Beads!

One of my favourite activities that I only get to do once a year is make glass beads.

It started last summer when I went home for a visit. Mom had taken a glass bead-making class at the behest of a friend of hers, and then had me go take it as well.

I quickly discovered that I love playing with red hot molten glass. Fire is fun.

Glass beads start life as rods of pretty coloured glass... that I melt with fire.

It's actually a very meditative process, you have to pay such close attention to the torch and the glass that you can't let your mind wander too much.

It's an expensive hobby, though– the cost of glass and torch table rental adds up when you do it for 4 days.

The process involves slowly heating the glass rods, slowly being the operative word as if you just stick the rod in the flame, the glass blows up.

And trust me, it really fucking hurts when one of those hot shards of glass land on your skin... I should know, I had a piece land on my chest last on my first day at the table. Only I didn't realize that it didn't just bounce off and left it there, burning my skin for about 30 seconds longer than it should have. Ouch.

Glass is such an interesting medium, it's actually pretty amazing what you can do with it. At Bavin Glassworks where I do all this bead making, the peeps that work there can make some fantastic stuff. The beads can be just about any size, with raised swirls and dots, and pretty much any shape. One lady there can do all kinds of animals, like penguins and pigs.

Me, I like making beads that look like marbles. I like ones that have different colours at different depths. And they're so cool because you don't actually know what they'll look like until you go pick them upthe next day.

Sometimes the top layer colours completely wipe out the the bottom layer colours, but it still looks pretty cool.

Glass on fire. Burn, baby, burn.

This year I tried to make some pendants that could just stand on their own as necklaces, rather that trying to make as many beads as possible the same shape and size for bracelets.

Some worked out better than others, but they're all still pretty cool.

BEADS!!!!

I would really love to do this here, it'd be a nice, warm winter activity. However, I don't think my property manager would be too happy with me burning oxygen and propane in my apartment... probably burn the whole building down.

Oh well.

Fire and Glass,

Ginger