Venice during this period of shut down is incredibly beautiful. Thanks to Andrea Rizzo a Venetian photographer who shared this video. .Even Venetians are not getting out to enjoy the beauty of their city. They can only go to the grocery or pharmacy, otherwise they cannot be further from their house than 200 meters. Fortunately,…
Category: Venetian Beads
Letter from Murano
Since we started importing some 30 years ago, my suppliers have become like family to us. And by extension their families feel the same way. This is an extremely difficult time for Murano whose lifes and livelihoods have been threatened many times in history. The older generation can still remember World War II and the…
Cane Glass – Murano Style!
Cane Glass is really a version of the old Rosetta Canna – just a whole lot less complicated. The Rosetta Canes required many dips into the furnace pots for the added colors which later got carved away. The furnaces in Murano have been blowing and pulling glass rods for centuries. The term rosetta first appeared in the…
Venetian Beads and Pantone Winter Colors
Top10 colors Pantone Winter 2018/2019 I can skip the yellows….my least favorite and it is a hard color for us to make in Venetian Beads. The “Quetzal Green” had me a bit perplexed, but I looked it up and it could either mean a bird of the trogon family, with iridescent green plumage and typically red…
Useful Apps for Venice, Italy
If you are traveling to the city of Venice in Italy, there are some useful apps that you may want to download before you go. While these apps have nothing to do with sites to see or places to eat, they are essential to getting around Venice and being prepared as you go about.The first…
Murano Glass Bead Hole Sizes
This is a question every new beader asks when they first encounter Venetian Beads. And then they ask, “What size wire should I use?” Venetian Beads, Murano Beads The most common size of holes of Murano Glass Beads is approximately 1mm. Approximate because they are most often made on 1mm diameter copper rods, which heats…
Dichroic Glass – It’s Magic!
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. The technology is called “vacuum thin film deposition” and was discovered in 1887. It took military and aerospace needs to support…
Colors of Murano Glass Beads – It Starts with the Canes
Effetre aka Moretti is the Beginning 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…
Show Time
Well a few years ago we quit doing shows. The travel, shipping 800-1200 pounds of beads to far away places and night flights had lost their appeal. But this weekend, we did our first show. It was very close, only 2 miles from our shop. If we had a lot of time to think about it,…
From Canes to Murano Glass Beads for Jewelry
Our beads all take a similar path arriving here to have photography made, get names, assign Product Codes and finally to you. We begin with the famous Effetre glass canes which are produced on the island of Murano in much the same fashion as hundreds of years ago. The Effetre factory is a secretive place…