Making Lampwork Trees For Beginners

I have been working on getting the gnarled look of the tree bark The first problem I had was pulling stringers. They would be fat in one place and then thick in the next inch. I guess it's just going to take practice. What I have learned is to pull at a steady pace. I put a glob of glass at the end of my mandrel. I flatten it into a pancake about the size of a quarter. I then add a fat stripe on all four sides using different colors. I like using shades of brown, black,ivory,yellows and reds. The colors can be as wild as your imagination. I melt the glass until it's starting to sag, then take a tweezers and pull and twist at the same time fairly quickly but at an even pace. It definately gets better as you practice.

Using Silver Clay and Glass

Yesterday I promised to show you the results of trying to fire silver clay and glass. Trying to insert 104 coe glass on a prefired silver bead did not work well. Parts of the silver turned a yellowish color which was impossible to remove. Also the silver appears to have fumed the glass which means the glass now has tiny pieces of silver. This was tried at a temp of 1230 F. I had better luck when I added the silver to a prefired lampwork bead as I did on the red heart within a heart Etsy Please feel free to ask questions in comments. I will try to answer. You can contact me through a convo on http://beadsofglass.etsy.com If you found this helpful please sign up to receive this feed by email or feedburner (links on right)
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heart Within A Heart

My latest Handmade Jewelry on Etsy - A Heart WithIn A Heart Pure Silver on Red Lampwork Pendant by beadsofglass http://beadsofglass.etsy.com
This is the first piece from my new jewelry line called "A Heart Within A Heart" This heart is lampwork glass with a handmade pure silver heart set into the glass bead and fired in the kiln for long lasting wear. Come visit again to see the next piece.