Pretty Flowers!



I have been very busy over the last couple of weeks but I did manage to spend some time in my studio making this set of beads.  I have been making floral beads for years now and over the last six months I have been experimenting with different flower petal designs.  I want to make the petals more realistic (if that is possible) and this is part of the journey to achieving this.  I do have an obsession with flowers and have far too many photographs clogging up the home computer .... but that is another story!

 



I spent a great deal of time developing the central core of these beads to increase the depth. This is a comment that is regularly made about my lampwork beads.  There is a lot of depth to my beads and each time you look at them you see something different.  I only wish I could capture this within a photograph!   My lampwork beads are made from multiple layers that have all been completely encased in a layer of clear glass.  The encasing layers add to the depth because they magnify and distort the underlying layers.  I always ensure that the encasing layers completely cover the beads all the way to the bead hole.  My customers can be assured of high quality beads with no messy layers where the colours have bled into one another. ..... I am very fussy about this!

This bead set is available to purchase from my shop on Etsy.  If you click on a photograph, a link will take you straight there.

Sarah xx
www.beadscrumptious.co.uk
www.hypersmash.com
 

Ribbons.

 

I made this set of beads a few years ago.  I really liked the colour combinations and the way in which the ivory base reacted with the transparent green and blue.  It produced a gorgeous almost watercolour effect.  A couple of weeks ago I was looking through my selection of beads for inspiration and stumbled across this set of beads and remembered how I wanted to develop this watercolour effect further ...... so I did .....

 

 

I made these beads in pretty much the same way as the first set.  I used an ivory base and added a strip of transparent blue and transparent green.  I super heated the bead to help invoke a reaction with the ivory and them mixed things up a little with my faithful set of pliers.  The bead was re-heated to make a round bead and to create the puckered ends around the bead holes.  I have a thing about bead holes .... you may have guessed.   I prefer them to be finished to a very high standard.  I like my bead holes to be puckered and rounded in towards the bead hole.  There are no sharp edges to my beads they are finished to a very high standard.

 

 

 

 

Whilst I was making these beads I thought to myself "I wonder what these would look like if I sculpted a design onto the surface of the bead?" I had a go and instead of melting the colours into the glass, I created this ribbon sculpture on the surface of the bead.  It looks quite effective.  I love the way the glass moves when you heat it just right.  It is very fluid and keeps this illusion when it is cooled.  It gives the jewellery designer many different ways in which they can string this bead to great effect.

 

 

This was a great set of beads to make and I will definitely be developing the sculpted ribbon bead in more detail (so please don't copy this design).  I have plans to make a whole set of these beads in various different colours, designs, etched and not etched ..... the list is endless ..... my sketch book is full of ideas .... pages worth!

 

 

This bead set is available in my shop on Etsy.  If you click on a photograph a link will take you straight there.

 

Sarah xx

www.beadscrumptious.co.uk

www.hypersmash.com