On the beach

After a brief vacation to visit my daughter over the Easter weekend, I'm back in Georgia, experimenting with stripped beads reminiscent of a beach landscape.  Here are some of the combinations I've come up with:

The small beads are made as described in the previous post:  a single color with a stripe of silvered ivory around the equator, accented with silver wire.  The larger beads made with stripes of various Effetre colors laid over Seashell Swirl (Vetrofond 955):  light turquoise, Nile green opalino, transparent teal and light lapis with a stripe of silvered ivory and a twist with a cubic zirconium in the middle.   The larger bead on the left has been fitted with sterling silver bead caps and a bail made from silver wire fitted with a silver bead.  As usual, similar beads will soon be on sale in m Etsy shop (etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss).

Sedona stripes

A few years ago, my husband and I took a road trip to Sedona to visit my step-daughter.  I fell in love with the landscape, the red rocks, the pine trees, the sunsets.  These beads are a homage to Sedona:

I start the bead with a base layer of red roof tile (440), then add stripes of yellow ochre (460), EDP (254), light turquoise (232) and Vetrofond tangerine (944).  I place a layer of silvered ivory between the turquoise and the EDP, and wrap a few inches of fine silver wire (26 gauge) over the silvered ivory and burn it off, forming beads of silver.  Before I place the bead in the kiln for annealing, I heat in the hottest part of the flame to remove the white deposits which form on the EDP.  When the beads are cool, they are ready form make into jewelry which I sell in my Etsy shop (etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss).