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Bargain Bead Box Subscription Review – October 2017

Ragan Buckley
ByRagan BuckleyOct 18, 2017 | 17 comments

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

Bargain Bead Box
5 overall rating
10 Ratings | 2 Reviews

Bargain Bead Box is a monthly subscription promising over $40 worth of quality jewelry-making supplies every month.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

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

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

The Subscription Box: Bargain Bead Box

The Cost: $15.95 a month

The Products: Designer quality beads in materials ranging from crystal to glass to semi-precious gemstones, plus metal beads and findings. Bargain Bead Box does not send any plastic beads or seed beads.

Ships to: U.S. (free), Canada for $7.50

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

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

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

There was a letter in the box with some more information on the theme (“Steampunk Style”). The back contained a list of the month’s beads.

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. I couldn’t find a lot of these exact beads from common sources (e.g., Fire Mountain Gems) and it’s of questionable value to pick something similar because a slight difference in grading or size or material and you are looking at half or double the price (or an even greater difference). Even different colors of the same size and shape of glass beads are priced differently due to materials needed to make the colors!

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

30 Pieces 8 mm Dotted Bead Caps

These are fun. They are a really good choice to coordinate with all the gears in this box (see below). I haven’t actually used them yet but I have a lot of copper and antique copper in my collection so they will coordinate with a lot of other items.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

100+ Pieces 4mm Chinese Crystal Bicones in Wheat AB

I used a few of these in my piece this month but I have a lot left over. Which is fine by me because 4mm bicones are often called for in patterns and I never have enough. These have almost a peach color to them and will go great with the other beads in my stash.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

60 mm Antique Style Key Pendant

I have a file (well, a bunch of bookmarks in my browser) of different things I want to try with key pendants. I started collecting these links after getting a steel key in Vintage Bead Box one month. Anyway, now that I have another key, I get to go back and choose a new project to make using the key!

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

10 Pieces 11mm Dual-Glazed Ceramic Round Beads

I’m trying to decide whether to do a simple strung bracelet (with either copper or gold accents) or use these in a more complex piece, perhaps with some unakite, which is a semiprecious stone with a similar (but not identical) color scheme and pattern.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

1m of 4mm Steel Rolo Chain in Antique Copper

Lately, we’ve been getting lots of chain in Bargain Bead Box. I love working with chain and I don’t have any quite like this already. This is in my stash for now, but I have a couple of pendants I plan to make soon and this would be a fun way to display those!

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

4 Sets 25 x 16 mm Fancy Swirl Hook and Eye Clasps

You’ll always get a few clasps in this subscription and the metal tone will always match the other items in the box. This type of clasp is best suited for necklaces with a bit of weight to them, I would say.  (On a bracelet, it would be prone to coming loose.)

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

3 Pieces 26mm Gear Findings

I’ll be honest, steampunk is not really an aesthetic I’m into, and I wasn’t excited at first about getting a bunch of gears. But I did my usual idea search (typing random stuff into Google and looking at the image results) and started to get an idea of how to use these.  I’m actually quite pleased with how it turned out.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

6 Pieces 20mm Gear Findings

Lots and lots of gears this month.  I used four of these to make a bracelet this month, which you can see below.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

4 Pieces 18mm Gear Findings

OK, these were totally stuck together and hard to get apart for some reason. I had to pry the last two apart with a file.  But, I ended up using every last one of them in the bracelet I made this month.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

48 Pieces 8mm African “Turquoise” Jasper Round Beads

I love getting semiprecious stones in subscription boxes; I am trying to use more of these in my work lately. These would go well with the bead caps pictured up above. I kind of want to just do something simple with these so that I can really showcase the random swirls of color in the beads. Copper is an excellent choice of accent color for these.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

10g Mixed Six Copper Finished Steel Jump Rings

It is nice that jump rings were included this month to go with all the gears, chain, charms, etc. These are not the highest quality jump rings I have ever worked with (they were kind of cut unevenly in some places), but they worked well enough for my piece this month; I used several sizes.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

3 Pieces 27 x 12mm Key Ring Charms

These are cute little charms. They are almost like charms that have their own charms. I haven’t used them yet, but they are not something that’s exclusively steampunk, so they will go well with some of my other antique copper finish charms.  (As you can see, I received 4 of these instead of 3…)

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

30 Pieces 6mm Chinese Crystal Round Beads in Turquoise

I used a few of these this month, but still have some left over. I kind of like getting opaque faceted beads; although I love the sparkle and shine of transparent beads (especially with AB coatings), sometimes I want a bead that’s not see-through.  This color goes with a whole lot of things in my stash.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

38mm Steampunk Style Round Pendant

You’ll usually get one large centerpiece bead in this subscription. This month it is this pendant. This goes very nicely with all the gears from this month. Because it has two smaller holes opposite one another, you’re not limited to only having it dangle at the end of a necklace chain, but you have a few other options as well.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

9 Pieces 10mm Chinese Crystal Coin Beads in Vitrail

These are pretty and totally my style (I love flat discs, coins, etc.). I don’t quite know what I will do with them yet but I might just string them into a bracelet or something simple like that.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

24 Pieces 9.5mm Industrial Style Spacer Beads

I haven’t used these yet but I think they are super versatile.  They would work with all of this month’s gears, or they could work in a tribal-design necklace, as well.  These won’t sit around in my collection for long.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

98 Pieces 4mm Chinese Crystal Round Beads in Teal

I like this color a lot and I have been hoarding 4mm beads lately as just so many patterns using the Czech shaped beads call for 4mm accents. I only used a few beads this month (focused more on findings) so I haven’t gotten to these yet, but I am definitely happy to have them.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

I wanted to do something really different this month. This was more fun to make than it had any right to be. I used SO MANY tools and supplies that I bought randomly in the past, it’s almost like I can justify the purchases after the fact – TWO metal hole punches, TWO pairs of pliers just for bending bracelets, two gauges of copper wire, sheet metal, metal shears, TWO kinds of rivets, a steel bench block, a rivet setter, a one pound brass mallet, diamond files, etc. Also, I bought a package of ring blanks at Michael’s. Don’t tell anyone but the ring is a silver color (which is why I wired beads through that particular gear…).

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

Here is a closer view of the cuff part since it was at a weird angle in the last picture. I need to work on my cuff-bending skills, but honestly, this turned out pretty well for my first ever attempt at making a cuff. As it is right now, I need to put a sealant or something, or this would totally turn my wrist green.

Bargain Bead Box October 2017 Craft and DIY Subscription Box

Here is my workspace at the end of this project. I’d estimate this took me an hour, and I’ll bet there wwas$200 or $300 worth of tools on the table at the end of that time.

Verdict: I did not calculate a value for Bargain Bead Box, as explained above. The information sheet gives a retail value of about $54 and I can believe that value if you were to go out looking for similar beads to purchase a la carte. Looking at it another way, you are paying a little under $1 per item since the price is $15.95 and there were 17 items this month. And THAT is a pretty good deal.

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

What did you think of the October 2017 Bargain Bead Box? Do you subscribe to any beading or craft boxes?

Starting at $19.49
Subscribe Now

Bargain Bead Box is a monthly subscription box for bead lovers and jewelry designers. Each shipment includes over $40 worth of glass, gemstone, crystal, and/or metal beads & findings for $17.95 per month, curated around a surprise theme.

Ragan Buckley
Ragan Buckley
Ragan stumbled across My Subscription Addiction in late 2013 and immediately subscribed to way too many beauty boxes. She's now focused on boxes for her cats and dog, vegan/vegetarian food boxes, and craft subscriptions (and she didn't give up beauty boxes entirely).

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17 comments

Beans

Seeing bits of your beading hoard really makes me feel like I’m not alone in the world! Beautiful work as always, steampunk’s not really my style but I think your bracelet came out awesome!

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Jessvii

Your creativity knows no bounds! You always do amazing stuff. Wowzers!

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anDreama

I just reorganized all of my beads in my CraftMates binders, and now I totally can’t justify getting this box because I have four barely-used bead binders, each with eight rows of seven containers… 224 containers of different kinds of beads, and that doesn’t include my four Plano boxes and two smaller Plano seed bead boxes…… On the plus side, my boyfriend was so impressed with how I organized my one case that he asked to see the rest! [sorted each row/side by groupings of stones, pearls, plastic pearls, bicones, etc.] It was really satisfying to sort, and because I need a new binder, I might as well get at least one month of BBB…

It’s always fun to see what you make! Have you thought about sharing what you make in between boxes? I can’t get enough of looking at what people make with bead boxes, but I find that people rarely post or just don’t tag.

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Ragan

I’d estimate my bead collection to easily have 2,000-3,000 different types of items (and that is not counting wire, sheet metal, stringing material, metal tubing, soldering supplies, enamel supplies, other chemicals, etc.). I kind of have a problem. Also I’ve been collecting for 20 years and I get like 10 bead boxes a month right now. It is taking over my living room. I love it, but my husband is not so enthusiastic about the clutter.

I am going to be stuck at home for six weeks after having surgery at the end of the month and although I will be doing my regular job and writing MSA reviews from home I have a couple of things planned that I will probably put up on a blog somewhere. I am going to enter the 2018 Fire Mountain Gems seed bead competition, so I might post progress pictures on my project for that. Also I have been very into coloring metals lately and have bought random metal coloring products because they sound cool, but I can’t actually find pictures of what they do, so I was thinking about trying them out on copper and brass blanks and posting photos.

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anDreama

That’s awesome! I’ve been putting off buying more bead / craft stuff until we move, but because we live in the Seattle metro area we’ve been trying for a year and the outlook is dim. Siiighhhh. I just want to have my own craft room, with loads of shelves and table space, so I don’t want to expand my craft collection while I’m stuffed into my current small office.

Good luck with the Fire Mountain Gems competition! I’ve looked at some of the winners, and they’re pretty intense! I haven’t done metal coloring, but I’ve got alcohol inks and no idea what to do with them. They don’t actually stay on ceramic tiles like Pinterest crafts suggest, and spraying a clear coat on them just ruins it.

Caligirl

Amazing really my favorite you have ever done!🏆

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Jenai

Love the cuff bracelet!!

My only crit with the box would be that steampunk is a bit more than just gears. There are so many sub-genres, each with their own aesthetic, but the Victorian aesthetic of ‘everything beautiful is functional, everything functional is beautiful’ influences it a lot. Since gears represent a blend of intricate design as well as function, they work well with Steampunk designs. However, it’s even better when there is still something ‘functional’ about a piece, rather than just using the gears for design. So while the watch mechanism pendant is a nice nod to function, an even better pendant would have been a working watch, perfume bottle, locket, compass, etc. so that the jewelry would have a bonus ‘function.’ 🙂

Great box this month though!

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nana

WOW! WOW! wow!

That is just stunning.

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Sharon

HOLY CRAP. I love the hand-chain trend and this is one of the coolest pieces I’ve seen you make.

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h

What fun! You are amazing in the range of talent that you visualize and turn into a work of art. If you bought in bulk, you could set up tables at sci-fi conventions and sell as steampunk jewelry with your eye and talent, while at the same time, you could sell at an elegant boutique with fine, delicate bracelets. It is so much fun reading your reviews and I’m comfortable to finally subscribe. We already have so many of the tools and materials. Is there a site or two that gives you the beginner some plans that will involve the necessary tools and materials to sort of get one set up…if that makes sense?

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Ragan

There’s not really an easy answer to your question. I have been making jewelry for almost 20 years and have tried at least a dozen techniques in that time period (and have the supplies for a dozen more). So when I am working on something, I might remember a resource from the 1990s and combine that with something I saw in a book last year, and I might use tools bought 5 or 10 years apart from 5 different stores (some of which are not even around anymore).

One blog you might look at is called “The Beading Gem’s Journal.” She does reviews of books and tools and supplies and links to a lot of tutorials and online classes and such. You could get some ideas and learn a few things there if you explore the site. She really covers a lot of areas so it’s a good place to get started.

Sometimes I think about starting a jewelry blog but I have almost no free time during the week between my full-time job and MSA.

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h

Thank you for responding. I’ll definitely look at those. It will take decades to reach your level, and some people never will if they just don’t have “the eye” for it. Who knows until they try it. It sounds like fun, so I’m tempted to just see what pops up in my mind with the beads in front of me. With a parent that’s a large metal sculptor and engineers in the family, we have lots of metal parts and tools and are all around, so this box appeals to me. Thanks for reviewing these and displaying what you create.

h

I will be shocked if you don’t win this contest. Your cuff and ring is AMAZING!

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Clara

when I scrolled down, I literally went wow. That is a gorgeous piece!

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Nikki G.

That is such an awesome piece! Love it!

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Nikki Gl

That is such an awesome piece!

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