Now that I have all the beads made for that necklace, I went back to making ornaments. Here’s a purple one.
This one is about 7 inches long.
Just A Bunch Of Beads
88 beads to be exact. All the same except in different colors. Encasing a bunch of different colors is a bit challenging as each color acts differently. Making only a few beads out of each color doesn’t give me a chance to get used to the glass before I move on to the next color. These are for a necklace my friend is going to make. No, she isn’t going to use them all. That would make a long, heavy necklace. I wanted to give her enough to choose from.
It’s Looking A Lot Like Christmas Ornaments
These will the the last two ornaments for a while. I made these in Christmas colors.
I’m getting braver and trying more transparent colors. They are harder as the walls have to be even since they show. It’s also harder to clean out the bead release residue. I have to fill them up with water and blow the water out several times to get the pieces all out.
Orange Ornament
I thought I picked up red but this is clearly orange. It sure looks different when I’m wearing my torching glasses. I had the green bead as an orange one but it was orange overkill so I made the new green bead for this ornament. What’s going to happen is I’m going to end up with a bunch of different colored, leftover hollow beads and not know what to do with them.
This one is about 7 inches long.
What Else? Another Ornament Of Course
Got another ornament done. This one is 7 inches long. The big light greenish bead is the biggest hollow bead I’ve ever made.
Another Ornament
Of course there’s another. I can’t make just one thing and move on to the next. This one is black and white. Guess it’s kind of dark to be an ornament but I like the contrasting colors.
This one is a little over 6 1/2 inches long.
A Little Late – An Ornament
Well, kind of. This is my prototype for dangle type ornaments. It’s made out of several beads, the three big beads are hollow. All the beads are threaded onto a stainless steel mandrel and a glass end cap is glued on. This one turned out too dark and even though I used different colors for the hollow beads it’s hard to tell. Next time I’ll go a few shades lighter.
It’s six inches long.
Really Colorful Necklace
I end up with a bunch of short ends of rods of different colors and after a while they start taking over my table. I decided to make some beads out of them. Here’s the results.
I did use a bunch of clear to encase the beads but the rest was what was on my work table.
Colored Pencil On Metal Collaboration
My sister is here for the holidays and she wanted to make a colored pencil on copper pendant. She colored the copper piece and we collaborated on the design. She wanted it to be a brooch so I worked on those components while my sister struggled to saw the sterling silver piece out. I took over the sawing process and sent her off to find some #65 size drill bits. She came back from the store with a $3.99 pack of different sized drill bits. Must have had 40 bits in that package, all combined together. After sorting them out and finding the one I needed I attempted to drill with it. I couldn’t get a hole drilled all the way through which should have been easy for a brand new drill bit. I had to use one that was a bit bigger. It’s best to use the right size holes when riveting so it was a little more difficult. Here’s the finished results.
I would have liked more surface texture to the piece as I like the contrast but this is what my sister wanted. I think she did a great job on the colored piece. 
This is the back. I know I didn’t do a very good finishing job but I did get the pin back worked out. I don’t do that many pin backs and have never done one like this before.
Mewkittie Creations 