Flowers in Glass

A new tutorial by Lydia Muell helped my encased floral beads enormously. This particular bead took an hour to make and each floral "panel" has 9 layers of glass. There are five panels going around the bead. Time consuming but one of my favorite beads now. I'm anxious to try some with different colors. I used pre-made goldstone stringer on this one and it's a little washed out so I ordered some goldstone chunks to pull my own stringer. That should give me a narrower, but more eye-catching gold outline around the panels.

Speaking of color, CIM glass has a color called Crocus that is drop dead gorgeous. It's almost translucent and it positively glows. Not quite purple and not really pink, but a very soft color that works up beautifully. Here's a shell and spacers made from it (borrowed the shell idea from Maggie (maggieet on Etsy). Isn't it yummy?

Been Away too Long!

But I'm back now. Seems like the summer got away from me. Did a couple of local festivals and sold some jewelry and beads. Also sat up the Blue Lagoon Bead booth at the local Farmer's Market and that's always alot of fun.

I've been playing with some different tutorials and learning new techniqes. One of my favorites is a tutorial by Sarah Hornik on using Rubino D'Oro glass. Here's the first bead I made following the tutorial:



It's like stepping back to the 60's Flower Power days! I've always burned my rubino in the past but Sarah's tutorial has been hugely helpful as I learn to control the heat and where I hold my glass. I'll be making more flower power beads!