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How Czech glass beads are made

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We already love them. But when we know more, we see the faces behind the colors and shapes, when we learn about the history – then these tiny treasures will bring even more joy into our lives.

That’s why we visited the Crystal Valley in the Czech Republic last year together with a professional photo and videographer. We made this investment to bring back the knowledge to you, to preserve the history, and to keep it alive: through the stories, through the Beadingschool Bead Shop, through the jewels that are born on our bead mats.  

To celebrate International Beading Week (organized by the Beadworker’s Guild) I wrote this article for you: you can find here some of the most interesting videos from the Crystal Valley!

We could make this happen thanks to the community around Beadingschool, and I would like to thank you for your trust and your sparkly bead orders, and spreading the word about the colorful place that we are building together.

Today, I would like to share with you some of the videos that we made there, to deepen your knowledge and understanding, and also to make having these tiny treasures on your bead mat even more special by knowing their story.

Material

To shed another layer from all the knowledge that we collected in Jablonec, today I’d like to tell you about the material used for our beads.

Wood, water, and sand are the main resources needed for glassmaking. You could find incredibly high quality glass sand with minimum imperfections, wood to fire up the kilns (which are nowadays heated by gas or electricity), and plenty of water in the Crystal Valley. That’s basically the reason why this is exactly the area where the industry developed more than 500 years ago.

How our beads are made

The rods produced from the glass sand are approximately 1 meter long, 2-2.5 cm wide, and weigh 2 kg. They are made at a very high temperature: 1300-1500 C, where the raw material melts. They are then cooled for 20-30 hours.

Some glass rods are still made manually, even if machines can produce something similar. However: manually made glass rods are perfectly smooth, and it is possible to create layered colors that some of you like so much.

I also recommend watching this interview with Hynek from All Beads, who supplies a big part of our shaped beads.

Fire-polishing

After tumbling in water the beads are washed and cleaned to prepare them for faceting, fire-polishing, and coating.

After getting their final shape, all beads are matted and need to get back their shine. This happens by heating them up again – this time to a slightly lower temperature at around 700 C. The temperature slightly differs based on the color and the size. 

Fire-polished beads are placed on stainless steel sheets specially coated with a mixture of clay and travel through the kiln.

Handpressed and handpainted cabochons

As you could learn from the previous video, there are different ways of manufacturing pressed beads. Nowadays, each shape and size of beads has a different set of stamps that can be attached to the machine, but in the past, every shape and size had a separate pair of clamps. And there are still places where they know how to use those historical tools!

While these shapes are mostly made into buttons, with a metal loop on the backside, the ones that you can find in the Beadingschool Bead Shop are made into cabochons. This makes them easier to use in our beadwork.

Learn more about using them in Zuzi’s Spice Bazaar embroidery tutorial that is available as a gift on the Beadingschool Blog, where she teaches how to solve the challenge if the cabochon is transparent. It’s vibrant and full of flavour!

For the romantic, gentle side of you Aniko’s Fairy Forest tutorial is waiting for you.

My absolute favorite is the Bird of Paradise embroidery, where you can combine these beauties with some of the nicest historic filigrees, also made in the Crystal Valley.

Preciosa Crystals

Besides glass beads and components, we also need sparkle for our jewels. I discovered Preciosa crystals about 10 years ago, and since then, I completely switched to this brand (even before THAT announcement). The beading world, and making their products ecological matters to them – learn about it all about this video!

Beadingschool is one of the most important partners of Preciosa crystals in the beading world. We are in intensive cooperation with the headquarters in the Crystal Valley, and we are proud to present the following interview to get to know our beloved Preciosa crystals and pearls even better!

Zuzi’s Elysian Light tutorial

To celebrate International Beading Week, our Zuzi has designed a beautiful necklace feauturing some of the most beautiful Preciosa crystals: according to our Beadingschool Beaders, the slim navettes in both the smaller 3×11 mm size and the statement ones are the most elegant they have ever seen!

You can download Zuzi’s gift tutorial and even see different colors in this article. 

Wishing you a very happy and colorful International Beading Week!
Yours,
Erika from Beadingschool

 

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