A Lava-ly time!

I have been making quite a few beads lately, and have re-visited an old friend in the lava beads. I enjoy making them, there is no need for them to all be the same size or pattern, they are just organic pebbles really! The first neclace here is the second one I made actually. I made the clasp from heavy gaugue copper wire which has been hammered and wrapped (and prompted a custom order for sterling ones, yay!). There are some swarovski bicones and some snakeskin jasper beads in here too, and the spacers between the round beads are new for me as well, round flat peyote stitch. The necklace is a whopping 85cm from clasp to clasp, plus the pendant is an extra 7cm.

This one I made with a 2 hole bead, made with my button mandrel. That clasp is mine too!

Finally here are the earrings I made for Mum for Mother's day. Thank goodness she liked them!

OMG!! I MADE BEADS!!

I finally got myself some equipment to create my own lampwork beads! I have always admired what lampworkers can achieve with molten glass, but the craft has been prohibitively expensive, until now! I will have to save up for a kiln ( £600, that's gonna take a while! ) before I can sell anything, as the beads have to be annealed, that is they need to be cooled down really slowly so they don't shatter when worn as jewellery. So for now I can only practise getting shape, size and colour right. Anyway, here are some of my first offerings. I made the larger beads on the earrings (top right), the clear bead and the flower bead at the bottom, the white speckled beads and the two unstrung beads. I had a blast, but I ran out of gas for my torch, so I can't do anymore for a while. How we suffer for our art! I will be setting up an Etsy shop soon to sell some of my jewellery, the proceeds of which will go towards feeding my new glass addiction!