When You Keep Making the Same Damn Ugly Bead

Does anyone else ever strike upon an idea and the results are UGLY? So you try it again and it's even uglier? And yet, everything in you tells you that there "should" be a way to make it...not so ugly???

I've been making the same damn ugly bead for most of the summer... every few weeks at the torch. I fell in love with light turquoise... a known reactive glass. One of my favorite ways to encase is actually with #1 clear frit, which can create a mottled water-color background. I love LOVE the way just a little clear frit looked over the light turquoise. But everything I did to the bead after that... looked like crap!

After making several of these (Why did I keep them? They are so ugly!), I finally realized that the turquoise was seeping through the frit, (uh - DUH! That WAS the point!) and I would need to put down a "benign" glass that would not react.


I should interject... the bead I was making was for me. I wanted a big holed bead in a barrel shape. I put down white before using the rubino and voila... I have my bead.

So keep making ugly beads... it's the only way to learn to make pretty ones!

What's this bead for??? I'll show you tomorrow here on http://hollysfollybeads.blogspot.com