Dad - this one's for you!

Having just got off the phone to my Dad, who has observed that I haven't updated my blog lately, I thought I had better rectify that!

Despite treating myself to two long weekends away from work specifically to make beads I managed a pitiful amount. The reason for this was two-fold.

On the first weekend I managed just three beads before, for some inexplicable reason, plunging my left index finger into the flame. Ouch!

My finger smoked, and my nail baked to a black crust and the smell of burning flesh filled the room. My head told me I needed to abandon the bead I had just spent the last 15 minutes on, and which was nearly finished, and head to the cold water tap. My heart told me to ignore the agony and finish the bead. Almost without exception my heart wins the day in these circumstances, but this time, because I could tell it was a big burn, I did the sensible thing and sacrificed my bead to save my finger.

So for the next 30 minutes I held my finger under running water, and for the rest of the day whenever the wave of agony resurfaced I ran to the freezer and grabbed the peas. Being sensible paid off, and I avoided a blister, but I wasn't able to feel the tip of my finger until Thursday when the hardened end of it finally fell off! Eew!

Other beadmakers will know that once you've had a burn there is little possibility of making beads for about a week, as every time the burn gets warm again it hurts like heck. So that was that for my first beadmaking weekend.

So it was with a significant amount of eagerness and expectation that I approached the following long weekend. I finished work on Wednesday evening and had an entire four days with nothing much planned except beadmaking. Imagine how fed up I was when I came down with the lurgy on Wednesday evening, only to feel human again in time to return to work the following Monday morning! Urgh! Why do these things always happen?!

Well, I did manage a brief session at the torch, and the two sets below are the result of that.

This first set is called 'Agateous' on account of it reminding me of Moss Agate. I've used a lovely, deep clay-red glass which I heated until it was soupy and blended with ivory, black and silver. The black has webbed through the other colours which gives the agatey feel.

The second set is called 'First Frost' and I've used a lovely opal glass in sky blue, which I've decorated with silvery fronds.

I have another day off work next Friday, but you know what? I'm not going to plan a beadmaking session at all, and I'll just see what happens.

This week I ran a couple of giveaways. So congratulations to Julie H-B and Janet (JayeSpangles) who both won a set of ring pellets to try out. If you would like to try these yourself take a look at my Etsy listing where you can read the full instructions on how to use these clever pellets to ensure your precious metal rings are a perfect fit.

Thats all for now. Have a great week.

(See you soon Dad - love you xx)