All About Beads - Everything You Need To Know

A bead is a small object which varies in shape, and has a small hole in the centre, for threading and stringing. Beads are made from a variety of materials most common are, Glass, Plastic, and Stone. They can also be made from Bone, Metal, Pearl, Coral, Minerals and Paper, which are just a few of the many materials.

Beads come in a variety of shapes and sizes, they usually range from under a millimetre to over a centimetre in diameter.

Below is a list of the different types of beads:

Bone And Horn Beads

These long tubular hair pipe beads were originally made with Elk Rib Bones, as bones of animals have been a popular bead material. Today the beads are made of Bison and Water Buffalo, and they have a black variation made from animals’ horns.

Dichroic Glass Beads

Dichroic beads have a thin film of metal fused to the surface of the glass, which causes a sheen that changes between two different colours when looked at, at different angles. They are being used to produce high-end art beads.

Ethnic Beads, Including Stone Beads

There are many ethnic beads, for example Kiffa Beads, Ghanaian and Nigerian powder glass beads which are made in West Africa, by and for Africans. Some of the other ethnic beads are Magatama which are traditional Japanese beads, Cinnabar often used for beads in China, and Rudraksha beads, seeds that are customary in India for making Buddhist and Hindu Rosaries.

Faux Natural Beads

Faux beads, especially in the case of fake pearls, simulated rocks, minerals and gemstones, are made to look more expensive. Precious metals and Ivory are also imitated.

Fire-Polished Beads

“Fire-polished” beads are faceted by machine, then drawn through ovens to make the surface molten, which makes the beads shiny when the bead cools. They are glass beads made in the Czech Republic, production of the beads goes back to the 14^th century. They come in sizes from 3 millimetres to 22 millimetres.

Furnace Glass Beads

Furnace Glass Beads are made using traditional glass working techniques from Italy. They’re a special type of art bead, which requires a large glass furnace and annealing kiln. They are sliced form long glass rods, decorated with stripes and other colours, also known as canes.

Fusible Beads

They come in many different opaque colours, and are placed on a peg array with solid backing to form pictures and designs then melted together with a clothes iron. They can also be strung into necklaces, bracelets or woven into key chains.

Lampwork Beads

These beads are made using a torch to heat a rod of glass. The resulting thread is then spun round a metal rod covered in bead release. Other colours of glass are added to make many designs, when the base bead has formed.

Lead Crystal Beads

Lead crystal beads are made with hi-tech precise machinery, many of these beads are enhanced with surface coatings. The surface coatings are Vitrail, Moonlight, dorado, satin, star shine and heliotrope. There is also Aurora Borealis, which is a surface coating that diffuses light into a rainbow. Swarovski and Preciosa crystal beads are high-lead content crystal.

Lucite Beads

Lucite is one of many name brands used to describe Poly(methyl methacrylate) the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate. Lucite is also a term used to refer to many plastic beads.

Millefiori Beads

Millefiori is the name of the technique used to make these beads, the technique uses glass rods or canes, which are known as murrine. At the ends of the cane where it has been cut multicoloured patterns are viewable, the cut cane is pressed into the bead surface which forms mosaic-like patterns.

Seed Beads

Seeds beads are generally small beads ranging from under a millimetre to several millimetres, usually round in shape, though sometimes tube shaped, seed beads are most commonly used for loom and off-loom bead weaving.

Tagua Beads

Tagua is an ivory-nut palm plant, which is often used for beads, buttons and jewellery, and can be dyed. Beads can take on the whole form of the tagua nut or various slices, beads and shapes.

Trade Beads or Slave Beads

These beads are made in Europe for the slave trade and other trading in Africa. Chevron beads are a particular type of trade bead.

Vintage Beads

The word “Vintage” is used to describe something that is 25 years old or more, this term and meaning has been adopted in the bead industry and vintage beads are available in materials such as Lucite, Plastic, Crystal, Metal and Glass.

Beads have been made by every culture since as far back as 40,000 years, basic technology to make beads from plant seeds and various stones was available to every society.

However plant material did not require as much technology as material from gems, semiprecious stone, and bone which needed labour intensive production, and was a widely available medium.

Many thousands of years before European contact the kind of beads produced was determined by geographical location , Prehistoric South-western cultures traded turquoise throughout western regions. Marine shells from Florida coasts were traded north and made into beads in Illinois.

With the advent of European trade, the First Nations Market opened with the advantage going to the Europeans. In Canada, French people supplied manufactured beads of so many different colours they became the principle medium circulating to all the First Nations people along the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers.

Later, the Hudson Bay Company added beads as part of their standard trading commodity. As a result of trading with trappers and middlemen over 300 years, they supplied the north west frontier with beads.

Beadwork rose to become the predominant craft when glass beads had a significant affect on the First Nation life. People of the woodlands used floral patterns in beadwork where the curvilinear motifs had traditional roots in quills.

Historically bead working was part of a social past time where friends and family would get together to bead at the same table and discuss issues of the day or just socialize.

Although all First Nations have a concept of themselves as people, tribal characteristics took on new meanings with the arrival of the trade bead. Glass beads replaced quills and natural beads as the medium of choice owing to their availability, flexibility and variety of colours.

The bead that first insinuated itself through Columbus has become a cultural icon that continues to display the flamboyance of the First Nations cultures to this day.

Beadwork is ,usually by the use of a needle and thread or soft wire, the art of attaching beads to one another or a piece of cloth. Beadworks are also used in wall hangings and sculpture as well as mainly Jewellery or other personal adornment.

Beadwork is divided into many techniques which are loom, and off-loom weaving, stringing, bead embroidery, bead crochet and bead knitting.