Lampwork Glass Seahorse Bead Tutorial is Finally Here!

Whew- it's been a hectic few weeks. Lots of things happening, mostly in my mind, I think!
 I was interviewed for the Soda Lime Times this month. The article just came out a couple of days ago- they did a wonderful job! It's chock full of fun information about lampwork beads, beadmakers and tools with several nice tutorials. The April issue is all about beads and the ocean, and there's a lot of eye candy, including some of my fish, mermaids, a turtle and some seahorses.

So what better time to start work on a Seahorse Tutorial? I admit I had really big plans when I started this- why not seahorses and mermaids? I started out with seahorses and realized that I'd better just take it one step at a time. Good thing too, as I barely got it done in time. OK, so I finished it a couple of days after the article, but it was close!

So what, exactly is in this tut? You are taken- with a ton of pictures- through the making of two different seahorses with two different designs in two different orders. Why? Well, I find myself naturally gravitating towards doing it in a particular order, but I don't necessarily think it's the most logical way to do things. So I do it 'my' way the first time, and the 'right' way the second time. Oh, I almost forgot- I made a wee video that shows me doing all the 'hard' parts. And only folks who get the tut have access to the video. It's not a great movie, but I do think it helps.

What's the big deal? To me, there are three things about this tutorial that make it worthwhile.
One- the tail- the way I make the tails was a revelation to me in a lot of ways- how to make the stock as well as how to curl them up.
Two- shaping the mouth- just a little tricky for such a wee part of the creature, but little details can make a big difference.
Three- basic sculptural information- for those who aren't very familiar with sculptural beads, I really tried to explain how and why I do things the way I do them.

One other thing- I had a wonderful tester for this tutorial. Lynne of Islandgirl's Insights did an excellent job of reading, testing, and making suggestions to make this tutorial better. This is the second time she has done this for me- I can't imagine anyone doing a better job. Lynne Rocks!!!!!

Lilac glass recipe

This is just a quickie! A customer wanted me to make her a couple of masks in a lilac color. All of the purple glass I had was just too dark to work, so I started pulling rods out and holding them up to the light to see what I could do. The winner? Moretti  Light blue #052 over alabastro pink # 372 ( I think- darn- it could have been 376- both will make a nice purple. Try 'em both!). I would not recommend using this for a whole bead as I think there is a slight amount of incompatibility going on there, but the color was a lovely light purple blue.

Making Glass Frit

In an effort to clean up an an ever-growing pile of glass rod ends accruing on my table, I thought it might be time to show off my frit-making skills. I used to use my empty altoid container collection to save little bits of rods- all sorted into piles of like color- for instance, I put all of the aquas together- transparent and pastel alike. No, I did not put each aqua hue into a separate container, I'm not that organized. (And I don't use quite that many altoids). Granted, if you keep all of your 'shorts' separated by color, you can make a nice precise frit mix that is repeatable using the same methods I will outline here.

I'm not a real big user of frit- I'm more of a 'mix as you go' person. Most of the bits I had lying about were in tones of purple, green, and aqua. I piled them all together and they looked pretty good, so that was the frit mix I was going to make.
Again, I will say- your safety is your responsibility. This is what I do, it has not gone through any rigorous testing by any certified safety organization:

1) Put on safety glasses

2) Fill a clean glass jar with at least 4 inches of water (friends have suggested this be cold water- that should make it break even better!) and put it nearby on my torching table.

3) Light the torch.

4) Grab one of the shorts with a pair of tweezers and put it in the torch until it glows a nice red just about all over. Try not to put the tweezers directly into the flame.

5) Drop the hot glass into the jar of water. If it is attached to the tweezers, plunge the whole thing into the water and tap lightly. Usually the glass will detach from the tweezers. If there is a little bit still attached to them, reheat and plunge into a different jar of water to remove it- the 'junk' jar.

6) Do this with all of the pieces of glass. They will shatter as they are placed in the water, but not really into small enough pieces to be used as frit as they are.
*** After I wrote this, a friend told me that she mashes the glass into a thin lollipop shape and the glass naturally breaks into small frit, so it is not necessary to use a hammer. What a great tip! Thanks so much, Lara***

7) Pour the glass through a small strainer that is reserved for this purpose.

8) Let dry on a piece of newspaper.

9) Put glass into an old broken down cereal box or other thin cardboard, or wrap in fabric. Wrap around the glass so that it can't escape easily.

10) Wrap with newspaper and tap with a hammer on a solid surface. Open and see if the pieces are to your liking. If not repeat wrapping and tapping.

11) If desired, the frit can be put through different sizes of mesh to sort it by size.

 That's it! All done and I'm ready to use it.  Frit made of glass with special qualities, like rubino oro or silver reaction colors, should be made separately rather than used in a mix so that the reactions and flame atmosphere can be controlled properly.

There are times when I want to make frit using specific color combinations. To do this, I simply heat the end of a rod and plunge it into my jar of clean water. This is where Lara's 'lollipop' trick could really come in handy!
It is a good idea to reheat the end of this rod right away as it may be a bit cracked at the end. This will save your being surprised by a 'shocky' end later.

Scrap fishies

 A couple of months ago, I decided to try making a fish by using up some of the twistie scraps I have lying around. I was pretty please with it, so I've made a couple more recently. They have a kind of different feel to them than the fish I normally make. First I make a clear core, then cover it with a color that accentuates the scraps I'll be using. Next they are rolled in silver foil, which I burn off to give a natural, organic look, and then the twistie scraps are randomly applied.

The other day, when my gas was running out, I took a clear rod of glass, heated it and applied the twistie scraps to it, melted it into a blob, and then twisted it. Kind of re-twisted twistie. The first fish pictured is the one I used that on. I ended up twirling it a bit on each side of the fish body to give it a nicer look. You can see a bit of silver haze on the bottom fish- I really like this look.

One thing about using scraps- I tend to use colors I wouldn't normally use together. It's always nice to try out some different things and see the results!