Tag: flamework glass beads

New Bead Collection – “Shire”

On By ccglassartIn Photos, What's Happening NowLeave a comment

This is probably one of my most favorite sets I’ve ever made, definitely in the top 5! I am so proud of the way it turned out, if I may say so myself. 😉

As often happens, a collection of beads starts out as something completely different in my head.

Then, as I make each bead they take on their own unique personalities as they are born in the flame.

So many of the materials I use produce unpredictable results that don’t fully show themselves until they’re removed from the kiln some 14-17 hours after they are first made.

I’m often surprised at how well the beads turn out (or greatly disappointed when they don’t turn out as well as I thought they would and end up in my ever-growing ‘learning experience’ pile).

At the moment I completed stringing these beads together with all the coordinated spacers, I instantly knew this was a very special set.

Once I saw how all the the colors of soft jade and dark ivory worked together with the violet/periwinkle shades that developed from the different silver glasses I used, the name for this set, ‘Shire’, immediately popped into my head.

Being an old fan of LOTR books and movies, I felt these beads captured the essence of that wistful fantasy land so well.

“Shire” is available now on eBay – click here to view.

Until next time,

CC
http://www.ccglassart.com

Spring Has Sprung

On By ccglassartIn Photos, What's Happening NowLeave a comment
Hello! I hope you are having a great week and enjoying beautiful weather as we welcome Spring. 🙂 Here are my most recently listings on eBay:

SEA GRASS – This first collection reminded me of those wispy sea grasses blowing in the wind against a dusty blue sky on a sandy dune at the beach. It includes a lot of cylinder shaped beads in varying sizes for lots of options when designing.
Time Left: 3d

LUNA – The flowing colors in this bead are so beautiful in person. I named this bead Luna for the ethereal look the layers of silver glass gave to the base of this bead, in contrast to the rustic surface texture in places from transparent reactive shards. This bead also features a unique, new dimensional-looking silver glass murrini I recently made, on the front and back.
Time Left: 3d

SPRING – There was no other name for this wildflower inspired set. With the fresh, crisp colors of lime and teal in contrast to the pretty rose pink from Rubino Oro glass, this set just begged for the addition of some floral beads for a light, airy and still organic look.
Time Left: 6d


Until next time,
Christie
CCGlassArt

Pandora Pandemonium

On By ccglassartIn Photos, What's Happening NowLeave a comment

While Pandora beads have been around for a while now, I really did not take much notice of them until this past Christmas when the commercially made beads were being advertised all over the place.

Everytime I turned around they were showing up in the newspaper, on television commercials, the internet, and magazines. Being a consumer of all things jewelry related, they grew on me and I had to have one. Of course, as a lampworker, I couldn’t actually *buy* the commercially made glass beads – I had to make them myself.

The main difference between Pandora style beads and regular lampwork beads is just the size of the hole. All that was needed for me to make my new beads was the large size steel mandrels which create the correct size hole. It took a little getting used to holding and turning the much larger mandrel in my hand but after a couple of tries I had it down.

Once annealed and fitted with sterling silver end caps, I had a lovely bracelet filled with all my lampworked Pandora style beads (that’s my bracelet in the photo above)….and a few charms too ;-D  I imagine most people probably add more charms to their bracelet than lampwork beads, but I just couldn’t stop making these beauties – so my bracelet is loaded with them.

TIP: If you are thinking of buying a Pandora style bracelet yourself, one tip I have is to purchase the bracelet a full size (or at least 1/2 size) bigger than you usually wear. That extra length will be taken up by the lampwork beads once they’re added to the bracelet.

The beads that I get the most compliments on from my own bracelet are the ones I now offer for sale in my Ebay store. Here are just a couple of the Pandora style beads I offer that are currently available:

Until next time,

CC
http://www.ccglassart.com

The Making of Murrini

On By ccglassartIn Tips & Tricks, What's Happening NowLeave a comment

With my recent purchase of an optic mold, I have begun a journey to make my own intricately striped murrini.

An optic mold is a small graphite vessel of any shape or size, in which you put a cylinder of hot, soft glass so that it takes on whatever shape the mold happens to be. In my case I have a mold shaped like a flower with many ‘spokes’ to form indentations where I’ll add thin lines of color to create mulitple stripes on the outside of the murrini.

Once the layers of glass are all melted in and the cylinder molten, it is pulled into a long cane which stretches the design evenly throughout the glass.

This cane is then cross-cut into slices that are individually applied to lampwork beads to create tiny, beautiful intricate patterned designs such as the one seen above.

Making my own murrini is something I’ve done for quite a while now, such as the simple black striped Raku/Chalcedony murrini seen in these photos.

While these murrini are beautiful and I will always use this style in my work, I longed to make my own multiple striped murrini that is much more intricate with many different layers and colors of glass.

For this type of multiple-striped murrini, the use of an optic mold is essential in order to create dozens of evenly spaced lines.

There is definitely a learning curve of understanding how the different glass colors interact with each other once they’re stretched into long canes. Many glass colors simply do not contain enough pigment in order to retain their brilliant colors once pulled so thin. I can see that I will need to do much experimenting and keep careful notes in order to come up with successful murrini designs and color combinations.

Another type of murrini I’ve recently made, that does not require the use of an optic mold, was a pretty flower murrini in California Poppy colors.

This murrini is constructed in much the same way regular, striped murrini is made – but in a ‘reverse painting’ manner. That is, the glass must be layered with the inner colors of the petals applied first, instead of last as they usually are, since the murrini is to be fanned out instead of pulled inward.

Construction of this type of murrini requires a few more steps, such as building the stamens in the center of the flower. These are multiple strands of clear encased opaque glass in colors such as green, brown and yellow.

Application of the flower murrini is a little tricky as well. With traditional murrini you want the stripes on the outside to point toward the center creating a ‘spoked’ pattern (like a bicycle wheel). With flower murrini you use the heat of the flame and special metal tools to help push the petals outward, as a blooming flower would look. However, when heat is applied to these little murrini chips the glass has a strong desire to curl inward toward the center – so careful heat control must be used along with the use of the tools to achieve the desired, natural open-flower look.

I currently have 2 sets up on eBay that both include beads containing my new California Poppy flower murrini:

WATERLILY – available till Sunday on eBay.

BRONZE AGE – available till Sunday on eBay.

Until next time,

CC
http://www.ccglassart.com