Pancakes in the Oven

Pancakes, yum! Love pancakes! Hot on a plate with butter and maple syrup.

I had pancakes for breakfast this morning. Not the edible kind of pancakes though... I'm talking about "pancake beads" in the kiln.

You know when you make pancakes, the first one is usually not that great? Maybe it's pale, it soaked up too much cooking oil, something just isn't perfect about it? Well it's the same thing with beadmaking for me. When I torch for the first time after being gone for a few days, the first couple of beads are always my "pancake" beads. They don't turn out that great because I'm just warming up, like a pancake griddle.

I've been away from the torch for a couple of weeks now since my kiln died. I'm ordering a new Glass Hive kiln, and while it's being made, they've kindly sent me a loaner to use!

Last night I fired it up and made beads. It was great fun, but I was so out of practice after being away for a few weeks that I made a whole kiln full of pancakes. That's all right though. It's kind of a blessing that none were that great, because when I took them out of the kiln this morning, almost every single one had a kiln mark!!!! Kiln marks are those dreadful rough spots that can happen when you put a bead into the kiln when it's still too molten, and it gets the imprint of the kiln floor. I guess this kiln runs a little differently than my old kiln. I'll be back to beadmaking again tonight for another test run.

Have a good weekend!

Fall is Organic Bead Time

Good morning, good afternoon, happy Monday bead peeps! Fall is my favorite time of year for beadmaking. Not only is the studio cooler, but I get to bring out all my favorite brown, tan, and dirt colors and mix them all together into earth toned glassy goodness!

For starters, I have this bead set made with Effetre Dark Fossil and Double Helix reducing glass, available in my Etsy shop:A fellow beadmaker suggested I try Fossil with silver glass, so I bought a 1/4 pound to try out the color. WoW, I love it! I will need to go back and order at least a pound of this, it's going to be one of my favorite glasses for organics.

I've also been working on a series of organic big hole beads, which I've silver cored and capped with my own handmade sterling silver bead caps. A couple of them are shown in this recent blog post, and here are a few more:
This one has gold leaf in the mix and hammered bead caps:
This one also has gold leaf and a paisley or wave pattern:This one is my pièce de résistance - a bead with double caps! It started out as an experiment, I wasn't really sure I could do a double cap on this size bead, and it took a lot of time to get the bead caps to line up just right... but I had a blast making it and I'll probably do some more in the future. I recently bought some design stamps for my new line of charm necklaces, so I used one of the stamps to decorate the outer caps. The inner caps have a hammered texture:I think it's going to be a good week!
Many thanks to all the folks who've started following me on Twitter. I'm still trying to figure out how the whole thing works! I'm looking forward to the new Twitter layout they're rolling out over the next few weeks. Lately I've been tweeting every day, maybe a couple times a day. Click the link in the right side bar to see my Twitter profile and follow me! Thanks!

Aurae Light Spacers

I bought a 1/4 lb. of Aurae Light from Double Helix a few weeks ago, just to try it out. I made a small set of spacers with it:The spacers pictured above turned out nice, but there were many more I made that did not turn out well. I found the glass to be more difficult to reduce than regular Aurae. Not that it doesn't reduce, it just reduces more quickly, or it heats up and strikes to a greenish cast more readily than Aurae. I found I had to hold it way, way out in the flame, like 6-8 inches from the torch face while reducing, and not get the bead too hot.

I think that making really shiny solid spacers from reducing glass is harder than using it as decoration. There is something about the smooth, round face of a spacer bead that lends itself to uneven reduction and striking from overheating. I think Aurae Light would be perfect for raised dots, raised decorations, and under encasing (which I've tried and it looks really pretty).

It's similar to the way Dark Silver Plum works. I learned this from Amber (Naos). If you try and make a smooth round spacer bead with DSP, it often stays black and shiny and it's tricky to get the peacock hues. Yet if you make a textured bead with it, it gets the matte metallic look and the colors much more easily. Reducing glass from Double Helix seems to be the same way in a sense - it's easier to get a nice metallic shine when there's some texture in the surface.

Does it sound like I'm complaining about glass? (There is some line about a craftsman who blames his tools... hmm...) Maybe it's because I've got a head cold right now, ugh! Also I seem to have lost my knack for reducing Triton lately which really has me upset. Is it that the recipe for Triton has changed? Have I forgotten how I used to reduce it? It's really weird. It reduces to a dark grey metallic, then goes right to an over-reduced green-tinted yuck right afterwards. Where's the shiny gold I used to get?

I hope you are healthy and enjoying yourself for the holidays!
More soon :-)

Learning to Silver Core Beads

For the past several weeks I've been holed up in my studio, often till the wee hours of the morning, researching everything I might possibly need to know about putting silver cores in my beads and making silver bead caps. I have tables piled with gigantic Rio Grande catalogs and boxes of rusting yet resurrect-able silversmithing tools from bygone days.

Finally, last week, research done and hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars saved for this very moment, I placed my orders and waited anxiously each day for the UPS lady to arrive.

Now my studio is happily scattered with styrofoam peanuts and shipping boxes, out of which has come polishing bits and compounds, silver tubing, silver sheet, hammers, mallets, mandrels and one very heavy and gorgeous Jim Moore bead press!

The photo at the top of this post shows the one success out of my first six attempts at silver coring a bead. Here is what remains of the other five attempts:There is definitely a learning curve to this process! And I'm not even finished learning how to make the bead caps, which is another ongoing studio adventure at the moment.

Today marked Day 4 of working with the tubing and bead press, and I finally have 5 successfully lined and polished beads which I will photograph and post here soon.

Stay tuned for my next post featuring sources and resources for everything you need to silver core and cap your beads!

Psyche Cubes

I just put this set of cubes up in my Etsy shop:They're made from Psyche glass and encased with a layer of clear. Each bead is hand shaped.

I find the cube shape to be very challenging, but with practice it's getting a little easier. Anyone have any tricks on hand-shaping cubes they care to share?

Mojo and the Reducing Angels

These disks are made from Double Helix test batch M-232b "pinky purple luster":
I have had several days recently where I have lost my "reducing mojo." It's frustrating for me when this happens, since I use reducing silver glass in pretty much every bead I make. Sometimes, for some reason unknown to me, I cannot get silver glass like Triton or Kronos to reduce. It just turns to mud. I try using a different rod, a different glass, adjusting the flame, waving my hand differently, yet my silver glass mojo is just up and gone.

The other day I was working on a custom order for several sets of beads with Triton and M-232b in them. This was one of my days when my mojo was gone. After a set or two of Triton failures and mounting frustration, I decided to call upon the "Reduction Angels" to make the wind blow in the right direction or adjust the phase of the moon so I could get this darn glass to turn shiny!

So I took a deep breath and just set the frustrating custom order aside for a minute. I decided instead I would make what I felt like making - M-232b spiral disks. I was determined to regain my mojo. I waved the disks very close to the yellow reducing cones. I was gonna make that glass reduce! No tip-toeing around 6 inches from the torch face, I was gonna put the bead right into the reducing flame! To my surprise, the disks quickly turned a pretty rose gold color! My mojo had suddenly returned! Yay! Reducing Angels, thank you!

The next morning, when I opened the kiln and saw what I expected to be the Triton disasters for the custom order, I was pleasantly surprised! The beads had turned out with beautiful shiny colors:On these Triton disks I had used multiple reducing/oxidizing cycles, because it didn't look like the reduction was working at first. I kept erasing the reduction with oxygen, then reducing again. I did that so many times on each bead that they ended up looking like mud, totally over-reduced and over-struck. I put the muddy Triton beads into the kiln, "tomorrow's orphan beads" I figured. As it turned out, it must have been the multiple oxidizing and reducing cycles that brought out so many different colors.

So had I really lost my mojo that day after all, if the beads actually ended up okay? Why did they look so bad in the flame but came out shiny and pretty from the kiln? Silver glass can be really fickle. I sympathize with those who are trying to figure out its mysteries!

Also, one thing I've learned is never count your beads before they've hatched out of the kiln. What you think is gonna be bad turns out beautiful, what you're sure is your life's masterpiece turns out to be a muddy disaster, I've seen it a hundred times now!

Here's another set I made for the custom order, CiM "Blush" with M-232b scrolls. I love this combo:

Happy day to everyone!

Shards, Pt. 2

I broke up the big shards from my last post into small pieces for applying to beads:The shards are Triton Odd(r), and in this set I've applied them to a regular Triton base:I love the colors of Triton Odd! I do a cycle of reducing and then oxidizing to bring out the magentas and blues.

An on another set, I applied the shards to a Nyx base:These beads are part of my next set, which is on a base of Curdled Ivory:Figuring out how to apply the shards took a little practice, but now that I've got the hang of it it's really fun!

Shards, Pt. 1

I've finally made some shards! Here is my first attempt, a Dark Silver Plum bulb, slightly collapsed!This is my most recent shard bulb, Triton Odd(r). This one turned out better:My boyfriend Steve came up with a great way to break the bulb. First put it into the coffee can to cool. Then, hold the blowpipe straight up and down with the bulb resting on the bottom of the can and tap gently on the end of the blowpipe with a piece of wood. It breaks the bulb nicely and it's easier than trying to crack it with a hammer or some metal tool. Here are some of the shards Steve got from breaking it that way:Emboldened by Joe of Avenue Beads' shard techniques, I broke the shards up the rest of the way with my bare hands. So much easier than trying to wield a tool to crack off small pieces! And no, it never cut my hands.

Stay tuned for "Shards, Part 2" where I'll post photos of beads made with these Triton Odd(r) shards.

Musings on the Mysteries of Pandora

Fellow lampworker and blogger Sue shared her experience with Pandora in a comment on my last post. Thanks, Sue! Here's her comment:

"They turned out really dark, probably because they were in there for a while. I guess I have to use it last before I start the soak and ramp down. I put it over steel gray trans. and amber trans. and it turned out yuck! So, I guess plain or over opaque, and do them last instead of first...we'll see. Looks like you are the MASTER of pandora!!!!"

(I don't know about the "master of pandora" part! :-D )

I think the transparent amber is reacting with the Pandora to make that yucky color. Is that what you mean by yuck - they turned out dark-yuck? Like you said, try making plain Pandora beads or Pandora over clear, black or white. Something neutral and un-reactive.

When I put each test bead in the kiln, I write down the time so I know how long each bead annealed. The order of striking color goes magenta, purple, blue, green, yellow, opaque red [Edited to add: Double Helix Glassworks says "As it strikes it will go Amber - Ruby - Purple - Green - Blue - Opaque Red"]. If my beads were to turn out dark brick red, they may have spent too long in the kiln. Generally, my beads lighten up the longer they spend in the kiln. A short anneal will give dark purple, and a longer anneal will add in light blue, green and yellow streaks.

Another trick to bringing the color out of Pandora is to really smoosh up the glass. If I'm making a big bead and I have room to twist the glass up a little, I'll do that. How I usually start is I heat a blob of Pandora on the end of the rod, mash it with my mashers, twist it around, then re-heat it into a blob; or, I will heat a blob and then squish it down into a cold brass bead press, then re-introduce it to the heat and make it into a round blob again. When I do either of these things, tiny light-colored spider-webbed lines form on the surface of the blob. I think these spider-webs are the silver grains in the glass activating and getting ready to develop into different colors. After I see a lot of "spider webs" on the glass blob, I will apply it to the mandrel and make the bead. Sometimes I twist the rod as I'm laying the glass down, too.

If a bead is coming out of the kiln so light that it's a pale *poop* color, chances are it never struck properly to begin with. Or maybe it over-struck? I don't know for sure. A bead has to at least get the magenta or purple color first before it will lighten through the blue/green sequence. Why a Pandora bead turns out pale poop-colored is still a mystery to me.

Good luck everyone and I look forward to hearing more of your experiences. Thank you so much for sharing, Sue!

Re-Striking Pandora in the Kiln

I tried my experiment of re-striking the pale Pandora beads in the kiln (see my previous post). It kind of worked! 'Kind of' because only two out of the three beads got more color.

The beads told me that they would have preferred to be struck properly during the first go-round in the kiln to get the best color, yet they patiently endured a second hot night in the kiln and did their best to make the colors I wanted.

Here are the three pale beads from yesterday:and here they are today:I could have put them in the same order to make it easier to see, but the bead on the left in the first picture is the same bead as the one on the right in the second picture. That's the one that didn't get color. The other two got more blues and purples and very closely match the colorful five beads that struck properly the first night.

Also, when I re-struck the three beads in the second kiln run, I raised the temperature from a 940(F.) garage to a 950 garage and anneal. I let them sit in the kiln for 8 hours at 950. I thought all of them would re-strike, but two out of three ain't bad.

My verdict is that it's better to get the beads to strike right the first time, and if one attempts a re-strike, don't bank on the results. Maybe it's just because these beads are encased. Exposed Pandora probably re-strikes easier. I must say I'm happy with my two out of three though, because it's like taking what would have been an orphan bead and making it into a good bead!

Everyone has a different kiln and kiln environment, so my advice might not be worth a thing to you! Your best bet is to try Pandora and see what works best for you. And, if you end up hating Pandora and you can't get it to do a thing, don't throw it at the wall - sell it to me!!!

Good luck everyone!

Large Triton Disks

I've been working this past week at getting my "disk mojo" back. As I said before, some days I can make a spiral disk and some days I can't. I've been practicing this technique for over a year, and still, making nice, round spiral disks is extremely challenging.

I was pleased this week to get a little mojo back and also see my skills improve. I made some large metallic Triton disks, one particularly large at 23mm. The other two in front are 20mm and 19mm:I was able to make the large disks because I figured out how to continuously melt and apply more glass to the disk as I'm making it. Previously, I would melt a blob of glass on the end of a rod and hold it to the side of the flame as I applied it to the mandrel to make a disk. Doing it that way, my disk could only contain as much glass as the molten blob I started with. I couldn't figure out how to heat more glass mid-stream and still keep a decent disk shape. I will try to repeat this next time I'm at the torch, because I had a customer ask me for a 28mm disk last week and I had to turn her down because I didn't have the skill. Maybe I'm finally working up to it now. Making large, perfect disks has been a goal of mine for a long time!

I also have some of my regular-sized disks up in my Etsy shop right now. I have a set of 8 and a set of 10, all sized about 15-18mm:Have a peaceful weekend folks :-)

Cupcakes!

Here is something really far outside of my normal style: a whimsical, cute, sculpted, colorful cupcake bead! And made into jewelry too, which is something else I rarely do. My daughter needed a birthday gift for a friend who loves cupcakes, and here's the resulting bead and finished necklace:

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.....
:(

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!

Luna 2 Beads

I've had a chance to try the new glass from Double Helix, Luna 2! It has taken me a few tries to get the hang of it. Now that I'm finally getting it to strike, I'm loving the rainbow of colors in this glass! Here is a set of beads I have up in my Etsy shop right now:

The base color of these beads is Dark Silver Plum. When I put the Luna over it I really got the colors to pop! Maybe it's just because I've practiced enough with the Luna, or maybe it's the chemical reaction between the Luna and the Silver Plum that did it. Either way I'm happy with the results and I can't wait to play with this glass some more!

New Bead Style!

Here is my latest project - a new bead style! (New for me anyway!)


If you're a lampworker: I made these by creating an encased triangle bead, then heating each end and letting gravity (and a tiny bit of marvering) stretch it down the mandrel. They take an incredibly long time to make. Just coaxing the glass down the mandrel takes me about 35-45 minutes.

These beads are a real skill challenge for me. I usually make small beads that only use one or two colors. I wanted to expand my horizons, so I tried making an encased triangle bead but accidentally stretched it down the mandrel too far. I really liked the look of it though, so I just kept going and voila, a new style!

Okay enough blabbing. Here are some more photos. None of these beads are for sale yet because I can't let let them go!




If you're interested in what clear I used, some of these beads have CiM clear and some have Vetrofond Crystal Clear. With both clears, I got some scumming and some bubbles. The pictures show it up more than you can actually see in "real life." It's hard to find a clear that stands up to very long working times.

I found that the CiM clear was a little stiffer than the Vetro, so ultimately I went with the Vetro because it melts over the base bead more quickly. The whole secret/challenge to these beads is getting the encasing all the way to the end so the colors don't leak out and bloom across the outside surface.

Hope you enjoyed the eye candy!

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

That's one of my favorite Sandy Denny songs from the 70's... a good song for this time of year:

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

I love to write in my blog as often as possible, every day if I can, but the past few weeks have flown by. I've had family visiting, I've been sick, I've gone out of town, all kinds of distractions to take me away from blogging! But I'm back, at least for today!

I have a favorite bead of late, made with Terranova glass. I've been wearing this one on a Bead Hitching Post pendant for the past week - I think it's a keeper! It's a landscape, with the Terranova at the top making the starry night sky. In addition to Terranova the bead has Vetrofond Odd Olive, Effetre, ASK Caramel Apple and Raku.

I love this new Terranova glass and I've gone and bought more of it already. I'm still practicing with Luna, too. Having a harder time getting a lot of color from Luna. This next bead has a Luna base with pure Terranova and Terranova/Luna stringers on top. The picture is a little low-res, but you get the general idea of what the bead looks like. I'm getting a lot of red and purple colors from these glasses.


I guess you could look at the Luna bead and say it does have good color, but I'm hoping to get more in the blue-green range and not just the orange. If it weren't for the addition of Terranova stringer on top, the bead would be mostly yellow/orange.

Terranova and Luna

I'm a big fan of Double Helix glass and use many of their colors in my beads. One of my recent beadmaking challenges was learning to use their Terra glass. I'd finally practiced with it enough that I was getting good consistent color, and I was loving the bead sets I made with it. Terra had become my favorite glass.

I now have only two 3-inch pieces of Terra left on my bench! I tried ordering more last month but was sad to hear that Double Helix had discontinued making it. Instead they've come out with two new silvered glasses, "Terranova" and "Luna." I ordered a 1/4 pound of each to try them out.

So far I'm finding them tricky to strike, but then Terra was really difficult in the beginning too. Since I've practiced so much with Terra, I now have a little bit better idea how to strike color with these new glasses but it's still going to take practice. Here are my very first experimental beads, first the Luna:

And the Terranova:

The large button focal is Terranova and Luna swirled together and encased. The white speckles on the beads are silver deposits that are part of the color of this glass. ...okay and probably some dust too :)

I've made some more beads with Terranova since these photos were taken. I can understand now that I had not been getting the glass hot enough in these practice beads, and so the range of color is not as broad as it could be. The glass didn't reach a good striking temperature, mostly because I'm used to working cool. Still, the translucent honey-amber color of the Luna is nice, and you can see more color in the Terranova beads when you look at them in the sunlight.

The color is not bad for a start, but the beads I made yesterday with Terranova really blow these practice beads out of the water. I'll show photos of them in a future post.

My main inspiration to keep practicing with Terranova and Luna is that Double Helix has offered to make the old Terra again if we can make these new glasses "sing."

Yay!!!

Back to the torch!
Have a great day everyone!

Ancient Beads Unearthed

Something ancient and Egyptian must be hanging around my studio... is it the Halloween season, or just a sign that I need to clean up in here?

More disks.... these ones are a new style I'm attempting, the thin textured disk. It is more challenging than the chunky disks I have been making. I love the look of these, like old weathered copper. They are made with Double Helix's "Nyx" glass:


And, the sacred scarab. There are many interesting stories about scarabs. Winged scarabs, also called "heart scarabs" were worn on the chest of Egyptian mummies to protect their journey to the afterlife. The god Kephri was said to take the likeness of a scarab as he pushed the solar disk across the sky. A scarab amulet provides the wearer with healing and protection. Here is my metallic scarab bead made from Double Helix's "Psyche" glass:


Both of these are posted in my Etsy shop today.

Etched Disk Beads

My obsession with disk beads continues! The shape looks simple but it's actually kind of tricky to keep them from rounding out in the heat of the flame. I love the challenge this shape presents. After months of practice with disk beads I'm only beginning to get the hang of it.

My latest favorite sets are these two groups of etched disks. I've posted them in my Etsy shop: