How a Wooden Cigar Box is Good for Cigars?

Wooden Humidor Cigar Box

Cigar smoking is often referred to as a style statement and carry with it a royal feel! This is not all without a reason. Cigars, apart from giving a fresh aromatic smoking experience also need to be significantly protected. For this purpose, cigar boxes were invented. With an experience of over hundreds of years, this is now a known fact that wooden cigar boxes can protect the delicate cigars more efficiently than any other type of cigar box. In fact, most of the humidor cigar boxes for controlling humidity and temperature are crafted from wood, more often with cedar or mahogany wood.

Why Wood is Used For Humidor Cigar Boxes?

The answer to this question will also tell you why wooden cigar box is good for cigars! As wood can hold more moisture, it helps in maintaining humidity which is good for protecting cigars. Apart from controlling humidity, cedar or other such woods also impart their aroma to the cigars stored in the wooden box. The third reason for using wood in production of cigar boxes is that wood can check the growth of tobacco beetles which can ruin all cigars in the box if they get the right humidity and temperature suitable for laying and hatching their eggs. As if these reasons were not enough, wood has an additional quality of withstanding high humidity. They last long because they do not get damaged even if they absorb high amount of moisture.

So, wooden cigar boxes are good for cigars not only because they maintain just the right humidity level essential to protect cigars but also lend fresh aroma to them apart from being durable and checking the growth of tobacco beetles!

Traditional Handicrafts of India! What to Take Back with You!

People from world over love to visit the country called India which has the unique – unity in diversity! Apart from the numerous colorful and lively cultures, food and exotic beauty of places, one more thing that attracts the international tourists is the plethora of traditional handicrafts of India! In fact, India is the treasure land for handicrafts with diverse craftsmen skills scattered all around this amazing country! So, if you are thinking what traditional handicrafts to take back with you to your own homeland, here we are to help you out by giving you the list of traditional handicrafts of India that you can carry back as a souvenir or gift for your loved ones.

Types of Handicrafts in India

There are numerous types of handicrafts in India which include handmade furniture (carved or painted), jewellery, metal craft, painting, pottery, stone craft & marble inlay work, different types of handmade or manually embellished textiles, wooden handicrafts etc. Some of the handicrafts could not be carried to long distances like large furniture or heavy stone or marble statues etc. However, there is always the option of availing international cargo delivery facilities provided by some of the handicrafts manufacturers and suppliers. If, anyway, you cannot afford to pay for such expensive services or highly priced handicrafts, there are always smaller and cheap handicrafts items which are no less beautiful than their bigger and expensive counterparts.

What Traditional Handicrafts of India to Take Back?

Wooden Handicrafts of India

Below is given the list of handicrafts that you can take back with you

Metal Craft of India- You will find all types of metal craft from gold and silver to copper and brass. Take enameled jewellery and enameled utensils like wine-cups, finger-bowls, pill boxes etc. which can be found in gold and silver, sometimes studded with jewels. You can find utensils- both utility and ornamental- made of white metal and electroplated brass and copper carrying engravings on them. These metal crafts could be found in the Indian cities Lucknow, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bihar. However, they can even be found in traditional crafts market like State Emporia Complex and Dilli Haat in New Delhi, the capital of India.

Handcrafted Textile of India- Silk weaving, specific embroideries of different Indian states, hand block printing, tie and dye textile, batik print clothes, and other ethnic dresses are now not new to the world. They are beautiful and stunning and the fantastic thing about them is that you will find at least one specific type of textile in whichever part you are in India. So, you can get brocade textile in Varanasi, cotton handloom sarees in West Bengal, different types of silk sarees in states of South India, Bandhni (tie and dye) in Rajasthan, mirror embroidery work in Gujarat and so on. Collect whatever you can from wherever you can!


Wooden Handicrafts of India- You will find carved and inlaid wooden articles, wood lacquering work, wooden sculptures & statues and many other types of wooden handicrafts in India. Carved wood sheesham furniture of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh is famous for its incomparable craftsmanship. Other states like Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, Karnataka and Kerala too have developed distinct styles of wood carvings. Rajasthan is also noted for its carved sandalwood and rosewood besides heavy ornamental furniture. If you can not take back heavy furniture, you will find all types of other wooden handicrafts like toys, cigar boxes, mirror frames, pen holders and a lot of other wood craft items in India. If interested in them, know more about State wise wooden handicrafts of India

What are various types of glass bead making methods?

Those who work with beads either for making beads jewelry or for any other craft understand that glass beads are something that can't be resisted! In fact, there are so many glass beads types that one can easily give wings to his/ her imagination and can find just the right type of glass beads to fit into their project. The credit goes to numerous glass bead making methods and techniques adopted for making glass beads in various forms, shapes, colors, and sizes. Lets analyze the bead making methods of all types of glass beads.

Glass Beads Types & Their Making Processes

Glass beads are divided into many types on the basis of the method used to manipulate and create the glass which is the most important of all glass bead making supplies. The three main glass beads types include wound beads, drawn beads, and molded beads. There are other bead making methods too where two or more processes are combined to make beads such as for making millefiori beads, where cross-sections of a drawn glass cane are applied to a wound glass core. Most of the glass bead types are pressed glass which are mass-produced by preparing a molten batch of glass and pouring it into molds to form the desired shape. Here we explain the various glass bead making methods for some of the most popular glass beads types.

Wound Glass Bead Making: Winding method of glass bead making is the most ancient method. In this process, glass is heated at a very high temperature to make it ductile. Glass at high temperature is then stretched around a solid core like a metal wire or mandrel. The wire is also treated with something to prevent the bead from sticking to it. This is called bead release. While still hot, the wound bead is further shaped with the help of various bead making tools and paddles, by pressing or rolling it on a hard surface like marble -called "marvering"- or by rolling it in a mold. Sometimes the surface of the bead is decorated with fine straws of colored glass while it is still hot. These are then known as lampwork glass beads.

Drawn Glass Beads Making: There are many methods for making drawn beads which involve pulling a strand out of a gather of molten glass in such a way that it incorporates a bubble in the center to serve as the hole in the bead. Sometimes a hollow metal tube is inserted into the ball of hot glass and the glass strand is pulled out around it to form a continuous glass tube. For making Venetian glass beads, molten glass was gathered on the end of a tool called a puntile and a bubble was incorporated into the center of the gather of molten glass. Then a second puntile was attached before stretching the gather with its internal bubble into a long cane to lengths up to 200 feet long. This drawn glass tube was then chopped for making individual drawn beads. These beads were cooked or rolled in hot sand to round the edges without melting the holes closed.

Molded Glass Bead Making: Molten glass beads were originally made in the Czech republic (Bohemia.) In this process, thick glass rods of about 20 cm are heated to melt and to feed into a device that stamps the glass, including a needle that pierces a hole. The beads thus made are rolled in hot sand to remove flashing and soften seam lines. One 'feed' of a hot rod might give around 10 - 20 beads, and a single operator can make thousands of such molten glass beads in a day.

Faceted Glass Bead Making: For making faceted glass beads, the glass batch is first poured into bead molds and then they are faceted with the help of a grinding wheel. Beads are then poured onto a tray and reheated for a very short period of time, just long enough to melt the surface. This rules out any minor surface irregularities from the mold. Beads thus made are known as fire polished faceted beads.