Lauscha Caramello test results

I did some testing of Lauscha SNO 630 caramello recently.

It’s a creamy, caramelly warm beige that looks good with reduced silver leaf. It’s also really nice to use instead of white in black-and-white scrollwork beads, for a warmer but still crisp and elegant look.

You can see the full results here: Caramello Testing on Lauscha.co.uk.

Beads, buttons and ring toppers for sale!

My Etsy shop is up and running: HeatherKellyGlass on Etsy. I’m adding a new item each day, so check back often!

Currently up we have an autumnal focal lentil, a decorative button in blue and green, and a bright orange-pink silver glass interchangeable ring topper.

The ring toppers are great – they have a small nut in the back that will screw onto a 2.5mm threaded screw. You can get rings in sterling or stainless steel, pendant backings and cufflinks that you can screw the toppers on to. So you can have one ring and dress it up depending how you feel on the day! You can collect little wearable bits of glass art from your favourite lampworkers and show them off.

Sabine Little of LittleCastleDesigns has the rings in stainless and sterling, pendant backs in both, and cufflinks in stainless steel.

George Harper East (mizgeorge.co.uk, mizgeorge on Etsy) makes sterling silver adjustable rings for adults and children – these are fab, I have one and it is incredibly comfortable to wear. She also takes commissions if you want something a bit different.

I went for adjustable because my fingers change size quite a bit through the course of a day depending on how hot they get! I didn’t wear rings at all before this, now I can wear my own toppers (and the advantage of a ring topper over a necklace, say, is that you can see it yourself all the time!).

I’ve started a glass-related Twitter account: GlassByHeather where you can keep up to date with new listings, and also see me wittering on about glass in general.

Twisties

I’ve been playing a little with some silver glass twisties too. Trial and error, because it’s hard to know what’s what with something where the end result depends on what glass you used in the twistie, how you constructed it (base vs stripes vs encasing), what bead base you put it on, and how you treat it after it’s on the bead! I mentioned before that my twistie with red roof tile and hades in it didn’t turn out as intended because those two glasses swamped the stripes of silver glass.

Couple of silver glass twisties

They looked pretty before I used them, at least!

The redder looking one is CiM stoneground with stripes of kalypso, psyche, terra 2 and aurae. Lord knows what the best way to treat that would be! I put clear on the end for the pull, so I also have some thin end pieces that have clear twisted into them too. Which can be fun.

The grey-green one is CiM canyon de chelly with stripes of Lauscha olive and ekho.

Twisties on ivory

This bead is ivory with the aforementioned RRT twistie on one side and a thin end piece of the stoneground twistie on the other. With twists and clear dots. I reduced it a bit. Ivory probably isn’t a great choice of background colour to be doing this on in the first place…

Dragon's egg

This was from before: also the RRT twistie. Ivory, silver leaf, twistie, reduced and encased. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it’s rather nice in an organic way. I’m calling it a dragon’s egg.

Opalino twistie

This is the stoneground twistie on a white opalino base. Reduced and it has a lot of shine and fuming.

RRT tube with twistie

In this case, the base bead was red roof tile, and it has the olive twistie on top. It’s interesting and again organic but more subtle this time. Probably still not the best base to show off the twistie on.

Dots

February’s theme of the month was dots! I mentioned it when I showed my pink dotty heart a couple of posts down, but here’s the rest of what I made.

Psyche and opalino dotties

These are psyche dots on nile green opalino and white opalino. You can see that the silver glass has fumed the white and has also affected the colour of the green.

Dotty BHBs

These big hole beads have dots in periwinkle, rubino and opal yellow. The bead on the right has a base of tongue pink (half struck) and the other two have a base of CiM plum unique-3, which is much paler than normal plum. You can see it’s formed darker separation lines under the dots.

Adamantium BHBs

These BHBs are CiM admantium with dirty martini and mermaid dots. They spread so I didn’t get crisp edges on these.

Marmalade set

These beads have shards made from Lauscha brown/white layered rods on a white background. I was thinking the layers would show up over the white, forgetting that the layers *are* white and so don’t look different at all! They were visible in the shards before I applied them, though :p
Next time I try it over clear.

I do like the effect – they’re marmaladey and I added Kaz murrini and opaque light red dots.

Terra 2 BHB

A BHB in black with terra 2 dots topped with clear. There’s more iridescence in person.

Valentine’s bead swap

The beads from the FH Valentine’s Bead Swap arrived! Here are the three lovelies I received:

Valentine's swap: received

Beads by Terri, GlassOwl and Anna (ShinySnail). Anna’s is sparkly and I have a suspicion may involve the fabled pineapple sparkle!

Here are the beads I sent.

Valentine's swap: sent

Three off-mandrel hearts. One in Lauscha transparent pink with a silver glass twistie. One in Lauscha caramello with psyche. One in Plowden & Thompson black, which goes metallic. I gave extra heat to some areas so it developed some surface texture.

I resolved to take part in more Frit-Happens swaps this year – it’s lovely to get little packages through the post with surprise glass beads in them! I also find that swaps get me doing new things – I don’t think I would have spent nearly as much time making hearts if not for this one and I’ve really enjoyed it. (I am also confident now that I can make beads of good enough quality to send out to other lampworkers! Which can be the scary bit).

The latest UKJC spring charm swap has also kickstarted an obsession with an entirely new technique for me, more about which later…

Triton murrini

Triton murrini

I made some triton murrini that I’ve been having fun with. They’re very simple: core, triton, contrasting stripes, but they’re effective and you can get a whole load of different effects depending on how you treat them. Here are a few examples!

Triton murrini in use

You can leave them raised and poke them, melt them flush and encase them, poke them and encase them, reduce them more or less… The top left one is briefly reduced and left raised – it’s a shiny but dark blue. The one next to it was encased. The pale blue-silver ones are reduced for longer and then encased. The bottom right pair with the dark blue and green are reduced a couple of times and encased in Lauscha soft clear. The shiny gold-pink one middle right is left raised and was reduced multiple times on a hothead – I was very surprised by the effect!

The dark blue and green effect is probably my favourite. Here’s the bead I got it on.

Blue Winter with murrini

It was made for January’s theme of the month, “Blue Winter”. The base is Lauscha dark teal (aka steel blue), tornado encased in soft clear and with SIS shard fragments and the triton murrini. I like how it came out a lot. I don’t actually know if the soft clear affected the colour I got in the murrini – all the other encased ones are under 006, but I also treated this one differently, so who knows?

Blue Winter - view 2

(Yup, I’ve started using a closeup of the murrini on it as my user icon!)

I have a striking murrini that needs a bit more experimentation, and I just made a batch of murrini with psyche in – we’ll see how they come out.

Further experiments in silver glass

For my Double Helix seconds, I ordered Psyche, Ekho, Kalypso, Terra 2, original Pandora (just to try as it was very on sale) and Aether. They’ll keep me going for quite some time!

Terra 2

This is terra 2. I struck, reduced and encased it (because terra 2 can get some reduction shine too) and pressed it as a kalera. But during one of the pressings it got too cold, cracked and spit off a chunk of one side at me. I filled that in with clear and healed the cracks but my colour in this bead isn’t great. It has a little bit of stormed supernova twisted on one end – should have put that over an opaque for a better effect. It also has a little bit of coral stringer. I think the colour I got would have been ok as a backing if I’d added more surface decoration to make that the focus instead. The back is slightly purpler in places.

Terra 2

This one’s also terra 2, but it worked much better. It’s over carrot red. I tornado wrapped it, leaving little gaps for it to reach the surface. I used the top of my big Cattwalk lentil to mash each side against my torchtop marver, since I don’t have a large enough crunch press to do this. It’s got a Kaz striking murrini on one side, dots of aurae and a couple of twists. I reduced the surface. I really like this one – it has shine and colours and purple and I like the way it still has little curves leftover from the tornado wrap.

Terra 2 - another angle

It’s a nice shape to hold, basically.

Kalypso blot

This one’s a bit weird. It had a bead release failure at one end, so I had to do some hurried pulling off of glass to stop it becoming stuck to the mandrel. Bad bead hole at that end – I’m just impressed it came off! It’s kalypso with clear dots on one side plus a murrini I made. Not sure the recipe for that one is very successful. Anyway, you can see that the kalypso’s over-reduced/overstruck because it’s gone that white MOP look in places.

Kalypso blot - back

Here’s the back. Those aren’t cracks, they’re just because I encased it lengthwise in stripes and some of the stripes weren’t pushed close enough together so there are some little ridges. This bead didn’t turn out how it was supposed to, but I actually still kinda like it.

Psyche and kalypso

This one didn’t turn out as intended either – the base is kalypso on white and the interior colour is nothing to write home about. But! Psyche is my new best friend – I put a caterpillar of it around the bead and a surface twist at the top, and the colour contrast makes it not matter so much that the kalypso was unsuccessful.

Webby aurae

This one also went weird, but I really like the effect. It’s aurae that I accidentally made all webby, tornado encased in baby blue. I added one of Kaz’s striking murrini and the bead got too cold and cracked while I was doing it, so I had to reheat it all the way through.

Webby aurae - back

If you look at the ends of the bead the aurae shows up as blue-green wisps, while in the centre it’s more solid. Psyche dots on top. I just like the whole effect – it’s quite subtle and less bling, and I’ll happily make this into something for me to wear. I should try this again, since I like the effect the encasing colour has.

Kalypso

Finally, this is just encased kalypso. I didn’t actually use a reduction flame for this at all, just rolled it in a neutral flame before encasing. It’ll develop a sheen anyway. I’m finding it harder to encase rounds than pressed beads with silver glass – they’re smaller and you have to get them perfectly even. You can see that I still got this one too hot in places. I messed this bead up a bit by rolling it in my doming block to help the shaping – there was some dust or something in there and now I have black streaks on the surface! Whoops. From looking at this, you’d assume it had a red core, but it’s all kalypso.

After the class

Triton

When these came out of the kiln, you could say that I was pleased!

Triton caterpillar over CiM mermaid (you can see a little bit of mermaid in the second pic, but not much is visible) with SiS on one end and a magic+hades twistie on the other. Look at the colours in the magic!

Triton view 2

The next one uses Ekho:

Ekho

Using Anouk’s secret recipe for hot pinks! Actually, I have no idea if that is a secret or not, but she is doing a third silver glass tutorial that will cover it. I think the wraps on the ends were multicolour dark.

Aurae

This is aurae spiralled over Reichenbach mystic pink. The wisps have more iridescence in person. The surface is triton dots and one of my triton murrini, believe it or not! I think I reduced multiple times for it to end up like this.

I haven’t quite got as good results since, from the ekho at least. But I’ve been zipping about trying out different glass, so it probably just needs a bit of attention. I like triton, it’s well-behaved!

BHB raku and MCD

This BHB is raku over opaque orange, encased and with multicolour dark on the ends. Plus my triton murrini, that were reduced and then covered in dots of clear. This has made them go a paler blue-silver. I was surprised how the raku came out! It’s unusually uniform and looks rather like standard multicolour. I do like the colour though – it’s muted but very pretty.

I also created an enormous fugly monstrosity of a lentil that has many things wrong with it, but these things happen!

At this point, my silver glass stash included triton and aurae, plus some stringers (including the Ekho) and single rods I got from Knatty Dreadz when he was still selling them. It didn’t take me very long after the class to place a nice big order with Double Helix for their seconds! (These are rods that have failed visual quality control – ie they may be slightly knobbly or curved or oval. To be honest, I can’t tell the difference with most of them, and most glass manufacturers would happily sell them as firsts. Got me some aether too – their clear, which I am yet to try).

When it comes to clear, Anouk recommends Reichenbach 1011 crystal, because it doesn’t affect the colour of the silver glass and can also be worked long and hot without ill effects. The beads above are using Effetre 006 because it’s what I had. My batch is decent, but I have noticed you can’t work it quite as hot.

Mystic pink supernova

A final thing to sign off: this is mystic pink with stormed supernova dots and clear dots. Lauscha supernova isn’t the same as Double Helix reduction colours: you don’t get an easy surface sheen by reducing it – I spent a long time and it stayed purple! It’s a very nice purple, though. However, it can be stormed. Storming is a technique by Amy Kinsch, see her tutorial Taking Reduction Glass By Storm.

A class with Anouk

Anouk visited Diana East’s studio in the UK to teach a silver glass course at the beginning of January. She’s on Flickr here and Etsy here, if you want to drool over her creations! She also sells tutorials, incidentally. My boyfriend paid for my place on the first day, which was an introduction to silver glass, as part of my Christmas present. (The other part was a biiiiig CiM order. I had a good Christmas this year! And he didn’t need to spend time stomping round shops *grin*).

I made these beads the day before the class, so these are without the benefit of her knowledge.

Lauscha blue-purple w silver

This is Lauscha blue-purple with silver leaf, reduced and encased in soft clear. Mmm, I like.

Aurae mermaid

This is CiM mermaid with a spiral of aurae, reduced, encased and pressed. I liked the result but had no idea if I’d got the right effect with the aurae!

BHB mermaid+magic

The BHB is a tuxedo base with a mermaid+magic twistie on top and encased. Not struck properly.

—–

The class was great. I went on the Friday, which was an extra date and so was quieter than the Saturday class. If you want to know about silver glass without having to waste so much getting to grips with it, try and take a class with someone who knows. It’s invaluable. I knew technically how to work striking and reducing glass, but it’s all the little things that you can’t find out otherwise. For example, I was surprised by just how long Anouk reduces for, and how long you can have a big bead out of the flame without it cracking. She also came round when we were making our beads and pointed out when we were getting them too hot (still my problem!) and when we were working it too long and things like that.

We made stonking huge focals and some test round beads, then opted to get Anouk to demonstrate all sorts of things for us rather than making more beads ourselves. It was a wonderful day, and Di’s studio is a great place to have a class.

I need a nice big crunch press! Next up, the beads I made after the class :)

CiM sangre, triton murrini

Encased sangre

This pair of beads are CiM sangre encased in clear. Sangre’s a very handy transparent red – unlike Effetre striking red, it doesn’t go brown easily, and if you’re using a hothead, you probably won’t notice it’s a striking glass at all. The rod’s red, you wind it on and shape and it’s still red! On a minor you can go through the clear stage, though when I’ve used it so far it has still struck pretty automatically. I haven’t had to do anything to it on purpose.

I’m posting these to remind myself how elegant simple beads can be. I’m rather envious of lampworkers who manage to make whole sets out of beads like these, with or without surface decoration. I’ve never managed the patience to do that yet myself! Focal and matching plain spacers, or pairs of decorated spacers I can do, but a set of 6-8 same size, same decoration beads? Nope. And I think that’s something I should work on.

Part of the problem right now is that I work full time, so can only lampwork in the evenings and weekends, and I have something else that is also eating up a lot of that time right now. So when I sit down to torch I want to try as many different things as possible, rather than repeating one. Hopefully later in the year I will have adjusted the work balance a bit so that I have more time for lampwork, and consistency and discipline in making sets is something I want to aim for then.

To illustrate, now to jump to something completely different!

RRT with triton murrini

This is red roof tile, partly encased in amber and with some triton murrini I made on the surface. I like the colour contrast in this bead a lot, and I’m very pleased how the murrini came out. You can get quite a number of different effects out of them depending on how you treat them – the number of times reduced, whether you encase them, etc etc – which I intend to go into in a future post.