Our shiny beads undergo a lot until they reach our bead mats!
Last week, we visited Jablonec and the Crystal Valley, where most of our precious beads are made.
Mona and Attila, our talented photo and videographers, traveled with us to record everything so you could learn with us.
Today, I am bringing you the first peaks of this amazing journey!
Laying in the heart of Europe, the Crystal Valley is a beautiful place north of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
The traditions of the glass-making industry reflect over 500 years of history, skills, care, and love for beads and other materials.
One of the secrets behind why glassware manufacturing is connected to this area so much is the area’s natural beauty and abundance.
Hills provide the specific type of sand needed for the raw primary commodity. Forests are precious for wood that heats up the fire in the kilns. Streams and their clear water are essential in cooling, washing, cleaning during the process consisting of many different steps.
Even after 15 years in the Beading World, this visit, peaking behind the doors, which weren’t open for us until this moment, witnessing how lovingly people from the manufactories talk about our treasures and the beautiful nature, moved me in a way I never expected.
We were invited to meet our partners, see different manufactories, and sometimes even participate in bead-making, literally getting our hands dirty. Who knows, the same beads might one day appear on your or my own bead mat!
Now, we understand better why we can’t rush our partners when they say they need more time to prepare something for us. For example, cooling down the glass after heating it up to 1500 C can take nearly a week, and tumbling is also a time-consuming part of the process.
Even in 2024, most (if not all) of our beads from the Crystal Valley are still touched and perfected by several people until they become sparkly beauties from the rough glass rods. Each one of them was cared for instead of just dropping out of a machine after a fully automatized sequence. I have always wondered why this is the case: I finally understand why already man-made glass rods (the very first step) have advantages, enabling the creation of layered, multi-colored looks, for example.
Some of the machines are ‘fed’ with glass rods manually to heat them up before they can be shaped, and others have an opening at the top where you can insert multiple of them simultaneously. Sounds easy, right?
However, there is a glitch! Suppose the machine needs a correction after starting, for example, to align the ‘stamps’ pressing the shapes better. There is a huge advantage in that case, as the bead-maker can manually remove the rod instantly when he recognizes the mistake.
In a more automated machine, all the glass inside is melted simultaneously; even if production is stopped, the hot material will flow through. Luckily, it can still be re-used, but that means lots of delay and extra energy.
high school, we unintentionally followed each other to Prague, the Netherlands, and, eventually, the Beading World. Last week’s trip to the Crystal Valley was her brainchild: organizing all the factory and partner visits, driving us around as I am only used to 
nowadays, taking long walks and working hard / laughing hard every day. The heavy boxes 
are hiding some of the treasures that we found!
Together with Andrea, we dug deep into the stock of beady warehouses and treasure troves that were otherwise not open for us or ones that we haven’t known that well yet. Sometimes, you need to be there in person to check out everything or to hold the shape and see the color with your own eye to recognize how inspiring it truly is. As soon as we left the offices, and those doors opened and revealed all the sparklies behind, we immediately transformed from cool businesswomen to a completely different state: with eyes shining, packing the shopping baskets full of beads that I can’t wait to play with.
I even found a full shelf of turquoise, blue, and green beads, and the result was the Turquoise Dream Bundle, with more than a dozen beads in one pack!
Today, I bring you the result of this ‘Big Girl Bead Shopping‘ trip to the Beadingschool Bead Shop!
I carefully selected everything on the temporary ‘shelf’ (Treasures from the Crystal Valley): lots of turquoise shades, donuts to use between motifs and beaded beads, a taste of matte round pearls, and lots of rare table-cut beads.
What a cool combination of colors these three that I am holding! Avocado green fire-polished donuts, turquoise olives, and a gorgeous transparent yet eye-catching pink!
To reward our beloved Beadingschool Academy Students on the Turquoise and Fuchsia levels, all the inspiring beads from this journey can be yours with a 7% discount starting today (11. June ’24) at 5 pm CET /11 am NYC / 8 am California / 3 am NZ. This special offer lasts until we have this beauty in stock (very limited) or until next week (18. June ’24) at the same time. Especially if combined with the special price you receive if you go for our bead bundles, it makes a significant difference!
I would like to say goodbye today with the lovely smile of this lady between Andrea and me: she packed most of the ‘Treasures from the Crystal Valley‘ carefully into these neat plastic bags as we went crazy bead-shopping with Andrea. Including her, everyone we met was super kind, and they way they handled and talked about beads made them even more precious.
came home with me and will stay with me forever…P.S.: Since we were already in Jablonec, we also decided to pick up and restock many of your most beloved shaped glass beads: many of the Ginko, Mini Gemduo, PaisleyDuo, Round DropDuo, Round Glass Beads in 2 mm, 4 mm,6 mm sizes, Cali Beads, and 13×15 mm Shell beads are back in stock!
Thank you for sharing your trip with us! It looks lie a beautiful place and I am so happy you met so many kind and lovely people. It is truly an art the treasure they create. I am so thankful for their hard work and the years of dedication they continue to put in to making these treasures!
Thank you for the beautiful report. Even though I’m from the Czech Republic and I’ve already visited Jablonec a few times, I haven’t been lucky enough to get to “the machines” like you. I wish you nice days.