Latest Glass to show and a color recipe for my glassy peeps

Been back to the torch a few times since the holidays and here are a few of the pieces I've made.

First, a candy apple cardinal.  My goal for this year was to take some of my larger sculptural pieces and adapt them into a more 'jewelry friendly' variation.  I've done a few fish successfully ie. they are smaller and the fins were closer to the body.  This is the first adapted bird.  His wings go straight up instead of out to the sides, he is about half the size of one of my regular birds and his connection points are thicker.  I can see him easily as a pendant.

The next one I have is a dichroic floral.  I went through and archived all my old online gallery images and noticed that my past work was a lot more 'girlie' than my recent work.  I'm fine with that, but looking at all those beads from my past put me in the mood to do something super girlie.  This is a base of black with some new pink 'splinter' dichroic that was a dream to work with, some tight twisties and really thick 'paperweight' style encasement.  It is huge, but I really like it.  I like big beads and I cannot lie.

Last but not least, I have a frog.  One thing I can't figure out and some of my closest lampworking buds are crazy for them...is all the different odd lots of coral.  I have 4 or 5 of them and for whatever reason they NEVER look like what I'm expecting them to look like, they NEVER look like the rod color and they ALWAYS end up looking the same.  I'm sure this is user error because my buds can get these fancy corals to do all kinds of tricks.  I am coral challenged.  So, this frog is coral with lapis dots, but he isn't the part I want to draw attention to here.  No, I'm liking the base on this one.

Another of my 'projects' for 2010 was to find a way to use cheaper, everyday glass and make it look like the $100/pound high-silver glass that is all the rage.  So far blue has been easy.  If you have any knowledge of glass chemistry at all, anyone can get the silvery blue to happen. (edited to add: I've gotten comments in several places asking about how to get the blue silvery colors.  For more detailed information you can search for 'faux boro' on Lampwork Etc, but the idea is that you take a layer of straw yellow or pale brown, roll it in iris gold frit, melt that in very well, then encase it.  The reaction between the straw yellow and the iris gold forms the halo-ish glowy blue colors.  I did not 'invent' that reaction, nor was I the first one to share it which is the main reason I didn't include it in this recipe.  I didn't want anyone to think I was claiming it. LOL  I wasn't trying to be a tease, honest.)  GREEN is harder.  This is my first successful (in my opinion) mock silver glass green.

The recipe for this base bead:

*effetre pea green is the core

*encase the pea green with straw yellow

*put hair-thin stringer wraps of transparent mosaic green around the straw yellow

*melt those smooth and roll in iris gold small frit (that is a reduction frit most of us already own)

*melt that in for a good long time

*the longer you melt it in the heavier the reaction....but don't boil it for the love of pete

*encase it in clear, do your final shaping and voila...all that green in the mosaic green bleeds into the blue haze reduction you would get from the iris gold/straw yellow combination and turns it GREEEEN.

These beads will all be available in my etsy shop within the next hour or so- I'm working on the listings right after I post this.  The dot frog above is one of my recession buster beads at only $5!!!

Thanks for checking in with me.

~~Mary