Tag: Venetian Beads

Calcedonia Murano Glass Beads

Calcedonia Murao Glass Beads – Exquisite

Calcedonia Murano Glass was developed in Murano during the mid fifteenth century. In the glossary of glass, written in Murano, Angelo Barovier is attributed with developing this polychrome glass in 1460. The secret of this glass was closely guarded and entirely lost when the Venetian Republic fell.

It was once again rediscovered by Lorenza Radi in 1856 but by the 20th Century none was in production. It is widely acknowledged that Loredano Rosin mastered this technique in the 1970s and his pieces are still on exhibit around the world and in private collections. His untimely death from a boating accident was a blow to the artist community.
Fortunately, his brother Dino Rosin has carried on the family tradition and has continued to perfect this glass in large and beautiful glass sculptures. You can often find Dino Rosin sculptures available at very hefty sums on ebay and in fine galleries everywhere, just search for the name, Dino Rosin. Today there are several well known masters who create sculptures in this unpredictable glass.
Rosin Glass Sculptures in San Marco Square
For all of us in the Venetian Bead world, we are fortunate that there is another furnace who produces (with proper begging) canes of this unpredictable glass which we can chop and use in beads. However, this is a difficult production and we can only get small quantities made – never knowing what color will arrive.
We all dream of the blues and aquas…and sometimes we get it. The amazing, never the same, colors are produced by adding silver nitrate to the glass and the colors are affected by the humidity, the heat, and factors we don’t understand. The glass begins as salt, soda, sand and minerals days before the glass master is ready to work. The recipes for glass depend on very accurate measuring and minerals of the highest quality.
Any small difference will result in color changes or in glass which does not react well in the flames when the beads are being made. It pops and cracks. The Calcedonia has a mind and life of its own, the colors can not be reproduced with any certainty. They continue to turn colors in the flames as the beads are made and even after the beads are in the annealing oven with the silver nitrate reacting to the heat.
Make these Earrings! Free Instructions
We must enjoy each batch of beads for what they are: unique little jewels!

A place for everything, and everything in its place?

Murano Glass Bead Trays – Barcoded & Priced in Color Waves

‘A place for everything, and everything in its place.’ is the famous quote by Isabella Mary Beeton in her book of Household Management written in 1861. It’s a great philosophy, but with some 20,000 SKUs, it’s easier said than done.

When we began importing Murano Glass Beads, we named them after the bead maker, their children, vaporetto boat stops, favorite cafes. Our bead makers named the designs after artists, famous names in Venice which encouraged our lack of organization. We had only a few drawers of beads. But over time we grew! Tanya took on our beads as a project in her senior year in Business Management at the University. So began our ‘semi-intelligent’ SKU assignment.

Venetian Beads – Melanie Picking Orders

But the physical location of beads in an orderly fashion took a few more years. We all remembered where items were stored by sheer memory. And I confess to loving how the beads looked in drawers so I could see all the colors of a style when I opened the drawer. And seeing bunches of beads together made it easy to design jewelry. But it became apparent that it made for inefficient storage. Then we began the Location/SKU assignment and bar coding. This was key when we went to lots of bead shows, as we couldn’t remember prices for 800 pounds of beads we took to shows and sometimes exhibiting at 2 shows at the same time. Our bar coding let us check customers out quickly, accurately, giving them an itemized list of what they bought, along with SKUs for reordering online…certainly a novelty in a bead shows.

Locations and Alpha-Numerical Makes Picking Orders is Easier
Picking Orders – For All of You!

Picking is made easy with our rolling carts with all the supplies you need to pack an order. We all have our favorite cart!

Venetian Glass Beads, Organized

These little white cubicle boxes are where orders with problems go. This is not where you want your orders to linger. We send emails through our online store system to you or call to let you know.

This is not where you want your order to go! The problem boxes.

There’s more, we’re just trying to organize it. There are always the “orphans” the beads that have no mates, the I thought I ordered Red, how did these green beads arrive? And many other projects just waiting to be put on the web. And an abundance of design projects in various stages of completion.

So maybe we’d better read Mrs. Beeton’s book, again! ;>)

Visit our website where you can buy all these wonderful beads! http://www.venetianbeadshop.com

 

A View of Murano Glass Tool Making

Tool Selection at Carlo Donà

Roberto Donà created this tool making video in honor of his late father Carlo Donà, his family has been making tools for the furnaces and bead makers of Murano for 90 years. The tools must be strong, created for specific uses in production furnaces on Murano, and must survive the daily use in the furnaces.

Roberto has taken the industry world wide as the lampworking world discovered not only the tools which the Muranese use daily in real production furnaces, but discovered the magnetic personality of Roberto. Charming, ready smile and a generous heart, he has a world wide following of the men and women of lamp working and it’s easy to see why!

But as you can see by this video, it’s hot, it’s bending and shaping steel, but more importantly it’s putting his heart into the tools he shapes. He must understand the glass and what the artist is making. Bravo Roberto! You honor your father!

Designing Beads with our Bead Makers

Making Millefiori Beads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoy a very privileged friendship with our bead makers in Venice and Murano. Doing business internationally has it risks, there are no “laws” which cover commerce with individuals and small groups. It’s all about relationships and believe me you don’t want to burn one of those bridges in Venice. Venice is a very small place and our industry of handmade, artisan bead makers, is even smaller. Everyone knows everyone and most often they are related families or by marriage.

Designing Beads – Now You Need an Ipad??

We have been working with these wonderful people since 1993 when as neophytes we wandered the streets amid the heat of August, wondering where everyone had gone. During these decades we have encountered every one who makes beads or fuses pendants, and become known through the islands, investing both time and money into developing our suppliers. Some are easier to work with than others; however, the difficult, sometimes produce the most amazing beads!

Those who are willing to work with our ideas, collaborate with us and in turn, take our ideas and turn them into their own are our steadfast suppliers, friends, confidants, and family always welcome in our home for holidays.

OEM Designs

With our OEM services we design the Murano Glass beads based on specific requirements of the large jewelry manufacturers, usually colors of the Season, patches of leather, fabric and sketches of their jewelry designs and armed with this we go to our bead makers with the requirements and the fun begins.

Effetre Factory Warehouse

Sometimes we need to go to the Effetre factory in Murano to match canes for specific beads. The factory is not open to the public, but Muranese come there to buy their canes. Even after all these years, we need an escort of a local bead maker to enter into the warehouse and definitely no photography, but occasionally I can sneak a couple of pictures.

Carlo Donà Murano Tool Maker

If the shape is new, it requires a trip to Carlo Donà, famed tool maker of Murano whose son Roberto has carried on his father’s tradition of making tools for the furnaces of Murano which is much more prestigious than making tools us lowly bead makers. (Yes in the eyes of the maestro who produce incredible works in the furnace, making beads is not so high on the totem pole!) Roberto can make any tool we need and he has a following around the world both in the furnaces and bead makers who have discovered the quality of the Donà tooling.

Tool Selection at Carlo Donà

Then we make our first samples. While our bead makers are every bit the “artist”, we need production quantities, not just one bead. So many times we have to slightly modify the tooling or the design to make it easier to produce without loosing the beauty of our original design. As we always say, “No two are ever exactly alike“! That’s the beauty of hand made beads!

So we go through many stages, measuring the glass it takes, measuring the time it takes to make the bead, measuring the amount of 24kt Gold Foil, White Gold Foil or .925 Sterling Silver Foil. The time is of course the most expensive part of the bead and we can only come to a definitive time after having produced several hundred.

How many Colors of Red are there?

And we have to check the colors as different batches result in different colors. Red is our most difficult color and apparently also Effetre’s impossible mission as they tell us they have not changed anything, yet the shade is different each batch of glass. So for large productions we want to be sure to make it from the same batch. A batch of glass is about 250 Kilo (around 500 pounds) and they will not produce a new batch until the old batch, even if it is bruto (ugly) has been sold. We have to wait hoping some international customer will buy the excess as no one in Murano will buy it and then we can try again on the next batch.

At the end of a day where we may have argued over colors, techniques, delivery, designs, soccer teams and politics, there remains the friendship and time for a Brindisi (toast) together. And we enjoy a beautiful sunset looking towards Venice from Murano! And that’s the secret of getting the best beads in all of Murano and Venice.

A Day’s Work is Done, Time for a Brindisi!

 

Sunset looking from Murano – Not Bad?

Working with our Bead Makers

We’ve been doing this since 1993, and over the time, we’ve learned how the Venetians and Muranese work, adapted to their lifestyle and gradually found the best of the best who work with us as partners in developing new products. Enjoy a little of our story, Read our Blog

Bill Weir – The Wonder List in Venice

This CNN special features Bill Weir as takes all of us armchair tourist on a trip to those special places in the world – before we destroy them. His camera crew gives you a spectacular view of Venice, Tops on my Wonder List.
Read Our Blog

Video: Zanfirico Curved Tubes Murano Glass Beads -the Art of Bead Making

Making Venetian Beads

Sometimes making Murano beads is like one of those games you play where you try to see the differences between two cartoons. Or “one of these things is not like the other”. We were working on a slightly different version of one of our zanfirico* beads to make it a little more production friendly. Two days of working with our bead makers to make one style of beads and I was still trying to explain that it just doesn’t feel right. That while all the components, zanfirico, 24kt Gold Foil, Base color were all there, it just wasn’t what I was trying to achieve. Not that the beads weren’t beautiful – just not what I had in mind. But sometimes the vision they have of a bead (well actually often) turns out better than my own vision. Watch our video as we work to make this bead.

Making one bead, is one thing, making the hundreds and thousands we need for our VenetianBeadShop customers around the world and keeping them essentially the same – well that’s a more difficult task. The variables are so many: the canes we buy from Effetre (known in the industry as Moretti)** who makes the canes as they have been for  – did something change in their batch? like carpet or fabric, each batch has a specific color and varies from batch to batch, the heat and how the torch is working on any given day, add in the different beadmakers, and their humor. Any small change in this loose chain will result in a different bead.

Moretti Producing Glass in Murano – Not an Exact Science!

Sometimes I envy Swarovski® who makes everything by machine and I am sure precision in their recipe for glass colors that equals rocket science!

But then they don’t get to share any creative ideas! Venetian Beads will never be exactly the same – it’s not a science, it’s an art! And our beadmakers the artists!

*Zanfirico and Reticello are high quality products, belonging to the filigree family and they a difficult manufacturing tasks. Zanfirico consists of lines of opaque glass turned together while pulling the rods creating a spiral then wrapped in a clear cover, while Reticello is so named for the characteristic mesh texture that can be observed inside.

**The processing techniques used by EFFETRE MURANO SRL go back to the XIX century, when Vincenzo Moretti rediscovered the difficult method of the murrine from the Romanesque ages, and created a multitude of coloured glasses and enamels, that’s why Effetre products are known also as Moretti.

Matte Your Own Venetian Beads

Before and After

One of our favorite ways to make a piece of Murano Glass Jewelry come alive is to use matte beads which gives you a contrast between our shiny Venetian Beads and the soft glow of the matte beads, a luster which resembles a Mother of Pearl glow. There are couple of ways to achieve this look, sandblasting, tumbling but the quickest, less expensive method is with etchall® a trademarked product sold in Stain Glass shops and some hobby shops.

We do sell some of our beads matted, but since it’s so easy, we think you’ll enjoy doing this in your workshop. It is also a cost saver as you do not need to buy both matte beads and the shiny beads, just buy the shiny and matte as you work.

Matte Your Own Glass Beads

To begin with, we use only etchall® Dip ‘n Etch, which you can find on our website in 4 oz bottles. Shop Now

It begins as a clear liquid but with use it turns dark as you can see in our bottle here as well. The color does not affect the ability to etch the glass.

For our Murano Glass (COE 104) it takes between 15 and 25 minutes to obtain that soft luste. Other types of glass you will need to experiment to find the optimal time.

The Process

We work with a much larger bottle of the liquid and pour into a small plastic (because it does not etch plastic) water bottle so that we can agitate easily and watch the process. Then we pour the liquid back into our larger container using a tea strainer to capture the now matte beads.

Rinse the beads thoroughly and allow to air dry.

NOTE: be sure to shake the container every couple of minutes to be sure the coverage is all over the bead. If you do not, you will have small marks where the beads touched, as the touching prevents the liquid from completely covering the bead.

NOTE: Do not use on any of our exterior foil beads as it will etch off the Gold Foil, Silver Foil.

Small Print

We would be remiss if we did not caution you about its use.

  • Do Not allow children to use.
  • Use on: glass, mirror, ceramic, porcelain, marble, or slate.
  • Re-usable: Yes
  • Disposal: Will not harm plumbing. Flush with plenty of water.
  • Wear gloves to protect your hands and certainly you do NOT want your jewelry to touch this.
  • Wear protective eye wear to prevent splashes which could damage your eyes
  • With use it will become discolored, but it still works.
  • Temperatures below 65F (18C) may form crystals. If this happens place closed container in warm water for several minutes.
  • NEVER PUT IN A MICROWAVE
  • Caution: Will etch porcelain sinks and tubs. Neutralize with water and baking soda before disposing in porcelain or ceramic sinks.
  • Consider yourself fairly warned that etching is NOT reversable.

Pantone® Fashion Color Report Spring 2015

Great Colors for Spring/Summer 2015 from Pantone®

Time to get started on your projects for spring. Here’s Pantone’s choices. You’ll find these colors featured in clothing, accessories like handbags and shoes in all the department stores. You can make your own jewelry to match, just follow these color trends.

You can download and print a PDF of this to have handy by the computer as you shop, or put in your purse to take with you to the store. Click Here for printable: PANTONE_Spring_2015_VenetianBeadShop

We have taken these colors and matched both Swarovski Crystals as well as our own authentic Murano Glass Beads to make it easy for you to shop complimentary colors. Just click on any color to shop. VenetianBeadShop

 

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