Types of Glass Beads

Glass beads are beautiful pieces of artwork that are often used in creating jewelry and clothing. The process of making them often involves burning a variety of colors and sizes of glass and fusing them to create designs such as flowers, swirls, or crystal-like reflective effects. Beads have been created for many hundreds of years and continue to be popular today.

Lampwork Beads

Lampwork beads are among the most popular beads in jewelry-making. Lampwork beads are created by heating glass by holding it over a flame or lamp, which forms the glass into a variety of shapes and textures. Lampwork beads come in shapes such as flowers, swirls and dots.

Dichroic Glass Beads

You can see a variety of colors within dichroic beads, depending on the angle at which you hold them. "Dichroic" means "two colors," but the bead itself is like a rainbow of color. This type of bead is not created with dyes or coloring agents. Dichroic beads are made with thin glass using the manipulation of light. The glass is created via fusion with materials such as aluminum and titanium. The beads come in circles, squares, spheres, cylinders and bi-cones.

Glass Pearls

Glass pearls are in high demand for jewelry-making, stitch-beading projects and pin beading. Pearls are created starting with the finest glass base and then applying a surface treatment to determine the color. The main color groups for pearls are white, silver, pink, gold, black and cream. While most pearls are round, they also come in drops, ovals, twists, diamond shapes, nuggets and faceted rounds.

Millefiori Glass Beads

Millefiori glass beads have been produced since the 19th century. "Millefiori" means "thousand flowers." These beads are created by putting rods of colored glass together and forming a pattern before heating them up so that the glass fuses together; this is called the mosaic technique. Millefiori beads are often used for decoration purposes and creating ornaments.

Czech Fire Polish Bead

Czech beads are high in demand in many parts of the world because of their compatibility with other types of beads and the way they reflect color. Czech beads are often said to "magnify the bead" of the jewelry piece when used with other beads. Sizes vary from 3 millimeters to 22 millimeters. Czech beads are also often used in embroidering clothes.

Where to Purchase Glass Beads

Glass beads can be purchased through wholesale jewelry catalogs and jewelry-supply companies. They can also be purchased online at a variety of beading stores such as ArtBeads (see Resources) and Fire Mountain Gems. There is also a variety of glass beads available on eBay. Beads are also sold at such retailers as Wal-Mart and craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michael's.

Resources

• Kinds of Glass Beads
• Fire Mountain Gems
• Art Beads