More Happy Ivory and Cool Fossil Beads!

I've been busy, but not with making beads. Well...

It was my birthday last Sunday (lovely lovely day! everybody was so kind to me, I got great presents from my family and lots of good wishes from my Facebook friends!), and, as you do, I decided to try and make some beads. "To try" - that's because, as you know, my oxycon has been disagreeable lately, I really need to take it to Tuffnell for a good check. And guess what! - on Sunday it started working and I did manage to make some beads after a long time! Here they are:

As you can see, I'm still experimenting with the Effetre Cool Fossil, I just lllllove this earthy organic feel it adds to the Ivory. The bead on the left has a Dark Ivory base with large dots of Cool Fossil, worked very hot, until the glass started moving, then cooled, shaped and decorated with a twistie of Ivory and Intense Black and hand-pulled murrini of the same composition. (I was told it looks very Japanesee - yippee!). The bead in the middle is of Ivory and Cool Fossil base, but the Cool Fossil has been added in stripes, again worked very hot until it started "breaking" or "splitting" - you can see it by the "waves" created; the simple decoration here is four chips of hand-pulled murrini from a previous bead-making session (described in my blog "Cool Experimenting Part II"). The last bead, the one on the right, started as Effetre Transparent Light Amber (the photos have been taken in natural light, on a grey day - today! so you can't really see how much happy amber-coloured light this bead can radiate), then a layer of Effetre Dark Ivory was added to the surface so that parts of the Amber were left uncovered. I applied a twistie (again described in detail in "Cool Experimenting Part II") on the very edge of the Ivory and paddled it quite well, though I was keen to leave it slightly raised. At the end I decorated each side of this bead with a chip of my own murrini made in the following way:

Start with Dark Ivory, encase it with Transparent Light Amber, encase it again with Dark Ivory, cut "furrows" in the Ivory and put in stripes of Reichenbach Dark Multi stringer. When you apply this murrini, the trick is to paddle it very gently and not to overheat it so that not to spoil the complex middle. Otherwise, as you, probably, know, it will be "eaten" by the dark lines - a pretty effect, but only if you want it!

I like the etching effect on ivory, so this is just what I did: the first bead has been fully etched, the second has the lovely murrini with some shiny mirror and multicolour reduced Double Helix glass effect left unetched, and the third... Believe me, it's a work of art! I mean, of etching art! The stripes which, again, have the reduced reactive Double Helix in their composition (which is, of course, extremely difficult to catch on a photo!), have been left uneched, together with the lovely transparent Light Amber. But the Ivory part and the murrini have been etched. It looks great. I will be putting all of these on ebay over the next couple of weeks. I have to tell you that I'll be going to Moscow soon for quite a long time, but my ebay listings will be managed by Rod (he's been so kind!).

Ah, this is only a small part of what I've been up to, but the time is running out, so I'll have to come back on this in my next blog. :)!

Murrini Making Part II

I had a white rod for the middle, encased it into clear, cut little "grooves", filled them with some coral, encased it all into clear again, then encased it with acid yellow. Heat, heat, attach the punty, more heat, pull. Lots of fun and excitement! You can see what came out on the pic. These are tiny. So conclusion No 1: don't do "subtle".

Then, of course, I needed to put them into my bead. As I mentioned before, everything needs practice. I started paddling them, and they just collapsed! I had to decorate these bright yellow blobs with a strange middle, so I put some tiny black dots on each of them: now they looked like little footprints of a little furry animal. Conclusion No 2: paddle only very gently, if at all.

Seeing my lovely tiny murrini being reduced to dots looking like animal paws, I decided not to paddle them at all. This was risky, but I had to think fast: remember all this was happening while I was making a bead. Just melting these murrini very slowly, watching them making sure that they don't collapse on themselves did the trick: you can see them on the bead, even the teeny-tiny coral lines are noticeable - JUST - under a microscope. It didn't come out 100%, but hey, conclusion No 3: while making one thing, you usually stumble on a new idea which you wouldn't have if you didn't do this one thing in the first place.

Now I know how I can make lovely hollyhocks inside the bead. I have been puzzled by the long middle part of this flower, not quite knowing how to deal with it. The answer is simple: murrini in pink with encased in clear yellow middles!

This particular bead needs more working on it: I put the yellow dots too close to the middle, they started touching the turquoise and now I have tiny black lines there - not good for a perfectionist (which I am not). And, of course, this murrini will do well in my "big, bright and bold" beads, so see you on ebay soon!

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.