Article on Annealing

One of the lovely ladies on the beading forum has got her article on Annealing published on Handmadenews.org. I had a read of it and thought it was really useful for those who are dealing with glass. I have quoted the first two paragraphs below but there is a link for the rest of the article if you are interested.

A to Z of Craft Techniques: Annealing

Posted by Jennifer Mercer on Wednesday May 20, 2009
If you work with beads, or buy beads, you have probably noticed that at lot of lampwork artisan mention that they anneal their beads. So you might be wondering exactly what this means, and why it should matter to you.

The process of making lampwork beads involves heating rods of glass up and manipulating them to make patterns and shapes. The glass then cools down. The heating up and then cooling of the glass puts a lot of stress on it. Even if the artisan is very skilled and attempts to evenly cool the finished bead down, the stress still occurs. This stressing of the glass can lead to it cracking or breaking easily.

LINK

New Cabs

Well I haven't had much time this week to be very creative. I have got my study back on track so my posts may be fewer over coming weeks. I hope not but just giving the heads up.

Anyway I have two new cabs this week. One kinda of went a weird shape because the base glass colours were different thicknesses. One of 3mm and one was 2mm but I think it still looks alright. The other one was just something I came up with and wanted to give it a spin. I'm going to post them both below because I like them so much!

This is the funny shaped one. The green is a bit more vibrant then in this pic, I didn't have the best lighting.



side view so you can see the white dots are raised

From Glass to Jewellery...

Over the weekend I decided to transform some of my pieces into jewellery. I must admit that all of these are for myself hehe I have another one from my other batch which I have claimed for myself as well but I guess I am allowed to do that!! Anyway here are some pics with the findings attached.

Pendants

Earrings

New Frit Experiment - Finished

Well yet again I am quite happy with how these turned out. I wasn't too sure on the one where I was using the two different types of frit and how the colours would look...however....

Grapes Galore small cabs
The test of using Grapes Galore and River Dance frit. I likey!! Very much.

For some reason we had a lot of little visitors today under our outdoor area where my glass is set up. Maybe it's too windy for them to fly around outside so they've come in for some shelter until the wind passes. Shoo fly!

WIP - finished

Well I am quite pleased with how my current WIP has come out. I thought I had fused it for a little too long but turns out it was just right! I suppose that means I should stop doubting myself.

Anywho, these are the finished photos.



This is my next experiment. using my new frit that I got 'Grapes Galore' and I have also thought I might try MIXING some frits hehe. Not exactly mixing the glass together but using different frit on the same piece of glass. I like both of these colours so I hope they go alright together!
Until tomorrow.....