Caramel candy

I recently purchased some Double Helix silver glass from Franz Glass and I've been experimenting with the colors.  One idea I found as a free tutorial on Lampwork, Etc.   It's listed as fire opal but it reminds me more of creamy caramel.   You make a base bead out of black,  wrap silver foil around it, burning off the edges but leaving the band intact.  Then you heat a rod of Ekho and when the tip is transparent you, you lay down one or two swirls of the glass around the bead, then encase with clear. 

In addition to using black as my base bead, I tried butter pecan (CIM 703), shown in the middle, and honey crunch (Vetrofond 990), shown at the end.  I think I prefer the lighter background,  They look good enough to eat!

Striped beads

I've been trying to make striped beads forever and haven't had any success.  at a recent class at Spruill Center for the Arts with Margo, she demoed the technique she uses and the results is shown below:

The base for these beads was black or ink blue;  the dots were made by placing 6 largish white dots around the bead, leaving space between them.  The amount of space determines whether there will be a dark line between the stripes or not line.  Then I places transparent colors on top of the white, in this case alternating transparent pea green and aqua.  I allowed the dots to melt in completely before placing clear around the bead in the center of the dots, being careful not to touch the edge.  I put several (3-4) layers of clear, then melted that in.  Voila! Stripes!