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Beadmaking |
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Information |
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Elizabeth uses many materials to create her glass beads and jewelry. Here is a sampling.
Glass
Elizabeth uses primarily Effetre glass from Italy, but also uses Lauscha, Bullseye, & Czech glass.
She is always on the lookout for new glass and odd color lots to add to her collection.
Each color of glass comes in long, pencil-thin rods she heats over the flame.
Bali Silver
Elizabeth travels to Bali, Indonesia to buy her silver from long-time silversmithing families.
Each ornate piece is handcrafted in traditional Island methods.
Mandrels
These are long skinny sticks of steel she wraps the molten glass around when she makes beads.
Each mandrel is dipped into a special mud to keep the beads from sticking and produces a nice round hole in each bead.
The mandrel is held in her left hand and spun continuously throughout the beadmaking process.
Stringers
Small thin glass rods pulled from molten cane are referred to as stringers. She uses the glass whiskers like color crayons to draw designs on her beads.
Millefiore
These are the tiny Italian, glass pictures. Sometimes the artist incorporates them into her handcrafted beads.
Frits
This is the ground-up glass that comes in a rainbow of colors.
Elizabeth uses it to create dramatic texture and color combinations on her beads.
Silver Foil
Silver foil is used to add sparkle to the beads.
It can also produce a wide variety of color reactions with certain glass frits and other color rods.
Really fun to play with, like bead 'Raku'. You never know what to expect. |
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Italian Moretti Glass
Silver from Bali
Stringers
Millefiore
Fritz |
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