Some more Spun Glass

This set was first a special order and then I liked it so much I made it again for my Etsy store. The burgundy glass that is used in this set is a CIM glass and is a rich, deep burgundy that turns almost all opaque but leaves part of the glass clear for that wonderful sparkle effect. This glass reminds me of a lot of the Vetrofond oddlot glasses that have that effect of the partial clear and the sparkle. Really is pretty to see in person!

Unusual Reaction

This is Red Copper Green when I got an unusual reaction; shiny! I haven't been able to achieve this same reaction since. I have talked to glass suppliers and other lampworkers and haven't been able to come up with why or how I did this in the first place. What I get now is the usual; see below. This golden red is sooo gorgeous that I spent the better part of a two weeks going through two to three rods of glass while at the same time changing the setting on my propane, concentrator, and cleaning my torch. All to no avail! I can't get the same result. And, I remember distinctly that it happened right away. I have some disks that also had the same reaction and that tells me that I really had to do it quickly otherwise the disks would have shattered in the cold air, and/or I would have lost the design of the spiral on the disks.






What this reminds me of is a haze of turquoise over the dark red, which barely shows. If you saw the rod of glass before it melted you wouldn't believe the difference. It is dark red with a core of turquoise. These are pretty in their own right, I just wish I could get the original effect to happen again! I also discovered that getting this result is varied if you notice that some are redder than others.

New Bubble Color

Here is the end result of working with a couple of glasses, terra and another one I can't remember the name of right now. Interesting how the dots are a variety of colors. Pink, blue, green, very interesting. Everytime I make one of these beads I get a different reaction. It definitely makes a difference what base color the bead starts out being and then how the high content silver glass reacts to that color. It's like a house of cards all reacting to the next card that is added. I need a journal just to keep track of what does what!

What a YEAR!

I don't know about everyone else but it was quite a year for me and my family. We sold our house last year, moved, did all that fun stuff you do in a new house - yard, inside shelving, patio, etc., and I worked on my business. It is slowly coming together and I'm learning something new everyday. Glass is like that, you can never learn everything, which is why I love it so much! I found some of the treasurys I was in that got into on the front page. Super neat! I'm the beads on the bottom left!







Being on the Treasury Team has been a blast! I've gotten to visit a lot of interesting shops to pick out items that I want to put in my Treasurys and we have ways that we meet online to talk and exchange ideas. I love working with color and the subtle nuances within each color. Now if I could just figure out how to capture the picture of the Treasurys that I make so I could post them! These have been posted onto Flickr so I downloaded them from there.

Find more photos like this on Beaders Showcase

Etsy Treasury

I am part of a group of Etsy shops that work together to make Treasurys. What a blast! This is one of my newest that after a vigil, literally, I was able to capture one and post my picks. What a hoot! It's like waiting around for the water to boil, it is just not quite ready and then p

Ideas

I've been working on different reactions that I get in the Bubble beads. What a variety of reactions! I need to start a way of keeping track of what I did, because the variation can be so different. I think my first job will be to name the mandrels as they go into the kiln. The top focal came out perfect! It has all the color combinations, a great shift in the irridescent color hues, and the darker looking bubbles. The three are almost the same except for the color of the bubbles which didn't really show up as much in this picture. Even though they are all ivory glass, there is one that is different. The next two are the same reactive glass, same base bead, but what a different color!