How Glass Trollbeads Are Made!
Glass Trollbeads only became readily available on the market during the early part of 2002, they were the brainchild of the main Trollbeads designed, Lise Aagaard. Until she designed and created the first Glass Trollbead the main Trollbeads were either gold, silver or made from precious stones and a combination of other materials.
Lise design acumen and ideas are now responsible for some of the most popular glass beads in the world. They come in a wide variety of styles, colors and variations and can be used for any number of different bracelets, moods and personalities. A selection of beautiful glass Trollbeads can be seen here. You can find out more about the history of Trollbeads here.
Glass Trollbeads are made by hand, like all other Trollbeads. The material they are made from is from a combination of sand and of soda which is basically what the glass is made from. There are only a few places in the world where this is naturally occurring and doesn't need to be artificially mixed, Syria is one of these very places.
The glass rods made from this substance are taken and heated to an extremely high heat (around 600 - 800 degrees Celsius), so hot that the glass chances consistency and instead of being solid it becomes liquid, it's at this point that the glass is now malleable enough to be worked with. The glass is then wrapped around a steel rod whilst continuing to be heated over the heat of the naked flame, it's wound around at the same time to form the shape of the glass bead, with the hole in the center being created by the metal rod the bead is formed around.
Once the basic shape of the bead has been formed, then the bead can have other patterns added to it such as stripes, colors, pigments and indentations. Different colors will melt at different temperatures.
In the final stages of the bead creation, it's rotated quickly within the naked flame, this rounds the shape of the bead perfectly. The beads are then removed from the rod and final touches can be added such as the addition of the silver center piece which allows the bead to slide along the Trollbead bracelet without scratching the glass bead.
The oldest beads that we know of are from places such as China, they date back some 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. So although Lise Aagaard was the first to design and market her beads in the Trollbead range, she was not the first person to come up with glass beads.
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