You are never too old to love Venetian Beads. We began as the “bubble” of COVID when our lovely ladies couldn’t go to mass, couldn’t go to Bingo, nor the hairdresser couldn’t go to any of the things that keep them “young”. And 3 years on, they still come to our beadshop every Wednesday afternoons to count beads.
Rina, whose family is from Pederobba, Italy, an agricultural very tiny town on the banks of the River Piave, will be 100 in August and still lives alone. She has a mind as sharp as a 25 year old and keeps us on our toes. Maryann whose husband came from Silvano d’Orba outside Genoa, Italy just turned 99. Maryann spent years as head nurse at our local retirement center for nuns and balances the sparky Rina.
They count our inventory, except for the tiny beads which they say their hands won’t pick up. And in these 3 years they have counted some 10,000+ bead SKUs for us. We are just restarting from Row 1 again (though don’t tell them, I think they forget we counted them 3 years ago).
They just enjoy being at the beadshop and and having people around – a diversion from sitting at home. Don’t comment on the mess in our warehouse. It is really organized and we can find things. But with some 18,000 SKUs (individual part numbers) there is bound to be a bit of chaos.
Then after we finish for the day. We head to my house and we cook dinner together. Rina entertains us with her stories of she and her husband and their many travels, which includes driving from San Francisco (where she lived) to Acapulco in 1949 on her honeymoon, a staggering 2700 miles to get there. How they did this I have no clue, also taking a ship from New York to Le Havre where they bought a Peugeot which they drove all around Europe spending six months in Italy with their family. His family is from Lucca.
Needless to say, the dinner involves prosecco and good food. And we just call it “Ladies’ Day”.
Hooray! We have finally been successful in obtaining the necessary VAT number to once again ship to the EU. That was a major undertaking that I am sure caused me more grey hair. We can ship packages values at under €150 through our international parcel consolidator.
HOW IT WORKS:
Our website will now charge VAT at the rate in your EU country. It will be displayed as you checkout. VAT is also charged on shipping. If you have a VAT # already, be sure to send to us. And we will use that number in our shipments.
NOTE: VAT will show as a separate line called “Taxes” As we do not include any taxes in the price of an item which is how the US works. And this is how we must report to your country’s tax agency. It will always be a separate line item at the end of your order.
We collect and submit the VAT directly to your country. This is accomplished for us by a third party known as an IOSS which is authorized by the EU. Below are the rates as of 9-24-21.
PACKAGES OVER €150 – HOW IT WORKS:
Packages with a value over the €150 cannot be shipped via our international parcel consolidator. We can ship USPS Priority Mail International or through various carriers such as FedEX, DHL, or UPS. The VAT will be collected by these carriers before delivery.
In the event that your order is over the €150, and that our website adds VAT to the order. You will not be charged by us. As most of you know, we only get an authorization at the time of the order, but we will process your credit card for only the amount of the order plus the shipping, not including the VAT.
GOOD NEWS:
The good news is that we can once again use our international parcel consolidator for much more advantageous shipping rates. Shipping is of course, based on the weight of the parcel. Here is the international parcel shipping costs to Europe (Other rates apply to the UK, Australia and other Pacific Countries)
Shipping Rate in US $$ and based on US – Weight in Pounds. 16 Ounces = 1 Pound
I am sure we will have some hiccups as we learn more about this and we will make adjustments and corrections as we need to.
I am hoping we can resolve the UK quickly. We are awaiting registration of our VAT # in the UK. We’ll keep you posted.
I am just happy that we can once again ship to all our valued customers in the EU.
The 15th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO has officially included the “Arte delle Perle di Vetro” This comes after several years of determined women of Venice, Cristina Bedin, Marisa Convento, and Claudia Cottica proposed to UNESCO so that this cultural heritage would not be lost.
Some ask why is the production of beads so important. (Well not anyone who ever made beaded jewelry.) Documents from Venice show that in 983 AD, a production of glass imitation of precious stones was underway. The furnaces were the domain of the men of Venice while the beadmaking became woman’s work. And as the furnaces were moved to Murano, the Venetians retained the right to create small pieces (figurines, beads, buttons) in their laboratories and homes in Venice. To watch the video prepared announcing this (it is in French and Italian) and stresses the art and the history. The pictures are worth the watch: Click Here: https://youtu.be/6BwcUVYAPsg
Conterie (what you now know as Seed Bead) were produced in the furnaces in Murano beginning with a bubble of glass and gravity which allowed the glass to stream down from tall scaffolds maintaining the shape as it became smaller and the hole from the original bubble. The women of Venice and Murano strung these tiny beads onto thread using a tool with up to 100 needles. The merchants of Venice to shipped these around the world.
Flowers made from these small beads became a favorite for bouquets for gravesides as they withstood the weather and lasted. These were popular until the Japanese invented the silk flowers which were less expensive and became the flower of choice. In the video above, you can see some of the flowers being made.
This morning an article by Seth http://www.sethgodin.com appeared in my inbox. I subscribe to his witty, often point-on short saying or articles. Todays’ was a reflection of what happens daily. So here is what he said, I take his “back in the old days” to mean pre COVID “ “I hate this restaurant” Back in the old days, I took someone to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. As we looked over the menu, complete with regional specialties and handmade pastas, he started to sulk. With a sullen look, he said, “I want a hamburger and french fries.” Somehow, the patient kitchen staff figured out how to produce this out of thin air, and a tantrum was narrowly averted. But I’ve been thinking about that interaction a lot. In his mind, “restaurant” meant, “a place where I can get a hamburger and french fries.” If you look at many 1 star reviews (of books, of music, of restaurants of shops) this is precisely what you’re going to see. A mismatch of expectations. A mismatch that is blamed, completely, on the person who created the work, not the critic. It doesn’t matter that the thing was clearly marked. It doesn’t matter that the thing was extraordinarily well-produced. And it doesn’t matter if just about everyone else experiencing it was thoroughly delighted. Because for this spoiled, under-informed and impatient patron, it failed. This failure comes from a few contributing factors, all amplified by our culture: First, you can’t know if you’re going to like an experience until you experience it. All you know is your understanding of what was on offer. And because there are so many choices and there’s so much noise, we rarely take the time to actually read the label, or we get carried away by the coming attractions, or we just don’t care enough to pay attention until we’re already involved. [And marketers are complicit, because in the face of too much noise, they hype what’s on offer and overpromise…] Second, because many people are afraid. They’re afraid of the new and even more than that, afraid of change. Most people in our culture would like to be entertained not transformed, lectured at instead of learning. Third, the double-edged sword of giving everyone a microphone means that we’ve amplified the voices of dissent at the same time we’ve given people a chance to speak up about their desires. This means that mass culture is far more divisive than it ever was before, and it also means that bubbles of interest are more likely to be served. And so the fork in the road:
You can either turn your operation into a cross between McDonald’s and Disney, selling the regular kind, pandering to the middle, putting everything in exactly the category they hoped for and challenging no expectations… Or you can do the incredibly hard work of transgressing genres, challenging expectations and seeking out the few people who want to experience something that matters, instead of something that’s merely safe.” WOW So much to unpack, but so true. Have you ever noticed that only the people who are unhappy actually post reviews on that unmentionable website that pretends to rate everything? (Unmentionable because I will not give them more air.) But pondering on Seth’s post, is it because they had different expectations? Did the value in their mind not match what they ordered? And that is exactly what Seth says. And every website sends you immediately a link to review every item, whether it is a toothpick or a car! And as merchants and jewelry designers, we all fall victim to wanting those incredible reviews, yet subjecting ourselves to those people who are unhappy or having a bad day or were clueless as to what they really wanted. Or in our case can’t understand that handmade means NO Two are Ever Alike, PERIOD. And this was so timely as one of my neighbors in our warehouse complex wanted to see our warehouse location/SKU system. They sell on Amazon much larger items than our small jewelry components, but for anyone making picking/packing easier and preventing errors is always an interest. As they were looking at some of our racks and racks of beads, findings, crystals, they asked Why? Why what? Why Venetian Beads, don’t we know that we could buy beads from China for much less? I could see the math going on in his head, we could buy pounds of “similar” beads for at least 1/10 the price…..and supposedly our customers would be just as anxious to buy them. ….NOT So picture this: Two Chinese men! and me trying to explain that we aren’t really selling beads so much as we are selling a story, a romance of a beautiful culture and handmade (yes lovingly because they love the artform, the story of Venice glass artists are that way). And that there is a story behind every bead we have, a family, and that I can look at a bead anywhere and know who made it, who made the tools, who made the glass canes and the millefiori. And for the final, not to deter from the rich history of China, it is just my personal choice. Or as I say often #whyiwork Venice is where I want to be at the end of any day….and BTW #whyisellMuranoGlass
Here’s a peek inside the dichroic facility of Sanberg Coatings, where all our Murano Glass goes for the added bling or as I think, the magic machine that gives us all these added colors.
Vacuum Coating Chamber – Cost ~$2Million
The technology is called “vacuum thin film deposition” and was discovered in 1887. It took military and aerospace needs to support the research and development of the expensive equipment to produce on a large scale. Tax dollars paid for the creation of these complex machines for use in optical equipment, lasers, fiber optics, optical recording, infrared guidance, photoelectric converters, Dolby 3d Projection and mundane things like eyeglasses or camera lenses.
Prepping for Coating
The coating process is done in a vacuum deposition chamber by vaporizing quarts and metal oxides with an electron beam gun and condensing micro-thin layers on the surface of the glass (or whatever you want coated) in a crystal structure.
Jerry Sandberg, an engineer as well as jewelry artists, worked at a high tech firm producing thin film components in southern California when he discovered that another artist, Murray Schwartz was digging through the trash at the facility for the small pieces of reject mirrors. He too began collecting the rejects and along with Murray, they began the development of the first three dichroic glass colors designed for the art glass industry: Cyan/Red, Magenta/Green and Yellow/Blue, colors which we still use today. It’s a bit confusing, the the first color is the input color, the second is what you see when it is fired. So if we want Red we buy Cyan/Red.
Sheets of Glass Coated
It was Murray’s wife, Rupama who put the first scrap of dichroic into her kiln, an experiment that led us all to today’s incredible array of art produced with the colors dichroic made possible.
The Warehouse – Full Sheets Ready
Like all our businesses, Sandberg needs to have sheets ready to ship. Here is there stock room. With the price of an average sheet about $150, it’s a sizeable investment. Since our glass comes from Murano, there is the added cost of the glass, freight, incoming Custom Duties so if you are wondering why our dichroic beads are expensive, here are the clues!
Sandberg Contest Winners
Since the coating are not done in heat, almost anything can be coated – expensive, but can be. Below are some pottery, glass, things you might buy at a thrift shop, a home decoration store. The only issue I see is that you can coat only one side (or you must flip and coat the other).
Examples of EveryDay Items Coated
I say it’s magic because the technical description defies my understanding and I am happy to have Sandberg work his magic for our beads and pendants.
Note: Sandberg sells through distributors, but if you want to take a class, you can find the classes available on their website Coating by Sandberg.
Our beads all (except for the few borosilicate) start with the canes that Effetre produces in much the same fashion they have been doing since the late 1800s. That is not to say that Venetians and Muranese did not make beads before Vincenzo Moretti began his production of Murrine and subsequently branched into all colors of glass canes. The furnaces of Murano could all make glass canes. It starts with the batches they create each night. But the Moretti family concentrated the production, and made it easy for bead makers to buy in small batches.
Even today our bead makers go to the Effetre warehouse to buy canes by the kilo. It is a secretive place and definitely not open to tourist. Even the largest importer of Moretti canes in the US, Mike Frantz, tells me he has not seen the entire production areas. I sometimes get go with a bead maker, but definitely no cameras. I count on the office manager to take care of delivery to the bead makers where we supply the materials.
Effetre Factory Warehouse
Catalog of Colors
Well the catalog is actually small pieces of canes in a binder. And if you are looking at newer colors, hand prepared, then they just cut off a piece of cane and put a sticker on it for you, like one of my favorites, Blue Inchiostro. It has yet to make it into the books! My office always is full of pieces of canes, millefiori and samples we have tried. Fortunately Moretti had the forethought to give the canes a 6 digit number, though most of us just use the last 3 digits.
Canes and our Bead Shapes Sample Card
It takes a good bit of imagination to work on beads. Like the artist pallet, there are always things that influence the outcome, the color. You can see in the chart below how the color changes just be adding Gold, Silver or White Gold.
Gold and Silver Change the Colors
Colors and Numbers
And you can see we have our own color codes which are almost uniformly. That’s because late at night I might give something a different number – but never intentional.
White gold foil beads are produced White gold which is an alloy of gold and at least one white metal, such as silver or palladium.
Yellow gold is measured in Karats. With Yellow Gold, there are two applications, interior and exterior and exhibit the same behaviors.
White gold tends to tone down the color, giving the colors a softer look. Think about the difference between Sterling Silver Jewelry and White Gold Jewelry, where the White Gold it has a much softer glow.
Basic Colors in White Gold Foil
The little pads of the precious metals are sold by the weight to the bead makers. It is expensive but fortunately it takes only small amounts for each bead.
Gold, Silver and White Gold Foil in Sheets
Every bead maker has a stash of canes.
Serious Work
Our bead makers have serious supplies of glass. There are a couple reasons. 1) We need lots of beads and 2) Effetre has a schedule for making the glass, and they NEVER deviate from this schedule. If we need Green and they are sold out, then we just have to wait. The batches are in about 250-300 Kilo and if we do not like the Red, then we still have to wait. Not only do we have to wait for the schedule, we also have to wait until they have sold all of the Red we do NOT like.
Blue comes in Many Shades
Now that we have the colors, then you must decide shape, size and decoration.
We did it, we packed our tables, some of our jewelry and some of our (I say some, because we have a warehouse full of these wonderful treasures) Murano Glass Vases, Bowls and Bottles, Mirrors, Animals, Fish, Aquariums into a large commercial van and drove over the bay. The last couple of days before the fair, the fact that it would be outdoors and in a meadow began to concern me. What kind of critters would invade our booth? Were there bugs, snakes or who knows? Clearly I have been living in the city for too long. I should have been worried about the slope of the ground and the holes found in all such pastoral locations.
There’s Plenty of Room! But it all slopes downhill!
We are used to doing large shows, inside hotels, convention centers around the US. So we expected a layout to be forthcoming showing us exactly where our booths would be. The engineer among us likes to take graph paper, little scaled to size pieces of paper representing the tables and lay everything out, calculating how many square feet will be available, allowing of course for foot traffic. Well having now participated, I understand the general casualness which I mistook for a lackadaisical attitude. It’s a pasture and space is plentiful and boundaries less rigid.
Tent City! Some took a couple of hours to setup
But it was an Italian Renaissance Fair, so no modern equipment such as tents, tent poles, folding tables, cash registers (alas all of you who have shopped with us know we bar code everything). A little research proved that burlap existed in some form in this period which takes in the 14th Century until sometime in the 16th Century. It existed, but the dust and particles from cutting it were not in our plans. Soon we were all sneezing. There were some elaborate tents, owned by the production group. It took several hours for them to put these up, complicated by the fact that the poles had been mislabeled by the last group, providing some entertainment for us.
Covering the tent poles with burlap
And costumes, we were given strict dress codes. No tattoos showing, no ear piercing (gauges), no steam punk costumes, no Mediaval, wrong century, no Elizabethan costumes, wrong country! But we were warned that the people coming to the show would probably have all of this and more (or less in the case of two guys who really had on no clothes, no joke) or the guy in the kilt with no top (and I will leave it to you to guess what he had on under the kilt).
Tent for the Sponsors, complete with foods & drink!
The weather was good except that we were near the bay (well where the Sacramento River flows into the bay) and we had 25 knot winds which gusted and swirled. For those of you who are not boaters, 25 knots is roughly 28.7695 mph. When the gusts persisted, our fragile wineglasses and vases got boxed up. The great outdoors is no place for our Murano Glass, even though it is certainly appropriate for the Renaissance era as the furnaces in Murano had been in production long before the beginning of the Renaissance.
Paid Performers or Volunteers
We learned that many of the properly attired people were part of the faire, that is to say, they are paid performers, complete with W9s (tax forms) at the end of the show.
There was plenty of food and wine. We even met a man from Treviso, Italy (near Venice) he was catering at the event and small world that Veneto is, we have mutual acquaintances. His wife is from a nearby town in California and they have a son, Luca. Emily, his wife, works on their bookings, they will even come to your house and prepare for you. In the true Venetian way, he was cutting about 15 pounds of calamari which he fried. It was sumptuous.
So here’s Marco and Emily’s facebook page address. InspiredinItaly
Yes they stayed in the tents.
My concern over security at the festival was wasted….Many of the exhibitors actually sleep in the festival. And they have weapons!
Security – Built In
In the booth selling drinks, their was Latte, but no cappuccino (surely they had this in the Renaissance era!) but I talked the barista into cutting the amount of milk for a cappuccino. Second day the owner was there. He said of course he made cappuccino, but they took it off the list because they got tired of explaining what a cappuccino is.
Now as to what I learned! Wear your costume, go have fun, eat the food, drink the wine, but NEVER EVER get talked into being an exhibitor in the great outdoors! Anyplace that doesn’t know what a cappuccino is, is not for me ;>)
Well after months of telling everyone we were going to implement Inventory on VenetianBeadShop.com. we DID it!
It may not be pretty for a short while as we sort out any inaccurate stock counts here in our warehouse. But it just gets better as we work on it. So ever so often, a product may say it has inventory – but alas when we get to that bin, well it either as miraculously gotten legs and climbed into another bin or we just do not have it.
Inventory Shows on the Product Page
Inventory Shows How Many Are Available
But What happens when we are out of stock?
Well there are 2 things. It we never expect to get it again, it simply disappears from the site. This happens for many reasons, all having to do with suppliers. Sometimes a supplier simply retires or worse! Sometimes the quality of the supplier or delivery is unreliable and just working with them is too hard, so we move on! But it we are only temporarily out of stock. Here’s how it looks!
Out of Stock Items – Add Me to Waiting List
What happens when stock arrives?
When new stock arrives and is received into our inventory, you will automatically be notified that it is available. You will get an email notifying you. Then it’s 1st come 1st served! Inventory is adjusted daily.
HUGE NOTE!
Adding an item to your Basket or Wish List or Saved Basket does NOT reserve the item for you. It is only yours when you place the order. Up until then, someone else can swoop in and buy all we have!
The Small Print
Occasionally, even when we say we have stock, there are circumstances where we will not have the quantity. Sometimes when we are picking, we discover defects in the beads, or if we are matching sizes for you. we may not have the quantity in matched sizing. Since our items are all handmade, there will always be little issues.
We get this question a lot. And we are always happy to answer, but sometimes if you live on the other side of the world or even across the country, our hours and yours may not sync and you are feeling neglected.
So here’s how you can see if your package has shipped. And you can see the tracking number, and track just follow the directions below.
If it has not been shipped, the Status will say “Processing” meaning we are working hard to pick your order. If you just submitted the order it will say “New” meaning we have not yet begun picking the order.
First Step: Log Into your Account:
List of Your Orders
US Customers:
US Customers Tracking
International Customer: It is slightly different if you are an international customer. We ship with a freight consolidator, which saves you and us a bundle of money. But the tracking is not directly from our website (like the US is). You will need to go directly to this link and put in the tracking number you found on the order.
Save a Basket, Save Multiple Baskets, just name them so you remember
Change your Password
Add a different address for packages to go – like your vacation home, or mom’s
Check on any Customer Requests (CRM) and our replies. This is the quickest way to ask a question and get an answer, plus both of us can view what we said.
View/Check your Wish List
Check the Balance on your Gift Certificate
Creating Your Account is easy and gives you so many tools.
We have closed the show on 8 days of fun and meeting so many new people, putting faces to our online customers. So here’s my wrap on the show.
The preparations start immediately after the Christmas rush and trays of beads must be prepared, filled and labeled correctly (we hope). We operate on a bar code system so making sure that technology is on spot is essential. We’ve always thought it was important for our customers to know what they bought, what they paid and more significantly, how to re-order it. In my days before exhibiting at the shows, I always found it exasperating that I got home with a piece of paper with scribbles on it and couldn’t identify a single bead back to it’s price.
Technology has not kept up in any exhibiting arena we’ve ever worked. There is always the frantic attempt to get the internet, the wifi, the card processing up and running. It is enough to give you a case of hyper ventilation!
So Checklist: Barcodes working, Paypal Here working. Nothing lost on the 12 hour trip from the San Francisco bay area to Tucson, just a little sleep and a sore back from sitting in the van. A few pictures of the trip down and us getting set up.
The Cactus and view are amazing!
Our neighbors in the show are familiar faces despite our hiatus from Tucson. We love the area, and each morning heading to the show I detour so I can catch a glimpse of those amazing sagauro cactus. I even drive a detour (a long cut) getting to Tucson which takes me through a desert land of these armed monsters. Ageless, they don’t even get their arms until they approach 75-100 years. They are native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican State of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County areas of California. They can grow to 70 feet tall and are home to dozens of desert critters.
Our Neighbors at the show, That’s Carter – Experienced Show Vendor at 15 months.
When we arrive we have tables and nothing else. About 6 hours later, we have everything unpacked and ready for our customers.
Ready for Shoppers
Well setup went perfectly until we got to the hotel. A slip on the pebbles used everywhere in place of grass sent me tumbling. A quick assessment of working parts, I decided the arm was not working. It was about 8 pm and the show opened at 10 the following morning. Plenty of time for a visit to the Emergency Room where 6 hours later I emerged with a cast large enough to make sure I couldn’t move, but still able to man the booth and didn’t impair my talking ;>) It did, however, require me cutting the right sleeve of my tops. Thanks so much to Janice a long time Tucson customer for helping us…we were a little short-handed (pun intended)!
First Cast is scary!
By the end of the show I get a new streamlined cast and have a new respect for using my left hand.
This is an improvement?
We got up super early to visit some of the rock and fossil shows. It is worth a trip just to see the staggering amount of goods shipped from around the world. Rock Hounds – put this on your list!
Mel checking out the fossilized fish – a bit creepy
Fossils Anyone
Tons of Malachite, Amethyst, Lamar, Hematite, Obsidian, Quartz, Opals, Pearls by the kilo – it is all here.
Every stone under the sun!!!!
Lapis at the Gem Show
It is impossible for us to take all our bead styles/colors. But we did take about 1200 different beads. Here are a couple of pictures of our bead trays, all bar-coded.
VenetianBeads arranged in color waves
More Venetian Beads
Well we had so much fun, we have signed up to exhibit at the upcoming ToBeadTrueBlue in Santa Clara, CA March 24-26, 2017
We are looking at the ToBeadTrueBlue show dates for Tucson 2018, but we have to double check the Carnevale Venezia dates – have to do the important things.
