Murrini Making Part I

I haven't made murrini for a very long time, probably too long after I actually learnt and practised how to make it. Partially it was due to the absence of a very important tool - the rod cutters, which I couldn't buy. Last winter, when I was in Moscow, my brother took me to an amazing shop where one could buy anything one wanted: glass, mica, tools of any kind and any desctiption - a glass beadmaker's paradise! So I bought these lovely cutters there (pictured) and forgot all about them when I came back.

Everybody is making their own murrini, so yesterday I remembered about the cutters and thought I should make some murrini too. Now there is one important part in murrini making: preparing a good punty. I was quite proud of mine - and you can see it on the pic next to the cutters. The other pic shows another of my recent purchases - these beautiful golden glass scissors: I just had to show them off! I haven't used them yet, they are so shiny, I just look at them admiringly.

Busy-Busy Uploading on Flickr

What a morning! I'm sitting here uploading lots of photos on Flickr. Just the beads at the mo, jewellery will be coming soon too. Unfortunately, I am still unable to create "galleries", as the instructions are so poor. I've tried and tried, again and again, but the "Add to a Gallery" still doesn't come up, apparently, because of some security settings - well, these are my pics and I haven't set anything private or whatever, but it isn't happening. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Anyway, I can't waste any more of my time, especially as I'm going to try out some new ideas, so... Flickr will have to wait!

Glass, glass, glass!

New glass arrived. Have a look: on the left is a rod of Opal Yellow that I've had before, on the right - what I got now. This is the reason for when we are asked if we can make the same beads like the ones that the customer has seen or has bought from us before, we can only reply: "I'll do my best." Batches of glass vary, and this is just one example. I hope it will behave, though, in the same way, otherwise... :(

But I want to finish on a happy note, that being that I've got all my mandrels ready and I'm just about to "dive" into my studio! Another exciting thing is that I've also bought some special mandrels for blowing beads: I haven't got any idea about how to use them. I remember seeing how these blown beads were made some time ago, and then it seemed pretty straight forward, but now, looking at these strange mandrels, I'm thinking about taking a lesson! :)

It was easier to make another post with these photos of the Minoan necklace than to upload them in the way I wanted them to be published! Here they are (I really don't know why they can't be on the same line!):

Making Jewellery Week

I haven't realised that a week passed since my last blog! Well, there hasn't been much of bead making this week, but more of jewellery making. I needed to make pieces for galleries, and you can see examples of what I made on the photos. Typically, when I upload pix they always get in the wrong order - oh well, the first one is a bracelet with my "Celtic" beads, the other one is a "Minoan" necklace, the beads having goldstone insertions. Since I bought some goldstone about a month ago I can't stop using it! I've got so many new designs with it, and I just love the finished look, especially when light catches it.

Of course, the initial temptation was to make the "Minoan" set with copper beads and findings - they pick up the "copperness" of the goldstone beautifully, but I also had these lovely big (8mm!) fluted sterling silver beads that I bought specifically for this set, so my copper hearts had to wait till next time! If there is ever going to be a next time - almost always I only make one piece of a particular design.

I was going to write about dots... it has to be in the next blog now!

Weekend - Doing Nothing!

Hi! Saturday and Sunday were just a couple of lazy days! We went to Cambridge to see Toy Story 3 which was surprisingly good, and we also had a barbeque, which was... even better! (Sorry I like to eat nice food!). So not much bead making, I'm afraid!

Pink and Green

Hi everybody! Sorry I have been ignoring my blog, then I realised just how diligent Rod has been with his, so here I am again!

I thought that if I just post photos with my beads it would be a bit boring, as most of the people who would come across my blog would be able to make them anyway! But if I chat about things that I find difficult while making my beads, this would possibly be more interesting, AND people might want to leave comments, as they might have encountered the same.

So... I have been working on some new designs recently. I've managed to forget about my usual desire to make things deep, symmetrical and perfect, and for a change I tried some "surface painting" as I call it. I've also tried to use different colours to the ones I usually use. So these beads have a double-colour base of pink and green (212). Pink - Tuffnell have soooo many: Light Pink, Baby Pink, Powder Pink, Angel Pink, and some time ago I decided to try them all out. For some reason - by mistake! - I bought loads of Light Pink, possibly because I'd mixed it up with Baby Pink which is more expensive. So naturally this was the choice for the new colour combination - I am like this, totally pragmatic: if you've got lots of something, use it! (Even if you hate it!). The green started "leaking" into the pink, of course, BUT only at the beginning. Soon enough I twigged that I must not heat it too much, and it's better to have less green compared to the amount of pink. This is what I've managed to produce (the photos have been taken outside with no sun, it's really cloudy here today!). I'm still thinking about the name. First inclination was something like "Playground" accompanied by the ringing tone of the same title. I don't think I'll sell a lot though with this kind of name!

Next time: all these dots on the surface - they ain't as easy as they look!