Encasing - Wows and Woes

It's been a hectic week pretty much away from the torch but when I was able to get to it, I did some more experimenting.  So much fun to experiement as always.  :)  That makes life much more interesting.  :) 

So here are my experiments :

All encased of course and each one I tried something different. 

Starting with the top row, left to right:  Pink flowers bead was my second try at doing a layered flower.  Hmm, this type of flower will take ALOT of practice on my part.  It became obvious to me right away that I will have to start the flower by adding one more petal making it a 5 petal flower rather than 4 petals.  Makes it easier to center the second layer of petals.  #2 bead is flowers in light blue and a couple with twistie petals encased in some new to me clear glass I think.  I like how the twistie showed in the petals alot.  And the clear glass I used, is AWESOME !  A tad expensive but it's absolutely PERFECT !  If there are any bubbles in that bead it is something I did, not the glass.  #3 bead - I love this bead !  Again I used that awesome clear glass but first I covered the colbalt blue base with silver foil and encased it leaving it silver and gold.  I wanted to see if the new glass would leave the silver - silver or turn it gold like some clears will do.  It only turned it gold ever so slightly in one spot.  The ends on this bead are PERFECT as is everything else !  Wow !  That's a big accomplishment for me still !  lol !  Bead #4 - A white base with orange flowers.  The experiment part here is the orange flowers.  I used a stringer of enamel to make the petals then encased.  I didn't know if enamels COULD be encased so this was the experiment.  I will be digging deeper into encasing enamels.  :)  The last two beads are encased frit beads.  One I just wanted to practice perfection, which I did and the very last bead is pressed which again I was working on perfection. That one is very lopsided.  More glass on one side of the hole than the other. 

So that's it.  To me, they are all WOWS because I am amazed I can still make them !  lol !  I'll keep working on the imperfections to be sure and try improving.  Just getting this far with them is a huge acomplishment for ME.  It might be this is as far as I can get.  Only time will tell.  

At any rate, the experiments were all worth the effort.  Learning new things is always GREAT !   This go round I learned it's ok to encase enamels, the difference in clear glasses is AMAZING, that it takes time to perfect good ends (for me anyway) and slow is always the best way to go when encasing.  :)  Oh and it helps TREMENDOUSLY if the clear glass one is using to encase with - melts like butta !  lol !  

So the second time I was able to torch, I made canes and stringers.  More on that in the next blog post.  Something I've wanted to do for years is coming - I hope !  lol !  

Thanks so much for coming by !  I hope you come back again soon.  :)  Have a great weekend !               

Where Was That Ah-Ha !

Last Monday morning, as I sat at the torch, trying to get inspired I just couldn’t find my mojo.  Nothing was working for me.  Nothing was coming out like I wanted it to.  I made a couple BOC beads for the kids and some spacers thinking ok, that’s it.  No more torching for the day.  Took a lunch break and thought oh what the heck, let’s give it another try thinking it was all going to go horribly wrong or maybe I’d get lucky and find some sort of inspiration.  Generally, with me, it’s the going horribly wrong !  lol !  So I sat down and thought, ok maybe I just need to do something either brand new or revisit something that for whatever reason I just could NOT get in the past.  I revisited encasing flowers.  Oh brother !  That was always a crick in my side.  I just could NEVER get it right.  The ends were bad, the flowers were smeared, encasing had divets, etc, etc.  No matter how hard I tried or what I did or what tutorial I bought and tried to follow.  Nothing worked, there was always something wrong – until last Monday ! 

At last, it all came together.  How or why I’m not sure.  I’m thinking I just relaxed and figured what the heck !  lol !  Yep, everything worked out just fine.  The first one I just let myself go.  If the ends turned out – great, if not I didn’t care.  My main goal was to keep the “flowers” and everything under the encasing in shape, no smearing.  I did it !  No smearing !  Then the next thing was ok, no divets in the encasing.  I thought surely that was just too much to ask !  I mean there was no smearing afterall.  Wasn’t that enough for the first try ?  Nope.  I had to improve the encasing and I did it !  NO divets !  Two outta three ain’t so bad so let’s see if I can get nice ends.  Done !  J  Needless to say I am very happy !  It was one of those weeks I couldn’t wait to get back to the torch every day just to see if I could make that bead.  There was no “ah-ha” moment when it all came together.  I have no clue WHY it all came together after all these years.  It just did and I don’t think I want to question it.  lol ! 

These are just “beginner” encased flowers, nothing fancy.  The fancy stuff will come later I hope.  Fancy meaning a second layer of petals or putting a crease in the petals or adding a stamen to the center, that sort of stuff.  I did try the layering of petals on one bead – pffft, did’nt work too well so no rushing it.  I did learn something very valuable though that I DID read over and over in every tip or tutuorial out there – take your time encasing.  Slow is better and it’s very true.  

Below is a photo of the flowers from last week. 

Top row, left to right, first two are day one, second two are day two and bottom three are day three.  The very bottom bead isn't encased flowers but I like how the bead turned out so it was included in the photo.  :)  Of course a few did end up in the water can.  It happens.  :(   All in all, I am THRILLED that I can say - I can make encased flowers !  lol !  Wow !  Insert happy dancer here.  :)     

Thanks so much for coming by !  I hope you come back again very soon to see what’s going on in my little corner of the world.  J