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.

More shells

I'm continuing to work on lampwork glass adaptations of basic shell designs---I guess I'm becoming obsessed with this project, but I love lampwork glass bead-making and I love shells!  For this post, I've made a nautilus shell and a moon snail (which is my favorite Florida shell).  For both types, I start with a round gather made of ivory, then I pres it.  I add an extension on one side to represent the mouth.  For the nautilus, I add a twistie of ivory and dark amber on both sides in a spiral design.  I then make a twist in the center of the bead to emphasize the spiral of the nautilus.  Two examples are shown below:

The bottom bead in the picture is my version of a moon snail.  I start the same way as the nautilus, but press the extension of the shell to create the "mouth".  Then I add a twistie of ivory and sandstone (which has grey overtones) on one side of the bead only, which mimics the subtle spiral of the moon snail.  I also twist this a little off center, and add a cubic zirconium in the middle of the twist.

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!

Trade beads for Margo's class

I can't believe we only have one more class this summer!  We all agreed that we wanted to make bracelet-sized beads to trade with each other so that we each can make a bracelet.  The colors we agreed on were the following: light and dark ivory, light transparent aqua, color (Effetre heat wave) and pea green.  We don't have to use all of the colors in the beads,so I chose light transparent aqua and light ivory to create a beach scene.  Then I added murrini made from light ivory and coral to create a sea shell effect.

I can't wait to see what everyone else came up with!

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.

Lucky seven bracelet

Yesterday, at the monthly meeting of Southern Flames, we made a leather bracelet using seven lampwork glass beads that we made or purchased.  Gerry and Stephanie White, of Beads by Design, guided us through the process.  Basically, we strung 2 to 3 beads on three strands of leather held in place with a jig.  The ends were finished with knots which were glued in place.  The completed bracelet is shown below:

The beads themselves were made from Ekho glass from Double helix.  The class was cooled then heated until I was pleased with the colors;  then the beads were encased.  I used 3/16 inch mandrels so that I could easily string the beads on the leather cords.  I'll be making more of these!

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.