Blueberry Cove Beads Subscription Box Review – January 2017

Blueberry Cove Beads is a beading subscription from Canada. Every month they ship beads and supplies and post a challenge incorporating one or more items from the box. If you choose to enter the challenge, you share photos of your project and may win your next month’s box free!

My Subscription Addiction pays for this subscription. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

The Subscription Box: Blueberry Cove Beads

The Cost: $27 ($22 for the subscription + $5 shipping)

The Products: A curated selection of beads and findings centered on a theme.

Ships to: U.S. and Canada

Good to know: You will receive this towards the end of the month or the beginning of the next month if you live in the U.S. since it is shipping from Canada.

Check out all of our Blueberry Cove Bead reviews and the Craft Subscription Box Directory for more great craft supply and DIY project boxes!

Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!

There isn’t a traditional information card with this box. This month the challenge is to make something using the red hearts (which you will see below).

A note on prices: Items like this can come from a variety of different suppliers at many price points depending on how many you buy, etc. Even different colors of the same size and shape of glass beads are priced differently due to materials needed to make the colors! So I have opted not to provide prices in this review.

Please note that no directions are given and you have to supply your own needles, stringing materials, tools, and findings. 

Red Glass Oval Accent Beads

I love this color and think these will look fabulous in some vintage-inspired jewelry. Or possibly with all the faux coral from Bargain Bead Box this month.

Gemstone Rounds

I am not actually sure what type of gemstone these are. Probably some kind of multi-quartz? Anyway, I have been kind of obsessed with making wrap bracelets lately and I like having gemstone rounds on hand for those.

Faceted Pink Rounds

I used these in my attempt to make a wire bracelet this month. They were pretty hardy even around my errant pliers and wire burr rounder. I have a few left and they will go into my jar of random faceted beads (sometimes I like to make jewelry using what I find there).

Silver Heart Clasps

These are cute. They are not pink, by the way. I was probably wearing something red when taking the photos. They are actually silver. They are pretty dainty and would work well in delicate chain-based necklaces.

Mother of Pearl (?) Hearts

I had grand plans to make a bunch of different jewelry this month but I ran out of time. (I am very slow when exploring new techniques, as it turns out.) I am still going to make some of the other bracelets I had envisioned and incorporate these. I just didn’t want this review to be posting in August or something…

Red Faceted Glass/Crystal Hearts

These were the challenge bead this month. I like faceted glass and the color red, so I was happy with these. I did manage to use one in the bracelet I made.

Goldtone Heart Locket Charms

I’ve been wanting to do more cold connection work lately, including with mixed metals. I don’t have any rivets right now that are big enough for these but I may try to create some out of sterling silver tubing, or I may just attach them with jump rings – they’d also definitely work in a charm bracelet.

Silvertone “Love” Connectors

These would also be great for mixed-metal work. I have been thinking of either riveting them to copper blanks or copper sheet (I mostly buy copper for cost reasons…).

Goldtone Spacers

It is always good to get spacers. I am envisioning these with some freshwater pearls and maybe the odd Swarovski crystal here and there.

Porcelain Beads with Painted Flowers

I was previously collecting lampworked rounds with foil for a necklace (well, I still am) but now I’ve received enough porcelain beads that I think I can use them the same way in a different necklace. These have a very simple design and will match a lot of the other porcelain beads in my collection.

Stamped Metal Beads

I’m not much for wearing jewelry with words on it but I know several people who would be happy to have gifts incorporating these.

I have a confession to make. This is the first ever piece I’ve attempted to make using wire, a bracelet mandrel, and a chasing hammer. I am clearly not very skilled with any of these tools or materials yet. And square wire was probably not the right choice, but it was all I had in a gauge I could actually bend with pliers.

Anyway, I am going to work on my wire skills and I have some round wire in my Amazon cart and hopefully, in a few months, I will have something more polished to show you. (Also, I had plans to make two other bracelets, but this one ended up taking me like four hours because I had no idea what I was doing and had a bunch of false starts.)

Also, be careful when bending wire around glass beads. I may have, um, broken the first red heart I tried to make a connector for. (When in doubt, safety glasses are good to be wearing.)

Verdict: I did not calculate a value here but if you divide the total cost + shipping by the number of items, you are paying about $2.45 an item. That seems reasonable, considering that gemstone strands are usually quite a bit more than this and that there are quite a few metal charms this month as well as faceted glass/crystal (I’m not always sure of the materials so these are educated guesses). Everything fit the theme quite well or else was a useful accent to accompany the more obviously-themed beads. This month, Blueberry Cove Beads has inspired me to improve my wire-working and cold connection skills, too, and I did need that push since I have already bought all the materials I need to get started with these techniques.

What did you think of the January 2017 Blueberry Cove Beads? Do you subscribe to any beading or craft boxes?