Mini Mo' December 2011 - Big Top and Bejeweled

I wanted to play about a little with bold opaque primary colours for my first December collection, a circus themed glasswork pack called Big Top. I chose Effetre Dark Red 436, Light Lapis 240, CiM Pumpkin and combined the three in one gather to make “Circus Circus” patchwork shards.

This zany focal is very different from anything that I've ever made before with big bold flower petals swiped on with flat Big Top flat cane and a wrap of ribbon twistie along the base and a googly eyed ladybird!

The colours are so bright, bold and fun that I couldn't resist letting the colours do all the talking with this collection of funky beads, wacky shapes and rounds, showing the cane and twistie as surface decoration and under encasement too.

This *every so slightly* more grown up set shows all the different Big Top canes under clear encasement over a base of pastel baby blue with a few Big Top murrini on the surface of a couple of the beads.

My second colourway this month is based around the idea of gem toned glass, transparent secondary colours, including Effetre Light Topaz 012, Transparent Dark Purple 044, CiM Great Bluedini and Vetrofond Transparent Light Brown 084. I have completed this collection by making reactive "Tribal" shards using Ask Tribal Turquoise.

I stumbled across a thread on Lampwork Ect by Jacqueline Parkes advertising her new shard making tutorial and couldn't resist getting it to try. Tribal shards are my own glass recipe but have been created in the way that Jacqueline describes in her wonderful tutorial. I tested itsy-bitsy bits of the Tribal shards out on several base glasses.  There isn't much rhyme or reason to my choice of base colours here - just labelled shorts that I had close at hand at the time.

Here is a chintzy floral focal with an encased core of gem toned ribbon twistie and asymmetric sculptural floral decoration on the surface using flat cane.

Bejeweled canes over a base of CiM Mojito, encased with Effetre 006. These beads show how Bejeweled Murrini looks as surface decoration.

Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies and Kitzbitz Art Beads