Alien Sea Huntress

Or it might end up just being called Sea Huntress, or The Huntress. In my mind it's just 'why have I got this crazy necklace idea in my head? I've got enough half finished projects already without starting another one!'

This nearly did stall, and I know that I could still be tweaking it, but I'm trying to get back to one of the earliest lessons' I learnt with glass - stop, move on; that's as good as you can do for now, learn by it and take those lessons to the next thing you make. Easier said than done, I even posted some earlier pictures on Frit Happens to get some feedback to see what needed tweaking. I almost ended up with too many ideas of changes, so after a dozen more times threading and unthreading it, moving elements around, adding and taking them away, it ended up going very nearly back to how it started. I did find adding a few small Tibetan spacer beads helped some of the claws sit more neatly, which ended up being the main tweak. I wasn't going to put the spike in the centre, and just have the two claws facing each other, but when I did it was just crying out for something major between them. I even had to make beads for it - yes beads! I hardly ever make beads, and I hated the first ones, but then remembered some 'bumpy' style ones I'd seen somewhere, so made some like that which I really liked, and as a bonus kept more of the metallic lusters.

It's been an interesting project, and bizarrely came from working on the Alien monsters, where I'd developed some interesting ways of adding colour and texture. With this one the colour has a really, really, high silver and metal content, so in real life has some wonderful metallic lusters. Oddly though parts of it show up as yellow when light shines through them, but green-blue when the light hits it straight on!

I am still deciding if I should list this on Etsy, or take it along to the May Expo. When I make things like this, I tend to think 'would this look like something someone of 'Farscape' would have worn?' If the answer is yes, or at least possiably, then I think it's right.

Talking of which, I have some news about the Aliens, but it's not confirmed yet, so you are going to have to wait until the next post, but I will post on my Facebook page as soon as I know it's going to happen.

In the meantime, here's lots of pictures of the necklace.

Silver Lined Big Holed Beads

I've finally had a chance to make some silver cored beads! I started by using brass tubing before using more expensive silver, and the first couple I made went really well. I used some reject beads with dents and imperfections on them. Once polished up the brass was really bright, they almost look gold! The hole through the middle is about 4.9-4.7mm, and the metal is put in after the beads have been made and cleaned.

I also tried some copper, but it was much thicker and I kept cracking the beads, but I'd got more confidence using the press and so switched to silver. I had some breakages, I seemed to go just a little too far at the end as one broke into three bits. Typically it was a really nice bead too! The next couple came out ok, then I had two nice ones chip, I guess I was getting too over confident at this point! Both were made with blood red glass with purple lusters and sparkles, I will certainly make some more of those as I really liked how the effect came out. I took some photos of them before I have to smash them up to get the expensive silver back out.

Finally I got three nice silver ones made, including quite a chunky one with some nice green swirls. Oddly even though I used the same silver tube the hole came out a little smaller (about 4.4mm, the others are between 4.9-4.7mm which I am told fits alot of the bracelet chains made for these beads) I guess as there was more silver in this one.

It's been quite expensive buying the press, silver, mandrels and bits and bobs, but overall I really like the effect, and boro really lends itself to these sorts of focal beads. I should have tried doing these years ago, especially after prowling around shopping centres this weekend. I am so spoiled looking at some of the amazing handmade ones from other UK lampworkers, I didn't realise how boring the mass produced ones are! I am certainly going to make more of these, I am going to have fun dreaming up new colour combos, so please let me know if there is any you'd like to see!

Ah, as I sit down to do one thing, I end up doing something else! I forgot about the buttons and started making these ‘ghost’ implosion beads/drops/pendants. They copy and old glass paperweight technique of including colours into glass then getting the hot glass to drop around the outside. Difficult to describe, and tricky to do, as I realised last night as I found twenty or so early failures laying in a box. I’ve been finding them more fun in coloured glass, and the nice thing about the these transluscent inclusions is you don’t always see the flower until it’s against skin or moves and then it’s suddenly there! I’ve done some in solid colours too, but not nearly so much fun.
Of course last night’s was a little too exciting, I found a couple of rods of very pale transparent blue (like the Bombay Saffire Gin bottles) and tried a few like these. I’d just made a really lovely (if I say so myself) flourish on the loop, very ornate, when the punty (glassmakers name for a rod which holds the glass, often made of glass as well) broke and the red hot bead dropped!Well a quick bounce off my lap was ok, but it rolled under the bench, I can still move fast! Down on my hands pulling the propane hose out of the way whilst it quiety scorched into the floorboards! Managed to retrieve it but that flourish was ruinned (and the floorboard!)