Bead exchange

Last weekend was the last lampwork beadmaking class of the summer, and as agreed, we all brought beads to trade.  My contribution was shown last week.  Below are all of the contributions:

What looks like a line across the top is a mandrel that I used to prop up the beads to display the donut beads.  I love the flamingo, and the shells and the donut beads, but my favorite is the bead in the middle by Lynn.  The olive green in the background is light aqua which reacts with ivory to produce the green tones.  Lynn then added stripes of pea green over the aqua.  It reminds me of the wind blowing through oat grass on the Florida Panhandle coast!

The bracelet that I made out of the beads is shown below, using Swarovski crystal beads as spacers:

Since I have a lot of T-shirts that are turquoise or coral, I'll get a lot of wear out of it.   Thanks everyone for sharing your creations!

Scallops

These beads are a take on scallop shells and are easy to make with a lentil press.   I started with light ivory glass, adding enough glass onto the mandrel fill the center of the lentil press, but not enough to go out to the edges.  Next I wrapped a twistie around the bead, and pressed again, this time filling the lentil press.  I used a variety of glass for the twistie:  light ivory and light amber, light ivory and dark amber and light ivory and rose quartz  (CIM 511907).  Finally, I textured the lentil with a knife, adding indentations along the edge of the bead, and the making incisions from the indentation of the middle bottom of the bead.  Here are the results:

The bead at the top left is made with a dark amber/ivory twistie, the one on the top right from a light amber/ivory twistie and the one on the bottom with the ivory/rose quartz twistie.  I should mention that I tried a twistie of pink opalino with ivory and the pink turned a nasty brown color as I was texturing the bead.  Evidently I got the bead too hot.  I haven't had problems with pink quartz.

I've been making so many shells that I've run out of light ivory, so I'm going to have to make a run to Flametree Glass to stock up.