Skills from Brazil

I spent this Saturday with my sister-in-law, who happens to be from Brazil.  She doesn't speak much English, and my Portuguese vocabulary is extremely limited (mostly consisting of pickup lines), so we did a lot of activities that don't require much conversation.

One of our first activities was glass bead making.  That required a translator.  It was really fun.  I had one yellowish clear glass rod that apparently turns a pretty, deep red when fired.  Who knew?!  She make four beads and I made two.  I have been trying propane gas instead of MAPP gas this time, because some people say it works as good and it's about half the price.  I've read that it burns "dirtier" and sometimes leaves residue on your glass.  It's true... The irony is that the residue it left on one of my glass beads today actually looks really cool.  Oh, also note the manicure I am sporting, another little gift from Paula.
 

This is the "clear" that turned a lovely blood red.

Here's a closeup to let you see the residue my fuel was leaving, which actually works with the bead.  :)

  Paula also taught me how to crochet/embroider flowers.  This is a skill I have never had, and I felt like an awkward little five year old who doesn't have fine motor skills when I tried to do it.  However, it was great fun.  After she left I tried what she taught me.  My snuggie was lying around, so it got to be the guinea pig.  She also taught me how to crochet flowers.  I was going to try to write instructions, but you'll just have to settle for pictures because I don't think I could explain it.

This is a photo of me beginning the weave.  All you do is weave your yarn under over under, etc, around the little star you made (also say hello to a piece of my hair I was apparently weaving in as well).

My Snuggie, customized.

Lovely Blue Flame and Molten Glass

Part two of my glass bead making adventure began today.  Today, I was actually going to attempt making a glass bead.  I began by examining all of the parts of my kit and reading through the directions.  I learned that I had to wash the little steel rods that you make the beads on because they are greasy when they are new.  I learned that I had to coat the little rods with "Bead Release" and let it dry so that I could get the beads off the metal rod after I made them.

Bead Release and Mandrels

Coated Mandrels

Once I had laid out all of my materials and made sure I knew what to do with all of them, I put in the instructional DVD.  This "instructional" DVD was a whopping two minutes and thirty seconds.  In less than three minutes, apparently I learned all I needed to know about how not to blow my house up, where to place the rod in the flame, how to know it's heated enough, and how to create beautiful masterpieces (oh wait, they didn't address any of those points in the video or the written instructions).
 

Set up and ready to begin

Thoroughly educated in my equipment and how to do amazing lampwork, I began.  I tried to start with some uglier colors, just in case I slaughtered my initial attempts.  True to my fears, the first attempt was a bit of a disaster.  I couldn't get the molten glass to stick to the rod (maybe because they never explained anywhere how to do that), and just ended up disfiguring my glass rod and getting a bunch of bead release flakes mixed in with it.  Wondering slightly if I had severely overestimated my abilities, I tried again.  The second time around was much more successful, and I was able to make an actual bead.  Basically you have to hold the glass rod in the flame at the tip where it melts and turns orange and pliable.  Apparently if your tools are hot, the glass will stick to them (which means if it is your bead mandrel you want it to be hot, and supplemental tools should be cool so the glass doesn't stick to them).  It was stickier and thicker than I thought it would be.  It felt like I was manipulating taffy.  I made four beads tonight.  I can only hope that I'll be able to get them off the rods.

I made the beads in order from right to left.

Bead number two had some problems with the bead release and was basically fused onto its mandrel.  However, the others released nicely.  Below are the finished products of my beads.  Bead number two was destroyed in order to remove it from the mandrel.  I reheated it and transferred the glass onto another mandrel with the release on it (I didn't make another bead out of it because it had flakes of the bead release mixed in with the glass).  It looked kind of cool, so I took a picture of that too.

My first glass bead

My third bead

My fourth bead

Bead number two, destroyed and transferred onto another mandrel