The older I get the more I appreciate and am drawn to older things. They remind me of an era gone by and seem to hold so much more value than something brand new since they are already well used.
With this new scroll design, I have tried to recreate that antique feel and old-fashioned look of yesteryear. I look forward to incorporating this pattern into many more of my beads! 🙂
I love purple as well all shades and variations of purple such as lilac, violet, and periwinkle.
In glass there doesn’t seem to be a huge variety to choose from in these shades so in order to make the most of it I have to find creative accents to help bring out all these rich and vivid tones.
Here are this week’s beads, featuring lots of purple in varying hues (and some pretty blue, teal and aqua shades too):
It has been the hottest weeks of the summer so far and therefore my time at the torch has become extremely limited. Thankfully, I was able to complete some beads before the heat wave hit! But until things cool down, I will have to commit all my new beady ideas to paper.
Until then, enjoy this week’s beads – I’ll have some new ones next week too, but after that…it’s up to ‘mother nature’.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think a little bling in a bead is a good thing – make that, a GREAT thing!
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.
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.
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
Dichroic glass is my current obsession. It has completely captivated me and I just can’t get enough. It is a tricky glass to use as the dichroic coating can easily burn off if exposed directly to the flame and sometimes the glass it’s adhered to can be fussy. I’ve lost 2 big beads, and 2 beautiful strips of expensive dichro to incompatible glass reactions…
Thankfully I had success with the beads below, just listed on eBay for only .99 cents each (and free shipping)! I’ve been selling on eBay for over 10 years and this is something I’ve done before and would like to continue. I feel starting the price at .99 cents enables people to set their own budget for what they can afford.
I had a hard time letting this bead go. It’s a Soleil series bead which came out so beautifully. The dichroic glass is simply stunning in person. I’ve held onto it for a couple weeks so I’ve had time to admire it all I want – and I have some beautiful pictures to remember it by. But now it’s time to allow someone else the enjoyment of owning this shimmering bead.
I wish I could show you this bead in person, especially in direct sunlight. Definitely an eyecatcher with bold, cheerful colors just in time for summer!
****Click Here To View This Auction Item On eBay****
I had a hard time coming up for a name for this bead. I knew I wanted it to relate to outer space in some way since to me it looks like a planet. But ‘Planet Bead’ just didn’t have a nice ring to it…I thought maybe ‘Lunar’ but I already have a dichroic bead series called Luna. So I settled on Celestial. This can apply to any ‘other-worldly’ things like stars, planets, etc.
Because this bead has many dark shades of glass swirled throughout its design, it was difficult to get a photograph that really captured it’s true beauty. This photo shows the bead off well, but it is much more breathtaking in person. Those bits of dichroic suspended between the opaque and transparent glass is incredible, the depth in this bead just cannot be fully appreciated in a 2D photo.
****Click Here To View This Auction Item On eBay****
Until next time,
CC
CCGlassArt 