Making a Glass Bead

I am self taught in bead making.  It looked so easy on YouTube!  My first torch was using MAPP propane attached to my dining room table.   Once I got my nerve up to lite the darn thing, I found out it’s not so easy to actually form something that even remotely looks like a bead!!  But I kept at it, read more books, and watched more videos and eventually I formed a non wobbly round bead.   I moved up to a propane/oxygen blend and moved out of the dining room and into my shop.  Watching glass melt and flow, being able to control the shape around the mandrel, and add colors or designs is very therapeutic for me.   Not every bead turns out like I thought it would, but sometimes that means I get really cool ‘accidents’.   I often get inspired by color combinations in nature and think of how to get a bead to represent my vision.   I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I loved making them!