Happy New Year 2013 from TPBF

Hi everyone and Happy New Year 2013!

We just wanted to thank all of our customers for their support during 2012 and assure you that we will be improving our virtual store during this year in two main ways:

1-      Work on on-line promotions so you guys can benefit from, like for example:

a.       Product of the month / week which will have an automatic discount during the period.

b.      Discount promotion on shipping cost when complying with a minimum order value.

c.       And much more.

2-      Adding more categories, sub categories and items to our store, for example:

a.       Add the category of fabric beads.

b.      Add more items and new sub categories for the Natural Bead.

c.       Add Greek alphabet beads sub category and also small size alphabet beads categories.

d.      Add many new multi-color shaped beads and animal shaped beads.

e.      And much more.                          

Kindly visit our e-store at: www.ThePeruvianBeadFactory.com, we look forward seeing you there or contact if you have any questions about this post to sales@inkabeads.com

A few words about Sport Beads and what can be done with them?

Sport beads have gained a lot of popularity in the last years, today one can find them made from many materials, we in TPBF started making them (ceramic made) more than a decade ago… we were probably one of the first in the world (definitely first in Peru) to develop beads that are shaped as sport themes, such as: Football (soccer), Baseball, Basketball, American Football, Volleyball, Tennis, Golf, 8 ball and more… We offer the sport beads in three sizes and accordingly is the use that can be done with them… normally the small size is used for earrings and other light weight jewelry, the large ones are more suited to big jewelry pieces and the medium is for anything in between… the main attraction for the sport beads is that they are a terrific tool to create jewelry to support your team, you are suggested to combine them with our alphabet beads to create your favorite cheering slogan and add to that your team colors from our one color solid beads (soon available in our virtual store) and then you get to have a unique homemade support your team jewelry, what better way than show your love and support to your team wearing a piece you designed and created yourself?! 

Kindly visit our e-store at: www.ThePeruvianBeadFactory.com, we look forward seeing you there or contact if you have any questions about this post to sales@inkabeads.com

About TPBF Logo Beads

What are logo beads? It is simple actually… Logo beads are beads that carry logo (or any other personal-custom made artwork) on them, usually they are developed on the disc shaped beads (i.e. “Printed Beads”); we offer a big variety of sizes in order to answer any requirement and adapt to the specific needs of each request… the sizes are: 25 mm, 21 mm, 18 mm, 14 mm and 8 mm for disc shaped beads. The logo beads are not just limited to disc shaped beads, they can also be printed on cube beads, oval shaped beads and rectangle shaped beads.

Over the years we made a lot of logos for big international companies as well as small ones too. We also specialize in making custom made beads, so if you have your own artwork which you wish to print on the beads and this way have your own brand of beads… we are the right supplier for you.

There are a lot of ideas and applications to place on the beads: starting with company’s logo, sport teams symbols, specific publicity campaigns and political campaigns, well known cartoon figures, fund raising events related artwork and so many more.

Please contact with any requirement you have, whether you are a small business or a large enterprise and even if you are a private person… we are flexible and we will adapt to your needs and requirements.

Kindly visit our e-store at: www.ThePeruvianBeadFactory.com, we look forward seeing you there or contact if you have any questions about this post to sales@inkabeads.com

How Our Peruvian Ceramic Beads Are Made…. Part 2

This week we continue the explanation on how our ceramic beads in The Peruvian Bead Factory are made, concentrating on the remaining four techniques:

·         Hand painted beads: The basic of this technique is that these beads are painted one by one by hand, each color separately, using a brush. The stages here are different than the other mentioned techniques (from last week posting) because the painting stage is actually being done before glazing the beads, so after the first firing of the clay, the beads are painted by hand with a brush, then fired again in a low temperature just to assure the applied pigments are dry and will not run over the bead when the glaze is applied, then a transparent glaze is applied and the beads enter to the third and last firing cycle. You could say they are fired only twice or twice and a half since the middle firing is fast and in a relatively very low temperature.

Here are two links to categories that are the essence of beads that are hand painted, the popular Peruvian traditional beads: WWW.THEPBFACTORY.COM/hand_made_beads_geometric_type.html and the always popular sport beads: WWW.THEPBFACTORY.COM/sport_beads.html

·         Clay painted beads: A technique that is commonly applied with some of the Animal Shaped Beads, once the clay is fired the beads are being painted with paints that do not require firing so the pieces dry in the air and the process is complete. Models that are developed with this technique are: The Medium bear, The Gorilla and The Chimpanzee.

·         Glazed painted beads: A technique that is very similar to the process of the hand painted bead, only that two stages were combined into one, so instead of applying the different pigments first and then apply the glaze, the application is of a colored glaze which is a mixture of the pigment with a transparent glaze. The technique is commonly used in our multi color shaped beads and also in our animal shaped beads, here are three specific items that are developed using this technique: VW Blue Car, Asst. color Flower and The Medium size Zebra animal bead.

·         Combined painting beads: This technique combines two of the above mentioned techniques: the Hand Painted Beads technique and the Clay Painted Beads technique. The first stages of the process are the same as for the hand painted only that the colored glazes are applied only on a few parts of the bead, then the beads are fired and still has parts of exposed white clay which is then painted with paints that dry in the air – ones that are not fired. There are many Animal Shaped Beads that are developed with the combined painting technique and here are two examples of items made this way:

o        Medium elephant bead – the ears and trumpet are glaze painted while the rest of the body is painted by air drying paints.

o        Large owl bead playing the harp – the owl’s wings, harp and parts of the head are glaze painted while the rest is painted with pale grey air drying paint.

 

So as you could read from this note and last week’s post - making ceramic beads can be a pretty complex process and there are many different ways to make them … each technique has its uniqueness and some advantages as well as some flaws… 

Kindly visit our e-store at: www.ThePeruvianBeadFactory.com, we look forward seeing you there or contact if you have any questions about this post.