Southwest frit

After having spent a month touring the national parks of Arizona and Utah, I feel inspired to make beads and jewelry with a southwestern motif.  I've attempted to recreate the scenery of the winter landscape:  sagebrush and juniper against a background of red sandstone mesas.  I made my own frit mixture from commando (CIM 475), shrubbery (CIM 410), muskmelon (CIM426), pine tree (Effetre 344), light brown (Effetre 0444, spanish leather (Effetre 423), and brown rock (Effetre 654).  Here's what the frit mixture looks like:

Here are some of the beads I've made from it:

The three beads on the left were made by adding the frit to a base beads of commando, canyon de chelly (CIM 722) and stone ground (CIM 351), respectively plus periwinkle (Effetre 220) for the sky.  I melted in silver wire on the second bead from the left.  The bead on the right was made by adding frit to a base bead of red roof tile.

As usual, it's highly likely that these beads or ones like them will end up on my Etsy site:  etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss

Silvered ivory stringer

I downloaded Jacqueline Parke's ebook "Gems in Bloom" about a month ago, and I have been having fun playing with silvered ivory stringer.   First, heat the tip of an ivory rod and roll it in silver foil.  Burnish it in, then burn if off and heat until it forms a gather.  Pull into a stringer and use it to decorate beads.  Some of mine, suggested by Jacqueline's color combinations, are shown below:

From left to right, red roof tile with black, ivory with black, copper green with a little bit of EDP thrown in, and CIM Canyon de Chelly, all with stringers of silvered ivory around the middle of the beat.  Effetre glass unless otherwise noted.

Next, I played with swirling the glass and adding a 1mm clear cubic zirconium:

I've always had trouble holding the cubic zirconium in tweezers, so I decided to do a search for other methods and found that you can use a drop of white glue on the tip of a mandrel to pick up the flat side of the stone.  Place the mandrel upright in a rack until the glue is dry, then use it to place your stone on the bead.  The glue will burn off without a residue.

I've had so much fun playing that I haven't had time to make jewelry with any of these stones, but expect to see finished pieces in my Etsy shop (etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss) soon.