Recycle

Be cool, Recycle, man

The year is 2007, I had just turned 21 and cut my own hair... the world was a very different place...

Ok, I don't know where I'm going with this so I'm just going to come right out and say it.

The other day I made some beads out of glass from a Jargermeister bottle.

This is them, they are good.

The day after the other day I was walking along and I found a broken glass on the road

Picking it up, I took it home and made this

See that dark bit? That's coke, because I didn't wash the glass, like the lazy bitch that I am.

I mean, I left it there because I thought it would look cool.

And here's what happens when you mix glass from a beer bottle with regular bead-making glass

It looks cool, but it has so many cracks that it would probably shatter if I dropped it on a crusty sock.

This is still clearly a work in progress but I think all them hippies will appreciate that I am being all recyclable, man.

(and not a tight-arse...)

Attempts, Failures and Near Misses

Well, nobody likes to admit a failure but lately I've become at one with the fact that they are going to happen.

As Mahatma Gandhi probably said "Jess, it'ok to make mistakes, but try to work out where you went wrong so that you won't make that same mistake twice. Damn, you're a good-looking chick."

So with this in mind, I went and looked in the mirror, and I tend to agree with the guy.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures of stuff.

Twisties

Here is a picture of some twisties that somebody else made

Here's the link to the page I got this from http://www.flickr.com/photos/51423372@N00/favorites/?view=ju

 I'm working on getting them this perfect but clearly this will take time.

These are beads I made with twisties while I was practicing...they aren't very good

Square Dots

This is one technique I'm really struggling with - making round dots melt into eachother so they look like stripes or squares. Here's several failed attempts and a very near miss at getting it right!

Encased Florals

I'll get this one of these days. The trick is to make sure that you've covered the whole flower with clear glass before you melt it smooth but then you have to be careful not to let the glass get too hot otherwise it pulls your design around and ruins it. The good thing about this is, if you pretend you weren't trying to do something nifty, the bead looks pretty cool. Otherwise, Boo! Hiss!

See if you can tell which is which in these attempts.

I'm sure that with time, practice and patience I will perfect these techniques but until then I think I'll continue to play :) 

First Fire

After finally receiving my Oxygen Concentrator or Oxy Con (because I'm totally down with this new beading lingo, fool) my wonderful bf set up my torch for me so that when I got home from work all I needed was a quick lesson on which buttons to push and which knobs to turn and I was away! I'm pretty sure this is why I have him :)

So I guess this is the point where I show you a few photos of the first beads I made on my Cricket torch?

Ugh! If I have to! I haven't even taken pictures yet so it means I have to get up off the couch, disturbing my cat, go into my freezing cold craft room, turn on the light and take photos *sigh* I can't be bothered! This blog shit is rigged! Fine! I'll get up.

Some pretty blue beads I made using blue, white and an enamel stringer. The shapes are not ideal but I think it'll take a bit of practice with this new torch as it burns a lot hotter so the glass is much 'runnier' and difficult to work with as you have to work that much faster. Once I get the hang of it this factor will be an absolute blessing. I've already found that making experimental beads is easier because rather than investing 15 minutes into something that may not work, I can do it in 5. So this means that I'll be more inclined to practice and therefor make them perfect!

 I did actually make more than just these but the battery on my camera died and the cat got in my light box and wouldn't get out. What a little bitch, 

Nina