Bead Kits. Cannibalize Them. Seriously.

The possibilities are endless.....

I have to say that I am fairly disappointed in the bead ornament kits that are available this year. I didn’t look for them last year, but the year before Walmart had a  whole little display of bead kits. This year, Michael’s has the best selection, although most of the kits have been around for some time. 🙁 Most of what Joann’s has in stock are foam kits. They have a couple of glass ball kits but I am not so in to those. I haven’t seen any kits at Robert’s Crafts other than the Foam and Pom Pom ones. I also noticed that there does not seem to be as big of a selection of cheap craft beads.

My solution? Cannibalize the cheap bead kits that you can find. I bought a snowflake kit at Michael’s, although I have to say that it resembles more of a flower. At any rate, the bead kit makes two snowflakes. I only made one. I will mix the remaining beads in with other kits I have purchased. This will allow me to have a decent array of beads to play with. A bag of plastic craft beads will run between $3 and $5. I think even pony beads go for $5 at Michael’s. So for $15 you can get three kinds of beads. OR for $15 you can buy three snowflake kits from Michael’s. Each kit will come with a variety of beads. You will have fewer beads than if you purchased bags of them individually. However, if you bought packages of all the different kinds of beads you would have (assuming you can even find them) you would be looking at $40-$50.  I personally bought 5 or 6 of the angel kits from walmart. I chose clear and light blue for making snowflake ornaments. I also picked up a couple of green, a red and a gold so that I’d have beads on hand in other traditional Christmas Colors. As an added bonus, when you purchase the angel kits, they come with safety pins, a halo and wings. Obviously if you use the beads for other projects you are going to have wings left over. But…. I’ve seen lots of other angel ideas online. To make those, I’d need to buy wings and a halo… .or I can just use the leftovers.

I love being cheap. I’ll be hitting the after Christmas sales for sure so that I can stock up!