Fabulous New Toy: Carlo Dona Bead Press

Not getting as much torch time in as I would like, but here is a little indulgence I got myself.

Ta da!

 

What is it, you ask? Well - it makes these:

It is a flower press. A Carlo Dona flower press. Like all Carlo Dona tools, it is ridiculously well made, and ridiculously expensive. Expensive enough to make you feel like you really have to justify it. It's rather like buying a sports car. You have to come up with the damnedest reasons to justify it. 

 But it's sooooo beautiful. And it does what it is designed to do, beautifully.

It is something of a one-trick pony - it makes flowers on the end of wire. That's it. A flower on a  wire. At least until I think of some other creative way to use it. But it does it so well. Who would belittle a pony for having only one trick? It's like the story of the talking dog - "He ain't so special, he never did any of those things ... ."

In a nutshell, you get a blob of glass on the end of stainless steel wire (I've been using 18 gauge stainless steel wire made by Artistic Wire)

The press has a slit in the side, and hole at the bottom of the cup. Hang your molten gather of glass downward, slip it into the slot, with the wire emerging from the now-at-the-top hole, and press the

 inner part of the press into the outer shell.

 Et voila! A little firepolish - whack in a stamen, and you're good to go.

Rolling the gather of glass in frit (before pressing) is a super nice effect too. Woohoo - finally - a use for all that frit!

If that description doesn't help - try checking out Loribeads video on youtube. I find I have better luck keeping the flower from being lop-sided by hanging the drop down, raising the whole thing up, and peering up to check that it is centred.

This is the largest size I could find - the 6 petal press. You know me - go big or go home!

Anyhoo - spring flowers! Woohoo!

Because I know you will ask - I got it here:

BeadPress.com - Easy to order, easy to pay, shipping was fast and it came extremely well packaged. No fuss, no muss. Very satisfied.

Marbles

Marbles - that's what I've been working on lately. Soft glass marbles. Starting to get stuff that I don't hate.

Photographing them is a little trickier, however.

New Marble Mold

Indulged myself in a new marble mold. I made a large marble the other day that got away from me - it was actually too large for the molds that I have, so "aha," I thought - "That's an excuse to move up to a larger mold!"

I get my Marble molds from San Grumbling, who is the guy that Drew Fritts recommends in his book. I've had my other molds a few years, and I had forgotten how truly gorgeous they are when new.

These are just beautiful marble molds, beautifully made, and beautifully balanced. The graphite is silky smooth, fine-grained and highly polished.

Totally worth it - this is a tool for life!

Creation is Messy - Archived colours

In case you didn't know - Creation is Messy (CiM) listed their discontinued and out of stock colours in their colour archives, here. Useful to know if you are looking up a colour and can't find it.

Effetre Streaky Pink

This is an Effetre streaky purple pink - that I do not seem to have a number for. It resembles EDP with a Rubino core.

It attempts to devitrify - like EDP - and is somewhat less streaky than one might think it is going to turn out.

The top mandrel is two self-coloured beads, and the bottom mandrel are four beads with a base of amethyst and a stripe of the Streaky Pink on top.

 It's handsome enough - I was expecting more dramatic results, I think.

Comparison: Effetre Tawnys

All in the same picture - the tawny Effetre colours. From the top - with their rods below, Butterscotch, Honey Swirl, Tigereye, Amazon. (Weird name - Amazon, in the context of the others.)

My personal fave is the Tigereye.

Double Helix Notos

Well - you're definitely not going to get bored with this colour. If you can't get at least 4 different looks out of it - you're just not trying hard enough. 

 This is Notos, three beads, self-coloured, and reduced. The bead on the left was cooler when reducing - but they all came out pretty similar.

 

This bead is a base of Notos, cooled to not glowing, reduced, and encased.

On the left, a base of Notos, reduced while hot (kinda muddy) and encased. And on the right, a base of black, encased w Notos and reduced cold.

Reduce this one cool.