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.
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.
Yep, two more bracelets.
The top is turquoise and the bottom one is another blue one. Again, I took crappy pictures. I’m going to have to work on that…..
Things seem to be happening in twos. At least when it comes to me making things. Here’s two more bracelets I just finished up.
Purples and pinks, my favorite colors!!
I tried a few more ornaments last night. The first one I made turned out great. The color was nice and dense and the frit showed up nicely. But when I went to stick it in my kiln, I found my mandrel was too long and wouldn’t fit. In my attempt to try to save it, I dropped the whole thing on the concrete floor. While disappointed, it did give me a chance to inspect the wall thickness a bit closer. I’m always afraid that I will make them too thin. After that, I made these two. They ended up smaller than the first one and the frit colors don’t show up as much but I’m happy with them.
I used some kind of transparent frit applied to the outside. The colors don’t show up but I do like the texture. This happens because frit is a different COE than the base glass I’m using.
This one turned out kind of cool. It’s on the smaller side. The colors really glimmer when held up to the light. Wonder what it would look like on a real Christmas tree.
I got these beads cored with sterling silver tubing yesterday.
They all use different base colors and all of them I used different colors of frit on. Some have a floral look to them. I think I have enough to sell at the next craft show now.
Still making stuff for my last craft show. The goth girl beads seem to be a big hit so I made three more key chain.
The nice thing about making the key chains or key finders is I get to use my leftover beads from previous projects. They start building up and don’t really go with anything. It’s kind of fun looking through my stash to find beads I’ve made a long time ago that will work.
I got a chance to make more bracelets. I was using frit on the big hole beads are really liked it so I decided to use some on these smaller beads.
I really like the color line on this one. The pastel greens really work with the pink. Might have to do more of these. Course, I might be the only one that likes pink so much.
I either don’t make that many blue things or I sell them all. I seem to always end up with hardly any blue things after a show. I really like the Wedgewood blue color in this bracelet
This one didn’t work out as planned. I made the frit beads and thought I was going to get some nice green and pink colors. Boy, was I surprised when I opened the kiln. Actually these were supposed to go into the first bracelet. I had to make more frit bead for that bracelet. Then I had these. I decided to combined them with some other green and opal yellow beads. There’s also one silver glass spacer in the mix too.
I’ve been working on this set of beads like forever it seems. I thought I had enough made but didn’t, made more, still didn’t have enough and finally, I got around to make more so I could finish this necklace.
It’s longer than the ones I usually make for myself. It’s 23″ long and has sterling silver clasps and findings.
Mewkittie Creations 