Recycled Glass Bead Bracelets

These colorful and unique glass bead bracelets are handmade from recycled glass. The African artisans who create these bracelets melt down used glass bottles, and then fire the new beads in mud brick ovens. Colors of bracelets vary.

Each mud fire pit can hold about 50 molds (3 beads/mold) to create about 150 beads. This process enables them to make about 21 necklaces per day.

About 40 people work at this workshop which is located about an hour outside the capital of Accra in a very nice rural setting. The owner and founder of the group is a woman named Florence Asare. Although it is traditional for men to smash, fire, mold and paint the beads, the women are in charge of creating the designs, producing the product and handle most of the sales and marketing.