Copper foil

It's summer so it's time for Margo Knight's lampwork bead class at Spruill Arts Center in Atlanta.  For the first class of the session, we learned the tricks of how to apply copper foil to beads, something which I have done before without much success.  It turns out that you must lay down a thick layer of enamel prior to placing and marvering the foil (except for white---more about this next time).   Then you must heat the glass to develop the blue-green color.  I applied frit (Georgia Peach from Val Cox) on top of the heated copper, followed by teal and white stringer, and finally gold foil:

The tabs in the above photo were made on white glass with enamel, and the tube bead was made on turquoise with enamel.

Shards

I've been experimenting over the past few weeks on making shards:  thin pieces of blown glass.  The technique utilizes a hollow mandrel.  a globe of glass is created on the end of the mandrel and when it is closed off and heated, it can be blown into a hollow ball of glass.  The glass can be shattered into small pieces which are placed on a gather of glass.  The result is a thin layser of color on a larger glass bead.  For example:

The above beads are made starting with a gather of periwinkle blue glass.  Shards of dark amethyst are added onto the gather after it is pressed into a lentil mold.  Then a stringer of amethyst glass is added to the top of the bead, twisted into a swirl and accented with a cubic zirconium.  This is just one of many possibilities of color combinations.  See these beads as earrings 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.