Lampwork Shard Favourites.....

I have just listed three of these indulgent shard boxes on Etsy. I don't make many of these and I take my time over designing them. The reason is that I add a few of my favourite shards to these boxes throughout the year, most of the shard recipies are limited edition or designed for the Mini Mo' Club.

My aim in collecting the shards together over a long period of time is so that there is a great deal of variety in these exclusive collections.

There is 2.5g of each of 18 different colours, enough to make  a set and focal at least..........

• Top Row Sea Heather – Red Riverrock – Strawberry Coulis
• Middle Row Blueberry Hill – Sedona Park – Mossy 
• Bottom Row Dawn Chorus – Silvered Banana Cream – Green Goldstone 

• Top Row Silvered Turquoise – Silvered Petrol Green – Cloudbusting
• Middle Row Silvered Ivory – Silvered Coral - Persimmon
• Bottom Row Goldstone – Silvered Slytherin – Silvered Hades

Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies Kitzbitz Art Beads Buzzword Bracelet Beads

Mini Mo' Club June 2011 - Sea Heather

After taking a full year off from melting glass during pregnancy and after my son Ethan was born, I am very excited to be back to work and creating lovely little Mini Mo' packages again. This selection of glasswork for June is the very first collection for the the Mini Mo' Club this year.

The main colourway for Sea Heather Mini Mo is CiM Lapis and Effetre Dark Turquoise, two of my absolute favourite glass colours. I have teamed up elements of Sea Heather with CiM Crocus in my first test bead set and really put the murrini through its paces. On the left you can see Sea Heather murrini both encased and as a surface embellishment. The murrini in the round bead at the fore of this picture has been melted flat, spot heated and the twisted to form a delicate swirl.

I have encased the murrini in the focal bead for this set. First I made a small tube bead core from CiM Crocus and attached two murrini, one on each side. Next I heated the murrini gently until it domed and then used a brass pokey tool to indent the center of each murrini. I heated a gather of Lauscha soft clear glass and spot encased over the murrini fully to trap and air bubble and protect the murrini from smearing. Neat I put down some twistie in between the murrini for interest and then spot encased and melted te encasing layer smooth and marvered in to shape.

The three murrini visible inside my Sea Heather focal Bicone have each been treated differently, One was attached and immediately encased, one was melted partially flat and then encased. The third was melted completely flat and then encased.



Pictured above is one of my test bead sets for the Sea Heather shards. I've used CiM Gunmetal with is pewter patina as a contrast to the glossy aqua colour of these pretty enamelled shards.

In this large organic focal I have used a fairly substantial piece of shard and covered big section of surface area of the bead, dusting with some white enamel to add interest and texture just before garaging.

Here are all of the Mini Mo's for June together in their pretty packaging.

As an extra special treat I also made a second murrini pull, Atlantic, to send with the June Mini Mo's as thank you to my Mini Mo' Club members.You can see it both as surface decoration and also under deep encasement in my Pink Atlantic bead set shown here.



Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies and Kitzbitz Art Beads

Mini Mo' Colour club in Febuary

I run a lampwork glass colour club for 14 ladies and each month I send out the little glasswork packages of twistie, shards and murrini that I call Mini Mo's (Mini Mojo's). There are three strands of the Mini Mo Club, Amethyst and Beryl and Chalcedony and so I make three colourways each month, one for each strand.

I love putting these collections together each month; picking my colour inspiration from all sorts of places......this month my colour sets are inspired by the frit blends I have been mixing lately and a very special colourway of ivory and green organics.

Amethyst strand - Brights



This month’s Amethyst Mini Mo' contains red, yellow and bright green ribbon twisties and some fine striped black and green twistie which would make excellent vine cane. The murrini are complex starburst with 7 layers and red over yellow stripes to finish. The shard element is purple red laced with Nero Insenso. The colours are inspired by a frit blend that I am sending out for testing this month.



My test beads are encased cores, with Orange Grove frit, decorated with thin stringer work and Brights murrini.

Beryl strand - Cottontail



This month’s Beryl Mini Mo' contains soft blues, baby pinks, a touch of purple and lots of scrummy Rubino Oro. Rubino Oro likes and oxygen rich flame and so I have encased the ribbon twistie so that it will be more friendly to the Mini Mo' Club members working on Hot Head torches. I have made some ultra fine baby blue Rubino striped twistie and rose cane too. The murrini are complex starburst with 7 layers and purple over white stripes to finish. The shard element is baby blue glass laced with Nero Insenso.



My beads have been made using the Rubino ribbons and ultra fine baby blue twistie with Cottontails murrini.



These are encased beads with a core of baby pink and Cottontails frit blend

Chalcedony strand - Seaside organics



This month’s Chalcedony Mini Mo' is a sea side inspired colourway, with green twistie for vines and fauna and ribbon twistie to give the impression of seaweed. The Barnacle murrini are striped with a striated earthy brown colour glass that I have hand mixed. The Barnacle murrini do not like to be reduced at all. The shard element of this Mini Mo' is silver infused Belgian Lace, a Vetrofond odd lot. It has turned golden with organic effects when kisses with silver in the flame.



I have made this first set of beads using CiM Creamsicle glass as the base, for a parched desert feel. The Barnacle murrini look almost fossilized against this backdrop. This bead set also contains my EZ Tiger frit blend



These pretty lentils were created for my first ever Etsy commission and use the ribbon twistie for a seaweed effect, Barnacle murrini and Gaffer Chalcedony frit.



I really wanted to show off the versatility of these simple looking organic murrini and here is an example of how they look both melted flat and left raised under a deep encasement.

You can find out more about my glass work and frit blends on my UK shop Kitzbitz Art Glass

Jo x

Kiss me with silver coz I feel blue

One of my favorite things to do is to kiss silver to glass and make shards. I have had a crush on Grumpy Bear silver infused shards for quite a while, with their little droplets of shiny beaded silver but I also love Chalcedony shards made this way for their veil like transparency and webbed organic silver reaction. It occurs to me that it would be fun to put some other CiM blues through their paces and so...let the messy testing begin!

This is the paddle pic for Chalcedony from CiM



My scrummy pic of silver kissed Chalecedony shards, although taken indoors; it shows the soft translucency and organic pattering given to the glass by the fine silver infusion.



Here are my Chalcedony shard test beads. The subtle veiled effect is preserved after application and there is very little further organic reactions created by further heating of the silvered Chalcedony shards.



This is the paddle pic for Grumpy Bear from CiM



This pic of silver kissed Grumpybear shards has been taken under artificial light giving a slightly turquoise hue to this glasswork which is not true to life.



My Grumpybear test beads are by far my favorite of the silvered shard test beads, with a secondary organic effect of brown striations appearing during the application process.



This is the paddle pic for Smurfy from CiM



Here is a snap of my Smurfy shards - twinkling with droplets of silver. There is less reaction between the silver infusion and turquoise base than I would have anticipated and have found when creating silvered turquoise shards from various shade of Effetre glass. I think these shards are simply beautiful.



And here are my Smurfy test beads. As you can see, the silver remains in droplets on the surface of the applied shards, with a very small amount of secondary reactions during the application process. On one of my there is a small amount of a terracotta reduction colour where I have placed the shard to the bead surface in a slight reduction flame.



This is the paddle pic for Cornflower from CiM



These shards have had a double layer of silver and have been blown thicker than the other test shards that I have made. You can see the intense reaction from the Cornflower with the heavy silver infusion in lush green/grey organic patterns and striations. It a wonderful quirk of the making by hand process that I stumbled across this beautiful reaction and for future batches I would be tempted to use fine silver foil as opposed to fine silver leaf.



The deep and intense looking Cornflower blue works so well as shards. The initial organic reaction created in the blowing process is preserved on the shard surface during the application process. All in all these are very pleasing shards to work with.



Some notes on my test bead base colours:

CiM Clear: Much better than Vetro clear and Effetre 004, with respect to scumming and bubbles, not as good as the latest batches of Effetre 006. To be fair this is the first rod of CiM Clear I have ever used and the rd did have some surface scratches which will have added to the degree of scumming I experienced.

Reichenbach Antique Clear: This glass is a personal favorite of mine and my current "go to" for encasing, scum free, smooth to melt, relatively stiff. A very light green transparent which gives depth and a slightly victoriana look to my beads.

CiM Sapphire: Scums/boils easily in a hotish flame, though worked cool it behaves much better. Personally I like a few tiny bubbles in my beads to add interest and sparkle so working with this exceptionally beautiful shade of blue transparent holds no worries for me. Not a colour I would use for making ribbon twistie as stretched out tiny bubbles can make twistie very shocky.

CiM Cirrus: Interestingly this colour creates a beautiful green hue to my flame. An added element of nice when working with this glass. I found it a tiny bit shocky but once the end f the rod was hot, melted smoothly. As with CiM clear, it is the first time I have used this glass and so have much to learn about its striking properties.

CiM Split Pea: I love the deep striations that naturally occur when working with this relatively new addition to the CiM colour pallet. A softish glass, well behaved and easy to work with.

CiM Ming: Wow! such a beautiful glass. A little shocky at first but then I do tend to work hot. You may be able to see that Ming and Chalcedony are very similar in shade once the Ming has been struck to opaque.