Lampwork Glass Bead Tutorials~ Sculptural Techniques

Over the years, I have sent a lot of tutorials in to magazines to be published, often at their request. I've decided to try fixing up a few of them to be sold on etsy- new and revised by me! Why bother? Because I feel I can make the tutorials even better myself! How?

• I get to edit the photos myself. Often they come out cleaner and crisper when I do the work. 
• I can add tips and extra information that there was no room for in the magazines.
• I can include extra photos.
• At the end I add a one-page list of all the steps for easy reference.
• I can add a picture of my beloved pup if I want to!

Because these are PPTs (previously published tutorials), they are only $5 each and will be bundled for extra savings too. The location of the original publication will be noted in the etsy listings so if you already have it, you don't need to buy it again.


I've begun with a couple of sculptural tutorials- a Dragon's Head (Dragalope) bead and a Fish Bottle Bead. These are beads that only I make, so the instructions are all from my wee brain. I feel they give a lot of information that is especially nice for folks who want to try their hands at sculptural beads. Find all of my tutorials here: Glassbead tutorials on etsy

Mask and turtle instructions should be available shortly. These tuts have been published in a variety of places- The Flow, Soda Lime Times, Glass Bead Evolution and Glass Line to name a few. I thought it would be nice to have them all in one place!

In Praise of Veiled Rubino Oro

I'm so excited! For the first time in years, I've added veiled rubino oro back into my glass repertoire. So what, you ask?! And what the heck does that mean anyway?

Rubino Oro is the Italian name for a lovely dark pink glass; it means 'gold pink' and it is actually made using gold as a colorant.

Veiled glass is kind of like a glass sandwich- in this case that lovely pink between two layers of clear. The clear surrounding the pink ensures that the pink won't react in either a good or bad way with the glass around it. It appears that it still strikes to a darker pink too- makes sense as that is related to the heat applied.


Rubino is one of those colors you want to stretch as much as possible because it's a bit on the expensive side due to the gold content, and the veiled rods help to do just that.

The beads at the top also include a bit of orchid pink enamel, so the bright pink is not all a result of the veiled rubino; it was mostly used as a background. The top half of the wee bottle is veiled rubino all the way- see what a nice color it is!

For more information on using rubino oro glass, you can look at this blog post of mine from years ago.

Green or Not? Recycled Bottle Glass Headpins

I've been playing with a bit of bottle glass that I found lying about on the streets here lately. I just couldn't resist those lovely blue bottles any longer. In the beginning I thought- what a cool thing- free glass, nice color, and I can do a bit of small time recycling. But, after fooling with it a little, I've pretty well decided that it might actually be anti- green to work with this stuff. They are now in my etsy shop.

It is definitely more time consuming. First you have to clean and cut up the bottles- watch those precious hands, you don't want to cut them to shreds! Maybe gloves would be good idea? I asked my fusible friend to give me a quick bottle cutting lesson. Turns out his are just as jagged and nasty as mine. Oh well...

Then I had to melt the stuff. As you may (or may not) know, Italian Moretti glass (Effetre) is fairly soft. That means it melts relatively quickly. This bottle glass is not. I'll bet it took me nearly twice as long to melt it as it does to melt my regular glass. Of course, bottle glass doesn't have to be specially transported to my house from Italy, so maybe that makes up for some of that extra energy; it's already here!

I also figured out  that you can add just a wee bit of extra color to this glass by rolling it in Thompson enamels, which makes it a little more fun. Oh, and if you decide you'd like to try this remember that the fire will creep up a flat side, so be sure and put it into the flame on its edge, not on the wider flat section or it will creep right up to your wee fingers!

Jodi's Jewels and Me

Just a quick post to show off some lovely pieces made with some of my beads!

Jodi of JodiMooreJewels has fallen in love with my portal pendants and has done some lovely things with them. It's always fun to see what someone else does with beads I've made. Jodi's got a wonderful sense of color, and really draws out the colors of the focal in her beadwork. Now it's time to give her shop some love.... 

People Who Live in Glass Houses.....

 Amazing! The internet can certainly lead one on a wild goose chase sometimes. The other day I went around my new neighborhood and took photos of a couple of bottle trees. These are a fun tradition in the southern U.S. though anyone anywhere could build one. It's pretty easy to do (I think)- just make sure that it is firmly in the ground- you wouldn't want a big wind to come along and knock it over!

So, I posted a few bottle tree pics on facebook, and one of my friends (yes, I really do know her- we've even shared a hotel room!) came back with a picture of a wall made of bottles.

She didn't know where it was, so I had to go on an online fishing expedition to see if I could find it. Well, I did not, but boy what I did find! A wonderful blog that has marvelous photos of glass houses from all over the world- 'Glass Bottle Walls'. I also found instructions on how to put one of these babies together. Wow! It's just astounding all of the ways folks have used bottles in construction, and they've been doing it for along time too.
As for me- I'm gonna get to work on drinking a lot of something- anything- as long as it's in a glass bottle!