An unusual (for me) Saturday session. This is 8hrs at the torch and I was pretty exhausted afterwards. Most of these are encased in clear which is quite time consuming. I had 6 mandrels left and had planned to keep going until I hade no more mandrels… but alas.. my eyes had had enough and I had to stop because I just couldn’t focus anymore on that molten glob on a stick (with proper protective eye wear of course). I doubt I will want to work that long in one session again for a very long time. I couldn’t even focus on the computer later that night..so me thinks I over did it somewhat.

I made 45 beads in total,.. so not bad at first thought,.. however,.. out of this batch,.. I was only happy to put together three ‘matching’ pairs for earrings, and one set of 6 Black Diamond spacers. So it was kind of disappointing spending an entire day to reap so little for my efforts.  Most of the other beads are fine, but just didn’t make a good pair to their sibling bead, so I’ll need to make some more little batches of the same, to get better matches for those. Sadly though,….4 beads must have been hit with the ugly stick when I wasn’t looking and need to bounced on the road to put them out of their misery.

Today’s beads were made very a special lady M*******.  The middle one though was a failed bead (failed as in not matching the others very well) . I’ve just checked and that bead’s photo is sitting in a folder waiting to be listed on ebay, on Sat PM 18 April PDT / Sun AM 19 April AEST, unless I swap it out for something else that week… maybe I should pop it in the shop as a Buy it Now.  I’m too tired to make a decision atm,lol.

Two focals and a matching focal & earring set.
Focal 1: the top of this bead looks almost like opal,.. and a weird thing happened to this bead,.. there is a mandrel line down the middle perhaps because there is mostly clear glass in that area?? if anyone knows why this happened.. please comment. I’m thinking that the blob of clear glass pushed the opaque glass aside and off the mandrel when I mashed it and left just a thin layer of opaque over the mandrel.
Focal 2: is a stunner IRL.. the sea urchin has sparkles of blue (matching the water) and it looks beautiful. This particular bead is going up on ebay Sat PM 11 April PDT / Sun AM 12 April AEST.. you can see a bigger picture of it there.

Not sure yet,.. but I think the set might be heading for my ebay store as a Buy it Now. 

Some of these are going up on ebay Sat PM 11 April PDT / Sun AM 12 April AEST and the rest will go up a week or two later.
Bead 2:  I left ripples in the water.. and you can imagine someone has just thrown a pebble in the water.
Bead 5:  Has both sides with what looks like twisters  pulling debris up into the air..it is very cool. You can see the green land and stormy skies above with a dust filled spout high in the air.

Ok… now what’s next

I have a little idea I’m working on at the moment,.. but I can’t show you just yet. These are all pretty cwappy anyway and my idea is proving to be very challenging (read: frustrating!!!) to say the least. I’ve spent a few torch sessions lately attempting to make these and almost all of them have failed so far for one reason or another,.. I just cannot seem to tie it altogether yet, but I have a few more things I could try yet to get these working. I’ll keep you posted.

I hope you like your new Pendant C !

Bead 1:   (Approx 21mm x 13mm thick)

Bead 2:  (Approx 21mm x 13mm thick)

Bead 3:  (Approx 20mm x 12mm thick)

Bead 4:  (Approx 20mm x 12mm thick)

Bead 5:  (Approx 19mm x 11.5mm thick)

Bead 6:  (Approx 19mm x 11.5mm thick)

Example Set