March beads (worthy of posting online)

I'm still on my skills improvement mission.

I wish I made more time to sit down and make beads. I'm sure I would improve faster. There simply are too many interesting things to do and make....

In the dot perfection category...

Just in time for Easter  - brightly colored salmon egg beads

They're not as easy as they look.. especially remembering to apply the silver foil after making the base bead. I wonder how many times I forgot that step? I now have a salmon egg mantra to help me remember. It does help - when I remember to say it, lol. I am getting better at sizing the dots, as well as applying them. Proper heat application is still a problem... but it is improving.

Stormy spring weather beads

Thanks, Amy, for making it possible to sit for hours on end making these wild and wonderful stormed beads! Each one is different - each glass makes a different pattern, no matter how hard you try to stick to a routine. I really could spend forever making these beads. But then I would have to abandon my mission...

The Bleubirds are back!

A happy accident. Jen Geldard says - don't throw bad beads into the water jar- make them into interesting birds instead. Nowadays only the beads that come loose on the mandrel and have absolutely no hope of making it to the kiln go into the water jar, and as a result, I have all sorts of interesting birds in my ever-growing collection. This was a dot bead variation - it started out as a flower bead... I think the technique might lend itself to a bead that actually is intended to look like bird feathers... if I could get the orientation worked out properly. 

I love my little bird beads.

Cheers.