Implosion Beads

One of the skills I learnt on the Marble Class was how to do implosions.  Now I have touched on these once before .... way way back in February 2009 when I had a class with Laura Sparling.  I didn't practise the skill once home as I was concentrating on encasing, which is what I really wanted to learn to do way back then.

In the marble class we did an implosion within a marble design. My interest in them was reignited, so once home I sat down at the torch to play...

Implosion beads are not for the impatient. You have to, very slowly, allow the glass to drop which drags the 'petals' down. There is a lot of practising required to get them anywhere near decent, never mind perfect.

First I tried some regular sized beads, but I was unhappy with how the glass didn't have enough room to make the pattern drag properly.

I felt the beads needed to be bigger to get a good effect, so I made some teardrop shaped ones.  I was quite pleased with these - a long way to go, but a good start.

This one was a double imlposion, I did a teardrop first, then added more glass and imploded it the opposite way, then shaped it into a barrel.

Now, if you want to see some perfect (and I mean PERFECT) implosions within marbles, check out this page.
http://www.kobukiglass.com/mableinfo.html

Glass Butterflies

I thought I would try out another tutorial.  Did a little google search and came up with these...

http://www.torchbugs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6509

They looked easy enough so washed some glass, fired up the torch and sat down.

The first two I did with opaque bodies, this didn't blend well into the wings in my opinion, it made them just look "smudged", plus according to the tutorial you just melted the wings in, this seemed to leave them lumpy and uneven, so  I adapted and gave them a squish flat before separating into two wings.

After that I moved onto transparent glass for the bodies, this blended so much better into the wings.

By adding a sparkly czech crystal bead for a head and wiring up on a pin, it made a quick, yet effective, pendant.

I would have made loads more, but the oxygen ran out.  Waiting for delivery of a new tank now  :)

Tiger Beads

Each time I fire up my torch and go to my shed, I seem to produce similar beads. I seem to be stuck in a style rut and need to break it.

When I am at Higham Hall, teaching basic glass beadmaking, I always take four Lampworking books with me for the students to borrow, but I have to admit I have only ever flicked through them myself, so often the students will come to me with a page open saying how lovely a bead looks.

So, this time I brought the books home with me, and promised myself I would try out some of the tutorials.

The bead I fancied trying first was the Tiger bead from "Passing The Flame", by Corina Tettinger.

I made myself promise not to pick up any other glass, or frit, or tools, than the ones needed to make this particular bead.  I didn't even take my usual glass of wine with me !!

I pulled some stringers, made some twisties, dipped my mandrels and off I went.

I didn't have one of the glasses suggested - Dark Amber - so I made a few with 'Dark Topaz' and some more with 'Straw'  This was the only variation I made.

Of course this morning I was chomping at the bit to get to the kiln.  But when I did I was quite chuffed with the results.

Dark Topaz based beads.

Straw based beads.

And a Straw based focal bead.

Wonder what I shall try next.....

Me and Barbara Windsor.

I don't think I have told you the story of me and Barbara Windsor....

I am telling you now because during a big shed tidy up I came across the Christmas Card and postcards I from Ms Windsor herself.

The story goes something like this......

A few years ago, Barbara Windsor was on a TV programme, something like those programs where you research your past.  Anyway, she had a lovely bracelet on, which was mentioned the next day on our beading forum Bead Buddies.

A few of us did a bit of Googling and found some very tiny thumbnails, but nothing we could really have a good look at.  So I decided to write to her...

Dear Ms Windsor,

Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Sue Simmons and I own and run a Bead Shop in Cumbria.

I also run an online Forum for Beaders (www.beadbuddies.co.uk/forum), and one of my members started a discussion about a bracelet you were wearing, and I quote…

“Did anyone watch the re-showing of the "Who Do you Think You Are" programme for BW tonight - I couldn't take my eyes off the bracelet Barbara Windsor was sporting - caught a few glimpses of a silver thing with dotty-ed lampies I think??”

This has turned into a quest to try and find a photograph of said bracelet, and the only one we can find is a very small one (attached)

So we wondered, as a group, if you had a better photograph of your bracelet, or if you can tell us the bead artist who made it?

I know this is a really strange request, but Beaders are funny creatures and this will bother them for ages if I cannot get to the bottom of it.

Also, if you would be happy for us to do this, we would like to make you a piece of jewellery in your favourite colours, as a collective work.

Thank you so much for your time.

Didn't really expect a reply at all, well, celebrities have better things to do with their time don't they?  But lo and behold, only a few days later there was a message on my answerphone - from Barbara Windsor!!!

She just said there was a lovely story surrounding the bracelet and she would call me sometime to tell me.

A few weeks went past and I had given up hope of another phone call, when the phone rang  "Hello Sue, Barbara here, how are you darling?"  WHOOP WHOOP!!

She told me the story of the bracelet, which sadly had since been lost.  So I offered to make her a new one.

There was no photo of the piece, so I just had to wing it.  I ended up with this... my hand-made glass beads, swarovski crystal, strung on sterling silver with my signature tag.

I sent it off and a few days later got another call, she was delighted and wanted another - but brighter and bolder this time, and on elastic.

Ok, so bright and bold it was, I used orphan beads from Kathy (My Precious) and some polymer clay beads from Elise Canning, and strung them up on strong elastic.  

She loved that one too  :)

At this point we decided as a Forum that it was quite fun to send gifts to celebrities, so we got together a list from the cast of females at Eastenders and made them all a little sometime.

I sent a fused hand-made glass ring each to 'Shirley' and 'Heather' and a beaded necklace to 'Pat', and got signed postcards in return :)

Later that year I got a Christmas Card , hand signed and personal.  How lovely.

Maybe it's time to do another collective gift box .......

The Odd Rod Project

In my workshop I have a box of glass rods, that when tidying up I have not been able to remember which glass is which and just chucked them into the "Odd Rod Box".

Now, anyone who works with glass will know the importance of matching the Coefficieny Of Expansion, but for people who don't - then in a nutshell, your glass has a number and the numbers have to match for the glass to stay together.

Now, there lies the problem.  Because I don't know what glass has what number I cannot use them together.  I can get away with frit (broken glass) and I can take a risk and try spots and lines, but the easiest and safest thing is to use them on their own.

So, to use up the box I have a cunning plan.  Each day I am to make 5 sets of beads from a lucky dip of glass rods that I pick out.  I close my eyes (only slightly as I don't want to spike myself on the glass) and pick 5 rods.

This was Sundays set of rods.

A caramel, clear, transparent teal, mid blue and a pearl grey.

I make as many beads as I can get out of each rod, sometimes there are just 3 to a set, and other times 9 or 10.

It can take a few hours to make a few sets, then they are in the kiln all night to cool.  In the morning the cleaning starts, of course the more beads I make the more I have to clean :(

First of all the caramel rod, I used "Glazed Ginger" frit and made some gravity marbles.

Next I used the clear and simply made 9 simple beads with no frit and no other decoration.  Once cleaned I put 5 of them in etching fluid and made them all frosty.

Then came the transparent teal, I took a risk with this one as I thought I knew what glass it might be, and I encased a black core.  I love the effect these make.

The mid blue rod was a gorgeous colour, but not very long, so I didn't get many beads out of that one.  Again I did a gravity frit bead.

Lastly came the pearl grey rod, which again, was a little rod, so I made little cute beads which I dipped into frit and melted in.

Here are tomorrows colours  :)

Take Three Rods

I had a little experiment this week, to choose three rods of glass, and see what different colour reactions I could get from using them in the same way, but different orders.

It kind of went like this... I made a glass bead with colour 1, then dotted it with colour 2 and topped the dots with colour 3. Then I made other beads using the same technique but changing the colour order around.

This set is made from CIM glass - Cirrus, Ghee & Kryptonite.

As you can see there are a lot of different colours from those three rods, some of them were worked longer in the flame which gave the different shades.

The next set I tried was also in CIM glass, in Grape Ape, Khaki & Desert Pink.

Similar technique, I prefer this set, the colours reacted nicely and stayed a bit truer.

Grey beads for a grey day.

Sunday was a drizzly day, you know one of those days when you cannot be bothered to do much as the grey clouds and fine rain bring your mood down a notch?

So I decided to go and make some beads. I have allowed myself to get a bit rusty of late so rather than do anything taxing I went back to basics and using only three colours (grey, black and white) plus a clear I worked until the grey rod ran out.

I didn't want a matching set, although as the colours are all the same they are a set in some respect. I tried to do the first pattern that popped into my head each time, then did a few spacers at the end.

I think I will play like this again, it was fun re-discovering all the different styles when I opened the kiln this morning.

A session on the torch.

It has been ages since I managed to fire up the torch, there is always something else that needs doing first, but on Saturday I had some time all to myself and thought 'why not...'

The problem was I had bead block, what to make, what colours to use, what shapes to do?

I sat for ages just staring at the flame doing nothing and no ideas were jumping into my head.

Instead, I grabbed the glass that was already hanging about the workbench and made a long tube, added some silver ivory stringer, which was also left over from the last session, and poked and prodded it about before encasing it.

I continued with this mish-mash of designs bead after bead, some I shaped, some I made into nuggets (which photograph really badly, making them just look wonky) and some I pressed with the mashers to flatten.

So I ended up making all these without taking any new glass off the shelf, a good nudge back into beadmaking I think :)

Sharon Peters Lampwork Class

I was lucky enough to get one of the 10 places available for the Sharon Peters Lampworking Class - Kissy Lips & Goblins - at this years Flame Off extravaganza.

What a fabulous class it was, we laughed lots, played with glass lots, and produce some unusual looking beads :)

Sharon at the Torch,

Some of Sharon's amazing work....

...and this one just shouted out to me, so I had to buy it :)

If you ever get a chance to go on one of Sharon's classes, I would highly recommend it. It was fantastic learning the tricks from the master.

And these are the ones I produced. not quite to the same quality, but I tried :)

Now to practise, practise, practise :)