Catch up

I had a lovely weekend with my mum and whilst I did manage to do some torching and photographing I haven't had time to write up my blog until now.

So this is what I pulled out of my kiln on Saturday. I loved the silver infused hollow that I made during my last session that I decided to make some more.

I made them into a necklace. The photos could be a bit brighter but it was difficult with all this rain.

I finally finished my Fire Beads for the Frit Happens monthly theme challenge.

I love the depth to these beads which I managed to capture in thie photo.

Following onto this style of beads I thought they would make good waterlily beads.

This is two shots of the same bead. I really love it.

Wednesdays Beads

I'm really enjoying my bead making at the moment and I was quite productive yesterday.

Again with the fire beads. I just need to make one more and then I'll be happy.


I wanted to make some more spacer beads in CIM Atlantis but was a bit surprised when the beads I pulled out of the kiln this morning were two different shades of dark tourquoise. I wasn't aware that I had done anything different when making the beads. I had a quick look on the CIM website and it looks like I will need to make sure I don't overheat this glass.

This glass is a bit of a mystery to me. It came in a batch of second hand glass that I bought and it wasn't labelled so I have no idea what it is. It's a gorgeous pink colour glass but it had lots of bubbles in it and it lost some of it's colour when made into a bead.

This is Effetre Sedona, I was really dissapointed with my first play with this glass. It is such a beautiful colour in the rod, a kind of gorgeous pinky purply colour. What I came out with was mostly brown. According to Frantz's website it is very similar to EDP and prone to devitrication. There's an article that tells you how to avoid it here: http://www.frantznewsletter.com/2010/06/18/tips-and-techniques-how-to-deal-with-devitrifying-opaque-glass-colors/
Back in February I blogged about some goodies that I bought from Jo at Frit'n'chips. http://earth-shinedesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/mini-mo-chocolate-limes.html.

One of the items I bought was Red River Rock silver infused shards. When I saw her at Flame Off I asked what the best colour glass was to use with them. So having decided that these lovely things that I have bought need to be used and not sat in a draw this is what I made.

Is'nt it gorgeous! It is a hollow bead made using CIM Bordello and the colours just pop when it is viewed in sunlight. I love it!

Not sure that I will get much bead making done over the next few days as my mum is visiting for my birthday.

Bead Swap Beads

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the beads I made for the bead swap at Flame Off. http://earth-shinedesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/swap-beads-and-beads-of-courage-for.html Of course I ended up with 2 beads in exchange and this is the two lovely beads I got to add to my collection.

This bead was made by Sarah Simmonite of Inspired Crafts. She has just started lampworking again after a years break, hopefully we will see some more of her work soon as this bead is gorgeous and it came very nicely packaged.

This bead is a lovely etched heart from Venus Art Glass. She does have a website http://www.venusartglass.com/index.html and she has some fantastic berry beads that look good enough to eat. Check them out in her gallery.

She makes the most gorgeous fused glass bowls as well as lampwork beads which you can find in her Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/venusartglass

Mondays Beads

These are the beads I made on Monday. I'm really pleased with the majority of them.

Firstly Reichenbach Iris Orange discs again. These still aren't coming out exactly as I hoped. I'm not managing to get any colour on the edge of the discs. So as I am planning to team the beads with a Lush Loops necklace I added a band or Reichenbach Opaque Purple which just finishes it off.

The two on the left are the ones I made on Sunday the two on the right are the ones above. I think they look quite nice with the pvc thong.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Next up are the 2 small ornate beads that I made to match the larger bead that I made on Sunday. I'm still having trouble getting the ends neat and am having to cold work them so more practice needed there.

I wanted to make some beads to match the band in the middle and this is what I've come up with so far

 From the left CIM Peacock Green, CIM Sherwood, CIM Chalcedony, CIM Glacier and CIM Atlantis.

I think these 2 colours are the ones I prefer most, will make some more.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Yet another at my attempts at what I am calling a Fire bead. I think I have finally decided on this colour combination. Effetre 412 Dk Yellow, 422 Orange and 428 Lt Red. The dots are CIM Tuxedo.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As I mentioned before, I bought some frit from Christina at Frit & Glass. This one is Zenobia which is a Raku blend. Although the COE is 92-96 and the glass I use is 104, because it is used in a small quantity (less than 5%) it won't cause any inconpatability problems.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The bead I made is using a base of CIM Dirty Martini. I also did an experiment. I have trouble getting consistant results with my Zoozii Pillow Press. One of the Pegasus bead rollers I bought at Flame of was the Cylinder combo (third from left)

I wondered if any of the cylinders would be the perfect size for using in my pillow press. So I used the one on the bottom right for the smallest pillow. It was a little small but not bad, especially when I added the frit. This I melted in and raked and then encased in clear. I'm not fond of this combination and I am sure far more can be achieved with this frit. Just need to do some research.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And now for the piece de resistance. When I was at Flame Off, I did a swap with Madeline Bunyan for some Wigwags that she made with some glass that I didn't want as I had accidentally bought double.

These are the Wigwags. Unfortunately they didn't make it home in one piece but it doesn't matter, they can still be used. I wish you could see how sparkly they are. Anyway, I keep admiring them and finally decided it was no good, I had to give them a try. I don't know about you but I quite often buy something and then don't use it because I don't have the confidence and don't want to waste it.

Anyway, this is what I manage to produce. There seemed to be some lilac in the Wigwag so I chose CIM Heffalump as the base. I love the pattern that is created. It takes quite a while to slowely flatten the Wigwag onto the bead. Unfortunately I lost most of the sparkle, there was some when it went into the kiln but had gone when it came out.

I think she is planning to make and sell the Wigwags so look out for them on her website.

Sundays Beads

As you can see I didn't make a huge amount of beads on Sunday, this is mainly due to the fact that the Fire beads I am working on take a long time to make.

The bead on the right is the first one I tried, this time over white dots. Unfortunately the bead release broke before I had a chance to finish it. Then I came up with the idea of layering yellow over red dots. I loved the look of these when I was making them but not so happy when I got them out of the kiln. I like the effect though and will try and explore with a differnt colour combination at a later time.

To be honest I've completely lost track of which yellows, oranges and red's I've used this time so I can't share that with you.

This is Effetre Cool Green Tea with a stripe of  Zephrine frit from Frit & Glass and shaped in my Pegasus Ornate & Bicone Ribbed bead roller. I love this and am going to make a couple more smaller beads to match.

When I was at Flame Off, I was fortunate to be shown how to get some colour out of a glass cby Reichenbach called Iris Orange, something that has eluded me.

This is Helen, showing me what to do. The necklace that you can see round her neck are discs of what are called Raku colours, including Iris Orange. It looks absolutely georgeous in real life. Here is a better picture of it:

You can read all about Helens work in her blog and buy her beads in her Etsy store.

The large disc is the one I made at Flame Off using my new Pegasus Disc bead roller.

I was a bit dissapointed as the gorgeous purples that I got on the edge of the bead disappeared when it was put in the cooling bubbles. Still will keep trying.

Effetre Colour Testing #3

A few days ago I decided to do some more test dots so that I could choose the colours for my fire beads and I wanted to share the findings with you, so here they are.

These are all Effetre opaque glasses on CIM Peace.


416 Bright Acid Yellow
418 Yellow Pastel
404 Daffodil Yellow
408 Med Lemon Yellow



414 Butternut
460 Yellow Ochre
412 Dark Yellow
425 Light Zucca
423 Spanish Leather


426 Dark Zucca
420 Coral
419 Apricot Yellow
422 Orange
428 Lt Red



436 Dk Red
424 Carrot Red
438 Purple Red
432 Med Red
440 Red Roof Tile

All of them made crisp dots with no spreading.



You can find my other Effetre dot testing posts here: http://earth-shinedesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/effetre-colour-samples.html and here: http://earth-shinedesigns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/efftre-colour-testing-2.html

Saturdays Beads

As you can see I am still obsessed with hollow beads, practicing my stringer and trying to perfect my fire bead for the FH monthly theme challenge.

I finally have enough beads that I am happy with to make this gorgeous necklace which I have teamed with some cute rubber spacer beads from Lush Lampwork. I bought the pvc tubing from Southampton Bead Shop.

Quite often my hollow beads fail, if there is even the smallest hole in the bead it collapses and the air gap inside becomes uneven, I don't like to waste these beads and use them as an opportunity to practice my new bead rollers or etch them. These three are such beads. I had a play with some frit on the second one.

These are the Ornate & Bicone Ribbed and Oval 8 bead rollers from Pegasus Lampwork Tools

I got to practice three things here, I pulled the stringer which is CIM Elphalba and Effetre Light Green 022, striking CIM sangre and my stringer work. Getting a bit better I think.

I'm still trying to perfect my flame bead. This one was on a black base using Effetre Black 104. I don't like this glass. As you can see it has devit badly around the hole. The bead release broke when I was halfway through this bead so I couldn't finish it off properly.

Recent work

Well, with all the new glass and tools I bought at Flame Off I was spoilt for choice so I decided to go back to what I was working on before my trip.

I'm still trying to perfect my hollows and also get some practice on my stringer work so as I have a stringer workshop coming up I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and make some hollows and decorate them with stringer.

I love the way the sunlight is showing through this bead and the pattern in the shadow reflection in the bead below.

I'm still working on my fire beads for the monthly theme challenge. They are getting better but I'm not really happy with the colours.

So, I decided to do some more spot testing of Effetre yellows, oranges and reds. I will do another post with the results.

This is a hollow bead with melted stringer that I had a play with in my new ornate bead roller.