Glass Design Techniques

Murrine are the colourful patterns inside a rod and are revealed only when sliced into small pieces. This process requires a high level of skill and patience. Murrine is made by hand, and the design possibilities are endless. Designs range from naive shapes to detailed portraits. A popular style is the flower or star shape. When used together in large numbers from multiple canes, the pattern is called millefiori, Italian for "a thousand flowers".

Marble/Frit is a pattern reminiscent of marble: to create it, the base is made by melting a glass rod and wrapping it around a steel rod. The resulting bead is rolled in golden-coloured frit: small pieces of granulated glass. The charm is then heated again, melting the frit which spreads across the surface to create a marbled effect.

Pandora's nature-inspired glass designs are beautiful examples of craftsmanship at its best. Pandora's nature collection features floral motifs or butterflies and each piece is created by hand. A base layer of glass is created onto which dots or lines are added. Using a special tool, the stringer shapes are drawn into miniature motifs.

Pandora's Romantic Hearts effect showcases pretty hearts that appear to float within the charm. To create the Romantic Hearts pattern, slender glass stringers in tonal pink hues form the shapes on a clear glass base. The inner layer of glass also contains dichroic glass, which displays two different colours to give the charm its unique iridescent effect. The piece is finally encased in a layer of clear glass. No two designs are exactly the same.

A base design is set evenly with round brilliant-cut cubic zirconia stones in the molten glass. Next, a pointed tool is inserted into the core layer to make delicate air bubbles before the bead design is sealed with a final layer of translucent glass.

Some of our innovative glass designs combine dichroic and fluorescent glass to create a fairy-tale feel that represents the signature colour of Disney’s much-loved characters. Dichroic glass is essentially two-tone glass to bring an enchanting, colour-changing effect to charms depending on the viewing angle. Fluorescent glass adds a subtle glow-in-the-dark effect.

Heart-shaped cubic zirconia stones areembedded individually in the glass byhand on this challenging design. Eachstone is spaced evenly, facing the samedirection, in a painstaking processthat requires exceptional hand-eyecoordination.

A soft iridescent effect is achieved through the use of dichroic glass. Dichroic glass displays are defined by two distinctive colours when viewed from different angles. A highly specialised product, dichroic glass is created by fusing thin layers of glass together with metallic oxides. The process is undertaken in a vacuum chamber using a high-voltage electron beam.

Glass beads with texture get their unique form by the still-warm glass bead being gently ‘rolled’ on a grooved surface to create the intruiging ripple effect reminiscient of the swooping shapes found in nature.