Most glass beads are made out of matt glass, dichroic glass and lamp worked glass. These regular forms of glass beads are relatively cheap to purchase. Glass beads are available from specific suppliers located in shopping malls and internet shops. The beads can usually be purchased individually, however the cost of the beads tends to fall the more beads that are purchased.

Glass beads can also be found in rare forms of vintage glass. These glass beads are usually from Germany, Japan, Italy and Czechoslovakia. These vintage beads are usually hand made and therefore more expansive and are common purchases for collectors or customers requiring a rare piece of jewelry to be made. Glass beads, as with many other beads are usually purchased ready holed and are thread onto either cotton or nylon threads.

     Lampwork Glass Beads
"Lampwork" means glass that is formed and decorated in a torch flame hot enough to melt the glass.  The "lamp" in lampwork came from the oil lamps and blowpipes originally used in seventeenth century France and Italy. Blowing by mouth or with a bellows into an oil lamp flame with a small pipe makes just enough heat to soften and form the softer types of glass. I'm always amazed at what great work the early lampworkers were able to do with such a minimal amount of equipment.

Today lampworking is usually done with a fuel gas and oxygen torch and a few hand tools. The tricks and moves used to form and decorate the glass haven't changed much in Millenniums.  Hot glassworking skills came to us from a long history starting with the Syrians around 1700 BC, the Egyptians around 1450 BC, the Chinese around 550 BC, the Romans at the turn of the first millennium, and with the French, German, Italian, Indian and Islamic folks bringing us up to the present.