beach theme Pandora beads

Using a bead press from Moores' Tools, I have added silver lining to my Pandora lampwork beads. They are great fun to make. Besides the usual designs, I recently started making bracelet beads with a beach theme. These organic beads are usually based on ivory with silver foil, silver glass stringer, and hand pulled murrini.

canyon butterfly

I love how this bead came out. It has so much depth and variation of colors. It incorporated one of my few precious butterfly murrini from Beth Olson.

Unfortunately, I detected a small hairline crack deep within the core. It has not gotten bigger for almost a week. I guess its a sign that I should keep it for myself.

Pandora Biagi Trollstyled Beads

I have been making the large hole beads for the European bracelets like Pandora Biagi and Trollbeads for almost a year. Recently I bought a Jim Moore bead liner tool and had lots of fun lining the beads.

Mermaid Cove with 22k gold decals

I love working with silver glass which when torched and annealed just right can yield beads with magical colors. However when conditions are not quite right, one get most times dark blue like this lentil bead. But doesn't it look just perfect as background for the gold mermaid and seashell decals? The decals after application to the bead were low fired in a 1140 degree kiln to be permanently fused to the glass.

Evergreen Tree Bead

I love making tree beads against various scenic background. The background is melted flat while the tree is left raised for 3d texture. This bead measures about 37mm diameter with 2+mm stringing hole.

Aquarium Focal Bead

This aquarium bead has a transparent cobalt blue core wrapped with sparkling dichroic. I used Vetrofond river rock swirled with silvered ivory for the seabed. A few handpulled starfish murrini were added to the seabed for color. The adorable fish murrini are from Heather Ferman and Beth Olson. The bead measures 29x24mm.

Reactive Bead Exchange

I signed up for LE (Lampwork Etc) reactive bead exchange. Here are my 3 submissions. The first is Reichenbach 146 (transparent iris black) on Vetrofond shell pink, the middle is Moretti grasshopper green vines with Vetrofond Pajama blue flower on Vetrofond river rock or avocado, and the third is Reichenbach 136 (transparent iris green) on Moretti light periwinkle.