Akalei Designs is Hawaii's premier designer of handcrafted Kumihimo beaded glass Hawaiian Lei and the world's original Designer of Hawaiian Glass Beaded Forever Lei. Recently featured in Maui on HI Now (Dec 14, 2023) with POP-Up Mãkeke and Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. With hundreds of unique designs all our collections are handcrafted on Maui from beads we've sourced from around the globe. Akalei is unique in that we incorporate aspects of floral lei into modern "forever lei" using glass beads with designs normally only seen in the shell lei made famous on the island of Ni’ihau (The Forbidden Island). Please come by to visit our Studio located at the residential condos of Kai Makani. Please text, call or email to schedule with at least 4 hours notice.
This is our first new 2024 necklace design we created to celebrate Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo. These designs will be expanding as the year continues to allow us to experiment with braid structures and bead styles (inspired by the original design from Claire at Sulis Designs). As with all our designs if you see something and it isn't available or have ideas we do make custom forever glass beaded necklace lei.
In the braiding world many beaded weavers become comfortable with a few braids. Akalei Designs has more than a dozen unique hand made designs that we enjoy blending into our necklace lei. This is one important collection where the ends are done with a round Kongo Gumi and the middle section is an Hira-Edo-Yatsu Gumi or hollow braid.