Thrills and Spills of Starting Over

That my friends is the perfect title for this post and what I'm doing.  :)  I feel like such a newbie again with my bead making it's not funny.  Well, it is kinda funny actually.  lol !  I remember when I had it all together - all the confidence in the world when I pretty much quit making beads.  I knew what I was doing even though I certainly didn't know everything.  It takes MANY MANY years to learn it all and then I'm quite sure there is still more to learn.  That said, after a week of no torching, I sat at my lit torch all ready to melt that rod of glass onto that mandrel and just started shaking.  I have no idea why or where it came from but there it was.  So I just continued on, shaking and melted that glass.  lol !  As I finished up putting 3 so called discs the size of Texas on that first mandrel of the day, I decided it was because of the glass I was using.  It is a much more expensive glass than what I had been using.  Not only more expensive but also stiffer and doesn't melt as fast as some of the other brands but it is a GORGEOUS glass.  The color is a luscious Olive Green that I needed and wanted.  The color is PERFECT with all these earth tone colors I've been using and did not have.  Once I figured all that out and adjusted the propane and oxygen, that shaking finally went away.  I felt more at ease - even if the beads aren't all that great !  lol !  I'm still starting over so that's just how it goes.  BOC will be getting a pretty big box of beads again in the future !  lol !

So here is a picture of the group of beads I finished up yesterday.  


I got them etched and I love the colors !  All new colors to me except for the Olive Green.  I'm sure you can pick that one out.  :)  The rest, I've never used before and I really like a few of them.  I needed some orange colors so when I ordered more glass a week ago, I got several different shades of orange and wow, what a difference !  It's so much fun to experiment !  lol !  


So the next photo is one of the two focals I ended up making. 

The photo isn't all that great but at least you can see the beads and the color in them pretty well.  I really like how they turned out.  The one on the right is a little darker than I thought it would be but that's ok.  I know I said I was going to stay away from focals and I intend to do that but sometimes intentional beads turn out to be something altogether unintentional.  lol !  Does that make sense ???  :)


So now I can show a photo of all the beads I did end up making last weekend.  I piled all the beads I made over the weekend into one photo and that's what you see here.  I did etch them and love how they turned out.  All earthy &/or fallish colors.  More beads that will go to BOC !  :)    

  
Yes, LOTS more practice is coming to be sure but again, I enjoy these very much.  They are all a decent size as I am not one to make very small beads.  Never have been.  I so admire those that make tiny decorated or sculpted beads.  It takes a special hand (and eyes !) to make those tiny pieces of art.  I pretty much don't have the eyes !  lol !  Anyway, I love my beads reguardless.


I'm not quite finished with the disc shape yet.  I hope to make more possibly later this afternoon and add to the group.  I have "challenged" myself to use up any glass on my work table before starting something new.  Since I added the new colors to the table yesterday (that was about 5 rods of glass) I have a little bit of a way to go.  lol !  I was not suppose to add any colors either but I HAD to try out those new colors !  :)  No more adding glass til what is there is gone. 


So now I need to go set my clocks back one hour !  lol !  I didn't do it last night before going to bed so of course when I did get up at 5:00 am, it was actually 4:00 AM !  Great. 
Hope you all have a great week ahead !  Thanks so much for coming by !  Please come back again to see what's happening.  :)