Sandra's glaskralen

Lampwork beads by Sandra C.

Orange, oh orange (beadproject)

I don’t know anymore where to leave the beads I make. Every storage box is completely full so I decided to make some of my bead series into accesories. So whatever comes out of the kiln nowadays will be used.

When I took these orange beads out of the kiln I was first in some kind of chock. The colour was much more intense than I expected. Orange - and yellow and red - turns black in the flame and stays black untill completely cold which is a big disadvantage. Maybe that’s the reason why I don’t use these colours that much. But that day I decided to stip out of my comfort zone and worked with orange. I already had an idea for the necklace.

My oldest daughter was very enthousiast about the beads so I promised her that she could have the necklace when finished. So, my beloved daughter, this one’s for you.


Sun Catcher

While is was taking pictures of some other beads the sun came out. I put these beads immediately in the sunlight because sunlight does something with this glass which is difficult to describe and even more difficult to take a picture off.

This picture was taken when the sun was hiding behind the clouds (as usual)

Experiment with copper.

I stripped an old electric wire to see how thin the copper wire would be. It seemed suitable for an experiment. It worked well as long as I kept the wire out of the flame until completely covered with glass.

Next I wanted to try to melt in a small copper coin. I heated the glass red hot and tried to push the coin into the bead. Well, the coin flew through my studio and small particles were bombing me. I was glad that I wore a leather vest…

The coin left some residu in the glass and I completely covered it with some extra glass. The result is fascinating but I will never repeat this experiment.

Weed

The last few weeks, I’ve been very busy in my studio, so I didn’t take many pictures to post on my blog.

Since I’ve got so many pictures of sealife in my ‘like box’, I got inspired to make some ‘weed beads’.

Two parts (2).

I made a few more focal beads. I’m quite happy with the result.

Focal Beads.

I made a few more beads. The round beads are really big so they can be worn as a focal.

And one more ring top: I can’t resist to make them.

Two parts.

I made a few more beads, consisting of two parts, a transparent part and an opaque part. I think I will continue to make those beads for quite a while because they’re fun to make. It takes a long time to make such a bead so I can’t make a lot of them during one session (especially when I make a mistake).

T(w)o part(s) or not t(w)o part(s) (2)

Working at those kind of beads is a fun intermezzo with the ‘Hyperion’-series. It’s also the ideal way to truly understand the properties of all glass. (If one ever can..)