Beads from the shop in Victoria

With the holidays approaching I’m taking a little time to spend making gifts, socializing with friends, meeting up with family, and eventually wrapping and sharing gifts.. so in the meantime, I have some super-quick posts to share with you that aren’t too distracting from your own making/socializing/meeting/wrapping/sharing  schedules, but that I wanted to share nonetheless.

I’ll start off with a little showcase from long ago – my visit this past summer to the Victoria Bead Town Designs store in Victoria, BC, Canada.

My purchases at the bead store

I bought a few things while I was there (above) – two blue, red, and white lampwork beads (which I had planned on using for a Viking festoon), four expensive real amber beads (which were also intended for the festoon, but the hole is too small, so into the stash they went for a future project instead…) and a package each of red and blue glass beads. I thought that these looked very similar to some of the Viking age artifacts I’ve seen in museum displays, plus the price was pretty good for “filler” beads for my necklaces/festoons.

I ended up not using the lampwork beads after all either (yet!) but check out the finished festoon here: Another Viking Age Festoon Necklace

Showing off what Victoria Bead Town Designs has to offer

Lampwork beads in the Victoria Bead Town Designs shop

This was the first  bead shop I visited in Victoria, and I had anticipated something a bit bigger based on their website, though it was well laid out with lots of selection. Although I picked the blue, white, and red lampwork beads, check out their selection above… teal, blue, yellow, black, green, pink, red, orange.. if you had a colour scheme, even just in this one bead I bet you could find a match!

The shop also has a fairly large workshop space in the back. I don’t remember if they offer workshops or if this is for production of jewelry and goods for sale in the shop (and their Facebook doesn’t indicate one way or another I’m afraid). Though the space was big enough that this didn’t seem to take away from the rest of their offerings.

Victoria Bead Town Designs shop

I found the staff person helpful, though she was also very interested in working on her own project in the back as well. I don’t mind this though – I like a fair amount of browsing time sometimes before asking for assistance (as long as I’m not in a hurry!) and she knew the store inventory quite well when I did ask. It’s also not so bad seeing someone actually work on a project – at least you know they’re knowledgeable about what they’re doing.. not like some sales staff who are much less knowledgeable!

I’ll have a few more places in Victoria for you to check out in upcoming posts… but if you’re in Victoria yourself, you can check out Victoria Bead Town Designs here:

Victoria Bead Town Designs
1317 Broad Street
Victoria, British Columbia
(250) 590-7690

https://www.facebook.com/VictoriaBeadTownDesigns