Beads

The artist of SWCreations, Stephanie A White, is the designer of original beaded jewelry and elegant beaded gifts since 1999. All beadedjewelry is handcrafted and nothing is mass produced. You are sure to find jewelry that will become treasured heirlooms for years to come. All our beaded jewelry designs are created with the highest quality beads and gemstones collected from around the world.  Our exclusive beaded jewelry designs are created with a variety of one of a kind beads which create rarely identical products.  Our jewelry designs are often copied but our quality is incomparable and unmatched.

 Cloisonne is an enameling technique used for jewelry making. Artists take a piece of metal, usually copper although bronze and silver are used as well, and then create separate areas called cloisons with thin metal wire. The small wire filigree cloisons are soldered to the base metal. They are then filled with enamel and the subjected to extreme heat to adhere the metal permanently to the enamel. The final product is polished smooth, creating a beautiful, shiny, multi-colored effect. Creating cloisonné jewelry takes steady hands and close attention to detail. The thin metal wire is used to made intricate designs and the enamel is carefully concocted with a mortar and pestle: fine powders are ground and purified to create vibrant colors to be place in the intricate wire designs. The enamel is poured into the cloisons with small droppers or tiny brushes.

Cloisonne was first employed as an artistic process in ancient Egypt. The first examples of cloisonné were made from bronze and glass. These products date back to as late as 1800 BC. The Chinese used Cloisonne prolifically to embellish weapons, vases, and dishes. They often used gemstones like turquoise and jade as glazes to fill the cloisons. The height of cloissone production occurred during the Ming dynasty in the 15th century. Today, jewelers employ cloisonné to create beautiful pieces of jewelry.

Cloisonne beads form vivid bracelets and necklaces. Cloisanne pendants make for eye-catching pieces. You can find cloisonné in cuff bracelets, earrings, barrettes, broaches, and pins. The process of cloisonné calls for each piece to be completely unique, each with an individual design and color scheme. The gemstone part of a true rhinestone is a form of rock crystal, which is a type of quartz. Rhinestones are quartz within a metal setting. The crystal is glued to a foil which is then in turn placed in a metal setting. The idea of the rhinestone was invented by a French jewelry name George Frederic Straw. He gave crystals a metal backing in order to ensure that the stone’s reflective qualities were directed out of the front of the stone. Rhinestones are meant to be shiny baubles, worn to glam up any outfit. Rhinestones were a huge fashion trend in the 1940s.

Daniel Swarovski came up with a way to cut rock crystals to appear like beautiful gemstones, and rhinestones were suddenly able to be created in mass quantities. Rhinestones were popular as jewelry and also adorned evening gowns and headpieces. Vintage rhinestones can be quite expensive, ranging anywhere from $50-$1000. Today’s rhinestones are most often made of acrylic, though some manufacturer’s still use rock crystal. Glass can also be glued into a foil setting to create a rhinestone. Acrylic and glass rhinestones scratch easily, and should be treated with care to increase their lifespan. Rhinestones with rock crystal can actually yellow over time due to the adhesive that glues them to the foil; there is nothing to be done for them except to replace the rhinestone. Today, rhinestones are most commonly found in costume jewelry. Necklaces, bracelets, and even wedding tiaras boast shiny rhinestones. Rhinestones are a fun way to glitter and shine at a fraction of the price of diamonds.

Lampwork beads are glass beads formed with a torch. Artisans use the extreme heat to mold glass into the shape of their bead, add designs in different colors and shapes onto the beads, and then anneal the beads in a kiln. Adding detail to small beads is achieve through using a thin glass rod and a torch; this process is called flameworking. Annealing is the term for cooling the glass down slowly. This makes sure the beads are sturdy and durable. The entire process calls for attention to detail and no two beads are created the same. The ancient Egyptians melted glass to form beads 5000 years ago.

The Romans were the first to use a kiln and blowpipes to add intricate designs to their glass beads. The title “lampwork” is derived from the use of oil lamp flames and blowpipes to heat glass. The advent of the blowtorch made creating glass beads much easier, faster, and safer. Italy popularized lampwork beads in the 13th. Today, many jewelers boast that they include Murano or Venetian beads in their jewelry designs. Today, creating lampwork beads is considered an art form. Artisans create glass beads one at a time.

Retailers have also figured out a way to mass produce lampwork beads. Beads are cut in factories; however, even this industrial process doesn’t eliminate the unique qualities or each individual bead. Lampwork beads are used to create beautiful necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. They come in vibrant colors and display exquisite, intricate glass patterns. They are strung with other lampwork beads or mixed and matched with metals, crystals, stones, or gold and silver beads.
 

It's hard to imagine a time when glass wasn't a part of everyday life, but for centuries glassmaking techniques were a carefully guarded secret. Fathers passed the craft of glassmaking to their sons, but rarely to anyone else. Glass objects were reserved for royalty in some cultures. In other societies, ownership of glass was regulated by price -- if you could afford the luxury of glass, it was yours.
Lampwork Beads
Lampwork beads are type of bead made from glass, and it's no surprise, because glass is an artisan's dream. It can be poured into molds. It can be cut and polished into faux gemstones. It can be stretched and pulled into any shape imaginable. It's no wonder that creative people throughout the world choose to express their artistic talents with glass.

How Lampwork Beads are Made
To create glass beads, lampworkers melt narrow rods of glass with the flame of a torch. The molten glass is wound around a mandrel, a thin length of stainless steel. The space occupied by the mandrel becomes a hole through the bead when the bed is slipped away.
Turning the mandrel and holding it in different positions allows gravity to help the bead take form, but tools are also used to push and pull glass beads into shape.

Lampworking is a skill that takes a great deal of practice and patience. A lampwork bead artist understands the glass and the torch, and must learn how much heat it takes for glass to flow, how much heat can be applied to a bead that's already shaped before it becomes molten again and loses shape, when to add decorative elements and how different colors of glass interact with each other.

What Lampwork Beads Look Like
Hand crafted glass beads can be as plain or as decorative as the artist likes. Multiple layers of glass are often used, switching colors to create the desired look. Small dots of color can be left as bumps on the bead's surface or plunged into the center where they form floral-like designs.
Fine lines are possible when craftspeople work with tiny rods of glass -- kind of like painting with a glass paintbrush. Kristen Frantzen Orr specializes in that technique.

How Lampwork Beads Are Stabilized
Glass shrinks as it cools. Bringing a bead out of the flame and leaving it in the open air allows the outside of the bead to cool rapidly, but its inside is still burning hot. The stress point between the cool, shrinking glass and the hot center begins to grow and often causes the bead to crack.
To prevent stress and cracks, beads are cooled a kiln, where temperatures can be closely regulated. The beadmaker "soaks" the beads at a high temperature to make sure that all glass within them is evenly heated, then takes several hours to slowly reduce the heat to bring beads to room temperature. The process is called kiln annealing. and it's important to make sure that the handcrafted glass beads you buy from craftspeople are kiln annealed.

Tiny glass beads are sometimes cooled between layers of insulation. It's not the same as annealing, but the process is usually successful because it helps small amounts of glass cool at the same rate.

Hollow Lampwork Beads
A hollow lampwork bead is made by trapping a bubble of air within glass. As the bead is turned round and round at the torch, the air bubble inside the bead expands, leaving a hollow center.

Hollow Glass Vessels
Beadmakers sometimes make hollow vessels by forming a steel wool shape around the end of a mandrel. Glass is wound around the shape, then gaps are coaxed shut to make a solid surface. The artist continues to add glass to build the vessel and create the envisioned shape.
The steel wool is not removed until after the vessel is kiln annealed. Some lampwork artists use rubber plugs at the top of the vessel and some make tiny glass plugs to close them so that they can safely hold essential oils or other liquids.

You can use lampwork beads to create necklaces, bracelets or earrings. If you make jewelry to sell, to give as gifts or to wear yourself, lampwork beads are an excellent choice for your jewelry making needs. Each of these beautiful, handcrafted, glass beads is a tiny work of art. You can follow:

a)       Decide on the type, size and color of the lampwork beads you want to buy. Because lampwork beads are handcrafted, there will be variations in beads. The ends of lampwork beads should be completely smooth.

b)      Visit craft stores, flea markets and artist shows in the area or online to find lampwork beads for sale. Before buying, make sure the lampwork beads are balanced. An easy test to check for balance is to insert a three-inch hairpin into the bead as check the balance. Always ask the artist's permission before performing the test.

c)       Be sure that any glass eye dots are firmly attached to lampwork sculptured beads. There should not be any powder released from the inside of the bead when it is tapped gently.