Monday 29 July 2013

24 little hours

What can you do in 24 hours.

Well a team of lampworkers can get together to make as many beads as possible for the Beads of Courage programm orgnanised by www.bechildcanceraware.org.

Many other lampworkers around the country joined in and fired up their torches to make beads in their own studios to contribute to the programme too.

Jo Wolfe (www.kitzbitzartglass.com) was the one who had this great idea.  For the second year she organised the team, glass, kilns and supplies to keep everyone going. Here are a few photos of what went on.




The first of the 2 kilns ready to be emptied. These are the beads that were made in the first half of the Beadathon.

Jo's (carefully) getting those beads out

Sandy seems happy with the loot.

                                              Time for a bath   


Ready

Steady

Clean!!!!!!






                                                              Hard at work

A totem pole bead by Heather Kelly.
 (www.heatherkellyglass.co.uk)



   
                                        Its a girl!

Lets find her a space in the second kiln.





That was fun.





Go and see the beads in all their glory at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitzbitz/sets/72157634190089029/with/9384452178/

Sunday 14 July 2013

Another test

My friend Pauline, another beader (www.jazzylily.com) gave me some Ossa, a silver rich glass by Double Helix. Its a purple rod, with little whitish inclusions.So the dots on the beads are Ossa, capped in clear glass to give a nice optical lens over the Ossa, highlighting the little inclusions, which now appear glittery. You can see them best on the bottom bead.



Testing testing ........

Back on the torch again, and tested out a couple of rods of glass I haven't used before, with two colours in each rod.
I think one is called Sunset, and the other is GiFu, so in that order


As you can see from th last picture, the GiFu bead on the right has been encased in clear. This gives a slightly less intense, more pastel colour to the bead. I cant make up my mind which one I prefer, they are both pretty. Now I wonder what the unencased beads would look like etched?