The Great Heishi Shortage: 57 Shades of Burgundy and Other Bead Dynasty Problems
Previously on Bead Dynasty…
There were beads.
There were bracelets.
There was coffee.
And for a brief, shining moment, there was an absolutely perfect assortment of heishi beads from Amazon.
I had colors I loved. I had combinations that worked. I had my little system going. I was making my Gilmore Girls inspired bracelet stacks, sending them off into the world, and generally feeling like the tiny bead empire was under control.
Which, if you’ve followed Bead Dynasty for any length of time, should have been my first warning.
Because apparently nothing good lasts forever.
Cue the dramatic 1980s soap opera music.
I needed to make more Gilmore Girls stacks.
I was running low on some of the colors I had used in my original combinations, so I did what any reasonable person would do: I went back to order more of the heishi beads I’d been using.
Except my lovely assortment was no longer available to me here in Canada.
Well then.
How Hard Can It Be to Replace a Few Colors?
Famous last words.
The Canadian Heishi Bead Problem
Now, if you’re reading this somewhere with endless aisles of craft supplies, you may be wondering why I didn’t simply drive to a store and buy the colors I needed.
Welcome to Canada.
Heishi—or polymer clay—beads aren’t impossible to find here. Finding them in useful quantities, in individual colors, at a price that doesn’t make me clutch my coffee a little tighter is another story.
We don’t have Hobby Lobby, where I see American beaders casually wandering into an aisle containing what appears to be seventeen thousand bags of beads in every color known to humanity.
We have Michaels.
And yes, Michaels sells heishi beads. But when you’re making bracelets regularly and need enough of one very specific color to reproduce several stacks, those little retail packages aren’t exactly what I’d call bulk buying.
It’s more like:
“Oh look! Burgundy!”
Contains approximately enough beads to make half a bracelet.
$6.99, please.
Perfect. I’ll take twelve. Do you accept kidneys?
😂
Okay, I’m exaggerating. Slightly.
But that’s really why Amazon assortments became so useful for me. I could get a large range of colors in one purchase, find combinations I loved, and actually have enough beads to make more than one bracelet.
The problem comes later—when one particular color becomes part of a combination you want to make again.
Because now you’re not looking for a blue.
You’re looking for that blue.
And apparently that is where the trouble begins.
I started looking for another bulk assortment that contained the colors I needed.
One order became two.
Two became three.
Eventually I had purchased four different lots of heishi beads, trying to replace a handful of colors from my original mix.
And that’s when I learned something important:
Apparently nobody in the heishi bead industry has ever met each other and discussed what colors are called.
Blue? We have several interpretations.
Grey? Pick a grey. Any grey.
Brown and tan? Welcome to an entire neutral-colored rabbit hole.
And then there was…
57 Shades of Burgundy
I needed burgundy.
Not red.
Not purple.
Not mauve.
Not dusty rose.
Not burgundy’s second cousin who once saw burgundy across a crowded room.
Burgundy.
I pulled the burgundy-ish shades from each of the new assortments and lined them up beside the few remaining beads from my original mix.
Nope.
Nope.
Definitely nope.
One was too red. One leaned mauve. Another was wine-ish. Meanwhile the three precious little beads from my original assortment sat on the desk looking smug because that was the color I actually wanted.
Eventually I admitted defeat and ordered an individual package specifically labelled burgundy.
Was it the exact burgundy I wanted?
No.
Was it the closest I’d found after buying enough heishi beads to open a small warehouse?
Yes.
We had reached the acceptance stage.
Money. Power. Pony Beads.
And apparently compromise.
Then Blue Entered the Chat
Surely blue would be easier.
And actually… it was.
Easier.
Not easy.
Once again, I laid the remaining blue beads from my original mix beside the replacement strands. There were royal blues, deeper blues, brighter blues and slightly different blues that looked perfectly acceptable until you put them directly beside one another.
Grey did the same thing.
Then brown and tan joined the party.
At this point my craft desk looked less like a jewellery-making space and more like a very low-budget color laboratory.
But here’s where this experiment actually became useful.
Heishi Bead Colors Aren’t As Interchangeable As They Look
If you make one bracelet and never need to reproduce it, none of this matters very much.
Pick colors you love. Mix them together. Make something pretty. Carry on with your life.
But if you create repeatable color combinations—especially if you’re selling stacks and want to make that design again—the differences between assortments suddenly matter.
A color called burgundy in one set may look completely different from burgundy in another. The same thing happens with blues, greys, creams, tans and browns.
And color isn’t the only thing worth checking when you mix heishi beads from different sources. Compare the diameter and thickness of the discs, the hole size, the finish and even how flexible the beads feel. Small differences aren’t necessarily a problem, but they’re much easier to spot when you’re trying to recreate an existing design.
Which brings me to another lesson I learned accidentally.
Sometimes the Best Bead Kit Isn’t Meant for Your Project
One of my favorite assortments wasn’t meant for Gilmore Girls at all.
It was a Thanksgiving bracelet kit. $10.99 on Amazon
Somewhere along the way I discovered that this random Thanksgiving assortment contained the perfect colors for my Luke’s Diner bracelets. I used an assortment of these colors and a little red.
So I ordered it.
Then I reordered it.
And I may have reordered it again.
Apparently I wasn’t buying Thanksgiving beads anymore.
I was quietly stockpiling Luke’s Diner.
And there’s actually a good little bead-shopping tip hiding in there: ignore the name on the kit. Look at the palette.
A Christmas assortment might have exactly the red, cream and green you need for something completely unrelated. A fall kit might contain gorgeous neutrals you can use year-round. And apparently a Thanksgiving kit might be the foundation upon which an entire fictional Connecticut diner bracelet collection is built.
Use what works.
Don’t Get Too Attached
This may be the biggest lesson from my little adventure.
If you find an assortment with several colors you absolutely love—and you know you’re going to want to reproduce those combinations—consider getting another one while it’s still available.
Because finding the same color name later doesn’t necessarily mean finding the same color.
I’d also take a quick photo of a successful color combination before mixing everything back into storage. Even better, keep a few reference beads aside. Those three lonely burgundy beads became surprisingly useful when I was comparing all my replacements.
They were basically my tiny plastic Pantone chips.
Who knew?
But Then Something Interesting Happened
After all that comparing…
All that staring…
All those strands spread across my desk…
All those moments of holding two beads approximately three inches from my face and muttering, “No. That’s definitely more blue.”
I started making the bracelets.
And suddenly the differences weren’t nearly as important.
Once the replacement burgundy was mixed with blue, grey, cream, tan, gold spacers and letter beads, it worked.
The blue worked.
The greys worked.
The neutrals worked.
Were they exact matches to the original beads?
No.
But in a finished bracelet, they didn’t necessarily need to be.
And I think that’s my favorite takeaway from this whole ridiculous experiment.
Close Enough Can Actually Be Better
When we’re making something, it’s incredibly easy to become obsessed with matching the picture in our head—or recreating something we’ve already made exactly.
But sometimes a slightly different shade gives the new piece its own character.
If you’re mixing several colors together, those tiny differences can disappear into the overall palette. Sometimes they even add more depth.
So yes, compare your beads.
Pay attention to color names.
Keep reference beads if you’re creating repeatable designs.
Buy enough of the colors you really love.
But also know when to stop hunting for the mythical Perfect Burgundy of 2026 and just make the bracelet.
Because eventually that’s what I did.
And Stars Hollow Lives Again
The bead drama finally ended where it was supposed to: back at my desk making bracelets.
The new Stars Hollow stack came together in shades of blue, cream and warm tan with gold stars and spacers.
Then came another Gilmore Girls stack using the colors I’d spent all this time trying to replace—burgundy, blue, grey, cream, tan and a little gold.
And you know what?
They work.
After four different bead purchases and enough color comparison to qualify me for some sort of honorary degree in burgundy…
the bracelets look exactly like they belong together.
Which means the Great Heishi Shortage did not destroy the Dynasty.
It merely caused some unnecessary online shopping, a temporary burgundy crisis and several dramatic conversations with Anders.
So, basically…
a normal week around here.
A new Color Combo!
Previously on Bead Dynasty…
We had one green bead.
We’ve had questionable Amazon kits.
We’ve had Craft Room Barb arrive with a $5 bag of mystery beads.
And now we’ve survived 57 Shades of Burgundy.
I don’t know what the beads have planned next.
But I’m keeping the coffee close.
And possibly ordering two of everything.
Money. Power. Pony Beads.
The Dynasty continues
Bulk Heishi/Clay Bead Strands on Amazon
Some of the links sprinkled throughout this post are affiliate links. That simply means if you click one and decide you absolutely need that crafty little something in your life, I may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you.
Think of it as helping to keep this little corner of the internet supplied with paper, ink, beads… and, most importantly, coffee. Because apparently creativity requires caffeine and an alarming number of craft supplies.
So click away guilt-free. You get the crafty goodies, I might get enough commission to fund my next questionable craft-room purchase. Everybody wins ~Thank you!
