Follow The Beads: Journey of the Jewelry

At SAME SKY we take our name seriously... From Sub Saharan Africa to Japan to the U.S., SAME SKY works to transcend borders and benefit local economies all over the globe. We work to empower the artisan women who craft your jewelry, while also supporting fair trade, handmade products from a range of international communities.

California Grown: SAME SKY'S Hand Blown Glass Beads

The Southern California based artist Lyta has been SAME SKY's glass-bead blower since our origin in 2008. Lyta works with an Orange County collective of highly skilled and creative glass bead blowers that started working together in 1967.  The beads are fashioned in a torch flame by a process called lampworking.  Each bead is carefully made and annealed in a kiln at over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit which makes for a stronger more durable bead. The higher the temperature, the richer the natural color will come out.  

Lyta is always coming up with new colors, ranging from matte Mykonos Blue to the translucent beads that make up the French vanilla bracelet. Thanks to Lyta's creative and artistic ability SAME SKY  has launched dozens of different types of glass beads for both necklaces and bracelets... And there is always more on the horizon.

Japanese Seed Beads

Japanese glass seed beads are known for reflecting the most striking rays of pure color -they are among the highest quality of small glass beads available in the world.  Seed beads date back as far as 1490 when Venetian glassblowers would draw molten glass in a long hollow tube. Despite all of the world's modern technology, how we make seed beads today closely parallels these early accounts, indicating that the beads you buy today are basically made the same way as those made hundreds of years ago. In particular, SAME SKY's designs are crafted from melted raw glass and go through several stages to achieve the final polished look, right before being sent to our artisans at the Gahaya Links cooperative in Kigali, Rwanda.