Encasing Flowers

[FireLily]

I have managed (sometimes anyway!) to do even flowers, but am wanting to encase them. I have seen stunning beads with layers and layers of petals and flowers, so I guess they must be layers of encasing? Whenever I try and encase a flower the petals end up melting everywhere and the resulting flower looks nothing like the original. So messy!

Also, the very edges of the petals sometimes melt even further, leaving what looks like another line parallel to the tips of the petals further away.... does that in any way make sense?! Anyway, how can you stop this happening?

Thank you for your help!! :-)

Anna

[Jolene]

Hi ya Anna
I can't answer your technical questions but hopefully there will be someone along soon who can. In the meantime, here are some links to the tutorials section of the forum

http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4748.0
http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5181.0
http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=313.0

There are loads more tutorials that will help you get the idea of how to do the effects that you are after in the lampwork section but you could also check out youtube for video tuts too

If you find anything useful please post a link in the video tutorials section

Ta, Jo x

[afina]

Hi Anna!
You describe two problems:
1) Flowers "smear": The bead is still to hot when you encase it. Therefore the surface of the bead moves when you apply the clear. Try keeping the bead cooler.

2) edges of the petals: This happens this way: You cover the bead in clear, but not all of it. When you melt the clear, it takes with it the petals (like in striped beads or twisty beads). Try covering all of the bead, before you melt the clear in. You can use a tool (Stump shaper,...) to move the clear over the petals. But be sure only to heat the clear, not the bead underneath.

Hope you can understand what I mean ...

[♥♥Tan♥♥]

Anna, instead of practicing on your gorgeous flower beads, practice encasing just dotty beads, it gives you a really good idea of how the hot clear effects the dots.

When you make a base bead and add your dots, make sure you base bead is warm but not hot, if you tap it on your marver it should make a chink sound.

Try and get a big enough blob of clear to cover your whole dot/flower in one go, a blob will go a long way if you push it on and smoosh it around a bit, but you have to be quick or your rod will stick.

When I started i would put a blob of clear over each flower, then blob clear over all the bits of flower I missed, then fill in all the gaps, this gives thick encasing but its a great way to start

Now, when i encase, I start on the left side and put a wrap around the end of the bead near the mandrel, then I continue down the bead putting wraps as I go and finish on the right hand side with a last wrap around the mandrel

If you want layers you need to learn to encase really thinly, instead of wraps, get a big blob of clear, plonk it onto your bead and push it around the circumference of the bead as far as it will go, carry on like this for thin encasing

Practice it with a layered dotty bead, so make a small base bead with dots, let it cool so it chinks, heat a blob of clear and smoosh it around the left side of the bead, do the same for the right side, if your base bead is small enough there should be a small overlap of clear in the middle, melt it in, then add your next layer of dots, then repeat the encasing and so on.

Remember when you are doing layers try not to use your marver to shape because you compress thelayers and lose depth

[FireLily]

Thank you so much for your help :-) Will try your tips tonight and put some pics up!!

xx

[Shirley]

Be patient too. It can take a long time for an encasing to melt in evenly, and it's very tempting to move a little further into the flame.

[FireLily]

You know I recon thats one of my BIG problems - I am soooo impatient!! I think that's where I go wrong a lot.

But what about cracking - it seems as soon as I started encasing, my beads crack!!! So gutting... :-(  I saw a post in which a comment about Lauschca and cracking was made, which I use.... is it particularly prone to it? (workmen and tools springing to mind as I write this!!!!!) Also don't have a kiln yet, and use warmed vermiculite. Will this make it more likely to crack?

xxx

[Shirley]

Well, I put mine into cold vermiculite, and they are generally fine. I use Lauscha and Vetrofond to encase, and mostly they survive ok. I don't think I've ever had a flower bead crack, but I tend to stick to good old Effetre for the base and decoration and that is pretty compatible. I think it's probably a case of finding the balance between the bead being cold enough to encase without smearing and warm enough that it doesn't crack.

It really does take a huge amount of practice to encase, and I don't think it's something that can be rushed, so just take your time. And show us the results!

[afina]

I think it's probably a case of finding the balance between the bead being cold enough to encase without smearing and warm enough that it doesn't crack.

Yes it is! Be sure to warm you bead thoroughly after you encased it, otherwise it is more probable to crack because of the cool inner bead / hot encasing.