My first ROUND marbles!

Ooh, I love my infinite rim mould!

Yes, I decided to go ahead and get one, since all I have heard about it is praise and goodness. Isn't it delicious and pretty and SHINY :)

And it works great too, these are my very first rounded marbles.

From the top left:
a spectacularly cracked flower marble,
a large-ish vortex in pastels and pixiedust, slightly cracked and with a ring of soot,
a slightly cracked planet marble,
an octopus experiment with a very flat 'face',
another planet with several mysteriously flat areas,
and finally the best of the bunch, a white flower with just a bit of soot at the top of the lens.

It seems perhaps I should start out a bit smaller, or perhaps by reading/watching a tutorial :)

I am not unaccustomed to keeping large masses of glass warm (large for beads anyway), but I have never used punties before. I dropped the first marble tree times (the cracked planet), but after that it went well. It is a bit of a distraction though, as is using a new tool, which may well have kept my attention from keeping the heat up.

But I am very happy with them, in anticipation of better results with practice :)

Love,
Lene

New Tools

So what tools did I get you ask? Well -
I have been having a lot of fun playing with the large hole mandrels I have. They are only 5mm mandrels, but that is large for me and my tiny beads :)
The whole point of making beads with larger holes is of course that I would love to core them, and eventually cap them too. I just love the look, not to mention the feel, of cored/capped beads. Glass in itself has a lovely weight, but the extra weight of the silver is a treat that screams 'Quality!' to me.
I now own a tubecutter from Ridgid, a beadliner from ArtintheRound, and a bit of tube from Ravstedhus. The only problem is that the tube has a slightly larger outer dimension than the inner dimension of the beads I had prepared. Now I double dip the mandrels, to see if that helps, but of course these new beads are waiting to be annealed. The double dipping seems to make the seperator crack when I heat it, even if I leave it to dry overnight (or several nights as it may be), so it can be a bit difficult to work with, but I am getting used to it.

Artsy thought of the week - I need to start earning some serious money, because I think I may have to start a ceramic collection too, as well as a glassobject collection.
I collect names/cards of artists I like, and have done so for years. One day I will be able to shop art again, it will happen, most definately, because it makes my soul sing.
Last saturday I saw the beautiful earthy works of Annette Valstrøm at the annual arts and crafts market at Vor Frue Plads in Copenhagen. She had brought this type of figures, a lot of them, a whole forrest. It was a beautiful sight (and I want one! or two ...) :)

P~