Lampwork

Hello there

As you know, I make lampwork beads. I've been doing this for about five years now but don't get that much torch time. I'm now more on top of my housework and feel like I could justify a bit more time outside trying to get better results from my time at the torch. I need to sort my glass out and have a bit of a tidy.

My torch time efforts are a bit ad hock. Sometimes I make beads that I'm so proud of I wish I could have a massive sign around my neck saying "I made this - yes really". Beads like these:
















But, I also have too many that I'm not proud of like these:
















So my idea is that I have a plan. I have a bit of a tidy in my shed so I can work without hunting for what I want all the time and feeling like my glass pile will topple over. Then, and this is genius, I work through the amazing book I have that looks like this:



Did you enjoy the sight of FIFA 14 in the background? It's very popular in my house. Luckily, P has D to help him with the more complicated aspects of managing an Ultimate Team.

The book is by Corina Tettinger and she makes amazing beads that sell for lots of money. The book is a brilliant guide to lampworking. It's very step-by-step and written in a friendly not patronising way. I love looking at it but have never actually read it through and started from the beginning. I've had two lessons with beadmakers but haven't really felt like its helped as much as I would have liked.

I'm excited to go back to basics and see where I end up at the end. Whether I manage to stick to my plan and see it through remains to be seen but I think its a brilliant plan. I can treat it like a course and it will be interesting to see how much I improve by having lessons from this book.

I thought I could try eBay ing some beads as I go along. It's a bit less daunting than Etsy and, if I manage to make some money, I can restock my clear glass supply and hopefully add some other colours to my stash.

Anyway, just incase you like pictures of stuff as much as me, here are some bead photos from my last few shed sessions:

I really wanted to be able to make a heart bead. I have a heart press but I just can't seem to get a clean finish at the top where the hole is. It's much too raggedy as you can see below:



Corina has a lesson in her book to make a freeform heart which I had a go at. Mine just isn't right. I struggled with the shape. This was the result:


This was another try which was not going well so I abandoned it:


I got part way through this heart and just thought it's not going right but it looks like a fox head. Let's try adding some eyes and a cheeky nose:


The two beads below were interesting. I had a go at flowers and the colours and amount of glass used in both are the same but see here you can see the flowers in the transparent glass:


But here, on opaque glass, the same size flowers are swallowed up by the glass and almost disappear and look generally rubbish:


This bead was brought on following my great tree bead success. I thought, now I can do anything on a bead. I clearly am amazingly talented! I was wrong. Why did I pick a blue colour for the boat? That was my first mistake. Next mistake was a black mast, I've since read that black does tend to spread. The mast is far too thick. I do like the blue background though:





Here I was trying to be fancy with goldstone. I like goldstone with glass very much. I've had limited success with it though and need to properly look at a booklet Corina did on it and gave away for free on her website. The roses look good I think but the goldstone adds nothing other than ruining the overall look of the bead:


Here I was going for the more is more approach and the addition of that stringer ruined another bead that might have otherwise looked quite good:


These beads went quite well:














Here I was going for a tree branch with blossom look but again, that black spread and was too thick to look good:


This is the other side of the same bead. Same problem with the black. I do like the red and ivory very much though. The black has a silvery outline which could be used to make some good beads I think:


This was another tree I had a go at. Why can't I reproduce that great tree bead I made before but just in different colours. The frustration of not being able to led to my back to basics idea:





This is meant to be a tree but I think, if I had used a different colour for the background so it looked like a table, it would have made a great vase of flowers:





This was murrini. I like making it. I think that I shouldn't have bothered with the yellow centre for these 'flowers'. It doesn't look right and the bubble can be the middle bit instead:





The hole area of this bead is a bit dodgy but I like the simplicity of the colours very much:





I like the subtlety of these colours. I'd like to make more:


This bead is ok I would say but doesn't wow me by any stretch of the imagination:


I like putting stuff inside clear glass, which is why I really want a restock:


I got carried away with this one and just kept adding stringers and twisties:


Beads in a colour combination I really like. The photo came out a bit dark which is a shame:


More encasing of stuff but I think too much stuff so it doesn't look very good:


I hope you've enjoyed seeing so many photos of beads and reading my words is a bit interesting.

The washing machine beeped very loudly at me to let me know it's finished. I've just been handed Slinky and asked if I can untangle him and I am hoping I can have half hour to start my shed sort out. I've been to the tip today because that's how I roll. I do tip runs and clean the toilets but I do like to make stuff very much when I can.

I'm excited to try working through Corina's book. I want to see what's produced from my efforts. Are you excited to share my journey? If you are, I know it will spur me to keep going. One day, I might be good enough to feel like doing one of those giveaways I see other blog writers doing.

I hope you have a brilliant weekend.

Right, Slinky untangle time.

Sally
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