Ekho and Canyon de Chelly

I accomplished my goal of making an entire set of beads using silvered glass instead of just test beads.  I can't wait to make these into some sort of jewelry!!!!!  These were created after I read a free tutorial on Lampwork Etc. by Naos called Fire Opals. 

These All have silver foil and some application of Ekho over a base of black, transparent orange or french blue and encased in clear.  The last one in the second photo is not this technique - it is actually my fist attempt at my own verson of Jane Perala's Rock Pool beads.  Don't really care for my result so I'm not sure I'll even give it another try.  So back to the rest of the beads in this set.  My favorite bead in this set is #8 which was a total accident.  I hate to waste expensive silvered glass and when I had a fairly good piece of Ekho pop off the end of the rod and onto a strip of silver foil - well I just couldn't resist making it all into a blob and pulling it into a stringer on the end of a rod of dark turquoise.  I wound that over a black base, reduced it and encased it and voila!!!!  I really like the opal look to these beads and the intensity of the color all depends on how much reduction I used.  The ones that look most like fire seem to be from the beads with Ekho applied in dot pattern rather than trails.  I flattened the dots so I'm sure that cooled the Ekho faster so it is my guess that is what helps bring out the fire opal look.  A big thanks to Naos for sharing this tutorial!!!!!!

I have read a lot about Canyon de Chelly and have tried it here and there but I never got anything exciting out of it.  I came across Karolen's post on her blog showing her favorite combinations with this glass so I made a few using her suggestions.  These are test beads but I liked some of them so much that I made a bunch more of them today.  Can't wait to see how they turn out when I get them out of the kiln in the morning.

 1. CDC with CG, 2. CDC with lt. turquoise, 3. CG base with silver foil and CDC stringer, 4. CDC and stringer of opal yellow, 5. lt. turquoise base with a strip of silver foil and CDC stringer, 6. same as last bead but w/out silver foil, 7. CDC base large stringer of lt. turquoise then dots of CDC on top of that, 8. CDC base, silver foil, lt. and dk. turquoise decoration, 9. same as last bead but no foil and only used dk. turquoise, 10. dk. t base with CDC decoration.

1. CDC and lt. t, 2. same as last bead but with silver foil, 3 - 6 are all bases of CDC and decorated with lt. and dk. turquoise, 7. CDC, CG and dk. turquoise, 8. CDC and CG, 9. CG base, silver foil stripe in the middle with CDC over that and lt. and dk. turquoise on either side of that.
I will probably try etching a few of these beads to see if that will look as good as I think it will.

I was trying to get close to Nomad's record of making 78 beads but I only made 35 total beads this round.  I'm curious to see how many beads I can make when I have a full day at the torch - maybe then I can come closer to Nomad's count?!?!?!?  It's fun to try but I doubt I will make that many in one sitting.  Hats off to you Nomad!

Beads I forgot to photograph for my last post....

This should be short and sweet compared to the last post.
Ribbon Tab Beads - I had read about these somewhere and gave them a try using my own ideas and they came out completely different than what I thought I was trying to make - if that makes any sense, and I kind of like them.  They are a great way to use up scraps laying around on my work space and quite fun!

These are experiments with DH Aurae and Ekho.  I always seem to experiment with silvered glass but never make a complete set so I'm going to make that a goal for the next time I use that type of glass.

1. Base of aurae with strings of ekho wrapped around, encased.
2. Base of canyon de chili, small dots of sangre melted flat, then larger aurae dots placed in an offset pattern to the sangre so it's covering some sangre and some cdc.  Melt flat, reduce and cap all aurae in clear, melt flat and reduce a final time.
3. Same as bead number 2 but using an offset triangle design.
4. Base of cdc, trails of sangre melted in, trails of aurae melted in and reduced, trails of a very thin clear stringer and reduced again, encased in clear.
5. Same as bead number 2 but with a base of copper green.
6. Same application using cdc base but in a long tube bead.  It is interesting that I could not get the same colors to come up on the long bead - hmmmm...  It is more colorful in the photo than in person.
7. Just to make sure I could still get good colors I made one last round bead using the same glass and application.  So it's the long bead shape that seemed to caused the difference for me.

One last batch of silvered glass test beads (which are very hard to photograph so the vibrancy of these beads just does not show well here at all - bummer):

1. Twisty of sangre and aurae over CIM peace - reduced.
2. Same as 1 but encased and boy does this look way cooler!
3. Same as 2 but without reduction and it's just sort of flat in color but it is a very cool bead that is a bear to photograph.  It's a waste of silvered glass here so I think I could use a different glass here to get the same effect.
4. Peace base, sangre/aurae twistie wrapped and melted in.  Small random tiny dots of clear melted in, reduced then large dots of clear in a triangle pattern melted flat with one more reduction.  This is a wayyyyy coool bead in person!
5. Pulsar base, dots of sangre that are covered in aurae, reduced and coated with clear.  Raised dots of reduced aurae.  I think this would be prettier on a lighter blue base as the pulsar is just a tad too dark.
6. Peace base, s/a twisty wrapped and random dots of lt. aqua, reduced and clear encased.  I prefer aurae reduced so I would skip the lt. aqua or any type of transparent glass application before reduction.
7. Elphaba base, s/a twist, reduced, encased in clear.
8. Sangre base, aurae stinger melted flat, reduced, encased.
9. Sangre base, aurae dots in triangle pattern, reduced.  Once side covered in clear and the other side with pale aqua (couldn't see a difference in the final bead.) Reduced raised dots of aurae.  Love the blues and yellows that are in this bead!!
10. Ivory base, dots of sangre in center, aurae on outer sides, all melted flat. Aurae dots on top of the sangre - melt but not flat, reduce all.  Poke holes in center dots, reduce again, cap holes with clear and cap outside dots with clear also.  Melt a bit but not flat.
11.  Now this is my favorite bead of the day and I have not been able to repeat it since.  It looks like dragon scales and the colors are many and the bead looks wonderfully organic.  It's also stuck on my mandrel for all eternity - haven't had that happen in quite a while.
Base is copper green, small dots of sangre melted flat, then larger aurae dots placed in an offset pattern to the sangre so it's covering some sangre and some cdc.  Melt flat, reduce and cap all aurae in clear, melt flat and reduce a final time.
12. Canyon de Chili base with same application as number 11 but used psyche instead of aurae.
13. This bead is way too dark.  I had read tat ELO makes a nice base for silvered glass.  I tried it here with psyche and I didn't have a good result with it.

Okay so this is not turning out to be short and sweet but I'm down to the last 2 photos so we are almost finished.  I guess this is what I get for going on vacation and not keeping up with my posts but it gives us lots to look at right?
The large set of beads on the bottom of the photo are a set a customer picked for me to make into a viking weave bracelet.  The beads on top are the recent earring pair options I made for her to pick from.  Wonder which ones she will want? 

 

The last group of beads to post!!!!!

I made a few red white and blue beads in honor of the 4th of July.  I had some glass laying around in the right colors so I just had a little fun.  The next 3 beads are also from scrap twisties.  A customer liked this style of bead recently so they were fresh on my mind so I made a few.  The last beads are extras from the blue earring pair session. 

Okay so that is it for a while!!!!  This week I have bead and jewelry orders to fill so I will be busy, busy, busy or better said, happy, happy, happy!!!!  Thanks for taking the time to read two long posts today!!!  Hope you all have a wonderful week!!!!!

Rings and Things

Seems like forever since I've been on here so I have quite a few things to put up.  I have two styles of rings that I made beads for.  First up are the ones that use the thin disc and are adjustable.  I have just two of the rings left for purchase.  Those of you who already have the ring, I have many more discs that I want to make.  I enjoyed making these on request for a friend and it got me to thinking of a bunch of new designs I want to make - hopefully later this week.  If ya'll have any special color combination requests please let me know.  Here are the 6 discs I made using black, white and fuchsia glass.

Bead on the left is sold!

 And these next two discs are made with rose quartz, gelly's sty, white and black glass.

Bead on the right is sold!

Next up are the bead discs that fit the Staxx Brand ring - which you can buy at many boutiques that sell Troll and Pandora style jewelry.

I'm keeping this one!

Now for the rest of the beads I have been making.  Some of these I made before I went to Puerto Rico and some after.  These are my first attempt at Rainbow beads and I have to say they were very fun to make.  They take a while but I love to do the precision dot placement and that is what these beads are all about.

 These next beads are an experiment with silver foil and/or DH Kalypso.

 1. Base of clear, wrapped in silver foil, burnished, not burned off, encased in kalypso, reduced, clear encased.
2. Same as first bead only with a base of leaky pen.
3. Base of sangre, patches of silver foil randomly applied and slightly burned off in spots in order to pick up other patches of foil.  Wispy trails of kalypso all melted in, shaped, reduced, clear encased.
4.  Same as bead number 3 but with leaky pen base.
5.  Same as bead number 3 but with a clear base.
6.  Same as bead number 3 but with veiled RO base.
7. Same as bead number 3 but with a pale green base and pale aqua encasement.
8. My favorite bead of the batch!  Same as 3 but with a pulsar base and used a very heavy reduction.
9. My second favorite bead of this batch! Base of black, patches of silver foil, dots of kalypso all melted in, shaped, reduced fairly heavily, clear encased.  Reminds me of fire opal - love it!
10.  Same as bead number 9 but with a base of rose quartz.  Has a very opal look to it.

 This next set of beads are a variation of a bead I did a while back - think it was called moon rock?  I loved the streaky organic look to these.  The blue used here is CIM pulsar - a favorite of mine, along with use of silver foil over ivory.

Moon Rock Beads

I just realized I have some more beads that I made that I forgot to photograph.  I'll post those in my next blog post. 

Hope everyone is enjoying the 4th of July Holiday!  This has been one of the most enjoyable 4th's I can remember in a long while.  Thanks to all our great friends that made for one great day after another this weekend!!!!!