Triton and Dark Ivory

I love this glass combination. The new Triton glass from Double Helix gives the Ivory a crackled look and turns it golden brown. These are up in my Etsy shop right now:

Hollow Beads

Lately I've been trying hollow beads. I love the way the light shines through them, and the way the surface decorations reflect around and through the bead. These were made on a transparent light brown base with Psyche stringer:

You can see some of my other hollows made with Double Helix odd M-166 in this post

.

DH Odd: TN-202

Here's a set of small beads made with a base of Double Helix odd TN-202 and Terra frit. TN-202 has beautiful rainbow colors with a lot of blue and purple. You can see it showing through on the sides of the beads.

This set is in my Etsy shop.

DH Odd: M-166

This test batch is one of my favorites. It's a color I hope Double Helix makes again as part of their regular line. I have been looking for a gold metallic 104 c.o.e. compatible glass for a long time, and this is it! The gold, silver, blue, green and rose colors that can be achieved by a few brief passes through a reducing flame are stunning. Here are a few of my test beads.

M-166 disks:

M-166 stringer on transparent purple and green hollow beads:

Some lampworkers use Kugler Iris Gold to get this gold metallic look. I have used it too, but with disastrous results. The Kugler c.o.e., which is 90 I think, is so far from the Effetre c.o.e. 104 that most of it cracked off my beads. Maybe I'm not aware of other 104 gold glasses that are out there, but this M-166 will be the one I use from now on.

DH: New Triton Glass

Along with my latest odd and test batches from Double Helix, I ordered their new color, "Triton." I love the incredible metallic finish on this glass after just a few waves in a reducing flame. These Triton disks are in my Etsy shop right now:

Double Helix made Triton in response to all the raves about their highly-metallic test batches from 2007, K-102 and K-108. I was one of the ravers. I have precious few rods left of K-102 and K-108, but I occasionally break them out for a set of disk beads. You can see my K-102 disks in this post, and my K-108 disks in this post.

DH Odd: T-114 (Ivory Luster)

This is a beautiful Double Helix odd lot Terra glass. The color is similar to the original Terra, but the T-114 gets an incredible luster in a neutral flame. It's like having Terra and a metallic glass combined in one.

Here are some beads made of plain T-114.
You can see some luster on the sides. I burned off most of the luster in an oxidizing flame so the colors would show:

T-114 encased

RH-169, RH-193 cont.

This is a follow-up to my last post about the Double Helix odds. I've gotten some great tips from other lampworkers about using these glasses. Here is my latest bead with RH-169:

The base is DSP with a little bit of silver foil, and the RH-169 is spiraled on top. After applying the RH-169 I heated the bead to dripping hot, then cooled, heated again, cooled, etc. for a few rounds.

While I was working it, the bead never appeared to get any color besides the regular olive green. I put it away into the kiln with a little tear in my eye because this glass still wasn't doing anything at all for me!

Soon after that I turned my kiln to the annealing cycle, so this bead was made at the end of the day... I figured less chance of it soaking a long time and kiln striking to coral.

When I opened the kiln this morning, I was completely surprised to see the purple and magenta colors on this bead! They weren't there when I put the bead into the kiln. I have absolutely no idea what happened!

I hope I can repeat whatever it was!

DH Odds: RH-169, RH-193

Here are some photos of beads made with one of the new odd-lots, RH-169.
There is another RH odd-lot called RH-193, which has given me similar results in the flame. I can't seem to pull any color out of these glasses besides brick red and green - but I love the colors and the organic look anyway!

I was hoping for some purple colors similar to the photos from the DH website:

RH-169

RH-193

This glass obviously has potential but I haven't gotten there yet. Any blue/purple color in the RH glasses seems to disappear when the glass is re-heated. When I first wind on the glass, I do get some dark browns like what you see with other striking glasses (Terra, Khaos, etc). I let the bead cool, then re-introduce it to the flame for shaping and striking. Sometimes with a gentle re-heat, I see some blue color in this glass, but on the second re-heat the blue is gone and I'm left with red and green.

In this close-up photo you can see that one of the dots has some slight color:
I was hoping that by encasing the dots quickly and not re-heating much, I could get some colors.

I have more photos of other test beads I'll post soon!
Meanwhile, back to the torch for more PPP!

Double Helix Odds

The latest batch of Double Helix odd-lots and new Triton glass have arrived!

I've had a chance to play with some of them. Pictures coming soon.

If you're a lampworker, love silver glass and want some great bead recipes and silver glass info, you MUST visit Hec over at the Seraphim FlameWorks blog! He's got pictures of all the newest DH odds and some stunning beads to drool over!

Shiny Scroll Beads

I love these beads... they're made on a base of pale emerald green with Psyche scroll designs. The rondelle spacers are pure Psyche:

These sold in my Etsy shop.
These beads inspired me to make transparent hollow beads with Psyche scrolls. I've made a few so far but don't have pictures yet. They're coming out nice so far.

Rainbow Disks on Etsy

These are the rainbow disks that were pictured in my previous post, now all cleaned and in my Etsy shop!

Kiln Disaster Koolness

This is a photo of one of the blobs from the kiln meltdown that has evidence of coolness. You can see that, had my beads survived the swelter, they would have been gorgeously groovy! See the iridescence from the DSP, and the colors from the Luna2? Ok joking... I have a strange sense of humor :)

Rainbow Disks

The kiln has been fixed now, yay! I thought I'd post a happier picture in my blog because it's so hard to look at those melted beads :) These are some disks I made last week. I'll be putting these up on Etsy soon... cleaned, of course!
Rainbow Disks:

Actually one of the melted blobs from the kiln disaster looks pretty cool. I'm going to take a picture of it today.

Khaos in the Kiln!

Khaos strikes! (lampworker pun....)
What a greeting I received yesterday when I opened my kiln.... my lovely Khaos beads! :( I made these on Mother's Day, too!

Yes, those are puddles of glass.

It's either the relay or the thermocouple. My handyman boyfriend checked the relay and the contacts were all corroded... after just one year of use. Which I guess is normal for the amount I use my kiln. He switched it over to the new contacts and I'm going to test out the kiln today. I'm also ordering a new thermocouple... can't hurt to have a few on hand.

The scary thing is that this happened overnight. I'm also going to buy a special second thermocouple that will shut down the kiln if the temperature gets too high.

And those Khaos and Dark Silver Plum beads were sooooo nice!

More Spiral Disks

Some opaque ones this time:

These disks are for sale in my Etsy shop.
I've found that the stiffer transparent glasses are easier to make spiral disks with than the softer opaques. The transparents hold their shape longer in the flame. Heat control is really the key in making disks, so if you are learning this technique I recommend starting with a transparent or a stiff opaque. Now finally after a year of practice I've got my heat control down to the point where opaque spiral disks are possible, and I'm so happy! In fact I seem to be obsessed with spiral disks these days. That must be the natural result of finally getting something that has taken so many hours of blood sweat and tears!

Uh-oh...........
I just opened the cooled-down kiln to see yesterday's bead loot, and was met with utter disaster. OMG. I'll have to take a picture and write the next blog post about it.....
:(

Spiral Disks

For a year I've been practicing making spiral disk beads... week in, week out! I think I'm finally getting the hang of it! It's the most challenging lampworking technique I've ever tried to master, though it looks so simple. Here are some sets I've made lately, some of which are still for sale in my Etsy shop:

Rose Quartz Disks

Summer Disks

K102 Disks (Kronos glass odd lot)

Sea Green Disks

Blue Rose Disks

Whew! Can't wait to get back to the torch and make more!

I've been interviewed!

For several months I've been working on an interview with Adobe, and it's finally live! You can view it on their kuler website at http://kuler.adobe.com. Click on the "Spotlight" link on the right side menu bar. You may need the latest version of Flash to view the site.

Adobe's kuler website allows users to create and share color schemes, then download them to Photoshop for use in designing print materials, web sites, etc. I use the site just for fun because I love color!

A few months ago I wrote a blog post here about kuler which caught Adobe's attention and led to the interview: http://beadabundant.blogspot.com/2008/01/kuler-kolor.html

For this interview, I've used a new feature on the kuler website which allows me to upload a photo from my computer and extract several color schemes directly from the colors in the photo. From these color schemes I created bead sets. Here's an example:

Photo of Diamond Head on O'ahu:

The color scheme I extracted from the image:

and the resulting bead set I created, inspired by the photo and the color scheme:

The kuler site is lots of fun to play with, so if you love color stop on by and be inspired!