These little beads sets are variations on a theme, often my brain wants to work this way, to compare and contrast similar ideas. They are all 19mm lentil beads, made with the same pale lilac glass and given heart texture with my stepped heart texture tool but the surface decoration is all different - first enamels, then gold leaf and finally Double Helix Arke reduction silver glass.
They are all so pretty and the pale lilac glass looks so different in each of these sets! Below is a process video on how I have achieved these effects.
I recently bought some thicker silver leaf, 51g per thousand leave rather than the 33g that I have always used.
Because thicker silver leaf stands up to the heat much better under encasement I thought I would have a go as some faux dichroic effects and made some chunky textured lentil beads, These are around 3cm across and 1.5cm thick.
These have been given flower texture on both faces with the stepped flower texture plate.
I am cleaning the studio, it's a slow process as I keep discoering long forgotten glass treasures including a sample pack of Thompson enamels and my 3M respirator face mask. So this morning I dusted my stepped heart texture plate with enamels to see what kind of effects I could achieve. These first results are promising so there will more of this sort of thing happening in the studio tomorrow!
I have taken delivery today of the very first run of my brass texture plate designs. All pre-orders have been posted and there is a limited amount of these lovely glass shaping tools available on my website now.
I have also set up a facebook page where I post up videos and pictures for bead making inspiration and to showcase the versatility of these beautifully made tools.
I have loved making textured tumble etched beads for a very long time and this is one of the main motivations behind wanting to design my own series of texture plates. The contrast of velvety looking matt glass and glossy glass in the recessed areas is such a pretty effect.
These encased aqua lentil beads were made with the concentric heart texture plate available in my online store www.jolenebeads.com
below are a couple of process videos showing how they were made.
If you want to see more of my work, why not check out my Etsy shop...
I have been experimenting a lot lately with the new texture plates and metal leaf - usually gold leaf - but yesterday I tried out silver leaf too. I find the distressed look and touch of shine coupled with how tactile these beads are to be a really appealing combination
A little gallery of some of my new glass beads...
