All About Bali Beads

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Usually when I incoporate metal beads into my hemp pieces, I prefer to use bali and hill tribe silver beads. These are the same or better silver content than sterling silver beads (.925 to .999), but there is one particular aspect of them that has me choosing them constantly. Well there’s a few reasons – I love the weight that they add to a particular piece, and it also works great for making more men’s jewelry pieces. However my main reason is that these pieces are made by hand in Bali, Indonesia, and you can see the detail in each piece. The Karen Hill Tribe beads are in much the same boat, although with those I’m typically getting their intricate focal pieces instead of spacers. These types are also the ones that tend to have the closer to fine silver content (.999).