Glass Beads

By Author: Gareth Hoyle
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Glass Beads

A glass bead is a piece of glass with a hole which goes through the centre of it where it can be threaded onto string or thin metal to either create jewellery or be used as an embellishment for a garment or accessory item. They can come in many shapes from a perfect sphere to a cylindrical shape. They are widely available and can be purchased either online or from many specialist craft shops and haberdasheries.

They are a form of pressed glass and are produced when molten glass is poured into the appropriately shaped mould, stamped down with a press to ensure a shatter proof and smash resistant – at least as much as can be expected when moulding glass – and then left to set. Different bead colours can be obtained by using different dyes in the molten solution and items such as sequins, flecks of gold or silver foil and even smears of different colours than the original shade are often put into the molten solution prior to setting to give a different visual effect for the finished article.

Classifications

In addition to the usual glass sphere which is rather common place and found in ...
... most stores en masse there are other varieties which are produced individually by glass auteurs and as such these are more highly sought after, are more expensive and the jewellery they are then used to create is in turn more sought after and more expensive. Examples of artistically produced beads are lampworked, Dichroic and Millefori.

Uses

As the most common glass beads are often sold in larger quantities by their metric weight and are relatively inexpensive they are used by many as filling for costume jewellery and the art of this is known as beading. The jewellery which is produced is usually everyday jewellery and is either beaded together to produce everyday wear rather than anything too formal or rich.

The more artistically produced beads tend to be used either in formal or going out accessories or in the increasingly popular field of wedding jewellery where high class, well made pieces which will photograph and age well are sought after.

Glass Beads for decoration available to buy from thebeadwholesaler.co.uk. We sell a huge range of beads and jewellery decorations; Visit our website and buy Pearl Beads online!