Glass act of the day

Made a half-dozen cabochons yesterday, and all are basically acceptable. One is exceptional, and raised my personal bar so that I must make another half-dozen utilizing the elements of design I employed. I spent an hour or so sitting at a caffeine depot, nursing a chai, and drawing some designs. I’ll post pix of my goreyglass after the Edwardian Ball weekend.

I need to design, not just assemble. This is true in my beadmaking as well. I tend to be pretty free-form, which is fine. But having good design sense and technique handy as tools makes free-form beading and fusing more fun. I’ve got a ways to go, though.

Junkyard beads

I gathered up all the loose frit, silver and gold, blasted chunks, &c. on my work surface and put them in a pile. Then I grabbed a rod of pinkish ivory from my cheap stash for my base bead, and melted great globs of stuff into it. And I do mean globs! It was tremendous fun, and I used a few basic techniques for effect — encasing and smashing flat, poking, and swirling. Should be cooled in a little while, I’m excited to see how they turned out.

junkyard_trio

junkyard_encased_smashed

It used to drive me crazy to have to wait on beads to cool. Now, I find it delicious.