Unintentional Beads

So many times I sit down to make something in mind, a certain color scheme and design and I never get there! It's kind of odd how sometimes you sit down and start and you never pick up the colors you intended. This happened to me while torching yesterday.

I had the intentions of making a large black based focal bead with opal yellow or kaki, cinnamon and goldstone colors. I had made up a twisty to use and I wasn't quite sure if the colors were right so I decided to do a little mini test bead first to see how the twisty stringer looked once actually on a bead. (in the end the stringer wasn't what I was going for).

For the mini test bead I was just going to make a small button bead on a denim blue color (I only have a rod and half of black so I was savoring it!) lol..... Before I knew it I got carried away with my initial footprint and had a large wide footprint, so I thought, oh well lets just do a quick sample test on the large focal button. My intent now was to just make a large based button, wind the stringer on, melt in to see how it looked. .... In the end I just kept changing direction as I was making it and it turned into something more complex than I originally inteded for this 'test' bead. Even though I was winding it on a 1/16 mandrel I still managed to get a little bit of mesh in there and push and prod without mangling the mandrel although almost all the bead release completely broke off the madrel!,.... .. the bead survived!

My intended mini test bead ....... turned major focal at 32mm.


Sometimes you just got to go with what is happening and make something different than you intended. At first I was going to totally abandon the bead when I realized I got carried away with my foot print for doing a little test bead. But I figured 'why waste glass', when I can just change direction and go larger and different than inteded.

Maybe next time I torch I will do that black bead I had planned. LOL

Bigger Beads

While pushing myself to try some new things, I finally bought a bigger size lentil press. Most of my beads I work with average around 18-21mm in size. I bought a 1 1/4" press which is 32mm. I really love working with this bigger size occasionaly. So much more surface to work with. The 'chaos' style I was trying is pretty hard on the 21mm. Heres a couple I did, one on the 21mm and then redone with the 32mm.

The 21mm size shown with ruler: The larger bead with ruler shown:


Larger photos of larger bead.

Lots of possibilities with more working surface!

Attempting Chaos

Well I couldn't resist being influenced by Sherry Bellamy's 'Chaos' style beads. I Got her tutorial and gave them a try. My first few attempts did not work out. I ended up with just the plain mesh screen inside. I realized I was using too small of a screen. I have two sizes and tried the smaller size since my beads are much smaller than hers. I'm working with beads around 21mm. I also was trying to do them on the 1/16 mandrels since that is what I usually prefer to work on. Pretty much impossible to do this type of bead on that size. The mandrel becomes bent city! But I still managed to get the bead off! It is the black floral one below. ..... I finally had a couple that are fairly successful. Heres a photo of one of them:
Now for one of my first ones that didn't work. Too small of screen inside to push the glass through. ..... Although still a nice bead in the end.

I must say this is addicting and fun to try! Thanks to Sherry for provoding her tutorial. She had some great tips in there.

Trying to reproduce your own beads!

7-07-08

I thought I would create a page to use for talking beads separate from the website . Mainly for talking about or showing new stuff, trials and errors and what not. I'm sure it will not be a daily thing. Probably more like weekly. I'll probably be lucky to keep up with it even at that pace! Sporatic may be the time frame I'm meaning. LOL

I took a few months off totally from beading and have gotten back to the torch about a month ago. I felt a bit rusty, although the first thing I did was make me a new bracelet. I hardly make anything for myself and thought I needed something. Here is a photo of the new bracelet, which gave me a kick in the pants to try to stay at the torch. At least once a week!

I spent some time this past weekend trying to recreate these beads. Of course I couldn't exactly remember exactly how I pulled the stringers for the flower cane petals. They came out so different. .... Back to remaking the canes to try again. That kind of stuff seems to happen when you want to recreate beads! Here were the beads I ended up with. The flowers all kind of mushed around in there and the color was off.

Back again soon with more. I've been working on the 'Chaos' style beads, that is not easy on smaller sized beads. I think a need a new large press! I also did a couple beads that were partially etched. I like the outcome of those and will have to experiment more. Stay tuned......