Bead Makers - Venetian Bead Shop Blog

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 underparts, found in the forests of tropical America.
the basic monetary unit of Guatemala, equal to 100 centavos.

So I am going with the bird, for me it is a “teal” and our G6 or G26 will give you a similar color.

And below is a chart that shows you how we use metals to give us the colors. Gold Foil always makes the color richer, Silver Foil makes the color brighter and White Gold Foil gives us a soft/satin look. The numbers you see below the color names are the numbers for the canes of glass we buy to make the beads.

We have our own series of numbers which we use. Had I been clever enough when we started, I would have used the Moretti numbers as it would make working with our bead makers easier. Our color codes table you can find online at Color Chart (Click Here) So for each color of Moretti Glass, we use the prefix “G” “S” or “WG” to achieve the results. Our Spring and Summer Line drops the Prefix for gold, silver or white gold because we only mix Moretti Colors for these.

Having given you this detail guide, it is not quite so easy. Just so you know, each batch of glass as it arrives to our bead makers from Effetere (aka Moretti Glass) is slightly different. Reds are the most difficult of all. The amount of moisture in the air, the salt content of the air in the lagoon, the purity of the minerals used, and the heat at which they melt the minerals all contribute for a slight difference. And then there is the bead maker whose eye watches the bright red color, because that is the color of molten glass and knows just when it is ready. Again the temperature, how long they re-fire it and a myriad of other things affect the final bead. It is what makes these Murano Glass Beads!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

WG1 is Cristallo/White Gold
G1 is Cristallo/Gold
S1 is Cristallo/Silver
For more on our color codes, visit our VenetianBeadShop Color Chart

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.

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.

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.

Now that we have the colors, then you must decide shape, size and decoration.

More about that later.

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 and only a couple of times have I been allowed to have a camera inside. Few people are allowed inside, and I am always with a bead maker when we are selecting canes. Canes are sold in 10 kilo bundles, so locals expect to make a lot of beads! (There are a couple of “retailers” on the island who sell to some of the smaller artisans, at a higher price of course.)

The making of the canes is difficut task, but the real super stars of our beads are our dedicated bead makers who work in constantly staring into the flame, knowing exactly the right moment to wrap the molten glass around the mandrel. It takes a certain feel of the glass, knowing how the glass looks – when it is all glowing red. And did I say, you need to be able to turn the mandrel with one hand in one direction while controlling the flow of the molten glass with the other hand, a little like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.

They work with few tools, certainly not delicate tools, the most important one is simply gravity. The few tools help with the shaping.

When making rounds, you need only gravity and these little forms which they use to center the roundness of the mass of molten glass around the copper mandrel. Easier said than done. Work too long and the glass becomes to hard to move.

The side view of the classic Murano/Venetian glass torch, known as a canello. The small tray to the side of the torch holds fritte, small polverized glass, which will be used to decorate the bead.

When the day is done, and the beads have cooled for several hours, a helper cuts the excess of the soft copper mandrel off and they go into these sieve baskets and are put in the acid machine where the acid eats the copper mandrel from the bead, leaving the holes.

The beads are dried (or not) sometimes our bead makers are rushing and the beads arrive to us still slightly damp.

The last step is equally important, the boat that goes around the island picking up shipments. We need a strong partner who can get the shipments from the islands to the airport in Venice. From there they take varied routes to the US, where we start our part of this journey, making photos, assigning numbers, and finally when you choose them another trip through one of our shipping partners.

Whew, I am a little exhausted just thinking how difficult it is to get a 8mm Gold Foil bead to you!

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