Thursday, August 6, 2009

Courage to post beads

Taffy, I am getting brave in my old age and will commence to blog about my passion, lampworked beads. I have been mostly a lurker on lampworketc, with an occasional post, but I can now mostly/usually operate my digital camera. And to prove my new found ability....

I have been playin around with silver rich glass...this 'pod' is Psyche from Double Helix and SIS. I have had a hard time keeping the iridsecence of the Psyche once encased with clear, but found that if angled the bead in the flame so that the fire did not hit the psyche straight on, it could be shaped and melted and keep its gorgeous iridescence. Very excited about the new glass, Ekho, also from Double Helix, got a little bit this week and played with it some but experiments only so far. Because it is advertised as being able to keep its iridesence under encasement, I gave it the worst treatment I could think of, and it did keep its color under encasement though it did look like I had managed to burn some of it off. Will try my technique of not hitting the bead straight on with the flame, but hold it at an angle.