Heat Issue

I was cleaning beads from yesterday's harvest and a piece flew off of one of my faves... so sad. I'm certain it was a heat issue but I SWEAR the bead was glowing the whole time! Sigh...

I was so proud of this bead... I never would have tried it had I not tried the dot challenge!!

As with happens with all of my "intact" accidents, I'll make myself a piece of jewelry with it. I can't tell you the compliments I get on my boo-boo beads and I stand there and tell people what's wrong with them! UGH!

Beautiful Failure

I'm sure that title up there is confusing to some of you but to me... it means progress. Your skills never progress if you don't try. And every successful lampworker I know has a drawer full of failures that come from parking your butt behind a torch and spending hours and hours there. It's the only way to get better.

What my vacation has taught me is I miss the time I should be spending behind the torch. All this social networking B.S. is just that. I can't think of one sale I've gained because somebody "liked" me. But what I do know is that my beads should speak for themselves and the more I torch, the louder their voices will be!

One of the things I did last week was to start dealing with this issue of cleaning up my life. I read a story about a bead maker who moved and all the scraps on her table became a huge problem. (Hello Pot, My name is Kettle!) She made a promise to her family that she would clean her workspace every night. She started making "end of day beads." These are beautiful and unique as they can never be made again. 

So instead of tossing all the stringers on my table... I made a lot of end of day beads. I made them all day long. This vessel was one. I love it because it's perfect... the most perfect on mandrel one I've ever made.  But there clearly was some strange glass on my table because it cracked. So I heated it up for hours and brought it into the flame and healed that crack. And another developed:

And yet, this cracked little vessel taught me much... Loved watching the play of light and dark glasses and how they influenced one another. I loved tweaking the balance of the piece.  I loved creating the lip and reading the glass for  volume. And I remember that I LOVE being at my torch - the act of creating.

And I love that I dipped this mandrel  with steel wool and bead release YEARS ago... the week I started lampworking...envisioning some graceful vessel. But I never felt ready to tackle it!  I'm ready now... and that's a beautiful thing.

Off Mandrel Hearts

Hearts were the first thing I ever learned to make off mandrel. Although I frequently make leaves off mandrel too, hearts have always spoken to me. I find myself usually making at least one every torch session. I must admit, they are my favorite "jewelry." Despite being an avid bead maker and troubled jewelry designer, I often forget to wear jewelry. Even though I KNOW it's my best source of advertising, it's always an afterthought! I love being able to dash to my stash box, put a heart on a chain and go!

For this tutorial, you should know to keep glass warm in the flame. If you've worked on one side too long, give the other side a heat bath. I do NOT remind you of this in the tutorial... but it is crucial!!!

GLASS: 
If you are making canes, the leftover bits that end up in the water jar are a perfect and usually colorful place to start as I've done here. This can be a great end of day bead - a way to clean off your table.  But you can also start with a rod and some frit or stringer. If that's the case, you can start with Step three. This can be done in soft and hard glass. Just stick to your COE rules and percentages. You will need two rods to use as handles. I prefer a transparent or just clear as they take the heat better than pastels.

TOOLS: 

♥ Mashers   ♥Scissors ♥Corina's Magic Wand  ♥Delicate knife ♥Tungsten Pick ♥Reverse Tweezers*

DIRECTIONS:

1. Here are two still glowing ends from a cane pull. Place them far back in the flame to avoid shocking.
   
2. Usually, the larger one will crack. Try to crack it so the two pieces attach to each other.
   
3. Melt in and square off. If starting with fresh rod, simply melt a gather and square off with mashers. You should end up with a pretty firm rectangle. If you like your color, keep going. If not, heat the paddle and twist with mashers to mix the colors better OR  heat the paddle and dip into some frit for interest . Melt in and square off again. The end without the punty will be the top of your heart. If you don't like that, attach another punty on a the side OPPOSITE of where you want your top to be.
   
4. Get the paddle hot... red hot - but not drooping - on both sides. Use scissors to cut down the middle toward the rod - but not all the way to the rod.
   
5. The cut marks will be a little raised and can be sharp. Take a moment to heat where you've cut and allow the rough edges to melt in. You can smooth this out a little Corina's magic wand or other small brass tool. Then you're ready to add a bail.
   
   Most people are always a bit off on the cutting...it's never 50/50. Eyeball the smaller side... that's where you will put the bail to give the heart visual balance. Keep the heart warm in your non-dominant hand and in your "good" hand, heat a pea sized gather. You can also melt some of that same frit into the gather but know that it will pull into lines for the bail.
   Note how the same frit used on the surface of this heart striated into lines when the bail was pulled.
   
   Gently touch down w/ the gather on the small side of the heart. Move the heart beside the flame and keep your bail rod in the flame so that you are heating the glass that will feed into the bail.
   
   Start stretching that gather. Bend it in the flame until it touches the back of the heart. Once it touches, flame break / twist off bailing rod.
   
6. This step is  where many skimp... once you flame break the bail rod, your heart is still attached to the other rod at the bottom of the heart. Take a tungsten pick and use the flame to even up any thin spots in the bail. Add a drop of glass here. Heat and stretch there. If it collapses...drill a new hole with the pick (see below). I also take a pointy tool / pick / knife and make sure the bail really connects to the heart. Press or poke the connection points with a pick or knife. Get creative here: give it dimples or fingers... but make sure it's connected! Look at the dimple on this bail:
   
   You can keep the heart in the flame an infinite amount of time... just make sure the bail will hang true / straight and doesn't have thinner areas. Below, the ends of the bail are melted in and the hole is large.
   
7. If surface decoration is desired, now is the time to do that. Flowers, other hearts...where ever you want to go...just keep the heart warm and don't allow the bail to get too hot! This is another great use for stray stringers on the work table.
   
   
   Example of Surface Decoration
8. Once the bail is hanging true and any decorations have been added, I flash the tips of the reverse tweezers in the flame. They can't be icy cold! Grab the heart either by the bail or the crease left by the scissors.
   
   Place the handle rod in the edge of the flame until it twists and break off. It will most likely be a little wonky on the bottom...still kind of squared off.
   
   
9. Use the heat to pull the glass into a more graceful shape by heating one side at a time until the glass flows down. All the working side to cool (good time to give some heat to the upper part of the bead) before repeating on the opposite side.
   
   
10. Often the handle rod is clear. It's nice to give that bottom tip some color. If you started from a cane pull, use a bit of the same cane. OR stringer or more frit. Melt the tip in. 
    
11. Finally, it's nice to draw the bottom of that tip to a nicer point or even a curve. Heat just above the tip and use the end of a warm rod to touch down, stretch the tip of the bead and break off in the flame. It's also a good time to put the bead on a tungsten pick and make sure it will hang properly. If not, return it to the tweezers, heat the bail and straighten it with mashers so that the heart will hang vertically.
    
    One last heat bath and in the kiln! But... check for tool marks... like I have here! ICK! Heat that out, do any final shaping and then...to the kiln.
     

THINGS THAT CAN / WILL GO WRONG: 

• The holding rod could melt. Work further back in the flame and don't put so much of the rod in the flame. It needs to be warm...but not soft! You can marver it quickly to cool it down. Grab your mashers and re-center your heart before the rod sets firm again. 
• The heart could fall off the holding rod or out of the tweezers. Pick it up with mashers or a pick...whatever is handy. Super heat where you want to punty while heating a punty rod, reattach and keep working. 
• The bail could melt in. Use your tungsten pick to drill a hole. Do this by warming the bail a bit and moving it BEHIND the flame. Place the tungsten in the flame and when it glows, begin twisting your hand a bit to the right and a bit to the left. The tungsten will drill a hole in the glass! You may need to flip it around and work from the other side too. When the hole is all the way through, give it a little heat to smooth those rough edges created by the pick, recenter the bail and you're done.
• The bail could be thin in places. Just add a few drops of glass, melt in slowly and add more if needed. Also, if you heat and stretch the bail hole, make sure both sides are warm for more even stretching. 

This is my final heart. It came out a bit darker than  I would have liked because I stopped and took too many pictures.  Keep in mind: if you use fussy glass, you will have unpredictable results.  

*I like my reverse tweezers to have a wooden grip as I hold the tip in the flame and the handles can get hot without something to protect you. Reverse tweezers give you one less thing to worry about while balancing all that hot glass in the flame. They hold the piece for you and you don't have think about keeping them closed.


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If you found this tutorial helpful, please consider making a donation to the artist. Or purchasing a heart here. Thank you!

Hollow Beads

I became fascinated with hollow focals after taking a Leah Fairbanks class. Hollow beads are fascinating structurally and a challenge to make in the flame....talk about managing your heat control! There's nothing worst than having a bead explode!

Hollow beads are fascinating for other reasons. The way they transmit light and color... and I also love the weight. As a large bead lover, some beads get way too heavy... I've actually bent mandrels working on a large bead! But hollow beads alleviate some of the weight while still giving you a nice, large focal.

Big Red, now on Etsy.

And the final cool thing about hollows??? THEY'RE HOLLOW! Which means....you can put stuff in them!

Heart full of Light, available on Holly's Folly

This heart is filled with Swarovski crystals and cubic zirconia! I'm working on another heart in red right now. I'll let you know how it comes out.

See you tomorrow on Holly's Folly Beads.

Best Practices: Spacer Beads

I must admit, I've always struggled a bit with spacer beads. Getting them even close to the same size confounded me. Then I learned a cool trick.

I was signed up to take Margaret Zinser's class and as luck would have it...my back went out. I knew I couldn't make the drive, much less sit through class. I called a friend and she took my place in class.

She told me that one of the coolest things she learned was how Margaret makes all of her gorgeous spacer beads.

She makes 10 or so on the same mandrel! I've only gotten up to seven or eight but here's some of mine:


And while this is very helpful when making spacers, working like this is a great basic technique in heat control. Controlling heat is vital in the sculptural big beads I love so much. By going back to something so basic, it helps with more advanced work. I just love how that happens!

And as far as spacers being perfectly alike, Margaret gave the class a few pointers on that as well: handmade beads are not supposed to be perfectly alike...they are handmade, you know!

I have to say, I'm finally enjoying making a really basic bead!

These below are on the Holly's Folly shopping pages.