hole beads but are interested, once again I can highly recommend this product.

Penny Wise Art Supplies also sells special highly sticky, double-sided tape products for use with the beads that is called "O' So Sticky Tape". I've tried a few different brands of double-sided sticky tape with the beads and was not impressed with how they held the beads. Even my good old stand-by carpet tape did not firmly grasp and hold the beads for very long. However, once I tried using the O' So Sticky Tape from Penny Wise Art Supplies, I was very impressed with that tape. It firmly grasps and holds those beads in place and keeps them in place. The O' So Sticky Tape is sold both in sheets and also in rolls of various widths. I found the price on the O' So Sticky Tape to be very reasonable and well worth the price. It is also heat resistant, so you can use it with embossing powders as well as glitter and beads.

Micro Beads come in a huge variety of colors that range from translucent to opaque to clear.

Copyright 2004 Tyra Smith Cloud9@netnet.net
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