Nyx Hollow Beads

Greetings bead lovers! I'd like to show off this simple pair of Nyx glass hollow beads I made recently. I'm still practicing with hollows so the shape is a little "organic." At least I got dimpled ends on this pair, that was my main goal. I love using just a single glass color in my beads, and Nyx is great for that because of its variety of metallic shades:

It's been ages since I've written in this blog! I often think about my blog and miss it like a good friend I haven't talked to in a while. It's so good to be back in touch.
More soon I hope. I've been making marbles and want to show you some pictures of them!

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

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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.