Matte Your Own Venetian Beads

One of our favorite ways to make a piece of Murano Glass Jewelry come alive is to use matte beads which gives you a contrast between our shiny Venetian Beads and the soft glow of the matte beads, a luster which resembles a Mother of Pearl glow. There are couple of ways to achieve this look, sandblasting, tumbling but the quickest, less expensive method is with etchall® a trademarked product sold in Stain Glass shops and some hobby shops.

We do sell some of our beads matted, but since it’s so easy, we think you’ll enjoy doing this in your workshop. It is also a cost saver as you do not need to buy both matte beads and the shiny beads, just buy the shiny and matte as you work.

To begin with, we use only etchall® Dip ‘n Etch, which you can find on our website in 4 oz bottles. Shop Now

It begins as a clear liquid but with use it turns dark as you can see in our bottle here as well. The color does not affect the ability to etch the glass.

For our Murano Glass (COE 104) it takes between 15 and 25 minutes to obtain that soft luste. Other types of glass you will need to experiment to find the optimal time.

We work with a much larger bottle of the liquid and pour into a small plastic (because it does not etch plastic) water bottle so that we can agitate easily and watch the process. Then we pour the liquid back into our larger container using a tea strainer to capture the now matte beads.

Rinse the beads thoroughly and allow to air dry.

NOTE: be sure to shake the container every couple of minutes to be sure the coverage is all over the bead. If you do not, you will have small marks where the beads touched, as the touching prevents the liquid from completely covering the bead.

NOTE: Do not use on any of our exterior foil beads as it will etch off the Gold Foil, Silver Foil.

Small Print

We would be remiss if we did not caution you about its use.