Beautiful murano glass comes from Murano an island near to Venice. Murano has been well known for its glassmakers since the 10th century creating unique glass items such as Murano glass beads.

A lot of Murano glass art is made by the lampworking process where the glass is liquid at high teperatures. The glass worker can shape the material while the glass is still soft but ust before it hardens.

Just as a side note Murano glass got a mention in the hit American tv series The Sopranos.

Murano beads have been made by Venitian glass artists since 1290 . They have developed special tecniques for making enamelled glass, crystalline glass, multicoloured glass and even imitation gemstones which hasn’t been matched anywhere else in the world.

Venetian foil beads and wedding cake beads are just two fo the beads made using the time consuming lampwork method. Blown beads are where the glassmaker melts the canes of glass and then the glassmaker blows them with a blow pipe.

Murano glass beads are beautiful in colour and that is why they are so popular with bead jewellery makers.