Just when I think I've found the most amazing thing about the glass I'm using, I do something else and get blown away by what happens!!

These are the latest, the base beads are wrapped in silver foil, which is then burned off in the flame resulting in that wonderful colour and texture!!
 
I've put dots on top, and also used glass that will reduce in the right kind of flame giving a metallic shine to them.  

The reducing part is a bit tricky, I seem to get the effect but end up with one part of the bead where it burns off again, I guess it's another case of PPP -- I have to make more of these beads....
** A word of caution - silver fumes are toxic, so if you are going to use any glass with silver make sure your ventilation is VERY good!**

My beads are annealed and I'm thrilled as I only lost about three of them to cracking.  Now I've started making some simple necklaces and have to get some things ready to present to the Gallery.  Also David Paterson the glass blower who does the annealing for me wants me to stop by and talk about my face beads, perhaps he'll put some in his studio I don't know.


Adding murrini to the beads is fun and I'm still experimenting with that.

Here's the necklace I'm wearing right now, a cute little lady at the cash in Dollarama said she really liked it and made my day :o)



This necklace was put together by my good friend Carole Nelson and myself, she wanted it for her Daughter-in-Law, and I do hope Dacia likes it.

Yesterday I decided to make stacked dot beads. They're a lot of fun to make, mixing and matching colours.  I can get the stacking bit going ok, but still need practice placing the dots evenly around the bead.


Here's a picture of my summer workspace, nothing fancy, and I really want to get a better fan for the window.  There's a door at the far end of the porch that I keep open when I'm torching for a through draught, but since I broke the box fan I've had to use the one in the pic and it just doesn't quite cut it.