Back to Beads

Well I accomplished my two goals for 2011 but in doing so I took some time away from the torch.  I got a selling website up and running and I ordered my business cards - they shipped yesterday so I should get them soon!!!
So I now have a couple of days worth of beads to get posted here on my blog.

First up are my beads from two days ago.  I had a short day at the torch so one photo will do.  I had so much fun making the beads in my "twisty reaction" set from my last post so I made some more:

Yesterday I realized I had not kept up with my personal bead challenge for 2011.  "Shaping beads" is the next section in Corina's book but I have to agree with her that this really should go farther back in the book.  In this section I didn't really learn anything new but it was a good review.  Tabular, cube, barrel, cone, bicone, and heart were the shapes in this section.  I still cannot make a good heart.  I would love to be a natural at making them because I think they are pretty and I do get requests for them but honestly I do not enjoy making them so I do not really practice them.  Here they are:

I did not do a separate barrel because that is the base for the bicone, cone and heart so I actually made 4 long barrels anyway.   Nothing much to say really other than I think adding a few colorful cones to my sets may be fun. 

Next I had wanted to try and create this really cool orange and pink combo that I had seen on line somewhere.  I did not achieve the desired result but ended up finding an interesting combo anyway.

 All of the large beads are encased with Rose quartz 511907-2 and the bases are: Clockwork (no number but I think it's vetrofond), Tangerine sparkle (no number but it's vetrofond), Phoenix 511277, Orange dreamcycle 791807, and Orange 791072. The little blobs of glass are just a quick wind of the base color for my records - except dreamcycle doesn't have one because it was so shocky I didn't want to wast my time trying to get another blob out of my rod.

The bead made with the clockwork and Rose Quartz produced the coolest color which unfortunately doesn't show in the photos.  It's the color of the inside of a pink grapefruit. It has a very refreshing look/feel to it.  

I had also seen another bead that I wanted to give a try.  The post had said, it was a little frustrating to make but I have to say I loved making these.  I only tried two because I was concerned they wouldn't come out after I read the post about them but I think I will be making more of these:

They do take some time to make but for me it was an application that I enjoyed.  Wish making hearts was this easy.  Come to think if it, the artist that said these were frustrating had a bunch of beautiful hearts - maybe our brains work differently?  I do like the precision of dot placement that is for sure.

One thought leads to another so here are a few more beads from my day at the torch:

 Black base, white dots covered in assorted transparents I had laying on my workspace.

 White base, Great Bludini (can't remember which one b/c it was just laying around,) and either veiled RO or regular RO.

Had a rod of commando laying around so I pick that up and made this with ivory and black - I sure seem to keep coming back to this combination.

After all these experiments I decided I wanted to make a set of my "twisty reaction" beads that had a lot of blue in them.  And of course I wanted to make a few other color combos too.  Here is what I finished my day making:

 All black bases, Lt and Dk Turquoise, French Blue, Opal Yellow, RO and a bit of Copper Green on a few.  The set of blues on the far left will soon be up on my artfire site!  I especially like the 9th bead and I want to make more beads in this color combination so I can put them in a set:

Check my artfire site later today!  I'll have more bead sets for sale soon!