Showing posts with label off-mandrel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label off-mandrel. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Silver Plum

I've been on a kick lately with a glass called Silver Plum. That's what the industrial-looking bead in yesterday's post is made with. Silver Plum looks just like metal to me. Eons ago when I used to fabricate silver jewelry, I was always trying to get a look like this from the silver through reticulation and oxidizing. One of my favorite things to do was pile scrap silver pieces in a kind of interesting pattern and melt them together in an organic, industrial kind of way, like a random pile of scrap metal that happens to be junked together in an interesting design.

Here is an example of a bead style I've been working on lately, made with blue-green Kronos and "riveted metal end caps" of Silver Plum:
Kronos and Silver Plum
This is an off-mandrel Silver Plum donut:Silver Plum Donut Bead
This is the first Kronos-Silver Plum bead I made, and it's still one of my favorites:
Kronos and Silver Plum bead
Off to the torch!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Freeform bead #3


The obsession with off-mandrel beads continues...
Here's one I made a couple of days ago. It's etched.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Freeform bead #2


Here's my second attempt at an off-mandrel bead.
I'm wearing this one today on a silver chain. I like it!

Friday, April 20, 2007

Off-mandrel bead


I had a good day at the torch yesterday. I worked on a colorful set using German Kugler glass and silver foil, and I've also made my first off-mandrel freeform bead. You can see the picture of it here.

I like that it's all wobbly and funky. And the best part is ... no bead release to clean out of the hole! There are a lot of new design possibilities with this, so I'm going to have some more fun today.