Beads beads beads

I've been playing around with some more new ideas for this mini set and I'm pleased with the result! I'll be making some more of these in different colours. I called the set 'Silks', because the soft swirls remind me of dyed silk scarves.

Another new style for me is this beach bead. I've made a couple of these now and I'm enjoying making lots of different beaches...this one is called Hope Cove, which is a gorgeous sandy beach here in Devon.
I really, really love this set. I made a twisty with light and dark blue, turquoise and purple and then encased it in clear. The result is these stripes and zig zags, which are magnified by the clear. I'm very tempted to keep them...!
I will be listing these beads and more on ebay later on today.

Autumn...

...not that we've actually had a summer yet. Ho hum. I'll still be making bright, summery beads all the way through winter, got to brighten up those short, dark days somehow!

I'm a great believer in the way colours can affect mood, so I love the fact that I can almost create my own mood when I make beads and jewellery. For my 'day job' I work with clothes, so I'm very aware all the time of what's 'in' for each season...there is lots of purple, hot pink, teal and blue at the moment, which pleases me as these are my favourite colours. However, the trend for acid yellow and murky mustard seems to be persisting, sadly, as I hate them! You'll never see me making a bead in these colours. Yes, that is just my personal taste and I probably should make the odd wasabi/uranium/ghee coloured bead for those of you who love these colours, but I just can't bring myself to make something I don't like myself.

So, using colours I do like, here are some on-trend purple pebbles and another spacey bead with gorgeous blue, mauve and green dots. I have resisted the temptation to keep this little beauty for myself and both are now on ebay!

Variety is the spice of life

I've been making lampwork beads for two years now (with a couple of breaks for moving workshops) and I have yet to find my signature style. Does this matter? I don't think so, not at the moment, anyway. I am having so much fun playing and experimenting, I'm not quite ready to commit to a certain style.



My latest batch of beads are certainly proof of this! The top bead is made with Aurae, still my glass of the moment. It amazes me that it can look so different, simply by changing the base glass. And, lets face it, even using the same base glass is no guarantee that it'll look the same each time...this is one fickle glass.


The second bead is yet another moon, still one of my favourite styles. There are so many different ways of making moon beads, it never gets boring. I love the way the moon in this bead appears to glow, whatever the light. Just like the 'real' moon, in fact!

The third bead is fresh, zingy and fun. I don't make many beads in this style, but when I do, I love the results. I've been playing a lot with different colour combinations lately, so expect to see more of this sort of thing!

The final set of beads is a new style for me. I've made organic beads before, but not as a set. I just don't have the patience, as my Hothead torch is sloooow. I do love this organic, pebbly style, though, so I will make more.

Then of course there are my spacey beads...and my gem nugget sets...so many different beads so make and so little time!

Yup, you've guessed it - these beads are now up on ebay.

Inspiration...

More inspiration from nature...two hydrangea bushes in front of my house are in bloom and the colours are so beautiful, I had to try and make a bead in the same colours! Half the fun of creating a bead is looking at all my glass rods and deciding which ones to use. For the base of the bead, I used this gorgeous semi-transparent mauve and I think it's worked perfectly, along with the swirls of blue, pink and lilac.

I have just listed the bead, along with some others, on ebay, but I'm so tempted to keep it! Chris (hubby) says, "You can always make another one..." and technically I can...but the wonderful - and sometimes frustrating - thing about beadmaking is that you can rarely make two beads exactly the same. Which is great for anyone who buys one, because you know that your bead will be truly individual!

Broke

Not me, but these two lovely beads!

Every now and then it happens - you're taking the bead off the mandrel, cleaning it or even just looking at it and suddenly it's in pieces. I've been very lucky up until this point, in that it's only ever happened to beads I don't care about. Unfortunately, I love these two! The first broke in three pieces and the second has a chip out of the top. Why did it happen? Sometimes it can be down to different glasses being incompatible with each other or there too much silver on the bead, it may be pressed too thin or waved around in the cold air for too long when you take it out of the flame.

Whatever the reason, I'm not happy about it. I'm really enjoying making spacey beads and I particularly love these - I can spend ages looking at them and I see something new every time. They are made with a black glass that reacts with silver, pure silver foil and silver rich glass - Aurae (again!) and another one called Triton.

Still, nothing a bit of glue won't fix, and now I'm just going to have to keep them both...hee hee!