More pictures

The below is the beginning phase of blowing the vessel that will be made into a shards. The glob of glass is hollow, a bit more rounded, and has been evenly heated. The end has been closed via heat…take the tip of the flame and round out the end of the glob. Always keep is moving or it will implode on you. The gently blow into the stainless tube, while keeping the glob in the flame. One you get it to a point about the size of a small key lime, finish blowing it into about the size of a lemon or larger if you can. The larger the size the thinner the walls.

Don’t inhale, if you do…you will get a blast of about 1500 degree heat into your lungs. That will make for a very, very bad day and a trip to the ER.


Remember the tin cans that I first showed in pic #2? Well after you are done blowing the vessel, then gently drop it into the can.

The below is the finished product, these are shards that are then re-heated and applied to a lampwork bead. They can also be made into frit or twisties.

The cane that I used was turquoise, opal yellow, Lauscha lt lavender, uranium yellow, and a bubblegum pink. There are several reasons why I used this combo. They are all opaque, very soft, and spread well. The opal yellow will react with the turquoise too. Since I was taking pictures during this process, I went with the softer glasses. It was easier to heat and re-heat.

If you are going to use opaque, use all opaque. The same with transparent. The reason being is heating and the look of the shard pieces on the lampwork beads. For example, blue transparents are much more stiff than many of the transparent and transparent are much stiffer than opaque. So it is hard to keep even heating. The walls become unequal and you will easily blow out a side. Also if you layer opaque and transparent, you risk getting mud colors instead of unique patterns.

Tomorrow I will post several beads that are all shard beads but all different looking.

Same bat time and same bat place...

~Moon