Seed Bead Identification

Get to know your bead manufacturers

Do you have seed beads in your stash that you are unsure who the manufacturer is?  Occasionally you can come across a bead tutorial that calls for a particular brand of seed bead.  This can be due to the height of the seed bead and can have an impact on how the finished design works.  Most designers will have tested their patterns with many different beads and will let you know which brand works best.  Some patterns this does not matter and sometimes you will try something out and find you need to get creative to make the design work with the beads you have chosen.

Sometimes even beads made by the same manufacturer can vary in size.  This can be due to the colour coatings on the beads and the finishes which can create extra layers of coating on the glass resulting in slightly larger beads.

At Cranberry we have the following manufacturers of seed beads.

• Miyuki – Japanese Seed Beads in size 6,8,11 and 15
• Toho – Japanese Seed Beads in size 6,8,11 and 15
• Matsuno – Japanese Seed Beads in size 6,8,11 and 15
• Czech glass seed beads in Size 8, 11 and 15 Charlottes

Here is a photograph comparing the size of seed beads by some different manufacturers. There is exactly the same amount of beads for each sample. Notice how some beads are taller.

If you have older tubes of cranberry beads, which only have a code listed them, you can enter the code into the search bar on the Cranberry website to learn who the manufacturer is.  As long as it is a bead code we have stocked, it should come up in the search bar.

If that fails to work, you can watch this video below where Joanne explains in detail how you can get a good idea what bead you have in your stash and what projects you might like to use them in.