As you may have guessed, I love bead jewelry and I love beads! At the beginning of each year my husband and I start looking around for some place to go for vacation, and while searching I ran across a bead museum in Washington, DC! Then, as I looked some more, I found four different bead museums scattered around the country. I haven’t been to any of them, but here they are so that if any of you are traveling or live near them you can check them out!

So here’s a brief synopsis of each, from east to west!

MBAD’s African Bead Museum – Detroit, MI – If you’re into African beads or art, then this is definitely the place for you! The MBAD African Bead Museum is one of the most well-known and perhaps largest collection of beads, textiles, sculptures and art from Africa and the Museum itself has been in operation for over 25 years, with the current 17,500 sq. foot location being a site to behold!

The Bead Museum – Glendale, AZ – If you’ve heard of one bead museum, it’s probably the one in Glendale, AZ. It was started in 1984 as a place to keep and display beads from different cultures throughout history. They have permanent as well as regularly changing exhibits as well as a museum store and a website filled with interesting information.

Picard Trade Bead Museum and African Art Gallery – Carmel Valley, CA – Here’s one I didn’t know about before I did my resaerch, but now I’m really looking forward to the next time I go to California! What’s amazing about this bead museum, other than the huge collection of art and beads, is that they have a large part of their collection on line! Right now they are featuring Venetian chevron/star beads from 1800 to the mid 1900s and they have lots and lots and lots of beautiful photos online. You can also access all the photos of the Picard Trade Bead Museum’s past bead exhibits.

And one that’s now closed: Bead Museum – Washington, DC – Though now closed due to mounting operating costs, this museum once featured a large bead time line of history that was apparently pretty impressive and their website still has some information about bead shows in the MD/VA/DC area.

Of course, if anyone has been to any of these I would love to hear about them! Just leave a comment!