Augers

Next in the shell series (also from Small Shell Tutorial by Diane Woodall and Becky Mason) are augers:

These beds are made from a oval base bead, which is marvered so that there is a long end and a short, thicker end.   The bead in the lower right was made from a base bead of sediment;  all of the others were made from ivory, the lower left was dark ivory, the tops beads light.  The bead on the upper left had an additional layer of a twistie made from light ivory and medium transparent topaz.  After shaping the bead, an indentation is made in the thicker part of the bead and a dot of pink is added.  I used rubino oro in the top bead, which I think is too dark.  The others were made with pink opal, which worked fine, except for the sediment bead, where the color was muted.  Not sure if I'm going to use this combination.  Finally, the lower part of the bead is heated and a spiral is carved into the bead with a knife.  And you have augers!
Coming soon to my website:  etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss.

Sea urchins

More shells from Diane Woodall's and Becky Mason's small shell tutorial, this time sea urchins.  These are relatively easy;  just make a round bead, flatten the bottom, and place dots on the top section:

The dark green beads are made with Commando (CIM 475), while the light green are made with Lichen (Vetrofond 986).  I tried dots of raku (upper righ0t, but I think I like dots of silvered ivory better (the remaining beads).  I'm coming up with some good ideas about how to use these in jewelry, so visit my web site (etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss) in a month or two.

Sand dollar beads

Long walks on the beach at sunset are my idea of a vacation.  I'm trying to capture that feeling by making shell beads.  When I found out about Becky Mason and Diane Woodall's Focal Seashells and Small Seashell Collection Bead tutorials I had to buy them and try them out.  Here are some of my first attempts at sand dollar beads:

In their tutorial, Becky and Diane recommend using mandrels with bead release in the middle.  They suggest pouring bead release into a small container so that it mounds on the top, then rolling the middle of the mandrel.   I can't seem to use their method without slopping bead release all over my bench and wasting a lot when I pour it back into my container.  instead, I use a Nalgene bottle for my bead release.  By tilting the bottle, I can get bead release up to the middle of my mandrel.  I know this method is also wasteful;  after all you don't need all that release on the end of the mandrel, but it seems to work better for me.  Anyway, both methods will allow you to flip the mandrel and so that you are always adding dots and stringer from your "right" side.  Thanks, Becky and Diane, for sharing.

My take on Harvest Moon

I recently purchased a tutorial by Jacqueline Parkes describing how she makes one of her gorgeous organic beads, Harvest Moon.  After playing around with it, I discovered a video on Corinna Tattinger's website describing how to add to silver foil dot to a bead.  Wow!  What a combination.  Here are my beads:

Doesn't the silver foil moon just pop!  As usual look for jewelry made from these beads in my Etsy shop:  etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss.

Disc beads

Looking back over my posts from the past few months, I see I've been negligent in posting regularly, but I do have an excuse---I have participated in two local jewelry shows.  I've been so busy preparing for them that I haven't had time to post to the blog.  here is my attempt to get back on track.

For a Christmas present, I received a new Groovy Tool designed by Heather Trimlett.  Just as its name implies, it has three grooves in three different diameters.  The largest one is designed for hollow beads (more about these later).  I've been playing with the smallest groove, making small disc beads in various colors and decorating them with dots on the outer circumference:

Earrings made from these beads which will be on sale soon in my 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).

More on copper green

In addition to the reaction between copper green and EDP which I talked about last week, copper green reacts with iris orange or raku glass, manufactured by Reichenbach.  This glass has a COE of 96 and so can't be used in large quantities with COE 104 glass, but it can be used as frit, small particles of glass used on the surface of COE 104 glass.  When it is used in this way with copper green, it produces a bright turquoise line of color adjacent to the raku, as shown in this picture:

The top bead is made with lines of raku stringer over a copper green bead.  I make the stringer by tipping the hot tip of a clear glass rod into raku frit, melting and repeating until I have a nice gather of raku.  Then I pull it into a medium diameter stringer, which I apply to the copper green core.  After melting in the raku stringer, I added a few twists for visual interest.  The bottom two beads were made by dipping a core bead of copper green into raku frit, melting the frit in and adding twists.  As usual, look for jewelry made from similar beads in my Etsy shop:  etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss.