Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another by stringing them onto a thread or thin wire with a sewing or beading needle or sewing them to cloth. Beads are produced in a diverse range of materials, shapes, and sizes, and vary by the kind of art produced. Most often, beadwork is a form of personal adornment, but it also commonly makes up other artworks.
Ukrainian bead weaving pysanka
Beadwork in progress on a bead weaving loom. Black, orange and transparent seed beads are being used to make a bracelet.
A string of blue faience beads from north Lisht, a village in the Memphite region of Egypt, c. 1802–1450 B.C.
King Charles II and Catherine of Braganza with allegories of the four continents, a elaborate beadwork basket project
A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under 1 millimeter (0.039 in) to over 1 centimeter (0.39 in) in diameter.
A selection of glass beads
Merovingian bead
Trade beads, 18th century
Trade beads, 18th century