Snowman tutorial, for lampwork beads

This tutorial was written by Donna Trull and was found on the Lampworketc page.  Below we have included a link to Donna's Etsy page and Lampworketc.

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This is my first tutorial. I've gotten so much help from LE over the years that I wanted to give a little something back. I hope someone can use the tips I offer though they are pretty elementary.

I've been kicking these little snowmen out by the dozens the last couple of weeks and thought maybe some of you might want to make some before the holiday season is over so here goes. I took the pictures myself while torching so if any info seems unclear just let me know and I'll try to clarify.

Here's a group shot of the snowmen.


You will need 
several twistys 
white
black
black stringer
orange stringer


I usually begin my torch session making twistys of different colors for the scarves. This can be a lot of fun coming up with different color combos. Everyone seems to like the white/transp. aqua and red/white the best. If you have a hard time making consistent twistys it's ok here. You can utilize several scarves from one pull. One scarf may be a tight twist and the other looser. But try to make your pulls small and tight as your snowman is small and a large scarf will overwhelm his body. 


I'm no expert on twistys for sure but I've found the easiest method for me is warm a base rod (say black) swipe on contrast color (say red) possible swipe in a stringer of white. Heat, wait just a few seconds, grab with tweezers, twist and pull at same time. I usually keep right hand still while twisting with left. The faster you pull the more stretched out the twist will be. Start out slow then speed up as glass stiffens.
Sorry no pictures as I haven't found a way to make a twisy with one hand and take pictures with the other. 




To begin you snowman make a large white bead about the size of a grape. You can try larger if you want a gigantimous snowman but this is the general size I've been working with.



Add a smaller white bead next to it almost touching. This one is touching but that's ok too. 


Melt round then hold vertically so "head" will softly intersect with body.


Now take you black rod (or you can use your black stringer if you feel more comfortable) to add another smaller round bead next to the "head". This will be you hat.


Gently heat only the hat and then marver to make a top hat. If you don't marver enough you will have a bolo hat.


Now it's time to add that cute little scarf you made earlier. Heat tip of twisty and lay on body. Work in the upper flame and direct the heat under the twisty. Begin roping twisty around the neck of snowman till you come back to the front and lay it across the twisty to the other side of body. Make sure to add some heat to the scarf so it attaches but don't melt it in. BTW I hope you've been doing insurance heat on the whole bead in between steps as you're working so your snowman doesn't explode!



Take a complementary scarf color and add dots to the end of the scarf. 


Time for buttons and eyes. Use your black stringer for this.


Hats need a brim. Black stringer again.



Last step is the nose. Use your orange stringer and put a small dot between the eyes. If you're really good (or lucky) it'll line up with the buttons. But if it doesn't, don't sweat it. He'll still be cute. See the dot of orange glass on the tip of my mandrel? I like to heat a small blob of orange and pull me a very small stringer, still attached to the rod, to make the nose with. I use this technique all the time if I need just a few dots of a color and I don't feel like pulling stringers at the beginning of the session. Cause you don't always know what colors you're going to be working with all the time when you bead, do you? Or for those times like now when you need a smaller dot than a commercial stringer might give you.

It's orange, you just can't tell cause it's hot.

Voila! Finished bead. Don't forget insurance heat occasionally. Don't admire him too long. Pop in kiln. I put bails on my little snowmen and sell them as pendants.




Feel free to embellish him more. Try three balls or add holly to his hat. I would love to see your snowmen.

More snowmen

The author of this fun tutorial is Donna Trull, her Etsy link is included below!  We found this tutorial in the free tutorials on Lampworketc.  

My Etsy (this is the link to Donna Trull's Etsy shop)

Making dots and lines on lampwork beads

Ok, today I'm back to lampworking info. So I thought I'd write a little bit about how to make dots and lines on lampwork beads. It is actually very easy to do and it makes your beads look unique. There are a lot of presses available but if you only press one color of glass in those presses, you get beads that are plain and basically just like any one else's! Of course it is always nice to make plain glass beads too for certain types of jewelry. 

One color glass beads are wonderful accents in jewelry. It just depends on what kind of lampwork beads an artist wants to use; are they to be the focal in a necklace, bracelet or earrings, OR are they to be used as fillers or accents in a jewelry piece? Anyway, there are always buyers for whatever type of bead you make, if it is made well and properly annealed and cleaned.

So to make either dots or lines I do the same basic thing. I use stringer (which will make small dots and/or lines) or I use a glass rod. Stringer is a smaller piece of glass, like a glass rod but it is usually pulled from a glass rod. You can buy already made stringer but it is easier to make your own.  If you use a glass rod, just heat up the tip of the rod and apply that molten glass right on to the bead you are working on.  Always keep in mind that you have to keep the bead you are working on, warm.  If it cools down while you are getting ready to apply the dots and lines, it will break.  (Some times you can actually save a broken bead by re-heating it in the flame but it doesn't always work.)

Heat the tip of a glass rod in the flame of your torch. When you get the tip of the rod molten, and about 1/4 inch long or more, take a pair of tweezers (I use tweezers made for lampwork because they are long enough that my fingers don't get hot while using them) and after removing the rod from the flame, grab a tiny bit of glass on the tip of the molten part of the glass rod and slowly pull. Now if you want the stringer to be very thin, which looks really nice when used on pressed beads, you pull the molten glass, fast. If you want to make a thicker stringer pull slowly. As you pull you will notice that the new piece of stringer that you are creating will kind of sag between the tweezers and the glass rod itself. Don't worry if that happens, as you pull, it will straighten out. And if it doesn't do that, hold the tweezers and the glass rod in a vertical position and that will help it to straighten out. I don't make incredibly long stringers, they usually end up about 6 to 8 inches long. And I try to pull enough stringer to make as many beads as I plan to make, all at one time.  Once pulled, use the torch flame to cut the stringer from the glass rod.)

Another fun thing to do is make "twisties". To do that you will need to lightly warm up one glass rod while at the same time you need to melt another glass rod so that the tip becomes molten. Then take the molten rod and "paint" it on to one side of the rod you just warmed up. If you want to make more than a two color twistie, you should then keep the rod you just worked on, warm while heating up another rod so that the tip becomes molten. Do not heat up the two color rod enough to make it molten, just warm it up. Also when you added that second color to the original rod, you should have only painted on about 2 inches of glass. Once the third rod is molten, add another line of glass, along the length of the glass rod, the same 2 inches in length as the first color, to the original glass rod.

Then when you have added as much glass as desired to the glass rod that you've been working and adding glass to, you carefully warm it all up so that it becomes molten and with your tweezers, grab the tip of the molten rod and begin to pull and twist. You can also just heat the very tip of the glass rod that you are working on and then smoosh a different glass rod on to that end. Once cooled you can then heat the whole thing up, and then pull and twist the rods. Now you have made a twistie. When using tweezers, once done, dip them in a glass jar of cold water and the glass that will stick on the tip of the tweezers will pop off.

Once you make a twistie or a stringer, you can make dots or lines quite easily. You don't need to keep the twisties or stringers warm, they won't break like beads can. So you can lay them directly on your work surface after you make them. Then go ahead and make your round bead, or pressed bead, and when ready you can gently heat the twistie or stringer in the side of the flame and add your dots and lines directly to your bead!

The picture above shows what twisties look like.

The three pictures above shows a lampworker (not me) pulling stringer. 

I found an excellent video on You Tube.  It was made by beadmanglass.  And it shows how to make twisties and stringer!