history October 29, 2008

HISTORY OF GLASS BEADS

Beads have been around for a LONG time. They have been made from many different substances including clay, paper, metals, bone, shells, porcelain, wood, ivory, gemstones and glass.

The history of beads is a long one that spans the entire world. They have been used as a form of trade, and of beauty and adornment, talismans, and a show of wealth and power.

Bead which funny, uniqeu, interesting and beatifull

A bead is a small, decorative object that is pierced for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under a millimeter to over a centimeter or sometimes several centimeters in diameter.

Glass, plastic, and stone are probably the most common materials, but beads are also made from bone, horn, ivory, metal, shell, pearl, coral, gemstones, polymer clay, metal clay, resin, synthetic minerals, wood, ceramic, fiber, paper, and seeds.

modern_beadiNg

Modern beadwork is often used as a creative hobby to create jewelry, purses, coasters, and dozens of other crafts.

cHevron_bead

Chevron Beads are special glass beads, originally made for trade in the New World and the slave trade in Africa by glassmakers in Italy as far back as the early 15th century. They are composed of many consecutive layers of colored glass. The initial core is formed in a star-shaped mold, and can have anywhere between five and fifteen points. The next layer of glass conforms to that star shape.

Dichroic glass beads

Increasingly, dichroic glass is being used to produce high-end art beads. Dichroic glass has a thin film of metal fused to the surface of the glass, resulting in a surface that has a metallic sheen that changes between two colors when viewed at different angles.

Lead crystal beads

Swarovski crystal beads (6 mm–8 mm), pendant 3

crystal beads (also known as machine cut crystal) are cut crystal beads made with hi-tech precise machinery. Thanks to this state of the art machine cut processing the crystal items achieve outstanding geometry and excellent optical parameters. Many lead crystal beads are enhanced with surface coatings. Aurora Borealis, or AB, is a very common surface coating that diffuses light into a rainbow. Other common surface coatings are vitrail, moonlight, dorado, satin, star shine, heliotrope.

Fire-polished beads

“Fire-polished” beads are faceted glass beads made in the Czech Republic. They are faceted by machine and then drawn through ovens to make the surfaces molten, and thus shiny when the beads cool.

Pressed glass beads

Pressed glass beads are formed by pressing the hot glass into mold to give the bead its shape. Often pressed beads are made using machines that stamp the shape from the molten glass.

Furnace glass beads

Furnace glass beads are a special type of art bead. They are made using traditional glassworking techniques from Italy that are more often used to make art glass objects. The manufacture of these beads requires a large glass furnace and annealing kiln.

Fusible beads

Also known as Perler Beads, sometimes called “melty beads” by young children, these small, plastic and colorful beads are placed on a peg array with a solid plastic backing to form pictures and designs and then melted together with a clothes iron.