I have been obsessed with making encased murrini beads, (and pretty much ONLY encased murrini beads), for the past 2-3 years. And while I still love making them, it is nice to allow my creativity to flow in other directions once in a while. 😀
I also have been thinking it would be nice to offer simpler, less intricate (and less expensive), beads that can compliment my encased murrini charm beads. While I love wearing an entire charm bracelet full of my Reef series beads – I think most people like to use them as accent pieces on a bracelet of many different designs in coordinating colors.
Many of these new charm bracelet beads I’ll be introducing are actually glass designs I have been using for many years in other types of jewelry beads. It will be a fun challenge to re-interpret them on a much smaller scale in my European-style charm bracelet beads. 🙂
Here’s another YouTube video I made while testing murrini. Whenever I make murrini I always test it on white glass to see a true representation of the colors. Also it helps me to see how the murrini behaves in the flame and when applied.
Here are some pictures of the murrini I used during the video after kiln annealing –
There is no speaking or teaching in this video, it is just a demonstration for entertainment purposes only.*
*Because this video is only a demonstration for entertainment purposes, and not for instruction as a tutorial, I will not be offering any advice or information as to the colors, tools or techniques I use. If you learn something new, that’s great! But the video is really just for your enjoyment.
Disclaimer: please do not attempt these techniques unless you are well skilled in working with molten glass in an open flame – if you do try these techniques you assume all responsibility for the outcome of your efforts and agree that you are aware of and will comply with any and all safety precautions associated with making glass beads including but not limited to proper ventilation of your work environment, wearing safety glasses and appropriate clothing, use of an open flame, working with hot glass, being careful around sharp glass, etc., etc… CCGlassArt cannot be held responsible for any negative results you may incur attempting these techniques.
I have been having a lot of fun finishing off my encased murrini beads with these pretty caps! The beads are slightly bigger than my usual charm bracelet beads which just means I can fit even MORE murrini and other glass elements into them. 😀
The caps (in sterling silver, warm gold brass, and solid copper) really dress up the beads. They also add versatility since each bead would look just as lovely worn as a focal on a necklace as they do on a charm bracelet as a centerpiece bead.
All these beads are available right now on Etsy 🙂
If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time you’ll know how much I love all things murrini. Ok, you might say I’m a bit obsessed with it.
I love to make it, I love to work with it, I love to just look at it…Â I make it often, and always end up with much more than I could ever possibly use myself. So, this week I finally got around to listing some of my stash on Etsy!
This is something I’ve been planning to do for a while…YouTube Videos! 🙂 I knew I wanted to give my glass bead fans a peek behind-the-scenes of what I do, and video is a great way to do this.
I quickly discovered that not all the beads I make are well suited to video. My encased murrini beads, for example, will not work for this. I found I move around way too much when making those beads for the video to even be watchable, (a.k.a. ‘Whiplash Productions’, as my father-in-law calls videos that are all over the place they practically make you dizzy, LOL! 😀 ) Don’t worry though, I have lots of other projects planned that should work well with the video format.
One thing to note, these are not instructional, tutorial-type videos. I really wanted the videos to be for entertainment purposes only so that everyone could enjoy them, not just glass-artists. Therefore, I won’t be offering any information as to the materials, tools or techniques I use in the videos. I also have to have a disclaimer for those glass artists who may want to duplicate these techniques, (see below).
I will work to improve these videos as I go along so they are more enjoyable – trying to reduce background noise, and better centering the video screen over my work area, etc.
Thank you for watching!
The finished bead after annealing:
Disclaimer: please do not attempt these techniques unless you are well skilled in working with molten glass in an open flame – if you do try these techniques you assume all responsibility for the outcome of your efforts and agree that you are aware of and will comply with any and all safety precautions associated with making glass beads including but not limited to proper ventilation of your work environment, wearing safety glasses and appropriate clothing, use of an open flame, working with hot glass, being careful around sharp glass, etc., etc… CCGlassArt cannot be held responsible for any negative results you may incur attempting these techniques.
CCGlassArt 