BEADS!!!

I'm an official GLASS BEAD ADDICT!

The addiction started about 2 years ago when I first made a few with my friend Leigh Anne...and it just got rekindled this weekend. I went up to Wishford Hall on Saturday with Clodagh...it was so much fun! Dresden & Brian, Jana & Lucan & Cat, Frigga & Luna, Avelina, Baroness Speth, and so many others were there...

First, we made precious metal clay (PMC) jewelry...which is way more work than I thought it was going to be...it was fun to make my lotus...but I don't think I'll go through that all over again! First we took the clay (7g) and shaped it into whatever we wanted...I made a lotus pendant...and swirl pendant (which I'm not very happy with)...then we let it dry...set in an oven on LOW...after about 2 hours...Avelina put it on a propane fired kiln...and it fired at 1350 degrees for 10 minutes. Then you drop it in water...and then you fish it out...next is the hard part...we had to use a file and file it down to a flat surface...then used dental tape (basically sandpaper) then there were 2 sizes of steel wool...000 and 0000. Once it was all shiny, we had the option of polishing the pieces.

These are my pieces:



Next...(and in between some of the above stages) I made a multitude of glass beads. Basically, you take a rod (previous dipped in bead released) and place molten glass on it. The process is as follows:
1) Put on safety glass.
2) Place the glass rods (colors) that you are going to be using in front of you.
3) Turn on the torch (either manually with a lighter or use an auto-start propane torch).
4) Take the first color glass rod in your right hand and slowly bring it back and forth into the flame...once it starts to glow orange you can rotate it in your fingers and keep it in the flame.
5) Take a bead rod in the left hand and place it in the flame...rotating it in your fingers.
6) Once the bead rod is glowing orange and so is the glass...slowly drag the molten glass over the bead rod while twisting it in your fingers.
7) You can mix colors on just use one...
8) Twist the bead until it's the shape you want it to be...you can twist it until its round...you can use a block to flatten it out, or roll it on various surfaces to get ridges or bumps.
9) To add dots, take a contrasting color in your right hand and heat it up until the end glows orange...then touch it to the surface of the warm bead.
10) You can use a sharp pointed object to drag through the dots to get different effects

Only your imagination is your limit!

Here are my beads:



I made an EYEBALL, and the blue one on the left has some glow in the dark glass...my knock off "Galaxy bead", the one in the top right hand corner was the first one I made that day =)

Another view:



I made these two for Clodagh, since the one bead she made disappeared!


It was SO MUCH FUN! I wanna make a ton more beads =)