Beads

$2.89 / 500 beads

The multicolor bag most charts on this site are built around. Fluorescent neon, so it lights up under a blacklight instead of going gray at 1 a.m. — 9mm barrel beads that run true to size.

$2.89 / 500 beads

Blackout stacks and cuff outlines eat black faster than anything else. A dedicated bag means you are not fishing black beads out of a mix one at a time at midnight.

$2.89 / 500 beads

The spacer that separates letters so a phrase still reads across a rail. Cheap enough to keep a full bag on hand even when you only use a few at a time.

$2.89 / 500 beads

The hot pink in half the UV charts here. Fluorescent finish, so it reads under stage lighting and blacklight, not only in a daylight photo.

$4.29 / 200 beads

These are the sun-reactive kind: white indoors, saturated the second you walk outside. A daytime-set trick, not a blacklight one — for blacklight you want the neon bags above.

$3.09 / 500 beads

Charges under any light and holds a soft glow for hours. Swap a few beads of any chart into these and the piece becomes a different thing after dark — this is the one that survives a campground with no lights.

~$12.97 / 2,300 beads

Cheapest per bead of anything here, for when you just want a pile of mixed color to free-string with and no chart in hand.

~$6–7 / 1,000 beads

For when you want beads delivered instead of a store run. Stick to plain bulk-bead listings — the running complaint about all-in-one “kandi kits” is uneven bead sizing and beads that crack under a knot.

$4.39 / 144 beads

A mixed A–Z pack instead of buying single letters. 144 beads covers a couple of full phrases with spares for the letters every word runs short on — you will still run out of E.

$4.99 / 90m

The default cord on this site — every cord length in every bead count assumes 1mm. One spool is dozens of singles or a handful of cuffs before you reorder.

$2.09 / 24m

Thinner cord for letter beads and dense peyote rows, where 1mm is a fight to get through the same bead twice.

$2.09 / 24m

Same weight in black. On a blackout piece the cord disappears instead of showing as a white line between beads.

~$8–10

Anything that goes round your neck in a crowd has to come apart when somebody catches it. Necklaces on this site are built on a breakaway clasp for that reason and no other.

~$5–6

The wide, spring-open eye takes the fight out of pushing stretch cord through a letter bead, or re-threading a tip that has started to fray.

$8.49

One color per compartment, lid stays shut in a backpack. The single most useful thing to buy once your colors outgrow sandwich bags — and the thing that makes a prep night take one hour instead of three.