Beads for ISGB Red Cross Fundraiser and a Few Others

I wanted to make some beads to donate to the ISGB Red Cross Fundraiser.  The proceeds go to the Japan Disaster Relief Fund.  I had made some nice black, white and red beads before so I decided to make a few larger focals for this.

The bead on the far left is just an extra bead for another project but all 4 red beads I plan to donate.  These are all quite a bit larger than my standard bracelet bead but you can't tell by this photo.

I also wanted to experiment a bit more with Raku.  I have used it a couple times in the past but recently read an article that sparked my interest to try it again.

These are okay.  Not as thrilling as I'd hoped.  There is some skill involved in getting the colors to come out of the raku and I have a ways to go before I get it to do what I would like it to do.

Purple seems to be a frequently requested color and while I have a good formula for a purple that works well for my standard bead I felt I needed to branch out and give Thai Orchid a try and make some beads that don't necessarily fit my typical style.

This was not what I was hoping for but hey, now I know that this particular purple is too dark to use in this manner.  It shows as black in the photos and in real life it looks purple if you take a good look but when customers want purple they want a purple that is easy to see right?  The far left bead in the second photo has dots of either crocus or count von count over white and it's a really nice purple.  The top photo shows the long beads I made with a bit of pixi dust and val cox frit.  None of these beads in either photo are anything special in my opinion.  I seem to be in a bit of a frump.

I have a bracelet request that is really stumping me for some reason.  Not sure if I'm just creatively burned out right now or what but the customer wants blue beads.  It's a gift for his daughter and she says she likes sky blue and when the customer picked out beads from other projects that he classified as sky blue, he picked aqua.  So I made a variety of blue beads trying to combine aqua with sky blue.  I'm just not feeling these beads - am I just burned out and these beads are nice and I just can't see/feel it?  I've made a lot of blue beads since I started doing this so who knows. I'm open for comments and suggestions on this one.

As always, thanks for reading my bead blog!  Spring is finally here in NWO so hopefully some fresh air and sunshine will bring back my creativity and I'll get a nice bracelet made and many other fun beads and jewelry.