Venetian Beads - Venetian Bead Shop Blog

Tucson In My Rear View Mirror!

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.

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.

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)!

By the end of the show I get a new streamlined cast and have a new respect for using my left hand.

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

Tons of Malachite, Amethyst, Lamar, Hematite, Obsidian, Quartz, Opals, Pearls by the kilo – it is all here.

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.

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.

Using a Bead Gauge

We measure our beads in millimeters because that’s how our bead makers work. Millimeters are also how pearls are measured. So most women are slightly familiar with the concept, just ask one if she prefers a 10mm pearl or an 8mm pearl.

A handy thing to remember is that 1 inch = ~25mm

You need to be a bit careful using the brass gauges. The electronic ones will give you a digital readout. They are more expensive and must be handled more carefully.

The brass gauge is inexpensive, easy to put in your pocket to take to bead shows or bead stores to be sure you are buying the right size.

We recently had a customer who was very unhappy because his 8mm beads were only 6mm. His exact words were

“I bought 8 mm glass beads from you. Measured on a gapper, these beads are 6 mm. What am I suppose to do? I need 8 mm not 6 mm. I am very disappointed. How could you so consistently mess this order up?”

Well it turns out he was misreading the gauge. But we can learn from his mistake.

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, we might have talked ourselves out of doing the show. But we were offered a booth 3 days before the show opened.

We packed up some 70 trays of Venetian Beads, leaving our warehouse intact for shipping our online orders.

Jocelyn and Melanie took turns working the show, a first for both of them. And the the first time we have seen the faces of many of our customers who usually order online. Setting up was like ‘old home week, so many of the vendors are still there, many whom we have known for 20 years. We all just look a little older.

Thanks to all our customers who stopped by, some who had been our customers since we started in our garage in 1993! We enjoyed seeing everyone and meeting new faces.

And Melanie whom many of you know from the cheerful voice on our phone.

And the next generation of bead show workers, our very own Marcella, whom many of you know as our ‘CellaBella who has really been working here since she was 2 and would pick her favorite beads every day. In those days she could only reach 2 drawers up so she had no idea what else was here. Now she can process your order!

Thanks to all of you! And maybe we’ll do another one in the future. Just don’t look for us in New York just yet!

If you couldn’t make it, you can still buy all these beautiful beads at VenetianBeadShop

23 Years and Counting – Happy Anniversary to Us!

This August marks 23 years that we have been working in Murano and Venice with our wonderful bead makers. It started as a hobby, well not even that, friends wanted the beautiful necklaces that I had bought in Murano. Little did I know that loading my bags with goodies for friends would lead 1)a change of careers 2)the adoption of entire families 3)a love affair with the magical city of Venice!

We already had the famous Vincenzo. Famous for getting on an airplane, speaking not a word of English, to come to the US to study helicopter repair (which he never did). Famous for sweeping Bob’s daughter off her feet and marrying her (and us) within months, still speaking only a few phrases of English. (And us less Italian!) As part of Vince joining our family, we also inherited a full fledged Italian family, complete with a fabulous sorella (sister), 3 amazing Zia (aunts), cugini (cousins), baby gemelli (twins) and one very grumpy fratello (brother), all of whom arrived here for August holidays.

His family introduced us to amazing family dinners, which we thought needed either a referee or the police as with our limited Italian, we were sure that some one was going to die! Did I mention that the sorella was a graduate of the Largo Garda Hotel Restaurant & School and also a sommelier? Need I say more about the food? Everything hand made in a kitchen the size of a Volkswagon Bus, served exquisitely, in courses so many I couldn’t count, much less eat it all!

But Why? We had though a little about something to do outside of high tech. I was working for a company building satellites. We also though it would be a good idea to write-off our frequent trips to Italy. Sounded good? And the glass of Murano, well, we had fallen in love with it. Though early on, we researched glass in Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic – these places just didn’t hold our attention like Murano.

So in August 1993, we headed to Murano with a few thousand in our pockets. Now why Vince or his family never thought to tell us that the entire islands of Venice and Murano would be deserted – Ferragosto! Everyone having fun on a beach somewhere, but definitely NOT working. The sun was amazingly hot and I think we could have made glass on the sidewalks of Fondamenta Manin. We had a list from the Italian Trade Commission with names of furnaces. (At this point, we were not buying beads, rather vases, bowls, bottles – the beads came along later. But we still managed to buy some beads as they were, then and still today, impossible for me to resist.)

Bob had cross-referenced the list of furnaces with “street” addresses. The street is in quotes, because addresses were based on the way the postman delivers the mail – nothing to do with where the furnace is located! Remember this is 1993, there is NO internet, no google maps, just us in 95+ degree heat, 100% humidity walking miles and miles, knocking on doors sadly closed until September. We did, however, meet a few who were working. They became our immediate friends and we worked with them for years. We had no idea of wholesale pricing, so before visiting a firm, we would visit all the retail stores and see what the retail prices were. (Not so far documented at any business school as a good idea!)

We made our few purchases, and knew we’d be back as soon as possible. Of course Christmas would be coming and we’d need to visit the family. Funny thing, the furnaces are also closed at Christmas! We soon discovered that Italy is closed a good bit of the year!

But now that we had this Murano Glass, we had to sell it. We signed up for school fairs, flea markets and learned a lot about selling the glass, well a lot about packing and unpacking glass and standing in the hot sun! We read in the paper (yes Dorothy, papers were once read) that the International Gem and Jewelry Show was opening in San Mateo. (We read this on Friday a.m.) We decided to go and see what people sold. So Friday afternoon we went to the show, looked around and inquired with the show management about exhibiting, with our thoughts on some nebulous future show date. Danny Duke, from the family that owned the show, said great, they had nothing like our goods and by the way, a vendor had cancelled and he could make us a good price if we could show up on Saturday but no commitment to future shows. We headed home to work our excel spreadsheets to price and pack our glass.

We were like the proverbial “deer in the headlights” but we sold almost all our goods even though we were in the wholesale area. Danny was encouraged and thought we would do better in the retail area for the next show, so he offered us a contract. We had a few beads and discovered that many people wanted to buy the loose beads. Who knew? Our first show we were in a booth beside the famous Picard Beads, who clearly understood we knew nothing about the treasures from Murano that we were selling.

This was the beginning of some 10+ years of exhibiting with the show.

But what threw us into this as a real career? Well it’s now 1998, and there is indeed an internet and the start-up internet over satellite where I worked as Director of Marketing – well it crashed, thanks to the thieving founder who relieved us and our investors of a couple million dollars. But the technology was still valuable and while I worked to sell it out of Chapter 13 to new owners, I began shooting pictures, you know the kind you take to the store and have put on CDs. We opened our first store on Yahoo. Well miracle of miracles within 24 hours of opening the store, we had our first order. And it was from Brazil! We were now hooked on online shopping!

Our Original Logo – A glass Gondola made by a Lampworker in Murano

Early on we worked with the Apple QuickTake Camera, which held only 8 photos, had the battery life of a twinkling star and the resolution was miniscule by today’s comparisons. Eight pictures and then you had to download! But it was a start!

Since we needed more products for the store, I began shooting pictures of the few loose beads we had on hand. They sold immediately and customers asked for more. Fortunately this was just before Christmas and we had already planned to go back to Venice in January. This time we bought BEADS! and lots of them along with our blown glass.

So If I am Here, Is it really Work?

Our amazing selection of Venetian/Murano Glass Beads, you can find on our webstore at: VenetianBeadShop

You can find our blown glass on our sister webstore: VenetianGlassArt

Making of a Millefiori Bead

What goes into making a millefiori bead? What are they always different? What makes them smooth? and other questions you’ve always wanted to know about millefiori!

First the canes must be made. And since there are many different opaque millefiori slices of canes used in this particular millefiori bead, well there are about 120 opaque canes that must be made by Effetre (and known as Moretti Canes) in Murano. In the picture below, friends at another furnace are making cane glass for us.

Then the canes must be chopped into small pieces. For our bead makers, Effetre does the chopping resulting in large wheel barrows of these slices. Our bead makers buy in 10 kilo (~22 pound) bags. The slices are random, and sometimes they have more of one cane than another, because at Effetre, there is a schedule for the production of canes, and no cane will be made before that scheduled time. (This comes under the heading of, “It’s how we’ve always done it and we see no need to change.” If you truly want the canes out of cycle, then you will need to buy 500 kilo ~1200 pounds.)

So now to the bead making

The slices of canes must be warmed or the bead will crack. This is done by laying them on a small tray beside the torch as the bead maker deftly wraps the melting cane which creates the base of the bead. Then carefully, using tweezers, they place the canes one by one onto the base of molten glass.

In the picture you see first the base and next to it, the base with slices applied, and already you can tell they have put it back into the flame, as the straight sides of the canes have begun to become slightly round. In the third, you see that by holding the bead in the fire, the canes begin to meld together. There is surely a technical term, but you just need to know that the glass flows toward the heat.

At this point, there will still be slight bumps or separations and the bead is not smooth. Here’s where the last secret come in.

The Secret of the Finishing

The Moretti brothers are credited with inventing a technique of “burattatura” a name that came from the use of a wooden barren (buratto) which they turned to smooth and polish the beads – a departure from the time consuming task of polishing with a cork wheel and water which was also expensive and impossible for small beads. They put the beads in the barrel along with sand and water. The sand becomes more sottile (fine) in the process which takes about 7 days and with the final time devoted to the polishing, part of the secret! Even today no one outside the Moretti company knows the exact process they use.

Thanks to our good friend Gianni Moretti for his research and writings as well as his exhibits at the Museo del Vetro in Murano.

Shop our great selection of Millefiori Beads.

Working with Venetian Beads

Our beads are handmade and well, sometimes there are shards of glass left when the mandrels are etched out. I know many people think the holes are “drilled” but that would be so time consuming, hazardous to the health and we would break a ton of beads along the way.

Rather, most of our beads are wound with molten glass over a copper mandrel. The short story here is that in the 20s one of the Murano bead making companies discovered, though exactly how is unknown, that copper would be consumed when exposed to nitric acid. Before that time, the beads were made on mandrels dipped in “fango” mud from the lagoon. So alas, the US did not discover bead release. This new process relieved workers from dipping countless rods in the fango (and obviously displaced some workers). Over time the new process required more sophisticated machines, and the environmental problems came to light. Now, the copper is recovered and the nitric acid must be recycled in environmentally friendly process.

Some of the beads are more prone to this than others. Any bead with avventurina or Calcedonia, and our Nuvola beads tend to have more shards. The Nuvola have small polverized opaque white in them representing the “clouds”. Opaque glass, Avventurina and Calcedonia are more dense and melt at a different temperature than our transparent glass, so they tend to escape the bead. This etching process leaves small shards of glass as the copper is etched out. There are a couple of ways you can work this as you make jewelry.

Our PerlaVita Beads and sometimes those which have silver foil, we use the traditional coatings on stainless steel rods. It just takes longer and while you might not think about it, the consistency of the bead release makes the rod slightly larger or even a little lopsided. So we have to be more careful.

Beadcaps

They hide uneven surfaces and protect the wire or thread you are using as they provide a buffer between the glass and the thread. Classic Venetian Jewelry always had little beadcaps between the knots. They knew this was a good way to prevent the rough edges from cutting the thread (at least not right away). Even pearls will eventually cut the thread – as we all learn!

Classic Venetian Mosaic Bracelet Hand Knotted

Bead Reamer

We use the simple bead reamer on most all our beads when we are making jewelry. It takes just a minute and assures us that we have an even surface with which to work. Always wear glasses when you are using the bead reamer (both the manual one and the electric one). As little particles are thrown in the air. Don’t be afraid to work with the beads. It is good to dip them in water often as you are using the bead reamer (which is really a file) as this prevents heat build up and prevents loosing the lustre of the bead. You can even use this if you want to make the hole a little (very little) larger.

Round Diamond Drill

Less expensive, just as useful. You can find these at most hardware stores. Buy the diamond variety as it will last longer.

For the Serious Beader: – A Dremel

This is an investment you’ll use for years. I confess this is my “goto” for most everything. I can drill through plexiglass to make fixtures for our pictures. I can use the tool to clean the edges around the holes of our handmade beads. It is lightweight and rechargeable. You’ll have to order because I have not found it in hardware stores. Holes in leather, in stamping blanks. It also comes with a wire brush which has it’s own uses. (Sorry we do not sell them, but if you are interested I can give you some places to look.)

They all do the same job, make the holes nice and smooth. And make your beadcaps sit nicely for a well made piece of Venetian Glass Jewelry. Best of Luck!

Which Direction does the Hole Go?

Ever so often a customer’s question reminds us that while we are familiar with our beads, and what appears to us to be obvious is definitely NOT, especially to new beaders!

We learn from all your questions. And a picture is always a good idea. So, here are a couple of tips on using our authentic Murano Glass Beads. Click on the pictures to go to the website where you can not only buy the beads, but you can download and print a PDF which includes components needed and basic instructions.

Squares, Rectangles

Use can use them vertically or horizontally. When we think of these often we think about making bracelets where they certainly lay end to end. But if we show them in the picture with the holes horizontal, it doesn’t mean you can’t turn it so the hole goes vertically. This is how we use for earrings.

And for bracelets, they are simply turned on the side. Here’s a design where we used these same beads in a bracelet.

Rounds, Ovals, Coins

The same applies to rounds and ovals and our coins. If the hole goes through the center, then it can be used easily for both bracelets and earrings.

And you can make matching earrings as well.

What do you do with your Broken Beads?

One of our suppliers in Venice came up with a clever way to use the broken beads for the holiday season, which send me right out to collect a box of broken beads and get started.

A quick trip to a craft store for the cone and some pins with colored balls on the end got me started. Then is was only the selection of beads, of which we have a large quantity. Let me know if you want to buy some broken beads ;>)

I put the larger beads at the bottom and graduated upwards. Since I absolutely prefer asymmetrical, I never gave a throught to pattern, unlike the one sent to me from Venice. Since I wasn’t going to break any beads to use, I didn’t have as many red as I might have liked.

I put a couple of our “hurt” bears along side the tree. They look perfectly happy to be by the tree, even missing an arm. You could use beads that are not broken and just remove them after the holidays. It would be a fun project for the youngsters (as long as they are safe with the pins). If you wanted to leave it as it, then using a glue gun would be your best bet.

Have fun with this! and Happy Holidays from VenetianBeadShop.com

Quantity is really how hard you work – NOT a definition of “Art”.

I have been a member of ISGB (International Society of Glass Beads) for about 15 years and GAS (Glass Art Society) equally as long. So I was a little taken back when I received a pamphlet at the GAS conference here in San Jose, CA (where I spent 3 days volunteering) called “How to Buy Glass Beads – A Shopper’s Guide to Finding Quality Art Glass Beads” which is a real “looking down the nose” at those of us who produce more than 5 beads a week.

OK, so you can see I am not making this up, I just scanned it in so everyone can read – (hopefully not our bead makers who would be terribly offended!)

And inside it continues…

The prices of the factory-made beads are often “too good to be true”. We work very hard to keep prices down and deal with not only fluctuations in the Euro but also in precious metals pricing.
Another sign of factory-made beads is quantity – the fact that our bead makers show up every day and make beads is a penalty?
Is the work “professionally” displayed (This means 5 beads of in a plate of rice?)
Quality and Techniques used for centuries in Murano are not “real” EXCUSE ME? Where do you think ISGB beadmakers learned?
Ask the seller to tell you the name of who made bead: Yes, really I am going to reveal my beadmakers whom I have cultivated, spend millions – YES, and 20 years of my life to develop.

PLEASE, the Venetians and Muranese have been doing this since the 800s and before. Recent discoveries in Altino digs have uncovered murrine (millefiori) from the 1st Century AD. Altino was destroyed in 452 AD by Attila forcing its people into the islands we now know as Venice.

American “artists” came along only few years ago. The fact that our wonderful bead makers support themselves, raise families, send their children to college, buy homes (and YES they can make quantity) only adds to their status as artists. Most of the beads these so called “ISGB artist” make have origins in Venetian Beads.

Quantity is really just a matter of how hard you work – NOT a definition of “Art”.

For example the Chevron Bead in the brochure that you see above – no artistic work there, just copycat of Venetian and from even earlier bead makers.The development is absolutely Murano in the late 1400s as documented in The History of Beads by Lois Sherr Dublin, the “bible” of beads, ISBN 0-8109-2617-2. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the history of beads around the world.

Among my bead makers, I count

One who owned his own Murano Glass furnace – until his wife making beads became so successful he closed the furnace and now works for her.
A maestro who worked at Venini (Murano Glass Furnace) – have you seen their pieces? I dare you to say he is not an artist!
One who began as an apprentice in a furnace at 12 years old, and has raised 2 daughters making beads in his home.
One who began as an apprentice at 13 in the Seguso Murano Glass Furnace under the famed Archimede Seguso, who was a truly demanding Maestro.
One who is a 3rd generation Venetian bead maker – bead cards from his family are in museums around the world.
One who learned from her mother, who worked in one of those “factories” and is considered the Queen of the Fiorato bead in Venice and Murano.
A maestro in a Murano Glass furnace who invented machines so he could produce blown beads easier (and in quantity) :>)
And many more! And I count them all my friends and respect their work!

They will work day and night, weekends to produce the beads we need.

I find it very interesting that any glassblower, Chihuly included, will acknowledge immediately that Murano is the cradle of glass blowing and respects their Maestri. Yet ISGB somehow believes they invented bead making.

Might I remind them that the Doge of Venice gave the right to make beads to the crafts people Venice in a decree in 1291 when the furnaces moved to Murano? And that the “union” of beadmakers in Venice and Murano dates back to 1308 when the State Inquisition organized the beadmakers into a Guild “Arte de’Margariteri” while the ISGB is a mere baby having been formed in 1993.

Incidentally that is the same year we began importing VenetianBeadShop.com began importing beads from Venice and Murano.

Time Line of Beads from 30,000 BC to Present – Note ISGB a newcomer in 1991!

Here are what our canes look like before they are ground to make either the chevrons or we also use in our Chevron Blown Beads

Read Venetian Bead Shop – History of Beads

Read History of Beads; Venetian Trade Beads

(P.S. – Jeff says I can rant on my blog – but not in my newsletters! So consider my ranting done.)

But I am seriously considering NOT renewing my membership!

To Anneal or Not to Anneal – a very good question?

This is a question we get often, especially from new beaders who have just been their first bead show. Are all Venetian Beads are annealed. She had heard that annealing makes the beads stronger. What is annealing?

The word comes from the metallurgy and materials science where it has long been recognized it increases the metals ductility and makes it more workable to heat above its critical temperature and then to cool which also relieves the internal stress of the metal. In glass, it is about mainting the glass at a constant temperature, known as soaking at the annealing point where the glass is too cold to continue working, but will continue to relax, so that the entire piece can gradually cool at the same rate. If the glass were left in the open, you can easily see that the outside would cool faster than the inside. Annealing keeps the temperature constant throughout the bead.

Above is a large muffola in a production furnace. Each piece of blown glass is placed in an oven which is temperature controlled to be sure all the glass is the same temperature and then to cool the mouth blown pieces slowly. In older days before temperature control and when they still used wood for the heating, the person who was in charge of this was called “uomo di notte” and his job was to stay all night and watch the process as well as prepare the glass for the next days work.

For centuries, the Venetians have annealed by:

1) flash annealed, where the bead is put back into the flame one final time to heat the bead to a consistent temperature and

2) slowly cooled the bead in a container of silica which helps hold the temperature. In older days, the Venetians used the sand from the lagoon which is called “fango” in Italian and was also used for the “bead release”. Today the world uses vermiculite for this process. Vermiculite is a mineral similar to mica which is fire proof.

The stresses set up in the bead have a lot to do with the amount of time it takes to make the bead, the decorations, etc and frankly the skill level of the bead maker. In our small beads, they are made rather quickly and there is very little value of annealing other than by use of the vermiculite. You can see the beads still on the mandrels and they are submerged into the vermiculite during the production day.

For our larger, obviously more complex beads we do use an annealing oven – called a muffola in Italian. For our Moretti glass, the annealing temperature is about 940F and it is important to keep them at this level and then bring down gradually. For our blown beads they are all annealed, here you see the small kiln beside the furnace.

Annealing does not make the bead stronger, it insures that there are no stresses set up in the bead during the cooling cycle. Tempering makes the glass stronger – which is the process used for car windows, shatter-proof glass, etc. Below is a type of annealing oven, a kiln produced in the US specifically for beads, note that it has a place for individual beads. (We do not use one like this as we make many more beads than this would accommodate.)

Regardless of how beads are annealed, each of our beads are annealed, most in the classic Venetian method. And below you see a tray of Venetian Beads ready to make jewelry.

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