Tutorial - Fritty Ruffles with rose and leaf murrini

Welcome to my second photo tutorial. An extravaganza of dodgy poorly lit indoor photography with a diddy wearing digi in all its glory.

This tutorial does not cover all the nuts and bolts of melting glass in the detail that a beginner lampworker might require but is intended merely as a rough guide for combining several techniques together in one bead. Some previous lampworking experience is implied.



I am using some of my own handpulled rose and leaf murrini chips as embellishment in these fritty ruffle beads but any handpulled or commercial murrini will work just as well. Step one is optional: Pull some 1mm stringer – this will be used for cold tweaking your leaf murrini later.



Step two: Wind a roughly tube shaped base bead which is approximately 3cm long and 2cm in diameter.



Step three: Marver the tube in to smooth tube shape, pressing down slightly to create nice dimples.



Step four: Warm the surface of your bead and then roll your base bead in frit



Step five: Melt the frit in to the surface of your bead completely



Step six: press your bead flat between two heat resistant surfaces. Make sure you do not press your bead flatter than 3 times the width of the mandrel.



Step seven: Heat one side of your bead and then snip a groove in to the hot glass with old scissors. Repeat the process on the other side of the bead, this time snipping twice.



Step eight: Warm your bead through thoroughly to round off the corners of your cut ares.



Step nine: Flatten again gently.



Step ten: Turn your fame down and spot heat where you would like to place your rose murrini.



Step eleven: Take the murrini in long handled tweezes, move your bead out of the flame and then press the murrini firmly in to the molten bead surface



Step twelve: Heat the murrini through quickly and press flat, repeat this process 3 or 4 times, flattening the murrini a little more each time. This is where the murrini application process differs slightly from applying starburst murrini, where the murrini is heated strongly and pressed only once.



Step thirteen: Repeat steps eleven through twelve for each rose or leaf murrini that you wish to apply to your bead.



Step fourteen (for leaf murrini only): Spot heat your murrini in a low flame. Remove from the flame and pull a “tip” to your leaf murrini using your cold 1mm stringer. Flame cut the stringer from your tweaked murrini.



Turning Leaf murrini - created using Red Copper Green Effetre, apply in an oxy rich flame to get the pewter finish



Spring Leaf murrini - apply in a neutral flame to avoid any unwanted reduction effects

You can find more of my beads and glasswork on Etsy and on my webshop too.
Jo x