Indian Accessories

On first thought, the term ‘Jewelry’ is interpreted as trinkets of gold, silver and platinum, inlaid with gemstones or chunky ornaments made of naturally available materials like shells, bones etc.

Most Indians are not familiar with the concept of glass jewelry, except glass bangles, a trademark of Indian femininity.
Glass bangles are manufactured almost all over India and are sold out in various colors and designs with beautiful decorations. Glass bangles are available as carved, filigreed, engraved, and studded with gems along with other decorations. In the lengthy Indian history, at one point, these bangles had provided marital status to a Hindu woman.
Glass jewelry also is used to incorporate earrings, pendants, rings and beads that are used in the manufacture of necklaces, bracelets, anklets etc. The glasses that are often used in the making of glass jewelry are cast glass pieces, fused glass, and glass beads. The glass beads could be made in different ways such as may be wound, drawn, molded, lamp-worked or of diachronic glass.
In the fused glass jewelry, glass of various colors is cut to small pieces and glued together and heated in a kiln. The glass pieces melt and fused together and become one. Fused glass could be used to create colored and beautifully shaped jewelry like pendants. Ductile glass is heated and stretched around a solid core like a metal wire to produce wound glass beads. It is given shape by tools or pressing or rolling on a hard surface and then decorated.
Drawn Glass Beads are formed when a hollow tube is inserted into a ball of hot glass and the glass strand is pulled out to form a glass tube that is then chopped to make individual beads. Micro-beads or seed beads are good examples of modern drawn glass beads.
Molded Beads are made by heating glass rods till they are molten and then feeding them into a machine that stamps the glass and creates a hole in it. To make the beads smooth they are rolled in hot sand. Such beads are made in the Czech Republic.
A thin metallic film is fused on the Dichroic Glass so that when you view the glass from different angles you can see different colors.
To make Lamp-worked Beads, soft glass or soda-lime glass is melted and shaped using a torch or flame. The molten glass is merged with other pieces and shaped using tools, followed by annealing, a process by which the glass gets cooled at a controlled rate, thus reducing the stress and preventing the glass from breaking.
Sea-glass jewelry, another type of glass jewelry, has not yet received due recognition. It is made of pieces of glass washed into shore, smoothened and polished naturally. Sea-glass is used for making very pretty jewelry as it is found in many shades.