Super cute handmade glass beads with a ton of quirky character available on my new website
Jolene xx01/03/2023
15/02/2023
Robot beads raising funds for Beads of Courage UK
Jolene xx
24/12/2022
Jolene Beads online store
Jolene Beads Store
Save 20% on everything in your basket with the code 20blog at www.jolenebeads.com
Buddy bead bracelets
Opal glass buddy beads with bags of personality and googly eyes. They are strung on hypo-allergenic 2mm stainless steel ball chain. I have 8 shades in stock right now with blue, green or mismatched eyes.
Candy heart bracelets
Lampwork animal beads
You will also find super tiny detailed glass animal beads in my new shop, including piggy beads and hedgehog beads with little belly buttons. You can also find bunny beads like this fella with the most adorable feet. Awwwww 💕
Colour swatch jewellery
Summer is the the newest combination in my color swatch jewellery range. This hot trio of colours was inspired by citrus fruits, limes, lemons and satsumas.
You can find matching hoop earrings here.
The other colours in my colour swatch range are called Ocean, Thorn, Heather, Buff and Brick.
Patchwork Heart Necklaces
Every single lampwork patchwork heart I create is a one of a kind design - totally unique. These chunky heart beads have a big visual impact and certainly make for a wonderful statement necklace.
Dragonscale disc necklaces
I adore making these elegant stacked disc beads in super bright shades of glass. These unusual glass beads certainly have a lot of visual interest and impact. They look amazing on too!
Happy Apple lampwork beads
These happy apple beads are totally adorable! They are tactile, tiny and have big eyes. Each one has a tiny caterpillar friend to hang out with.
For luxury handcrafted jewellery and lampwork beads visit me at
Jolene xx
16/03/2022
Messy testing - Birchwood, Cafe Au Lait and Saddle Leather ltd run
Thes ocean hearts are made with neutral and brown CiM ltd run colours that will soon be available in the UK to buy. I have teamed up Birchwood, Cafe Au Lait and Saddle Leather ltd run with blues an teals and a touch of fine silver leaf...
...and boy do all 3 of these glass colours love silver leaf! There are earthy and organic reactions galore....
To create these darker patches and shiny silver droplets I burnished parts of the cream/brown colours with silver leaf and vapourised it the torch flame.
Please ensure you have adequate ventilation if you are using any kind of metal leaf or foil in your lampwork bead making.
First up is Birchwood ltd run with Effetre mid blue. In rod form Birchwood is a pale cream opaque glass.
In the areas where I have added the small pieces of silver leaf the glass has darkened to a deep caramel toffee colour. I am loving the effect.
The second combination I have put together is CiM Cafe Au Lait ltd run with Poolside. I rod form this glass is a warm creamy looking mid brown.
The areas where I have added the silver leaf have darkened up beautifully. The shade of the reaction is very similar in hue to what I previously saw with Birchwood.
This heart is made with CiM Saddle Leather ltd run and Aegean.
The areas burnishes with silver are very dark indeed. There is a wonderful organic looking earthy crust with a smattering of silver droplets. Yummy!
Check these lovely beads out on Etsy...
Jolene xx
04/03/2022
Messy testing - Pizzazz ltd run
I'm focusing on just one colour today, a stunning new purple glass called Pizzazz ltd run which will be available from Creation is Messy soon.
Pizzazz ltd run is a beautiful colour. It's a vibrant opalescent mid-purple which seems to have its own special kind of internal glow about it!
It is a stiff but well behaved glass to work with and fall into the what you see is what you get in terms of rod colour compared to the finished beads.
Happy melting, Jolene x
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26/02/2022
Messy testing - Elegance, Douglas Aster and Glycerin Milky ltd run
In today's blog post I am showing beads made with 3 very pretty new CoE 104 glass colours from the Creation is Messy spring 2022 release that will be available to buy soon.
First up is this utterly lovely soft pastel pink opal glass is called Elegance. It's so beautiful!
Like all premium pink glass rods, I imagine Elegance ltd run will have a premium price tag attached, but oh boy is this one special!
Only one pair of the hearts in this last picture were made with Glycerine ltd run. I wanted to compare Glycerine with some Diaphanous misty and milky hearts from my last glass testing blog post.
The Glycerine hearts are the pair at the top that look the most opaque (let the least light pass through). Moving around in a clockwise direction, the next two hearts are Diaphanous milky and the last two hearts are Diaphanous misty (white dots). Aside from looking obviously more opaque, Glycerine has a much cooler icy looking tone. Diaphanous looks positively toasty in comparison!
Jolene xx
23/02/2022
Messy testing - Diaphanous, Fjord, Pond Slime and Aquamarine Ice ltd run
The first hearts here are made with Diaphanous ltd run. The beads on the left are Diaphanous Misty decorated with white dots. The heart pair on the right are Diaphanous Misty decorated with Reichenbach black stringer and dots.
Both pairs of these off white glass hearts are beautiful though for me the more translucent misty version just has the edge.
Fjord ltd run is a stunning new aqua blue opal addition to the CoE 104 palette. I find the misty (white dots) and milky (black stringer) versions have a similar opacity with the Misty version only looking more obviously translucent when the beads are held up to the light.
Creation is Messy make absolutely fabulous opal green glass and Pond Slime ltd run is no exception. Again the misty (white dots) and milky (black detail) versions appear to be quite similar until you hold them up to the light and then it's easy to see that the Misty version has much more translucence.
As before the misty version of this glass has more translucence (white dots) but also I find that Arctic milky opal looks more pastel than it's misty counterpart.
Additional pictures taken under bright artificial lighting....
Jolene x
05/01/2022
17/12/2021
14/05/2021
Messy testing - Lumen, Gossamer and Avalon Misty/Milky ltd run
There are several new opal glass shades in the spring 2021 range of ltd edition glass from Creation is Messy, which have just become available to buy in the UK.
These pairs of fish beads were made with Avalon ltd run which is a very pale pastel green opal glass. It is available with two levels of opacity. The set with Fremen (light turquoise) fish is are made with Avalon Misty ltd run. The pair with Oobleck (bright lime green) fish are made with Avalon Milky ltd run.
It's easy to see the differing levels of translucence between the two as spacers but less easy to tell them apart as larger beads.

The set with Fremen (light turquoise) fish is are made with Gossamer ltd run. The pair with Oobleck (bright lime) fish are made with Lumen ltd run.
Gossamer is much more translucent than Lumen and seems to me to have a pretty ice-like quality to it.
Jolene x
14/04/2021
Messy testing - Orange-zilla, Kniphofia and Marmalade ltd run
Zing! This bright orange is called Oranze-zilla ltd run. It is described as a dense transparent orange on the CiM website.
Both under encasement and as a solid colour bead it looks opaque to me though. Orange-zilla is pure sunshine in glass form. I wouldn't class Orange-zilla as a striking glass as it didn't loose it's colour when first melted and so didn't require and cooling/heating cycles to bring the colour back.

Jolene x
Messy testing - Dinosaur Bone, Howlite, Starry Night and Almandine ltd run
For this post I have picked 3 new CiM colours from the steamer range that have an opaque base rather than a clear or pale transparent and one new shade from the Cloudy transparents range. A little disclaimer, to the best of my knowledge these first 3 colours are going to be available from North America only and the last will be stocked in France.
First up is Howlite ltd run. It's a very pale ivory glass streaked through with pale grey stripes. I clipped chips from the end of the Howlite rod and used them as murrini chips to embellish these small heart beads.


Starry Night will be available exclusively from Ed Hoy's only.
Almondine will be available exclusively from L'age du Verre in France only.
Jolene x
Messy testing - Lingonberry and Pink Pansy ltd run

The Pink Pansy, capped over the top of the opal yellow looks like a barely there trace of pink when used in such a tiny quantity. I was hoping it might strike a little darker.

The overall effect of Lingonberry over opal yellow was to became shades of
burnt butter and butterscotch. Not what I had expected, more of a happy
accident, but actually a glass colour combination I would happily use together
again.
Jolene x
Messy testing - Solar Storm, Carnival, Carefree and Robert E ltd run

The hearts below were made with a core of Effetre dark teal encased with Carnival streamer glass.

Robert E is a very pretty shade of transparent mid blue.

Jolene x
30/03/2021
Messy Testing - Birds Nest, Horehound, Brown Eyed Girl and Burnt Sugar ltd run
Today I am looking at three new shades of transparent brown glass from CiM. This first picture shows how each of the colours looks as a solid colour bead finished with Alley Cat dots.
From left to right - Horehound ltd run, Burnt Sugar ltd run and Brown Eyed Girl ltd run.
Horehound is a very pretty light honey shade that looks even prettier under encasement. Burnt Sugar is a golden shade of transparent
brown with a slight orange tone to it which makes me think of Topaz. Brown eyed Girl is the darkest of the 3 new colours and more of a true brown rather than tones of amber or topaz.

From left to right - Horehound, Brown Eyed Girl and Burnt Sugar encased with Birds Nest.

From left to right - Horehound, Brown Eyed Girl and finally Burnt Sugar.
Something about the look of the tumbled encased Burnt Sugar hearts in this picture makes me think of the last drop of Cola in your glass after the ice cubes have melted!
All 3 of these transparent colours were wonderfully well behaved in the flame, no boiling or micro bubbles at all.
Jolene x
23/03/2021
Messy testing - Dollhouse and Beeswax ltd run
These pretty pinks are called Dollhouse. The beads on the left are made with Dollhouse Milky Opal ltd run and below is a picture of Dollhouse Misty Opal ltd run beads.
Beeswax is a new opal yellow glass hue which has also been formulated with two shades of opalescence. On the left is Beeswax Milky ltd run. Below is Beeswax Misty ltd run.
The difference between Milky and Misty glass in these two shades is much easier to see when you have the beads in your hands. I have found it very tricky to capture in a photograph.
