The Advantages of Glass Beads & See MrBead in the UK

To go to the MrBead store click MrBead.com  or  MrBead.co.uk    

For Free Shipping off anything enter GLASS in the box at checkout, and click "Redeem Coupon".  Use NOW - as expires Friday 20th September 2013.  No minimum order, but can only for used at MrBead.com  or MrBead.co.uk and cannot be used with any other discount or eBay.

See us today at one of these two venues, Sunday 15th September 2013. Make yourself known to collect your free gift and a MrBead Bag at:

Big Bead Summer Sale - Nottingham Forest Football Club, The City Ground, NG2 5FJ. ALL beads at this fair will be sold at a discount!  10am to 4pm.  More details here.

Or at the Antiques & Collector's fair - Alexandra Palace - Alexandra Palace Way, Wood Green, London N22 7AY. See the best of our beads & Chinese antiques & collectables. 9.30am to 4.30pm. More details here.

For dates of our other shows click Bead Fairs.

New Beads:Tweet a link to this newsletter to all your followers - just click here. 
Follow us on Twitter at MrBead@UKMrBead and follow Nigel at Nigel@NigelMckay

The Advantages of Glass Beads
Millefiori Glass Beads
Lampwork Glass Beads
What are Swarovski Crystal Beads?
Difference between Glass and Crystal
New Vibrant Glass Pearl Beads
MrBead's UK Autumn Bead Fairs
Free Shipping
 

The Advantages of Glass Beads
 

Why use glass beads?
What's the advantage using glass beads to make handcrafted jewellery?  Glass is not only cheaper than crystal, but offers more shapes and colours, and looks almost the same.

Variety available
Glass beads come in bright colours like yellow, red, green and blue - as well as more sparkling shades like aqua, magenta and rose. Many are multicoloured with abstract designs as seen on glass vases. Mix these beads with other types of gemstones when designing jewellery. A formal necklace may incorporate a few crystal beads threaded with the glass beads to give an impression of style and expense.

Different types
Most glass beads are made from matte glass, dichroic and lamp worked glass, allowing them to be cheaply and easily produced. They can be bright individually, but cost less by the strand.  Old vintage glass from Europe incorporates lots of glass beads. These are usually handmade, more expensive, and hunted by collectors for customers requiring a rare piece of jewellery to be made. As other beads, glass are usually sold with holes ready to thread.

Millefiori Glass Beads
Millefiori means "a thousand flowers" in  Italian, first crafted in Venice in the 15th century.  Traditionally, glass rods were made like candy rock with different colours running down inside. These were then heated under the flame to cut off slices which could be pressed into mosaic patterns, producing unique high-priced beads.

However, these days a similar technique is applied to polymer clays which don't need to be reheated. Making it possible to mass produce hundreds of thousands of different designs of millefiori beads at an affordable price.

Lampwork Glass Beads
"Lampwork" is glass that is moulded in a flame.  Traditionally, oil lamps and blowpipes were used to melt the glass in seventeenth-century Italy and France - although glass working skills originated by the Syrians and Egyptians around 3,500 years ago. Today, gas torches are used, but the basic techniques haven't changed much in Millenniums.

What are Swarovski crystal beads?
Swarovski beads are manmade, and have a greater brilliance than other crystal because they contain around 32% lead. Daniel Swarovski invented the idea of using crystal for jewellery, rather than just chandeliers, by  patenting an electric cutting machine in Austria in 1892.  Swarovski crystal allows light to reflect in a rainbow spectrum producing a  fairytale magical  appearance.  This is achieved by coating half of the crystal face with a special metallic chemical.  When the crystal is turned you see the crystal colour on one side and the coating colour on the other.  

Difference between glass and crystal
Crystal is glass with lead added. As little as 1% lead is all that's needed for glass to be called crystal in the United States. However, defining the exact difference is difficult with a grey area in between, despite the molecular structure being different - and although crystal beads weigh more, glass can sparkle almost as much. 

Conclusion
As you can see, glass beads are the jewellery makers' friend.  They allow you to design jewellery with imagination because of the variety available - and glass also allows you to sell your designs at an affordable price.

See our Glass Beads at MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk
Our Lampwork Beads MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk
Our Millefiori Beads at MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk
Our Crystal Beads at MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk
Our Swarovski Beads MrBead.com or MrBead.co.uk

New Vibrant Glass Pearl Beads

See our new category of Glass Pearl Beads. These look exactly like top-quality pearls in bright, dramatic, modern colours with a gleaming finish - yet at very-affordable prices. Let your imagination go wild and mix these bold beads with genuine gemstones to produce attractive, striking jewellery at a price every consumer can afford.  Come to one of our bead fairs to see many of these new popular beads for yourself!

See our glass pearls at MrBead.co.uk or MrBead.com.
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