Samburu

Another blog - I know! No blogging for months and then two in one week. It's amazing how much more beady stuff you can get done when you have a week off work!

I made this Samburu bead set, and then etched it to a matt finish, which I think really suits this design. I love the colour reactions in these beads, and the fact that you can see the traces of silver that I burnished onto the bead to help the colour reactions along.
I made a couple of focals too. Well I made three actually, but one broke when I cleaned it. Urgh! It was the nicest as well, but that's the law of breakages! That'll teach me for not keeping the one end warm enough before I placed it in the kiln. Tsk!

This is a much paired combination of turquoise and silver;



... and another favourite combination of mine - turquoise and purple. This time I've made a spotty bead, just because I love how the turquoise saturates as it tries to move away from the purple glass.
Thank you for looking!

Bucket & Spade and Other Beads!

I'd had this set of beach beads in my head for a while, and I finally got around to making them this weekend. I love making murrini, so these barnacles were a good excuse to pull some starburst cane. These beads remind me of beach holidays in Bournemouth, when my Grandad would buy me a new bucket and spade and a little packet of paper flags. Bliss!

So, here they are, Bucket & Spade;


This is another set I've been wanting to make. I've wrapped shards of glass around a base bead and then used some flame jiggery pokery to get a nice oil-slick effect of blues and purples. I've called this set 'Voyager' in honour of Voyager 2, which launched 34 years ago yesterday, in Silver Jubilee year, and is currently around 13 light hours from Earth. Yes, I know, I'm a geek...

Then I made some pebbles. Always nice.

I played with some silver glass twistie, getting a nice organic reaction with one of my favourite terracotta red glasses.

And because I like blue...
That's all for now. I'm off to enjoy the rest of the summer while it lasts!