Some Days, It All Just Works

[I edited this post; initially I posted a photo that didn't include the pig. I reposted the picture with the pig and added the paragraph about the pig.]

There are some days when I can't make a decent bead to save my life.

And then there are days like yesterday, when all is right with the world, birds are singing, not a cloud in the sky, and my output looks like this:

Now, I recognize I'm my own worst critic. I can tell you where the flaws are in each of these beads (although I find most people don't want to listen). But I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with this batch.

The top, darkest bead is one I've made several times before -- and sold each time. I made this one too big (forgot how much glass is added in the process), but I like it and hope to keep it this time.

The white bead on the left was made for a friend to match her new skirt. Hope she likes it! She's helped to bead a bunch of stuff for the women's retreat silent auction coming up in 2.5 weeks, so I'll pretty much make her anything she wants.

The two beads with orange in them (not a favorite color of mine) were made for another friend. She gets her choice, and I'll probably make the other into a pendant for the silent auction. Confession: I didn't make the clear one last night -- it's a couple of days older, but it's the only one -- and when I took it to the retreat meeting at church on Saturday, several people offered to take it off my hands. Maybe I should work with orange more often...

The pig at the top was made for a kid named Dylan. You can read his story here. I'll warn you that Dylan's story may make you cry. You have been warned. (I don't know Dylan personally, only through this link.)

The two pairs of smaller beads will be made into earrings for an "earring wardrobe" for the silent auction. The idea is that if you buy these 3-5 pairs of earrings, you should have a pair to match virtually anything.

The gray and blue bead on the upper right is the retreat logo. I'm frankly sick of making that bead, but I suspect I'll make a half dozen more in the next couple of weeks. That particular bead proved difficult -- it broke loose and was moving around as I was trying to finish it -- but I'm just that good. Snort.

The pastel-swirly-organic bead just right of center was an experiment with a new color of glass. Y'all can Indian leg wrestle me for that one; it's MINE.

Beadin' It Up!

Glass fans, today is for you! Bead haters, click away now. You have been warned.

I have been busy on my torch, including a really great class this past weekend, so I thought I'd share the fun with you. I'm doing something else fun tonight, so maybe I'll have TWO things to talk about in ONE week.

Nah, never happen.

I had a friend who ordered two frogs and a ladybug for his young daughter. I haven't made a satisfactory ladybug yet (although the teacher of the class chose my first effort bead to go on a necklace for her stuffed animal), but here are the two frogs, one blue and one green. I hope she likes them. Need to get crankin' on that ladybug!

The glass shop where I buy most of my glass has a great necklace made out of all red, white and black beads. I was inspired by this to rip it off shamelessly. Here's what I have so far. The pendant (front left) was actually going to go to my beloved doctor, but I don't like it, so I'll be making her another one.

These beads are all made with silvered glass, that crazy expensive stuff that I love so much. On the left is a pendant that's decorated all in silvered glass except for the pink swirl. Silvered glass fumes the underlying glass, so you can only see the true color of the base bead under the pink.

The four beads on the right were all made with Triton and light purple transparent. I simply have not figured out how to tame Triton under a layer of clear glass, although other people have no problem with it. I keep getting a weird orange color. I described it to someone this weekend, and she made a really funny face at me and said, "Orange? Really?" Yes, I'm a freak.

The four in the middle worked out more or less as planned; I may make earrings out of the matching ones.

The beads in the picture below are my recent experiments with color reactions, which is another particular passion of mine. The three on the left use turquoise, purple (called EDP or evil devitrifying purple because of the difficulty people have in working with it) and copper green, all of which are highly reactive. Until recently, I was skeered of EDP because I've ruined beads with it. Now? What the heck, it's just glass, right? Every bead is a learning experience. And I managed not to ruin those three, or the one on the right, or the one on the bottom left, all of which used EDP.

The one on top is powder pink with rubino decoration, really nice looking. I'll have to pick up some more of those colors to play with them. On the bottom left is copper green and silver pink. I'd like to try copper green and silver blue and am requesting that my handy dandy glass shop stock some so I can try it.

The bead set below is the original one I made for a co-worker. After talking further, we ended up with a different design for her, so I still have these, looking for a happy home. The base bead is blue (messy glass), with a twisty of yellow and silver pink.

The necklace below is one I made for myself in a bunch of different colors I liked together: turquoise, pea green, violet, cobalt, pink... just all sorts of stuff I wear. I made it long so I can loop it around twice.

These are a bunch of black beads. On the left, a spare of a cross I made for a friend. On the right, a suggestion from a friend (he has the one that's not etched), and I kept this one. Then he and another friend asked if I could make a cross like that bead, so I did (sorry for the knot on the bottom of the bead, can't be helped). On the bottom is a black and yellow bead requested by a friend who rode in a LiveStrong challenge.

Next up is my new favorite bead. I got some new silvered glass this weekend called Aurae. I lovelovelove it, and here is why. This is a white bead with Aurae decoration.

Another view of the same bead. I only hope I can replicate it, because this one will probably leave me very soon, and I want my own.

Here are the beads I made in class this weekend. The instructor, Andrea Guarino, was amazing. She was personable, such a great beadmaker, and so generous to share the techniques that are the backbone of her business (not that any of my beads look like hers, so she's in no danger from me). These are Saturday's beads. The two to the left of the hearts are ones I made at home on Saturday night -- I was that fired up.

And these are Sunday's beads. Notice how many fewer there are on Sunday. These are a lot more complex. The one on the upper left (which, again, looks nothing like one of Andrea's) takes her an hour to create. It's called a Sea Garden. The two in the middle are called Galaxy beads, and the one on the right is an Ammonite.

Same beads, flipped over so you can see the other sides.

If you really like the bead pictures, make sure you're checking out my twitter feed; I post pics there whenever I make a new batch of beads, and lots of those pics never make it to the blog.

What I Did This Weekend, Part 1

This weekend we attended a benefit for my brother-in-law Larry, who I've talked about before once or twice.  To recap briefly, Larry suffed a spinal injury in late November and is still working toward what we still hope will be a full recovery (one never knows with these things).  

It's now been four months since Larry's car accident, and he's been sent home from the rehab hospital; the insurance will no longer cover it.  Unfortunately, insurance will also not cover the home nursing care he requires, so my niece Courtney pulled together a benefit for her uncle complete with two bands, two t-shirts designed just for the occasion, a live auction, silent auction, BBQ lunch, jumping castle for the kids, and assorted other attractions.  I have no idea how she did it all in two months.

Her request to me was simple: could I please make a jewelry set for the silent auction?  Why yes, Courtney, I believe I can handle that.

What, you just meant one set?  I believe you're talking to the wrong person.  I only wish I could have done more.

This first necklace is green Czech glass with some unknown brown gemstone bead and black rondelles.  As with most of the jewelry, my mother-in-law outbid the competition and walked away with it.

The next necklace is the only one I was unsure of.  It's unusual enough that I wasn't sure anyone would really go for it.  Apparently I needn't have worried; there were several bids.

When I showed him what I'd made, my roommate pointed out that I didn't have anything in spring colors; it was all earth tones.  So this pink and purple glass necklace was the last one I made.  I love pink and purple and have always loved the bead I used as a pendant; I had a hard time giving this one away.

Turquoise will always make people happy in Texas.  This is turquoise, onyx, and blue lace agate -- a lovely stone with bands of light blue and white.  Pretty sure this one ended up with my mother-in-law too.

The long animal-print-looking beads in the next one came from my friend Cindy, who helped me bead several of these.  We wanted strong colors to go with the black and white beads, so she picked the malachite.  We had a hard time finding another strong color after that though; red was too Christmasy, and most other things looked wrong.  Fortunately I had these great royal blue cats-eye glass beads that were just right.  Larry's niece, who lives near me, bought this one.

I loved this necklace, made with unakite and garnets. I felt the bidding was too low, so I bid on it myself -- and won it! I haven't decided whether I'll keep it or use it as an item for another silent auction (for my church's women's retreat) in a month.

Again in this necklace, the main beads were my friend Cindy's.  She had looked for beads to go with the striking striped wavy yellow beads, but nothing seemed right until she found my oval wavy black beads. A match made in heaven! My mother-in-law thought so too.

Courtney had specifically asked me to create a necklace using beads I made, and this is it: there are three of "my" beads in this one (the pendant and the two lentils).  The base glass is dark purple, with lots of decoration in the silver glass I've been enjoying so much.  They're strung with purple shells, neon pink pearls, and green aventurine.  This one was the most popular of my pieces; my mother-in-law complained that it was priced out of her range.  The winner beamed and the woman with the second place bid was none too pleased (I did give her a business card, of course).

These simple black and white earrings are striking and fun.

These purple earrings have gold dots on them and purple Swarovski crystal dangles.  Again with the purple!  I wanted to keep them too, but they looked great on my mother-in-law; she wore them to dinner that night.

And last but not least, I really did love these beads when I made them.  I wanted them but always had a sense they wouldn't be mine.  I'm glad they went to a good cause.  They are three different types of the fun silvered glass -- sort of an experiment that turned out really well.

So now you've seen what I made for the benefit.  Tomorrow I'll post the pics I took while I was there and tell you a bit about the day.  It's really too much for one post.  It was a LONG day.

Ah... I will leave you with one more thing.  This is the web site for Larry's benefit.  You can click around and see some of the different stuff... but don't miss the video under the "Larry's pics & videos" link.  He's come a long way.  He has a long way to go, but he's come a long way. 

[Note that I had to view the video using Internet Explorer; it wouldn't work for me using another browser.  It's kind of picky that way.  But it was worth it, at least to me, to see it.]

Babies and Beads and SXSW

Last weekend I got to meet a new little person.

I didn't ask permission to post her picture, so I won't post her vital stats.  Let's just say her name is NOT Valencia Orange, although I will continue to call her that for the humor value.  And she is beautiful.  I can't wait to babysit her and spoil her rotten.

In other news, I have been melting more glass.  The one on the right was going to be the same shape as the ones in the middle and on the left, but my hubby begged me not to squish it.  Now I want to make another one like it just to see who was right.

I had made the pendant to this prior to Christmas for my friend Heather.  I finally got around to making its two companion beads and stringing it.  Heather and I have a very exciting trip coming up this week (which is its own blog post), and following that, Heather will be going to Paris.  I'm trying not to hate her for that last part, but I think she should have cool jewelry to wear.

This is the completed bead set for a friend in Washington.  We agreed that I would make two sets: one for her to keep, and one for her to bead for me.  She does amazing bead work.  I have no idea what I'm going to make for me, but I think this is her set... unless I come up with something else.

Last but certainly not least, I met my friend Robin last Friday, who had been my Inspired Bliss editor for several months, when she came to town for SXSW.  If I were a better blogger, I would have pics of our meeting, but alas, that is not the case.  In another couple of hours, I'll pick her up for breakfast before taking her back to the airport.  We'll see if I remember my camera for that.  Ha!

Also on Friday, I picked up my friend James, who I haven't seen in years and who was also here for SXSW.  Again -- no camera.  My hubby and I went to lunch today with James and four other friends who all go back ten years or so.  It was great to look back at where we've been and catch up with where we are now.  James has gotten married, and he and his wife have had a baby, since the last time I saw him.  We don't often catch up since he's a Londoner, but it was great to see him.

This concludes the Cliff's Notes version of the last week of my life... stay tuned for Bad Bloggers Catch Up, Continued.

Kiss My Glass

I've spent far too much time away from my torch, and I can tell.

I *heart* my torch.  The fire, the molten glass, the mesmerizing joy of creating something that didn't exist before I made that bead.

It's also been a really long time since I posted any pictures here.  So now you're going to be inundated.  If you hate pics of beads and jewelry, close this window now.  You have been warned.

First is a picture of a necklace I made for a friend's mom for Christmas.  I've known this friend since college (the first time, 20+ years ago) and his wife since junior high.  For him, I made this pendant three times; I simply didn't like the first two.  This was pretty much my all-time favorite bead when I made it.  I had a hard time sending it away.  I hope she loves it as much as I loved making it.

Next up is two pairs of earrings that I made for a blogger I love and admire. She made a New Year's resolution to wear earrings more often.  I hope she's sticking to it!

This is a necklace I made for the lovely Jessica, my Taiwanese co-worker who is invaluable in helping make sure that all the administrative wheels keep turning for me.  She requested a pink and green necklace.  Again, this is a pendant I made more than once.  The first one is ugly enough that I won't post a pic of it. I liked this one a lot though.

The next four pics are beads that I've made in the last few months that I don't think I've taken pictures of.  I actually took the pics to show to an online friend who beads, but since I have them, you can see them too.

The bead on the left in this pic is another favorite.  It's made with a silvered glass (yes, the glass has actual silver in it) that does cool things under certain conditions.  This particular glass is called Psyche and is one of my favorites because of all of its cool effects.  The one on the right is OK, I suppose; I just haven't gotten around to making anything with it yet.

You may notice a similarity between the bead on the left in this pic and the one on the right in the pic above.  I was trying for a particular effect with the bead below -- the base glass before being heated is a sort of translucent white. Unfortunately, it's what's called a striking glass -- it changes colors after it's heated.  It turned burnt orange, which is about my least favorite color, and I thought looked horrible with the pink and purple twist running through it. Strangely enough, it struck again in the kiln firing process and turned pink.

The middle bead is made with a base of white glass and two different silvered glasses.  The one on the right is made with a dark clear glass for the base, with dichroic added for the big pop of sparkle, and dots of two kinds of silvered glass for accent.

The bead on the left below was the second attempt for a pendant in my friend's mom's necklace.  See -- it's OK but not as great as what I ended up with.  Next to it is a bead in which I was trying to replicate one of my favorite beads -- seen in the bottom pic in this post -- epic fail.  The other three beads are just me noodling around with the fun silvered glasses.

There are some fun beads in this pic.  On the left and the bottom right are black beads with raku (multicolored glass chips, rolled onto the molten bead, then melted in), then twisted with a pink stringer (stringer is just a skinny glass rod).  Between those two is a white bead with Psyche accents.  You can see all the color variation and the way the Psyche fumed the white glass -- love it!  The two small beads on the opper right are three different kinds of silvered glass. Even if you don't see the silver explicitly, they're just a little shinier than other beads.

Now on to the beads I've made in the last few days... These are more twisted raku like the ones above, only these are in a lentil shape.  They will either be strung with the pendant above or be shipped off to my online beading friend.

Below are two more lentils made with silvered glass -- an experiment.  It's hard to tell in the pic, but they look completely different, even though they were made in exactly the same way.  It's both the charm and the curse of that particular glass (Michelangelo) that it rarely comes out the same way twice. The pink ones are earring replacements for my sister, who lost one.  And the large bead may be my new favorite.  I like it a lot.  It's the same base glass as my previous favorite, but the surface decorations are done with my two favorite silvered glasses, Psyche and Black Pearl.  Yummy.

And, last but not least, I revisited the guitar bead.  I figured out how to make actual strings on this bad boy.  Unfortunately, I didn't consider that I should have made a "pickup" or terminus for the strings to the south of the "hole" in the middle of the guitar.  And of course, during this bead is when my propane decided to run out.  I've had that tank for a year.  So this will be remade with a pickup, the strings will run where they should, the white decorative part will look better since that's where the gas ran out, and there will be tuning pegs.  I do think the strings look cool on top of the fretboard, though.

And that's all I have for you today.  I have some more raku beads and another guitar to make, but my hubby has run off with my camera, so we'll see when I get more pics posted.

If you could have a bead or bead set that represented you, what would it look like?  I always like a new challenge.  Comment me up!

OK, Can I Be Done Now? Please?

I honestly don't remember the last time I was this frustrated.

I'll try to start at the beginning and type through the tears. I'm not a crier, so seriously, I have HAD IT right about now.

We are dog sitting for a friend while he and his girlfriend are out of state for a week and a half. He has two dogs, a small older dog and a large puppy (about 16 months old). The smaller one is a mini pinscher. The large one is a mutt but is brindle colored and has to be part boxer and maybe part greyhound.

In general they're great dogs, but I've had it with them today.

First of all, I'm not a believer in having animals on the furniture. This may stem from having been the owner of a 100+ lb dog, but whatever. It's one thing having a 7lb dog on your couch, but it's quite another having the 75lb dog join you, or just lounge there all day.

At any rate, Dog the Smaller found our sectional today. The sectional is where I keep my beads. He knocked over a sorted box of beads. Now, understand, in my three or so years of beading, I have never knocked over a box of beads. Dreaded it, but never done it. I shooed the dogs into the backyard and cleaned up the considerable mess. There are 12-15 compartments in a bead box, each with its own type of bead, and most of these were on the floor.

Less than an hour later, with Dog the Smaller upstairs with me, I heard another telltale crash. I jumped up, yelling, "NO YOU DIDN'T!" but of course I was too late; Dog the Larger had jumped up on the sectional and found the ONE bead box I'd left uncovered. He didn't dump it off the couch like the earlier box -- he apparently just stepped on the edge -- but most of the beads jumped up out of their compartments and into other compartments, and lots of them were scattered all over outside the box. I was furious. Again I shooed the dogs outside (this time in a much louder voice) and cleaned up the mess.

While outside, Dog the Larger managed to pull off his own collar and chew on the tags, almost chewing one completely off. Ah, puppies.

When Son the Younger, who is grounded, came home shortly after these altercations, I told him the dogs needed to be walked. He doesn't like walking the dogs, he informed me. It's the most frustrating thing he's ever done, he said. However, it's part of the job and the reason he's getting paid to watch the little darlings, so I told him it needed to be done. This didn't go over well, and we're not on the best of terms due to the grounding anyway, so there's been a lot of "not speaking to each other" going on this evening.

With all the stress, I decided the antidote would be to go out and melt some glass, enjoying my new kiln in the process. I haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet, and I'm just so excited by the fact that I don't have to traipse down to central Austin to have beads annealed anymore. So I went out to the garage, spent some time putting in the program for the annealing, and set about making some beads for a friend's mom for Christmas.

I noticed when I put the beads in the kiln that it wasn't as searingly hot as I remembered the kilns at the glass shop being, but I didn't think much of it because mine is built really differently. I just figured all the heat was centered way back in there.

Once I was done with four beads, I looked at the flashing display on my beloved new kiln: "tcr." What the heck? I pulled out my handy dandy book and looked it up. Turns out it's an error message: thermocouple reversed.

That's right: my kiln is broken.

So I put all my beads back in the fiber blanket, where they'll probably crack because they cooled down too quickly, and I came in to tell my hubby that the new, very expensive purchase is no good.

And now I have to do some work. I'd really just as soon secede from the household, and from life, for a bit, but I guess that's not an option, huh?

Mama said there'd be days like this.

I'm So Excited, and I Just Can't Hide It

Now, I'm a fairly low-key kinda girl. My voice is low-pitched.

But today I SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALED so loud in excitement that I hurt my poor hubby's ears. Why, you might wonder?

Because this loveliness was in my mailbox.


It may look like just a triangular box and a tube, but when you unpack it, then you find THIS!


You're still not excited, are you?

Apparently I got some 'splainin' to do.

These, my friends, are glass rods. Well, except for the shiny thing in the middle, which is dichroic glass. What you're looking at in that picture, believe it or not, is about $120 worth of glass.

Yes, I am aware I'm completely insane. And that my husband loves me too much for words. These types of glass are ones I've never indulged in before -- far more expensive than anything I've ever bought. They are so-called silver glasses, meaning that there is silver in the glass that shows up depending on how you work it. It's fancy stuff, m'friends, and I'm just about shaking to get on my torch as I type.

But first I'll show you what I made with the bead sets I posted earlier.

First is the set I made with the raku frit beads. Several of those were sold to the nurse at my doctor's office, so they aren't all represented here. Not to mention that I haven't made the earrings yet. (Picture background courtesy of my great-grandmother.)


Next is the necklace I made with green, blue and gold glass over ivory (earrings to follow). I finally talked to my friend last night; I had previously only talked to her hubby. I'm close friends with them both but had been itching to catch up with her. Her work schedule prevents a lot of socializing, but it was great to catch up with her. She has no idea this is coming, unless her hubby tells on me.


This is the necklace made from the pink and purple heart. It's strung with dyed pearls (hot pink and purple), long mother of pearl beads, round glass white and purple beads, and faceted garnets. I think it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I hope Robin likes it.


This last one is what I made with the Michelangelo beads -- and if you go back and look at that post, you'll see that I said there was an expensive glass purchase in my future. Apparently I was right! Can't wait to play some more with this color. Actually, I made a twistie with this color and another expensive glass but was a little disappointed in the result. I'll have to play with this one a bit more to see how it works.

I was going to post about my church's 10-year anniversary celebration this weekend, but truth be told, I took so many pictures that it's hard to narrow things down. Once I sort through them all again, maybe I'll have something coherent to say.

Then again, it is me we're talking about.

Sometimes I Like to Melt the Glass

If you look around here a little bit, you'll find that I like to melt glass occasionally. On those days that the sun isn't melting everything else.

Today was a glorious and beautiful day to melt glass. Hello Fall. I love you.

Incidentally, I do not blow glass. I merely melt it in a very hot flame, on a stick (called a mandrel). Blowing is a skill I have not yet acquired.

Since I've been making a few beads recently, and since I haven't inflicted pics on my blog-folks in a while, and since I had a request for pics (via twitter), I was persuaded to post some.

This first bunch of beads will be a necklace, or maybe a necklace and earrings. I will probably bead it with some lapis and/or malachite. It's for an old college friend I caught up with recently. Maybe if she likes it, I'll get to go visit her and her hubby and her four children, none of whom I've ever met. Bad friend. (Last time I saw them, she was pregnant with #1; it's been a while!)



These beads are for various things. The lower right one is a bit of a boo-boo, although a few people have told me they like it (I don't, since I know what it was supposed to look like.) The clear pink one is closer to what it was supposed to look like, and two of the three smaller beads will be earrings for my mother-in-law.



I made this set for Robin, although I can't say that I'm really happy with it. She asked for red and hot pink, which poses a certain number of problems, glass-wise. Red with hot pink doesn't offer much of a contrast, and the one glass that gets close to hot pink is a little temperamental (more on that later). So this may or may not have a happy ending; I may just trash these and start over. The base beads are clear, and the stripes are made with a twisted cane made from red, white, and pale pink clear. Why there are yellow and dark patches in these beads, I have no idea.



These beads are made with what's called raku frit (frit is just small pieces of glass). I've sold three of these to the nurse at my neurologist's office, who is a beader. She's quite anxious to get them, so I've been trying to finish up everything I want to make so I can get everything annealed (cycled through a kiln to strengthen the glass). I don't yet have a kiln, so I have to take my beads to a glass shop for the service and leave them for a day or two. Maybe someday I'll have my own...



Some beads make everyone love them, and these seem to fall into that category. The silver is called plum silver -- it starts out as a dark purple color but has a chemical reaction to a high propane flame (my torch has two sources -- propane and oxygen -- so you can vary the amount of each in the flame for various effects). This is a fairly simple bead design, but it's striking and goes with everything.



This is a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. The two on the top left were an experiment with a very expensive glass that someone gave me to try -- it's called Michaelangelo, and you'll see why later. A friend wants those beads for a necklace. The blue bead with gold squiggle next to it is made with dichroic glass, another expensive glass type that reflects different colors depending on the angle -- very pretty. On the top right is a bead that I made when trying to learn stringer control (how to make straight lines with tiny rods of glass). I had people insist to me that those were wires, not glass, so I assume I succeeded. The two beads on the bottom were made with another expensive glass from the same friend that gave me the Michaelangelo; this color is called Black Pearl. It's like plum silver only more so: it starts black but turns bright silver in a high propane flame.



These beads are all ones I learned to make by taking a class from my favorite "famous" beadmaker, Corina Tettinger. They're better to see in person. The top left is an encased floral (i.e., a flower bead encased in clear glass). There are five layers in the bead, so it's fairly time-consuming. The next one to the right is called an asteroid bead and is difficult to photograph here (and I did a miserable job). It's a black base bead, wrapped in silver foil, which is then burned off. The dots of color are made with ivory glass with silver foil burned onto it (called "silvered ivory"). This makes a rainbow effect. Then the whole thing is encased in clear. This isn't a great example; I'm going to try again and see if I can do better. The pair on the right is clear purple, with a layer of clear and gold dots on the outside. On the bottom is a bead made with twisted cane (like the first three pictures). Again, you can't tell in the picture, but when I encased it in clear, the bead ended up with a row of perfectly evenly spaced bubbles between the rows of twisted cane. It was a happy accident.



Now we come to the two best beads I made last night. This one isn't part of a set (at least not yet). When I mentioned before that the hot pink glass is a little temperamental, here is a perfect example. The dark color in this bead is supposed to be that hot pink (which incidentally is in the twisted cane bead above and turned out the right color there). In the bead below, it came out more of a dark brownish purple. You just never know with that color. The other colors in the twisted cane were clear pale pink and opaque ivory, so you can still see pink in the bead. All's well that ends well. I'm really pleased with the shape of this bead.



Last is not least here; I saved the best for last. The only colors used here are white and Michaelangelo, as hard as that is to believe. I made the pendant initially to go with the other pair of beads that I'd made (the ones my friend wants made into a necklace). When it discolored the white, I was kind of upset; I almost didn't finish making the bead. This is why you always finish making the bead -- you just never know what you have until you're done. I love this bead. It didn't translate as well in the smaller beads, but I'll take it anyway. I'm seeing now why my friend says Michaelangelo is her favorite color. It's very reactive, meaning that it does cool things with other colors of glass. I see a purchase of expensive glass in my future (don't tell my hubby!).

That's what I've been up to. Now, if y'all will excuse me, I have some more glass to melt...