How to Make Costume Jewelry with Beads

Learn how to make simple rings and bracelets before going on to necklaces.

The website About.com has excellent beginners pages and many designs and design links.

Look at designs on the web and make something similar.
Amazon have some excellent project books and I use those myself - then I change them around and add things to them for unique pieces..

As to sources,
Well I stick to eBay myself - here's why :

Thailand and China and India are the cheapest sources.
But they all suffer from the same problem -
the combination of postal charges and the items themselves. Not to say the unreliabilty of some vendors - at least with eBay and Paypal you have some kind of protection.Prices vary wildly from vendor to vendor and from the various ebay sites. Your local ebay is a good starting point (at least the postage charges should be cheaper).

Its really common for Chinese vendors to charge tiny prices and then charge exceptional amounts for postage.(BEWARE OF THIS PRACTICE)
Air mail should be under $15 from China for a smallish package.
EMS is the most reliable service I've found and charges for that vary from vendor to vendor.
In India to get really good prices you have to buy big quantities. Similarly in Thailand..
Usually you get the best deals on beads in small stores and stores in shopping centres.

If you are visiting these countries to buy then get used to haggling - a LOT ! Often you should aim for a final price of about 10% of the asking price.
When buying in the Far East (inside a shop only !) flash the money at the vendor - they hate to see it leave their store !
To begin with only use semi-precious stones as buying precious stones is something you should not learn from books !
Semi-precious stones are really cheap in the Far East - even carved ones are cheap (so is labour),Don't forget that even semi-precious stones are still just rocks !
And they are HEAVY ...
Consider mailing cheaper stones back to yourself as air freight charges can be costly.
Use silver and gold wire to make things with as this gives a more professional finish.
If you want to make more slinky items then use tigertail or stretchy nylon/plastic to thread onto.

Your BEST resource though is your local beading store (mine is 80 Kilometres away !)

They may be a bit more expensive than eBay (or if they buy in bulk they may even be cheaper).

They will have a wide range of beads in stock and these will give you lots of ideas.
They can also help when things go wrong (and the nice thing about beading is that if things do go wrong you just start again with the same beads...)