Packing up the Studio.

Okay so I'm in the process of packing up my studio for the big migration back to the north and I'm looking at all the mandrels just sitting there with bead release on them.  I hate the thought of wasting all that precious bead release so I left out a little bit of color (glass rods) from my shipping boxes and decided to use whatever was laying around on my work space and make beads.  This way I would not be wasting little bits of glass, time spent dipping mandrels, bead release and even better,  I would have even less to pack up!  Yeah yeah, that's it - I really don't "need" to make beads, I'm doing it for the good of the environment and such.  So on to the good stuff...

I made beads on two different days so these are not in any particular order.  I'll just start with my favorite bead of the batch. 

Guess what this is made from?  Commando of course.  I had some large hole (Pandora style) mandrels I needed to use up and I thought it might be kind of nice to make a few of my Commando beads for my "Change a Bead" necklaces. 

These are too large for the bracelets but would be very nice on the necklaces. 

I made some more of the "Corina subtle striped beads" also intended for my "change a bead necklace" or other pendant style design.

Then I moved on to some twisties I had laying around from prior work and made some of my Pink Zebra beads on the large hole mandrels.  That got me to thinking I should try and make Aqua Zebra beads and Red Zebra beads to see how those colors would work.  I kind of like them but the pink is still my favorite for the Zebra Bead.

And of course I used up some of my "tiger/leopard" twisties too.  I know who will want these - I'll send them in the next batch Lowanne!

The rest are just photos of the other beads from my efforts to use up what I had laying around.  Some not so great but what the heck.  Sometimes people like beads I don't care much for and they end up with a good home too.  So here they are.

 These are on standard size mandrels - not large hole.

 Back to large hole mandrels

This last photo is a bit blurry but I wanted to include it because it's a new color I tried for the first time.  It's Kiwi 591620 and I get a lot of requests for green.  These are pretty interesting and the bead on the right would be a nice size for a Pandora style bracelet too.

I still have a few mandrels left just staring at me each time I pass by the table.  I may just have to make beads one more time before I finish packing it all up.