A bead is a small, decorative object that is pierced for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under a millimeter to over a centimeter in diameter.
Glass, plastic, and stone are the most common materials, but beads are also made from bone, horn, ivory, metal, shell, pearl, coral, gemstones, polymer clay, metal clay, resin, synthetic minerals, wood, ceramic, fiber, paper, and seeds.
A pair of beads made from Nassarius sea snail shells, approximately 100,000 years old, are thought to be the earliest known examples of jewellery.
Beadwork is the art or craft of making things with beads. Beads can be woven together with specialized thread, strung onto thread or soft, flexible wire, or adhered to a surface (e.g. fabric, clay).
Types of beads
Types of decorative beads include:
- Bugle beads
- Chevron beads
- Cloisonné beads
- Dichroic beads
- Ethnic beads
- Faux natural beads
- Fire-polished beads
- Furnace glass beads
- Fused glass beads
- Fusible beads
- Hair pipe beads
- Lampwork beads
- Lead crystal beads
- Lucite beads
- Millefiori beads
- Pressed glass beads
- Seed beads
- Trade beads or Slave beads
- Tagua Beads
- Vintage beads
Bone and horn beads
Bones of animals have been a popular bead material.Elk rib bones were the original material for the long, tubular hair pipe beads. Today these beads are commonly made of bison and water buffalo bones and are that popular for breastplates and chokers among Plains Indians. Black variations of these beads are made from the animals' horns.
Chevron beads
Main article: Chevron beadChevron Beads are special glass beads, originally made for trade in the New World and the slave trade in Africa by glassmakers in Italy as far back as the early 15th century. They are composed of many consecutive layers of colored glass. The initial core is formed in a star-shaped mold, and can have anywhere between five and fifteen points. The next layer of glass conforms to that star shape. Several layers of glass can be applied (typically four to seven layers), either star-shaped or smooth. After all layers have been applied, the glass is drawn out to the desired thickness and when cooled, cut into short segments showing the resulting star pattern at their ends. The ends can be ground to display the chevron pattern. Chevron beads are traditionally composed of red, blue, and white layers, but modern chevrons can be found in any color combination. Original beads made for trade to the New World and Africa were typically composed of green, white, blue and red layers.
Dichroic glass beads
Increasingly, dichroic glass is being used to produce high-end art beads. Dichroic glass has a thin film of metal fused to the surface of the glass, resulting in a surface that has a metallic sheen that changes between two colors when viewed at different angles. Beads can be fused, pressed, or made with traditional lampworking techniques. The metal coating used was originally developed by NASA for the space program.
Ethnic beads, including stone beads
Other beads considered trade beads are those made in West Africa, by and for Africans, such as Mauritanian Kiffa beads, and Ghanaian and Nigerian powder glass beads. Other ethnic beads include Tibetan Dzi beads and African-made brass beads. Rudraksha beads are seeds that are customary in India for making Buddhist and Hindu rosaries (malas). Magatama are traditional Japanese beads, and cinnabar was often used for beads in China. Wampum are cylindrical white or purple beads made from quahog or North Atlantic channeled whelk shells by northeastern Native American tribes, such as the Wampanoag and Shinnecock. Job's tears are a popular seed beads among southeastern Native American tribes.
Faux natural beads
Faux beads are beads are made to look like a more expensive original material, especially in the case of fake pearls and simulated rocks, minerals, and gemstones. Precious metals and ivory are also imitated.
Tagua nuts from South American are used as an ivory substitute since the natural ivory trade has been restricted worldwide.
Fire-polished beads
"Fire-polished" beads are faceted glass beads made in the Czech Republic. They are faceted by machine and then drawn through ovens to make the surfaces molten, and thus shiny when the beads cool. This method of "polishing" is faster and cheaper than buffing though the beads produced are generally less perfect than buffed beads. Czech fire-polish beads are made in an area called Jablonec nad Nisou. Production of glass beads in the area dates back to the 14th century, though production was depressed under communist rule. They come in sizes from 3 millimetres (0.12 in) to 22 millimetres (0.87 in).
Furnace glass beads
Furnace glass beads are a special type of art bead. They are made using traditional glassworking techniques from Italy that are more often used to make art glass objects. The manufacture of these beads requires a large glass furnace and annealing kiln. Furnace glass beads, also called cane glass beads, are sliced from long glass rods, often decorated with stripes and other color, also known as canes.
Fusible beads
Also known as Perler Beads, sometimes called "melty beads" by young children, these small, plastic and colorful beads are placed on a peg array with a solid plastic backing to form pictures and designs and then melted together with a clothes iron. Fusible beads come in many different opaque colors, transparent colors and with sparkles (flakes inside the plastic) and peg boards come in various shapes and several geometric patterns.
They also can be strung into necklaces or bracelets, or woven into keychains.
Lampwork beads
Main article: LampworkingLampwork beads are made by using a torch to heat a rod of glass and spinning the resulting thread around a metal rod covered in bead release. When the base bead has been formed, other colors of glass can be added to the surface to create many designs.
Lead crystal beads
Lead crystal beads (also known as machine cut crystal ) are cut crystal beads made with hi-tech precise machinery. Thanks to this state of the art machine cut processing the crystal items achieve outstanding geometry and excellent optical parameters. Many lead crystal beads are enhanced with surface coatings. Aurora Borealis , or AB, is a surface coating that diffuses light into a rainbow. Other surface coatings are vitrail, moonlight, dorado, satin, star shine, heliotrope.
Swarovski along with Preciosa branded crystal beads are prized by jewelers and hobbyists. They are a high-lead content crystal although today production of lead-free crystal is common. Lead crystals have a sparkle and clarity, and are often multi-faceted to resemble gemstones. Vintage cuts and colors are often prized, with a high price tag. Bicones are the most popular crystal beads in sizes 4 mm and 6 mm . Other Czech companies such as PAS Jablonec make similar styles of crystal beads.
Lucite beads
Lucite is a term that commonly refers to many plastic beads. However, Lucite is one of the many name brands used to describe Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or poly(methyl 2-methylpropenoate) the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate. Lucite methyl methacrylate polymer was among the first plastics derived from petrochemicals. DuPont chemists discovered Lucite in 1931 while exploring the high-pressure technology developed for ammonia production. The polymer’s crystal-clear appearance and its strength were far superior to nitrocellulose-based plastics. Lucite was in heavy demand during World War II for use in windshields, nose cones, and gunner turrets for bombers and fighter planes. After the war, DuPont marketed it for use in objects such as lamps, hairbrushes and jewelry.
Millefiori beads
Main article: MillefioriThe millefiori technique uses glass canes or rods, known as murrine, with multicolored patterns which are viewable only from the cut ends of the cane. Millefiori beads are made of plain
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