Tag: Venetian Beads

The Differences between Mouth Blown and Lathe Blown Glass

Many people think traditional mouth blowing glass is synonymous with glassblowing but that’s only a type of it. A more precise method to create glass apparatuses known as lathe blown glass has also gained the attention of many bead enthusiasts. 

And this is why here’s a complete guide by us on mouth-blown and lathe blown glass and differences between them. But before venturing into the main topic, let’s gain some knowledge about glassblowing. So here we go!

What Is Glassblowing?

  • It is a glass-forming technique where molten glass is shaped by blowing air into it through a long metal tube. More precisely, in this technique, the molten glass is inflated into a bubble with the aid of a blowpipe.
  • This method of glassblowing has been there since its development in the Middle East around 200-300 BC. Even in the 21st century, glass-blown products have retained their spot of being an essential part of everyday life. It does so by taking part in the production of numerous innovations and art forms.
  • It is said that the first glass-blown products were glass tubes, glass rods, and tiny blown bottles. These products were found dumped at a ritual bath in Jerusalem. 
  • The art of tube blowing is much more than just an experiment done by glassworkers, it is a revolutionary step that induced a change in conception and a thorough understanding of glass. A person who performs the work of blowing glass is called a glassblower.

The art of glassblowing is basically of two types. The first type is called Mouth blowing which is used globally for creating decorative and utility-based pieces. The other type is called Lathe blown and is not very common as it is mainly used for laboratory and scientific glass production.

Having proper knowledge about these methods can make you understand the process of glass-production better. So, let’s learn about these types in more detail.

What Is the Mouth Blowing Method?

  • This is the most basic and oldest method of glass design. It is also considered the original method which helps in working with the glass. 
  • In this technique, the artist places a heated and molten glass at the end of the blowpipe. This end of the blowpipe is known by many professionals as “gather”. This blowpipe is then carefully rotated and inflated. It is done while maintaining the proper temperature of the gather and incorporating air into the glass. This allows the glass to get the intended shape.
  • Now, the glass needs to be removed. An iron rod is used to free the vessel from the blowpipe. Once the process is done, the vessel is heated again and further clarifications are made to the shape and form.

Each piece of mouth-blown glass is unique due to the beautiful irregularities made by rapid heating and cooling. The mouth-blown beads are extremely alluring and are meant to give an elegant touch to its wearer.

If you need one such bead to enhance your beauty, we recommend you Venetian Bead Shop’s Blown Murano Glass Round Gold Foil as they are authentic Murano blown beads, completely hollow inside with the signature Ca’d’oro appearance. These are designed for focal beads and are also often used in Christmas ornaments or decorations.

If you want to buy something luxurious, you should go for Red Filigrana Orchid with an Orange Long Stem. These are formed by combining the flowers made of Murano Glass Red Filigrana and clear Stems of Boro. Group a couple for a beautiful display of flowers that require no watering and don’t wilt on a hot day.

What Is Lathe Blowing Glass Method?

  • This is a complex technique to make some of the most reliable, durable, and accurate pieces of scientific apparatus. The lathe glassware is found almost in every laboratory. The most important work of Lathe is to grab and rotate glass tube or rod during the glass fabrication process.
  • To create a super-efficient lathe blown glass, a glass blower commences with a molten globule of glass from a furnace and shapes it into containers and artistic objects. To make scientific apparatus, the glass blower begins with an existing piece of specialist glass equipment and modifies it into the required shape.

Differences Between Mouth Blown And Lathe Blown Glass

Application :

The decorative mouth-blown glass pieces in someone’s bedroom or living room come from a technique that requires one to take a piece of molten glass and use a glass mold or blow tube. These are used for ornamental or decorative purposes. 

While lathe blowing is a newer more precise method that is used to create sturdy lab and science glass products.

Material Used:

Compared to the normal globe of glass used in mouth blowing, lathe blowing uses a special kind of glass known as borosilicate glass.

Technique:

In case of mouth blowing glass, the artist molds the glass by blowing into the tube while rotating the glass to shape it. Depending on what the artist is creating, he may need to gather more molten glass to add to his creation. Once shaped and molded, the artist then trims the glass and removes it from the blow tube.

Now unlike mouth blowing, lathe blowing uses a machine to create and either a handheld or machine guided flame to mold the glass.

Parting Notes

Get yourself beautiful blown glassware and add a level of sophistication to your room or lab. If you wish to buy more blown Murano beads, you can browse for the same at our store. At Venetian Bead Shop, you will get a variety of options of beads that are mouth-blown using transparent Murano glass.

<p id="For more information, kindly visit our website or contact our supportive staff. We’ll get back to you in no time.

Lampwork beads – How are they made?

Beads have been used for generations to make necklaces, rosaries, and other pieces of jewelry. While traditional beads are adorable, lampwork beads go a step above in adding aesthetics and enhancing the overall appeal of the jewelry. 

Despite their exquisite nature and unique heritage, few people are aware of their origin and building process. This necessitates shedding light on several topics such as ‘How lampwork beads are made?’ and so on. So without any further ado, let’s get started!

All the components needed to make lampwork beads

What are Lampwork Beads?

To know what Lampwork beads mean, it’s important to know what ‘Lampwork’ and ‘beads’ mean separately. So beads are small pieces of glass, stones, or similar materials that are threaded together to make jewelry or some other items. 

<p id="On the other hand, lampwork is a glasswork technique where a torch or lamp is used to melt the glass. And once the glass is in a molten state, it is shaped using hand or tools. 

So that means lampwork beads are those beads that are made using lampworking techniques. As these are mostly handmade, intricate designs and fascinating details are some features they are heavily endowed with. 

Why are Venetian and Murano Lampwork beads famous?

Whenever we hear about ‘glasswork’, the mention of Murano is bound to take place. This is because glass making is widely practiced in Munaro and the artists and workers belonging to this place have acquired distinctiveness in glasswork. The Muranian glass work is inspired by Venetian glass artists. 

One might wonder whether such beads can be copied by manufacturers in China or some other countries. Well the answer is Yes, they can be copied, however, there are several qualities of such Muranese beads that are difficult to be replicated, such as usage of Effetre glass canes (which are produced only in Murano). 

Likewise, the tools used, and most prominently the traditional Venetian techniques are hard to replicate too. 

All the mentioned factors make it a unique product which is endemic to Murano and some other areas where Muranian artists could provide their help. 

And this is why at Venetian Bead Shop, we are a family-owned business in Santa Clara, CA, USA where we have been importing Venetian Glass & Murano Glass since 1993 and we work directly with the bead makers of Venice Murano which makes us able to provide the best Venetian & Murano lampwork beads in USA and worldwide. 

What do you require to make Lampwork beads?

Every special thing requires unique efforts. The same holds for lampwork beads as well. It is important to source the required materials and tools before starting to make the Lampwork beads. Here are some of them-

  • Bench Burner

This is a device that produces heat and flames which is essential in heating and shaping the glass for making beads.

  • Hand Torch

You’d be dealing with intricate detailing and fine objects while working on beads. This makes a hand torch indispensable as using it you’ll be able to focus on different small and intricate particles of beads.

  • Marver

A marver is one of the most important tools when it comes to glassblowing. It is generally made of polished steel, brass, and attached to a metal or wooden table. However, when it comes to using them in a process requiring fine application, a hand-held version of the same could be used. Overall, it is a flat slab of metal or stone or wood on which glasswork is rolled, shaped and cooled. 

  • Reamer

A reamer is a rotary cutting tool used in metalworking. They are used for finishing or enlarging a hole on a metal. A reamer may seem the same as a driller, however, while a driller ‘makes’ hole on a solid surface, a reamer on the other hand, finishes or works upon the existing hole to leave smooth sides.

  • Tungsten Pick

Tungsten is a hard metal that is used in making light bulbs and its extreme temperature resistance makes it ideal in glasswork or anything that requires dealing with high temperatures. There are several applications of Tungsten in bead making such as raking (dragging glass), boring holes, and others. 

  • Mandrel

A mandrel is a cylindrical shaped rod around which metal or some other material is shaped or forged. Essentially, you’ll be using this device the whole time in making Lampwork beads.

  • Glass rods

These glass rods would be your primary raw materials. You’ll have to melt them to make beads.

How to make Lampwork Beads

Now we’ll directly shift to talking about how lampwork beads are made. We have tried to break down the steps involved into pointers. So here we go:

  • First of all, melt the glass rods over a torch and bring it into its molten state.
  • Now wound the molten glass carefully around the steel mandrel. The hole that we see in beads is formed due to the space taken up by these mandrels.
  • Now you have to give a shape to the molten glass by rotating the mandrel and holding it in various positions. The gravity and rotation given by you would help the bead in getting your desired shape. Now, as a beginner, you’ll not be certain about how hot the glass needs to be when it should be rotated or when to apply pressure. Needless to say, you’ll know the same gradually as you begin working regularly.
  • You can add decorative embellishment and colors to adorn the beads. Overtime, you’ll learn how different colors, tools, and metals react with glass to form beads.
  • You can also use marble tools, paddles, and marvers to give the glass the desired shape. Just make sure to keep the mandrel spinning and glass hot. 
  • At last, you’ll need to carefully ‘anneal’ the beads. Annealing is a process of cooling down the glass, reducing stress, and avoiding thermal shock to the glass bead.

Overall, we can say lampwork beading requires a great deal of patience, precision, and skill sets. With practice and proper tools, you can make your own designer Lampwork beads. 

Now if you wish to buy traditional Venetian and Murano Lampwork beads, you can browse for the same on our store. At Venetian Bead Shop, we provide over 6000 different colors and styles of traditional and modern Venetian glass beads. Do visit our store, we are sure you’d be delighted seeing the variety we offer.

Thanks for reading!

The Wisdom of Seth

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

5 ways you can make use of the leftover beads

Only a bead stringer would understand how difficult it is to complete a bead work without leftovers. How many times have you added beads to your bead soup stash? You don’t want to dispose of them, but you aren’t sure what to do with them.

Did you know that with little effort you can turn leftover beads into a piece of different jewellery or craft altogether? Yeah, you wouldn’t have to tuck them away hoping that you could use them one day. 

In this article, we have compiled a list of unique crafts & pieces of jewellery that you can make with your stash of leftover beads:

#1 Make Bead Bottle Crafts 

If you have a pile of leftover beads, you should think about making Bead Bottle Crafts. But yeah, you would have to spend some time to sort the beads based on their colour. Once you are done with the sorting, get a transparent glass bottle and start pouring the beads in layers into the bottle. You can play with the thickness of each layer & colour combinations until you are left with a beautiful design.

#2 Create Ornaments

Yeah, you heard it right. Leftover beads make excellent materials for pendants, earrings & bracelets. 

Make a Pendant

Did you know that you can make excellent pendants for necklaces from leftover beads? All that you need is a headpin and a round chain nose plier.

Get a skinny head pin with a thickness that’s enough for the beads to string. Pick the beads that you want to make a pendant with and string them on to the headpin. Make sure that the bead in the bottom is fixed against the head of the pin. Using a round chain nose plier make a wire loop over the pendant. 

Make Earrings

Custom made & designed earrings from leftover beads are an excellent gift option to your friends or family. Choose the best beads from your stash and whip up a great pair in no time.

If you are into the jewellery business, you can even add these earrings as a complimentary gift with each purchase. Your customers would love it and it won’t cost you much.

Make Bracelets

Not just earrings, bracelets from leftover beads to make a piece of fabulous jewellery that you can wear. All that you need is a stretch cord, embroidery scissor, bead stopper, some glue and beading needles.

  • Cut a length of a chord that’s 4 inches more than the desired bracelet length. Fix a bead stopper 4 inches from one end of the chord.
  • String the beads from your stash onto the elastic cord. Make sure that you check the length of the bracelet. You don’t want it to be too tight or too loose. Also, ensure that the last bead you string has a hole large enough to hide a knot in your beading cord.
  • Hold the beards away from the knot and use a drop of glue to secure the knot. Use embroidery scissors to trim the end close to the knot.

Making pieces of jewellery with leftover beads is a lot easier, if you have the right tools for the job.

Get the right tools for bead projects

How to identify the right tools for bead projects?

#3 Make Some Garden & Home Décor Products 

If you haven’t thought of it, leaf over beads makes excellent home décor products. With little patience and the right tools, you can add beauty to a lot of things in your home. For instance, if you have leftover glass beads, you can make bead curtains out of it. There are a lot of tutorials that are available online. As said, all you need is patience.

Else you can also make small home décor products like beaded pots for indoor plants or beaded napkin rings. Look around, and you can see a thousand options.

  • Making a Napkin Ring

Napkin rings are an excellent home décor item. All you need is 18-gauge wire, a wire cutter, leftover beads & a plier. Cut approximately 20 inches of wire and make a small ring in one end to prevent the beads from falling. String the beads onto the wire in any pattern that you want to. Once you are done with it, make a small ring on the other end too.

Wind this beaded wire around a glue box or any cylindrical bottle and your napkin ring is ready!

  • Beaded Wind Chimes 

Wind chimes are always a thing of beauty. Did you know that you can make a beaded wind chime with some leftover beads, thread, and an old coffee container? Yeah, it’s easier than you imagined. Simply make a bead chain with leftover beads & some fishing line. It would be great if you can string some seashells, clay models or glass beads to it. 

Once you are done, secure it to a hanging pot in your garden, tree branches, windows or anywhere you choose to.

#4 Prepare a Bead Repair Kit

Finding the right spare for repair is a nightmare for bead workers. you never know when you might have to repair a broken bead from a piece of jewellery. Though spares are available in the market, you wouldn’t want to buy a whole tube or string of beads when you probably just need a few.

This is where a bead repair kit comes in handy. You can keep a few leftovers after every project in a container and label them. So that the next time you need a spare, you would know where to check for it.

#5 Donate the leftover beads or conduct workshops

If you have a lot of leftover beads, you can think about donating them to art classes or schools. Else, you can even conduct a one-day art workshop for kids who are interested in beadwork.

To Sum Up

These are some of the ideas on what to do with leftover beads. Remember that beads are highly versatile, and there is a lot you can do with them! 

You can also visit our website for more information on beads and bead crafts. 

Murano an Island in Crisis

Today Murano is again in crisis due partially to the COVID19 shutdown and the lack of tourists since Italy is allowing the citizens of only a handful of countries easy entry. The crisis was already in progress due to the competition of inexpensive glass from other sources which you can find when you walk along the small streets in Murano and Venice. Clearly this is in direct opposition to rules enacted by the Counsel of Venice in 1271 prohibiting the importation of glass from other countries into Venice as well as prohibiting foreign glassworkers from working in Venice. And 20 years later, they moved all furnaces (except for Orsini which still operates in Venice but makes only mosaics) to Murano a secluded group of islands.

                                                                          Glass Cooling in the Annealing Oven in MuranoTOUCH TIMESBut tough times are not new to Murano. Among the events that threatened the livelihood of Murano was the very Muranese themselves who left and took their knowledge to other countries in Europe in the 1500s. This gave birth to the Bohemian crystals in direct competition of Murano. It was not until the 1700s when Murano became famous for its chandeliers that they enjoyed some prosperity. This was short-lived with the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797. The Napoleon decree of 1806 the abolishing of all schools of arts and crafts which brought the glass making industry of Murano to a halt. 
Subsequently Napoleon ceded the Veneto (the area of Venice and surroundings) to the the Hapsburgs of Austria in the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797. Favoring their own glass workers, the Austrians placed heavy duties on both the exportation of glass as well as the importation of the raw materials needed to make glass. Nearly half of the glass factories closed during the Hapsburg era, and those that remained were only beads and bottles. The glass industry of Venice/Murano received a boost from Antonio Salviati, a Venetian lawyer who gave up his profession in 1859 to run a furnace and his marketing skills and the creations of glass gave rise to an era of prosperity.
Then came World War I and World War II which ravaged the islands by sending the men of the furnaces off to fight. Many of today’s aging maestro went to work at 9-10 years old in the remaining furnaces to help support their families.

                                                 Tools of the Trade
COVID19 ShutdownNow COVID19 has created another crisis and tragedy in Murano and Venice. Without the tourism (a love/hate relationship) there is no market for the glass. The cost of operating a furnace is astronomical especially the cost of the gas to maintain the temperature of the molten glass. You can’t simply turn off the light switch as you walk out the door. The glass has to stay in a molten state or it will break the crucible (pot) which holds it. 
One in Two Glass Workers Unemployed July 2020
Today it is reported by Confartigianato (organization that promotes the craft) that one in two glass workers in Murano are on unemployment and remain at home. In July 85% of the companies had workers applying for the unemployment. It is slightly improved in the days since the August holiday dropping to 74%. But for those truly passionate glass workers (both artistic and production) they see hope. But they do need support from the Italian government and of course from all us Murano glass lovers….every. But they are not without hope and the Venice Glass Week went on without all of us who would so love being there. They even set up a “floating furnace” on a boat demonstrating all over Venice.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/e02_GMNwc6c

If you want to get a glimpse of the passion the workers share, watch this film from Zuecca Project and is called “Man in the Glass”. It is in Italian, but there are English subtitles. Click on the Image below to watch.



For me, this is the heart of #whyiwork. 

Designing Murano Glass Beads

Customers sometimes think there is a giant warehouse in Venice/Murano stocked with the thousands of beads we sell. Well that would be fun, but it is not how it happens. Each bead we sell is ordered specifying color, foils, designs, shapes, sizes and then handmade one by one. 
Since 1993, we have learned a lot about making Murano Glass Beads, especially what we can and can’t do. The laws of physics have a lot to do with our possibilities as does the skill of our beadmakers, the material limitations and above all the flight of fantasy of ideas. The Muranese and Venetians have no limitation on inspiration and ideas. When we had a company copy our beads having them made in China, one of our bead makers, said “Don’t worry, I have a lot of ideas and I will make new designs.” And he did just that! 

All our bead share one thing in common. They are all Effetre (what is known as Moretti 104) glass canes. These canes are produced at the factory in Murano. They are sold around the world. We all use a common “language” that is the number that Effetre assigns to the canes.  And every bead makers knows that the 104 canes are compatible (well sort of – because mixing the opaque with the transparent can be tricky). Our bead makers just get to walk or take a boat over and buy them. I get to tag along sometimes if I am lucky. 
For all the beads, except the blown, hollow beads, we almost always use a tool because we need them to be sort of similar in size and shape. Having said that, no two will ever be the same. But we do have some basic starting points. From there, it is the artistic ability and fantasy that give us the beads.

Our standard rounds, squares, cubes in single colors, or single colors over 24kt Gold Foil, or .925 Sterling Silver or White Gold the same from each bead maker. However, if you show me a bead, I can tell you who made it, because each bead maker uses their own particular tools. These tools are made for us by Roberto Donà, who is known the world over for the quality of his tools, not only for bead making, but the big blow pipes, giant scissors that are used in the furnaces. He makes each tools according to the specifications of the person using it. He does have some stock of “standard” tools. And most bead makers around the world would jump at the chance to see his machine shop. Fortunately, I see it often. He even modifies tools I find in the US like our Crocus or our Vela Squares for the way we work there. He is a huge part of our bead making.
So the forms you see here are sort of our blank canvass. What to do then? 
We use foils, gold, silver and white gold as well as avventurina (a Murano exclusive as a patent is held by the same family for hundreds of years) and layers of glass, much like a painter would mix paints on his palette, just that our palette is at about 1733 degrees! The beads are painstakingly made one by one at these temperatures. While working the glass, it is all one color – red! 

There are so many variations possible, we have made bead cards which both our bead makers and us keep to make ordering a little more simple.  

Usually, I begin with a shape and then the color and decoration. The beads are painstakingly made one by one at temperatures around 1733 degrees. We decide the decorations together with the bead maker. And sometimes the bead card is just me gluing beads and writing down the colors. It is so much easier now than it was before technology. Now since they are +9 hours from me. I can send an idea to them before I go to bed and the next morning, they will have made a sample and we can proceed. Before, well we just guessed and faxed sketches….in black and white!

Some of you may recognize our SP13 Caramella line. We went slightly crazy, or maybe we drove our bead maker slightly crazy when we came up with this idea. This line is a mixture of several colors to and even though we write down the colors, each time we make them, they turn out a little difference because each bead maker puts their own interpretations on the bead. A little more of the underlying layer and less of our transparent over coat and we get a darker color. For some of our bead makers, it is what we write down at the kitchen table. I try to take exacting notes so we can re-order. And sometimes I get it right! Other times, well that is where our orphans originate.

Bead and Button Magazine and Show Calls It Quits

The news arrived unexpectedly a short email notice that Bead and Button, the beloved magazine is closing. No one in the industry had heard whispers of this. I quizzed everyone! But alas it was a “corporate” decision that “things are not as lucrative as they once were”. October will be their last issue and of course our last advertisement. We have advertised in the magazine since 1998, so a good 20+ years. It was our first advertisement buy and in those days, it was all about beading. And it was always a good investment.
The Bead and Button Show was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in June of each year. We exhibited in the show only one year. It was difficult to get an invite and it conflicted with other business. But in 2013, we made the cut!  Usually we ship by truck to shows, but the Bead and Button Show was back to back to a show in Las Vegas, so our only solution was to drive 800 pounds of beautiful Murano Glass Beads from Las Vegas to Milwaukee….A real road trip. 

The show was amazing. We had exhibited at Tuscon for years, but there was a much more intimate feeling to Bead and Button as it was all under one roof, everyone was into beading and there were millions of classes. It was like a family reunion. And the sheer number of beads was exhausting.
I can’t question the thought process of the owners of the magazine and show (well actually I can). It appears that the decision stems from the same thing I see at every show. I keep saying we got to get some younger friends. And that the number of advertisers was decreasing as were the number of participants at the shows. I just wish some really innovative people had found a way to keep the magazine going and of course the show because I still believe there is a place for them both. Because there are many shows, and some may say too many. But the quality of this show, the teachers at the show were in a class of its own.
Bead and Button appreciated its advertisers and the people who wrote articles. Each year at Tucson for years they hosted a night to celebrate with their advertisers. For many years it was in the local museum. 
And if the COVID19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that everyone needs a hobby, something you can do with your hand, something creative! to stay sane!
You can read the article written in the Craft Industry Allicance which quotes  Dan Hickey, CEO of Kalmbach Media. You can draw your own conclusion. (Click Here)
Now I am sorry I threw out all those old issues when we made our last warehouse move. 
And I wish we could have had a Farewell Party! Best wishes to everyone there in their future careers.

Bead Pendants and Other Creative Ideas To Use Leftover Beads

After making gorgeous bead necklaces or other Venetian Jewelry, you’ll often find yourself with leftover beads. When your bead soup is starting to overflow, there’s only one thing to do: give those leftover beads a new life. Sometimes, a pile of unused beads can seem like an obligation that’s calling to you. Instead, you should see them as an opportunity. Since you don’t have a specific plan as to how to use your leftovers, you can do anything imaginable with them. One of the most flexible choices is to transform them into bead pendants. 

Turn Your Leftover Beads into New Art

Leftover beads tend to vary in size, shape, style, and quantity. That’s why we’ve crafted a diverse list of possible applications for your new beads, so you can find a suitable project no matter the shape of your stockpile. If you have a few leftover beads to put to use, then you should consider making some beautiful bead pendants. On the other hand, you might have accumulated a stock of leftovers so large that you need a more ambitious project. In that case, you can weave your extras into an intricate beadwork tapestry. 

Bead Pendants

No matter the number or style of beads you have available, you can always make a charming bead pendant. With just a few extras, you can make a charming, minimalistic work of art. If you have more leftover beads to work through, then you can create more flamboyant pendants. You can even go so far as to convert a large box of bead soup into dozens of pendants and wear a new one each day of the month. No matter your ultimate goal, you have plenty of options and the process is easy. There are many online tutorials on making bead pendants, but the basic steps are straightforward.

  1. Select your beads and head pins based on your desired look
  2. Slide the beads onto the head pin and string them together
  3. Use a set of round chain nose pliers to bend the top of the head pin
  4. Make a wire loop and wrap the wire ends together

Voila, you’ve completed your bead pendant. Now, you just need to choose an appropriate material to string your pendant onto and you’ll be enjoying your one-of-a-kind work of art.

Beaded Coasters

Beaded coasters are a simple, functional way to put your leftover beads to work. All that you need to do is string your beads together, place them in a spiral pattern, and secure that shape with craft glue. There’s no limit to the colorful patterns you can design. However, it can often be tricky to visualize a spiral design since they’re not as common as others.

Before moving forward with the stringing process, consider arranging your loose beads in a spiral pattern to get an idea of what the coaster is going to look like. Think of it as the beadwork equivalent of making a sketch before proceeding with the final work. From there, you’ll work from the center of the set of beads outward while stringing them and you should accurately replicate your starting design. 

Make Bead Earrings

When your leftover beads are less quantity, more quality, consider using them to make stunning bead earrings. You mostly need basic materials like round chain nose pliers, wire cutters, and beads, but earring hooks and endpins are necessary too. Your endpin resembles a short, stiff piece of wire that you’ll need to cut to your desired length. You’ll use it to hold the beads and add them until there’s about 1/2 cm. to 1 cm. of extra space on the pin. Then, you bend the endpin at a 90-degree angle halfway through the empty space. This hook will hold your earring hooks.

Custom Bead Ornaments for the Holidays

Have any red, green, and white beads laying around? If so, then you have your work cut out for you when it comes to making Christmas ornaments. You can easily incorporate other colors and interesting stylistic touches based on what extra materials you have laying around, as well. Depending on your religion, you might make a star of Bethlehem to hang from the Christmas tree, a beadwork menorah, or anything else. Beadwork is all-inclusive, after all.

Craft a Bead Bracelet

Bead bracelets are one of the most popular forms of bead art for good reasons. They’re easy to make and easily tailored to your whims and preferences, and you can make beautiful bracelets with any leftover materials. All that you need to do is string beads onto a piece of wire, and then secure the ends with a crimp bead. You can design your bracelets so that they’re tightly packed with beads, or you can adopt a looser approach that leaves more movement between beads. The decisions are yours to make. 

Freeform Bead Art

If you have a large supply of beads to burn through, why not use them all at once in a freeform bead art design? By applying the Peyote stitch technique, you can turn any number of beads into an intricate brick wall pattern of colors and shapes. This stitching technique is highly prevalent in Native American artwork, but it’s been independently discovered in many different cultures around the world. That’s because it’s fairly simple and still offers remarkably attractive results. If you have a large pool of leftover beads to work through, then embrace the freedom that leftover beads offer you and craft a beadwork tapestry. 

Find the Right Tools with Venetian Bead Shop

No matter the bead project, you always need to make sure that you have the right tools on hand. Specially designed bead tools have the precision to allow you to work gently with your beads, as well as many quality of life features. Find all the tools and materials to elevate your beading passion to the next level with Venetian Bead Shop. We stock tools from respected, prolific brands such as Wubbers, and carry all the crimp beads and craft wire you could ever need. 

Another Crisis in Murano: Glass Furnaces Re-Start Costs

I always knew we in the Murano Glass, Venetian Glass and beads world were a small eco system. But COVID19 and the resultant shutdown of Italy, most specifically Venice and Murano have really brought it home. 
Venetians say we hate tourist and the annoyance to our daily lives they create. UNESCO says Venice can’t maintain the volume of tourist. The list of grievances goes on and on: 
1) we can’t get on a vaporetto because the entrance way is blocked by tourist who have no clue where they are going 2) we can’t get on a vaporetto because the tourist have piled more luggage than the explorers searching for the Northwest Passage 3) tourist eating take away food on the steps of a church or someone’s front door step 4) tourist taking a swim in the canal 5) tourist who behave badly or walk around Piazza San Marco in bikinis 6) tourist rentals that displace locals 7) tourist who do not respect the history of Venice. 

You get the point, pretty much everything the tourist does annoys someone and with valid reasons.

When Italy closed everything in early March, that put an end to tourist and not a surprise, it put an end to a lot of other things. Italians had a strict 200 Meter (656 feet) distance they could travel from their house except for the grocery store or the doctor and even then they had to download and print a document to show to the local police. Churches, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, cafes, well everything an Italian holds near and dear was closed. 
And along with that all the tourist shops in Venice and Murano were closed which meant that there was no longer a demand for Murano glass. And this is where our little eco system fell apart. I had never thought much about how dependent those of us who sell Venetian Glass, Murano Glass, and Murano Glass beads were on this tourist business. Individually, none of us can support the island of Murano and the furnaces. But as an ecosystem, we all get what we need and we keep the furnaces burning…..until
Until we didn’t! The furnaces require a number of days to cool the furnaces without cracking everything. This article in Forbes of an interview with Fabiano Amadi of Ars Cenedese, a prestigious furnace in Murano supplying glass world wide gives you a pretty good idea of how difficult it was for them to shutdown and the hurdles they are encountering to reopen. Because even though Italy did it’s part and is now in a good place to re-open….The rest of the world did not match the strick shutdown and therefore many countries are still not allowed back in Italy, specifically the US. Which means that even though the shops in San Marco can open, there are not tourist to buy. Museums, malls and small galleries across the US are only just now able to open again with some restrictions, which means that the demand for Murano glass is still very low.

Read the Article in Forbes written by Rebecca Ann Hughes 

Dark Days For Italy’s Historic Murano Glass Industry

To keep a furnace working is expensive whether it is a gas or electric furnace. To create glass sculptures requires a crew of a minimum of 3 and depending on the piece 5 well trained glass blowers. Then there is the person who mixes the batch, from raw mineral elements and the time it takes to get a batch ready to work. Today most furnaces do not have sufficient orders from both Venice/Murano and foreign buyers to keep their furnaces heated. And without sufficient orders they face another shutdown of the furnaces and the days or weeks it will take on both sides of a shutdown plus the cost of repairs and maintenance.
From our beads perspective, we have only one furnace which creates all the glass canes we use, but they also depend on the orders of all the small bead makers and lamp workers of Venice and the surrounding areas as well as major suppliers of glass canes across the world. And since I can’t buy every bead every bead maker can produce, we need those shops selling jewelry in Venice and Murano to be ordering new jewelry creating a demand for more beads, more canes and of utmost importance, more work for the Muranese.
So I keep buying way more beads than we need. It helps feed families in Murano and Venice as well as helping make their rent payment and keep my little part of the ecosystem working for better days.

Festa della Sensa, Venice Marriage to the Sea

The Festa de la Sensa is held each year to celebrate the marriage of Venice to the Sea. It was first celebrated on 9 May 1000 when the Doge Pietro II Orseolo conquered Dalmatia (parts of which are now known as Croatia) The second was in 1177 when The Doge Sebastiano Ziani, Pope Alexander II and the Holy Roman emperor, Frederick Barbarossa entered into the Treaty of Venice. The Pope took a ring from his finger asked the Doge to throw it into the sea, Each year, the Doge dropped a ring into the sea inscribed in Latin “We wed thee, sea, as a sign of true and everlasting domination.” Thus declaring Venice and the sea to be one.
 It is held on the closest Sunday to Ascension. This year, that is 24 May 2020 in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic.

An elaborate boat, representing the Bucintoro, but far from the elegance and grandeur of the original, is rowed to the Island of Lido  where the mayor of Venice performs the same ritual and a wreath of green is dropped into the sea. 
The Bucintoro is a replica as after the fall of the Venetian Republic on January 9, 1798, French soldiers cut the decorations of the boat into small pieces and took them across to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and set fire to them to retrieve the gold.
The ceremony of May 2020 was held in a much smaller version with just the mayor and the patriarch of Venice and of course the rowers. It was held despite the ongoing virus concerns, reminding us all that Venice has endured: at least 2 plagues, assault from the other city-states of Italy, being conquered by Napoleon (albeit not a shot was fired – thank you Doge Manin). It survived under the rule of the Hapsburg’s, survived World War I and II, and its traditions continue. 
Venice will endure.

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