Embellish

Underneath an old metal desk in my basement, I’ve got a big tank of gas. On top of the desk is a fireproof board, a set of tweezers, an old screwdriver and 1,900-degree torch.
No, I haven’t been trying to build a bomb. The desk is for making glass beads, a technique known as lampworking.

A stranger encouraged me to start making beads when I was 14 years old and had set up a booth selling beaded jewelry at a local summer fair. He said lampworking was a surefire way to make jewelry unique and personalized. I took his advice and asked my parents for a lampworking kit the next Christmas. Since then, my necklaces and bracelets have featured semi-translucent, luminescent dots of handmade color.
To create a lampworked bead, an artist uses a torch (fueled by either MAPP gas or an oxygen-propane system) to heat a glass cane. He or she winds it around a steel rod known as a mandrel. Carefully rotating the mandrel in the flame of a torch produces a round bead, and different effects are created using different tools (like tweezers or a screwdriver) or different sizes of glass canes.
The hobby runs the affordability gamut. Craft stores carry beginner lampworking kits that include a variety of supplies and materials and cost $150 to $250. Expensive set-ups can cost thousands of dollars for the torch alone.
Forming bead can take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes of pure concentration. It’s a mini meditation with a beautiful byproduct. Experienced artists like Mari Johnson, who owns Blue Fire Beads in New Lenox, Ill., characterize lampworking as immediate gratification with an element of escape.
“When I work, I put my iPod on and I block out everything around me,” Johnson says. “I’ve noticed I’ll be thinking about three different things at once. I’m locked into the project, but I find I’ll be sorting through several things while I’m working.”
Johnson has made glass beads for nearly nine years and she sold her beads to jewelry designers on eBay before opening Blue Fire Beads in 2003. She teaches beginning and advanced classes, and has found once people make their first bead, “they’re hooked.”
The first thing Johnson teaches her students is how to turn the mandrel in just the right way to make a round and centered bead. She says mastering the perfect sphere is the hardest part; after that it is a matter of learning supplementary methods.
“You learn techniques, and then you become aware of all the different variables. Making a bead is kind of like an orchestra: You call on different tools, kinds of glass and techniques, to come together and balance in just the right way to create a piece.”

How to Make a Basic Bead
1.  Coat the end of the mandrel in a clay-based substance known as “bead release” and wait for it to dry. Without the bead release, the glass will stick to the metal and the bead won’t come off the mandrel, so it is important to coat it evenly. Coat several mandrels at once so you have a ready supply.

2.  Heat the rod and mandrel. Pick out your color and begin slowly turning and heating the end of the glass rod so a large, bulbous glob forms. In your other hand, heat the end of the mandrel where you’ll be making your bead. If the metal isn’t warm enough, the glass won’t stick to the bead release and you won’t be able to turn your bead. I’m right handed, and I like to hold the mandrel in my left hand while I apply the glass with my right hand.

3.  Begin shaping the bead. When both the glass and the mandrel are warm enough, lightly touch the liquid glass to the bead release and begin to gently rotate the mandrel. Continue heating the glass and wind it around until you’ve got your bead as big as you want it.  Once you’ve got enough glass on the mandrel, you can round out the bead by rotating it extremely slowly in the flame. It is important to heat it evenly for a long time so that the glass molecules realign themselves and become strong, otherwise your bead might break apart as soon as it leaves the heat. Don’t hold the bead too close to the mouth of the torch, or the glass will “burn,” i.e. bubble and turn gray. If there are a couple bumps that won’t even out, you can mash them down with graphite paddle or other tool. I like to use an old screwdriver.

4.  Decorate. Beads can be decorated by melting smaller strings of different colored glass on the surface. You can use sharp, pointed tools to drag the colors around or create bubbles. Metals can also be incorporated into the glass.

5.  Let the bead cool.  Ideally, completed beads should be “annealed,” heated in a kiln so the molecules realign themselves and become strong. But for the beginning beadmaker, placing a completed bead between a fiber blanket (thick sheets of fiber included in most beginner kits) should allow it to cool slowly enough to avoid cracking. Rotate the bead slowly in the air until the color darkens slightly before placing it in the fiber blanket. If the bead is too hot, the glass might pick up fibers from the blankets.

- Genevieve Knapp

I have just discovered the best vase tool ever. I have known about the floral frog, but never thought to try one. I’ve tried using the tape grid with no success, so thought I’d try the frog. I must admit that I don’t know how I lived without.

Flowers brought home fresh from the store have long stems and big full blooms. To keep them fresh, many sources recommend cutting the stems every day to prolong their beauty. After a couple of days, sometimes I find that my stems become too short for their vase and need to be moved to a smaller vase. This is where the floral frog (also known as pin frog) comes in handy.
Place one floral frog in the bottom of your vase. Fill with water. Begin arranging stems in vase by sticking into the spikes of the frogs. Continue until the blooms fill out the vase in an appealing arrangement, like the one featured here from FTD.
Floral frogs, like this one from www.save-on-crafts.com, can be purchased online or at craft stores. At craft stores, they can be found in the floral and foam section of the store.

I like to use this technique to turn my kitchen bowls into vases. Café au lait and deep soup bowls work great with this technique, and allow me to showcase my beautiful pottery.

- Jamie K. Garcia