New butterfly bead

After much experimenting, I think I have finally settled on the colors for this new bead.  I call it a butterfly bead, since the inspiration was a butterfly.  The raised dots actually have a flash of color- I couldn't capture that in a photo.  The background is ivory glass and the rest is various colors of Double Helix silver glass.  I am having loads of fun experimenting with all the new silver glass colors.  I developed the first butterfly bead for my new book, which probably won't be out until early next year.  It is so much fun to work on new designs!

Out of the kiln

Yesterday I came down with some kind of crud, sore throat, etc, but today I felt well enough to work on my torch for a while.  These are what I took out of the kiln tonight.  The large one is a blown bead, and it doesn't have any cracks!  That has been a problem for me, and I am not sure if it is my annealing schedule or if they are going into the kiln too cool.  The bottom left three are my new butterfly beads.  I was experimenting with silver glass stringers, and it really made a difference.  The left one fumed too much and looks dirty, the middle one didn't fume much at all, and the right one fumed enough to turn the ivory glass darker.  I like it!  The gold ones on the right are experiments with a new silver glass.  It was a pretty good day, especially considering how I felt!

March!

Signs of spring are happening!  We have had a lot of rain, not ice or snow!  I thought when Feb was over, I would be able to slow down a little, but that isn't happening.  I have to do all the things I put off!  Plus tax season is coming- not my favorite thing.  But with all this, I made myself a promise that I would get into my studio more.  My new beads were the ones that sold at the Berks Bead Bazaar, a sure sign I need to keep creating new beads.