OK, so my first project was to try to make a New Zealand silver fern (the All-Blacks emblem) on a boro bead small enough for earrings... I've only made one, so only half a pair so far... but I don't feel much motivated to perfect the technique or finish the pair... maybe one day. The tutorial was one I found free, and I loved the home-made hand-drawn nature of it, so thought I'd give it a go -
http://perles-au-chalumeau.forumactif.com/t1164-pour-pinar - it's for feather murrini, so I planned to adapt it slightly to try to get the silver fern. If you hold the bead at arm's length, in low light, and half-close your eyes, you might imagine it's OK - but really not one of my proudest:

My second was to have a go at dragon eyes from a tutorial in The Flow Magazine 2010 - I think I paid to have a pdf download of this one, but can't remember when or where - it's by an Aussie called Christian Arnold. I have several handicaps - first an appalling lack of patience, second shaky hands especially after my morning espresso... the list continues, but all just excuses of course. Anyhow, I finally got round to giving it a proper go and here are the first two attempts. No 1 - not enough stringer to cover the base, so the pupil seems to have grown tendrils - it doesn't even look like an eye, but I thought it might make quite a nice pendant, so I stuck a bail on it before dropping it into the kiln. No 2 - too much pupil, but otherwise not too bad. Now, if I had the patience to practise and perfect it, I might get somewhere, but that's probably not going to happen...

