Tag: glass beads

All That Glitters…Is Goldstone!

On By ccglassartIn What's Happening NowLeave a comment

Maybe it’s just me, but I think a little bling in a bead is a good thing – make that, a GREAT thing!

Echo Series Bead With Encased Goldstone

I had a hard time offering this bead for sale, I wanted to keep it for myself!

This bead is so incredibly beautiful in person (if I do say so myself 😉 with all that shimmering, glittering goldstone suspended in crystal clear glass.

I usually don’t photograph my beads outside but I just had to take this one out in the sun to try and capture its true beauty.

I also love the fact that the colors are fairly neutral, so this bead can be worn with any other color.

Celestial Series Bead in Deep Blues

My Celestial series beads were a ‘happy accident’. I was trying to achieve a layering effect with both transparent and opaque glass. I wanted to be able to see the inner layers of glass from the surface.

With the addition of the silvered ivory and Dichroic glass it was clear that this bead resembled something ‘other-worldly’, hence the name = Celestial.

It may look like a pretty straightforward, easy design to create, but this is actually one of the hardest beads to make simply because the colors and layers are so carefully arranged.

And when you’re working with hot, molten glass you don’t have a lot of time to think about placement. Half the time the colors are completely different when heated so a lot of it is guesswork, hoping it will come out as planned.

Art Deco Series Bead w/ Handpulled Twistie

Speaking of ‘happy accidents’… This bead started off as planned, but then took on a life of it’s own half way through.

There is a lot going on with this bead and including the time it takes to create the twistie you see in the middle, it’s one of the most time consuming designs I have made.

The twistie is handmade, by me, using olive green, deep red and ivory colored glass. It is applied in a specific pattern  to a ball of glass then carefully heated and, when molten, handpulled while being twisted at the same time.

This bead also includes a sheet of pure fine silver foil encased just beneath the surface. The silver foil gives the bead this unique warm glow as it reflects light from within.

I wound goldstone stringer around each ‘hemisphere’ and left it slightly raised off the surface so that the bead had some texture and dimension to it.

**All these beads are currently available on eBay – just click here to view them! **

Until next time,

CC

Satake Soup

On By ccglassartIn Tips & TricksLeave a comment

Satake Glass Rods

A while ago, I purchased a small stash of Japanese Satake glass rods. I kept hearing that this glass that is a ‘match made in heaven’ for those of us with single fuel torches. So I just had to try it!

When I first got it and tried it, it was a disaster! I boiled every color to smitherines! Since then, those beautiful glass rods have just been in a lonley corner of my studio collecting dust…literally.

Then, a couple days ago, I decided to try using this glass again. This attempt was slightly more successful than the last.

Satake glass turns to drippy molten soup in an instant making it very difficult to control, much less achieve a pleasing and symmetrical shape. I did manage a nice bi-colored tab bead and heart. BUT……what I forgot, is that Satake glass anneals at a lower temperature than the Italian/German glass I normally use. So when I pulled these Satake beads out of the kiln the next morning…this is what I saw…

Satake HeartSatake Disk

 

You can see how the glass slumped in the kiln. Also, the brown on the disk-shaped bead ended up overheating and discoloring a bit, turning more metallic.

This is a very tricky glass and one that I probably won’t be using often as the methods I’ve grown accustomed to simply don’t apply to Satake. It is also considerably more expensive, so although it’s fun to play with, the most I will probably do with this glass in the future is just make spacer beads with it.

C.C.

Musings of a Lampworker – The First Post

On By ccglassartIn What's Happening NowLeave a comment

Although I very much doubt many people, if any, will actually read this first blog post, I have to start somewhere – so I’m just going to jump right in.

At the moment, I am waiting on two good sized glass orders. Including beautiful rubino and silver glass just waiting to be incorporated into some new designs I have planned.

I recently purchased a couple of new tutorials with advanced techniques I am dying to try. One using copper mesh I’ve had for a long time from fusing and another making rose murrini to bring me back to my painting on glass days.

Soon to come, beads for sale on Etsy and Artfire – not sure about eBay…still thinking over that idea. Their ever increasing listing and selling fees give me pause – but I have many years of great feedback on eBay so I may just dip my toe in for a while to test the waters there first.

Next post…pictures!

CC