My latest Beads of Courage Beads

Following on from the 52 little things project last year where I made a special bead each week for Beads of Courage, this year I am going to be having a studio afternoon each month instead

My first offerings are these sweet Fun Guys with googly eyes and chubby cheeks!

I got a chance to nip into the studio for February's BoC play afternoon yesterday and made these very cute Monkey Shines! beads. The tutorial for these is by Sharon Peters and can be found in the Hot Glass for Cool Kids e-book written by Diane Woodall last year.

They were so so so much fun to make!

If you make lampwork beads and have some that you'd like to donate to Beads of Courage then the addresses need to know are:

UK
Be Child Cancer Aware
Beads of Courage
2, Park Close
Wickford
Essex
SS12 9EH

USA, Japan, New Zealand:
Beads of Courage
3230 N. Dodge Blvd.,
Suite J Tucson,
AZ 85719

United States
Canada: Beads of Courage
Attn: Bead Donations
3119 35th Ave SW
Calgary,
Alberta
T3E 0Z8
Canada

Have a great day, Jolene xx

Messy testing - Gypsy and Marine ltd run colours

I've fallen for Gypsy in a big way, it's a deep and rich super saturated purple transparent. In the tabs here I have teamed it up with Marine over Effetre light blue 224. I added most of the detail on these beads with encased stringer made with either Gypsy or Marine over a core of 224. On a few of these bead where I have added swipes of glass straight from the rod of Gypsy the colours is so deep and intense that it looks like neat Vimto!

Marine did not take too well to being flame polished after being chilled in the brass press that I used to make the flat tab shapes. Until that point it was fuss free and didn't pit or bubble in the slightest like many transparent blues and aqua glass can. I think I pushed it just that little bit too far and worked just a little too hot! Gypsy and Marine both etch well.

Marine really comes into it's own when used to make tiny tiny dots. I've layered it up with Effetre white here and it looks delicious. Gypsy is pretty used this way too and bith look lush over Effetre baby pink.


Have a great weekend, Jolene x


My Etsy and My eBay

Messy testing - Rudolf and Orange Crush part 2

I had a couple of questions come up on CP about how Orange Crush compares to Clockwork and Rudolf compares to Maraschino so thought I would take some side by side photos to show.

Clockwork on the left stays transparent while the Orange Crush opacifies quite a bit when struck. These beads are really tiny so they were not worked for very long in the flame. Both are really lovely juicy colours but Orange Crush wins the beauty contest for me.

Maraschino Vs Rudolf - Both of these scrumptious reds become more opaque when struck, Maraschino (on the left) more so than Rudolf. Marashino looks pinkish and Rudolf appears to tend towards orange. This picture was taken outside in very bright sunlight.

I also really wanted to make some encased florals with Orange Crush. I have used a very thin stringer of Orange Crush and placed the dots over Effetre white. The core colour is Effetre light olive. The flower and fern patterns have all struck easily and evenly under layer of 006 Clear. Orange Crush looks really bright and pretty even when used in tiny amounts.


Have a great weekend, Jolene x

My Etsy and My eBay

Messy testing - Orange Crush and Rudolf ltd run colours

 I loved playing with these colours, they are so juicy and bright. Rudolf and Orange Crush are both well behaved and easy to strike with a similar vivid cheerful intensity. The tabs on the left show both colours used as large dots and stripes directly over Vetrofond Banana Cream odd. These beads didn't need any special attention to get the colours to pop, the pressing and flame polishing took care of all of the striking required and the results were consistent and fab!

This teeny goddess bead was made with Orange Crush and if you look carefully you can make out that although she has been evenly struck, the core of her body is slightly more opaque looking which resulted from that part of the bead being worked in the flame for longer. It's a lovely effect.

You can see a similar effect here with Rudolf, in this image you can see the deeper opacity in the core and the more transparent part along the curve of her bottom. This red is beautiful and lovely to work with.

I really fancy making some super summery floral beads with these colours so there will be another post on them sometime soon.

Orange Crush and Rudolph will be available in the UK sometime in early to mid March I think.

Have a super day, Jolene x
My Etsy & My eBay

Rawr!

A bit of fun for the kids with yesterday's lunch :-D

Have a lovely day, Jolene x

Faux Malachite Recipe

Faux Malachite recipe

I haven't written a blog tutorial in a little while and thought it would be nice to share this recipe for faux Malachite that I have been working on recently.

I've been using Effetre Petrol Green as the base with stringers of Effetre Mosaic Green, CiM Goblin and CiM Slytherin melted in randomly.

Lastly I have layered up random stacked dots using stringers in all 4 colours and melted them flat before final shaping.


I think there is more work to do on laying down patterns but as a jumping off point I am pretty pleased with the glass combination. Many thanks to Kevin Walsh for sharing this beautiful image on flickr under a creative commons licence which allows me to share it's beauty with you. I hope it gives you some inspiration.

Have a lovely day, Jolene xx


My eBay and  My Etsy

Recreating gemstone colours in glass

Over the past week or so I've been playing about with glass colours and techniques that mimic gemstones. So far I have found 7 combinations that I'm pretty happy with: Faux Malachite, Blue Chalcedony, Carnelian, Green Chalcedony, Jade, Rose Quartz and Turquoise.

All of these pretty sets are available in my new eBay shop here.

Have a super day, Jolene x