When I found out about the Spinsational bead spinner, I just had to have it. It’s a bracelet set, but it comes with a whimsical cupcake bead spinner. I decided to give it a try. It was less than 20.00 USD and it’s around the same price range as the spin-n-bead Jr. At the time of this post, the Spin-n-Bead Jr is at 14.84… it normally retails for 18.00 to 20.00.
What’s in the Beading Kit
The kit came with 6 tubes of size 8 plastic seed beads, a hooked needle, thread, threader, clasps, and the bead spinner. I tested the spinner with:
- Beads in the kit and the needle – Good
- Beads in the kit and 26 gauge wire – Poor
- Beads in the kit and 24 gauge wire – Good
- Size 11 Matusno dynamite beads and 24 gauge wire – Good
Based on these tests, the beads and wires that we normally use in beading will work well with this bead spinner.
I was spilling beads a lot. There is more of a lip to the spinner and it didn’t dump out well. The beads were hard to dump out. However, it’s designed so that you dump the beads out with the funnel on top. Doing it this way, I only had 3 beads left in the bowl left…which isn’t bad. The pro part to this is that the beads don’t fly all over the place as it spins.
Conclusion:
My initial reaction after using the bead spinner was that it was awful to use because I was spilling beads left and right. But it turns out that it was a user error. Overall, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. The beads were staticky and that made them hard to use. It’s plastic and not glass but I do give it to them that the beads are quite uniform in size. The bead spinner was smooth and spins pretty well. It comes with a needle designed for the bead size. The lip of the spinner is larger so that it’s harder for beads to fly off when spinning. But it does make beads harder to come out if you dump it out into a bowl first but put the funnel on top and pour the beads into the tube, and it’ll be a better experience. Overall, for a kit designed for children, I think it’s a good kit to get kids interested in beadwork. And for us grown adult beaders, it’s a fun bead spinner and we’re all kids at heart…plus it works pretty well with a funnel cover which most of our spinners don’t.
Video Review and tutorial for making a beaded flower
Watch the video for my bead spilling footage and how to make a simple French beaded flower using the Continuous loop technique using the beads that came with it. These are size 8 beads so they are quite larger but it would be another fun way to use up the beads and get any children in your life interested in beadwork.
If you’d like to make DIY Bead spinners:
DIY Bead Spinner using VCR parts
