These are dead easy! Really, really they are - perfect if your beads normally end up without puckered ends, or if your stringer control is pants ;D
1) Make a random-shaped bead out of effetre dark grey opaque
2) Squish it into pebble shape (this is where you should get rid of the sharp ends).
3) Create a quartz ore using ivory stringer (it doesn't matter if it gets blobby in places, after all, quartz veins aren't even either)
4) Sprinke some white enamel (sparingly!) randomly and melt in (or reverse steps 3&4 if you want a raised quartz ore).
5) Cool, anneal, and (to quote Tan): etch, etch, etch (15 mins seems a good time).
Experiment - try clear glass with an iron ore (vetrofond petrified wood works well) and ochre enamel.........study pebbles and the world's your oyster ...errr....pebble ;D
Here are mine following the steps above, I'll add some of the other pebbles I played at - let's see yours!
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/2206170139_17200bece6.jpg)
Ohhh Thanks Sabine - I'm off to make a stone fish - that's all I can seem to make at the moment! LOL
Thanks Sabine, I'm going to try this. ;D
I think I may have wet myself :-[
Those are gorgeous!! :'(
They're really pretty! No playing with enamels for me just yet but one day ;D
Really lovely Sabine...they look so lifelike....thanks for the tut :D
Sabine, you are a gem, I love these beads thankyou ;D
They are so cool! Thanks Sabine ;D
By the way-how on earth did you work out how to make these!? I think I am just far to boring and unexperimentative!
If you are bilungual, you can have a nosey around other lampwork forums - German ones, for example ;) So as much as I'd like to take credit, I can't - I saw it here
http://www.herz-aus-glas.com:8081/thread.php?threadid=222&sid
More pics from individual steps and other pebbles can be found there too ;D
Haha! Your secret is out! ;D ;D
;D ;D I also just noticed that I'm bilungual, and not bilingual - that must be extra-special??
Quote from: sparrow on January 21, 2008, 01:12:28 PM
;D ;D I also just noticed that I'm bilungual, and not bilingual - that must be extra-special??
We already knew that you were extra-special though Sabine! ;D ;D ;D
LOL ;D