I clearly recall taking my first “beginner” lampworking class with Bobbie Jenkins. After directing us on the importance of taking safety precautions in our glass beadmaking, Bobbie showed us her studio. I was irreversably hooked before we began.

Four Nortel MInor Burner torches with accompanying flamework tools lay neatly before us, awaiting a day of bumbling beginner beaders. My sister, Shirley, and I chose two adjoining stations and listened attentively. Each torch had two hoses attached, one red and one green. My rising curiosity got the best of me, of course, and my eyes followed the trail of hoses back to its source. The green hoses were attached to large tanks of oxygen, while the red led to ordinary propane tanks (such as those used in an outdoor barbeque). Bobbie, meanwhile, was explaining that the torches use a mixture of propane (to produce a flame) and oxygen (to control the temperature) to melt glass rods for making beads.

Needless to say, I was anxious to get past the preliminaries and dig in to the melt-fest. As our lesson progressed, I learned the art of controlling the flame, combining the oxygen and propane levels to accommodate my beadmaking project. We knew within the first hour that we would have to set up our own home studio ASAP.

Shirl and I began pouring through beading magazines and websites to find the most cost-effective way to begin our personal bead-making studio. We decided to begin frugally, each of us ordering pre-made flamework kits from an online supplier. These kits included everything we needed to get started, including a Hot-Head torch. The Hot Head uses an attached canister of MAPP gas rather than the propane/oxygen setup that we’d used with Bobbie, so it would be lots easier for our startup. We purchased some MAPP gas canisters at the local hardware store, and were SO excited, we couldn’t wait to get to work!

With our new Hot Heads securely clamped to the fireproof metal table, and our tools gathered round, we finally fired up our torches. From the start, the Hot Head felt different to us, and we learned its differences to the Minor Burner quickly. The flame wasn’t as hot with the Hot Head, and it wasn’t as manipulable. We decided that the Hot Head would be far preferable for situations where we might need to be mobile for outdoor demonstration purposes, but that the Minor Burner was far better for working in the studio – and it was much quieter. The Hot Head was irritatingly noisy for indoor use. Then we found ourselves using far too many gas canisters for our “frugal” venture.

Within a couple of weeks we stepped up and purchased a couple of Minor Burners and we haven’t regretted it for a moment. The Minor Burner is great for most beadmaking with softer glass. Notice that I said “most”? Moving into the harder glass-making projects requires another step-up in the world of torches. More about that soon. For the majority of lampworking needs, the Minor Burner is ideal. There are other brands, of course, but the Nortel burner is our experience, and we recommend it to first-time buyers. It’s versatile, dependable, and affordable.

What more could any serious beader ask?
Bead Happy!

Perhaps renting torch time is a good option if you’re not a serious lampworker or you just want to try making beads before you get totally involved.  There are probably lampworkers in your area who’d be happy to accommodate you on a short term basis.  Once you’ve decided to dive into flamework, though, you’ll have to consider some very important safety precautions.

Your workspace is first, of course.  You’ll need an area that gives you substantial space all around.  Your torch will be firmly secured to your table, so it will be stabilized;  but you won’t want the torch to be directed at any obstacles.  Your flame may project out more than a foot as you’re fine-tuning it, so make sure that your torch table allows substantial space.  Don’t place torches across from one another unless you have at least two table widths between them.

Make sure that you have a functional fire extinguisher within arm’s reach.  Don’t put anything on it, around it, or in the path between you and the extinguisher.  When you’re working with a flame,  you can’t ever be too cautious.

You’ll be using a mixture of propane and oxygen as a fuel source, producing a safety issue that must be carefully considered.  Your propane will likely be contained in a tank of some size, from the standard barbecue to a large 100+lb tank.   Ideally the tank can remain outside and propane can be drawn to the torch through attached hoses.  Otherwise, a small tank can be used, but should not be stored indoors.  Oxygen, too, is potentially harmful if it’s not handled correctly.  An external oxygen tank will offer you the best flame, but more aggravation as well.  Oxygen should also be kept outside.  The two tanks should not be in close proximity to each other, and NEITHER should ever be between you and your exit.

VENTILATE your work area.  When you work with a flame, you produce carbon monoxide.  You must have fans pulling noxious gases out and away from your flame.  With proper ventilation working for you, there shouldn’t be a problem.  This is one of the most crucial safety precautions to heed.

Wear protective eyewear when you’re working.  There are a variety of Rose Didymium glasses available for your best protection.  Your feet should be covered with hard-soled footwear as well.  Small shards of glass are frequently airbound.

All of these points need to be in order before you begin your lampworking experience, so plan ahead.

Above all – Bead Carefully – Always assume that everything around you is hot!

My priorities should be simple.  I just have to determine what’s most important to put at the top of my list for the day.  We normally start our morning “ooh-ing and ah-ing” over yesterdays new bead treasures.  Hot beads have to be annealed, so we let them cool down in the kiln overnight.  That part is easy.  We brew a pot of coffee and enjoy.

Breakfast has to be served to the family, of course.  There’s no skipping mealtime when we’re all diabetic.  We have to test, take shots, and make sure our meal is healthy and balanced.  By 7:30am, Jake is off to school and Garrett is getting up to start his day (Repeat the morning meal part.)  Once Garrett has gone to school at 9:00am, then it’s time for me.  Can I make some beads now?  That won’t be happening if I’m going to manage to feed our menagerie of pets, get ready for work, and be there by 10:00am. 

When I arrive at work, my boss is looking for more bead necklaces to put out for sale on the counter.  I can do this, if I can just prioritize properly, can’t I?  After work, I can make  some beads for sure!

Once work is done for the day, I’ll have to retrieve Garrett from baseball practice, and simultaneously pick up Jake from his tennis match (20 miles away), and get back in time to go to cub scouts with him.  I can do this.  I think I can! 

Oops, it’s time to make some dinner.  The dog wants to go out.  My boyfriend wants to spend some time with me.  Dinner is on the table.  The testing kits are ready.  Shots are drawn.  I can do  this!

Is it the weekend yet?  Can I make some beads NOW?

As soon as the laundry is done…

Our triple stranded necklace was particularly fun to make.  It combines coordinating seed beads and silver findings, to highlight an exquisite focal bead.  One of the beauties of stringing your own jewelry is that you’ll have just the right length of your choice.  Also, the bead that we choose to include in our kit may or may not be the one you’d like.  We can easily replace a focal bead with a similar matching bead from our inventory to complete your kit to your satisfaction.

Next step – getting them onto The BeadsNest site for sale.

Even when we study under the same teachers, our finished product is unique from the rest.  It’s fun to meander around other people’s tables and see how their work compares.  Then, we get to visit their websites and see even more.   Some of our weekend neighbors were Kim Vredenburg from KimVGlass, Virginia and Ed from Playing with Fire, Maureen from Pumpkin Hill Beads, the renowned Kristina Logan, the exceptionally talented Jeremy Sinkus, and lots more.  We’re planning our next classes now…

We’ll have some great new inventory this weekend for all who stop by to see us.  We’ve taken some of our favorite focal beads and made beautiful necklaces, so we have both loose beads and finished products for you.  Even better…  We’ve got kits too.!

The necklaces are so pretty we’ve made kits to whet your crafty appetite.  We’ve included everything you’ll  need to build your own lovely piece of jewelry, with one of our exquisite lampworked beads as the focal point. 

Come join us.  We’ll look forward to seeing you there.

As it happened on Sunday morning, our taxi was pulled over by a very brusque, looming policeman.  We had no idea why we were being stopped.  We just knew that we needed to be at our table before the show opened.  Having been married to a policeman for several years, I know that the fact is policemen are real people who have real lives;  they have their work faces and they have their personal faces.   I’m not intimidated, and I can always make them smile in spite of themselves.

There we were in the back of a taxicab in the midst of the city, and we had to be elsewhere.  Despite protocol, I cracked my window open slightly and said, “Is this going to take long, because we really need to be somewhere on time.”

The poor policeman was a bit taken aback, responding to me with, “Don’t open that, what if you had just robbed a bank?”

“But I didn’t just rob a bank, and we have to be on time.  Can we get out?”  I could see the poor man grinning on the inside, but just a slight smirk was visible on the outside.  He very generously hailed us another cab and off we went for another day of bead sales.

I wonder what happened to the taxi driver!

My sister had been making jewelry, and I suspect that she brought me along to the show to lure me in. The next thing I knew, she was enrolling us into a class for beginner lampworking, aka glass bead making. I confess, I took the class, bought the necessary tools, and never looked back. I thought it only fair to do the same to my daughters, so they’re hooked now too.

The thirteenth annual Cape Cod Bead Show will be held in the local Recreation Center in Falmouth, MA, on the weekend of August 15th-16th this year. I don’t know how I ever missed those first few years, because now I’d forge through our infamous traffic jams to see what new artisans might be exhibiting. As it happens, of course, we’re exhibiting artisans ourselves – so we get there before the traffic anyway. That’s a good thing, because it gives us time to meander among our colleagues, seeing some old friends and meeting some new ones.

Sandy is heading for New York City for our first time at the Art Glass & Bead Show, and we’ll be onboard with the ISGB, International Society of Glass Beadmakers, in Marlboro, MA. The rest of the season will be fun for us too, as we’re scheduled for several shows with our friends, Shirley and Bev, at Bead Fiesta. They’re superb to work with, and make everyone feel like we’re part of one big happy beading family. We’ll be hoping to see you in Portland, ME. and W. Springfield, MA this summer as well.

If you’re in the Cape Cod area and would like to see more of our beads, drop an email or leave a comment here on this post and we’ll be happy to get back to you.

Bead Happy!

Our discussion naturally found its way into the realm of glass beadmaking history.

The earliest forms of glass beads were believed to be “furnace-wound,” dating back over 4000 years to Ancient Mesopotamia, our current day Middle East. Beads were made by melting glass to a molten state over an open furnace similar to a blacksmith’s forge. The molten glass was wound around a mandrel (a rod), formed into assorted shapes, and decorated by the bead makers. Young villagers would apprentice with the more experienced bead makers by pumping bellows to produce a hotter fire for better flameworking. The finished beads were annealed (cooled slowly in a heated oven-like chamber) to prevent cracking.

Furnace-wound beads are still made today in both India and Africa. The village of Bida in Nigeria is well known for its “Bida Beads,” and continues to forge them as a part of its rich artisan heritage.

I learned that Bill had been in Bida, Nigeria with the Peace Corps back in the Sixties. He seemed very pleased to have a bead enthusiast to listen to his wonderful stories, and soon retrieved a dusty box from his attic. Inside were two simple glass bead necklaces and one string of beads we couldn’t identify.

Bill’s Bida Beads were festive combinations of black, green, and white glass that had been forged over an open fire by African villagers nearly fifty years ago. He had obviously protected them with care all this time, as they were in pristine condition.

I felt honored that Bill wanted me to see his little treasures, as I held them and fondled them with admiration.

I wasn’t at all prepared for what happened next. Bill looked at me with a smile, and said, “They’re yours. Enjoy them!”

I don’t know that I’ve ever been quite so speechless. He was actually giving me these stunning necklaces that surely represented a special time in his life.

How does one begin to honor such a gift? I simply have to share them. Carefully encased for display, my Bida Beads accompany me to my bead shows now, and grace my table with a wonderfully palpable touch of lampworking history.

Lampworking isn’t making pretty shades for household lamps? Of course it’s not! That would make far too much sense, wouldn’t it?

“Lampwork” is making handmade glass beads for custom-made jewelry and other wonderful stuff.

The art of lampwork is actually the process of melting a glass rod over a torch until it reaches a molten state. The red-hot glass is slumped over a steel rod (called a mandrel), and wrapped in a spherical motion until the desired size and shape are reached.

Wow, that’s a pretty simple description of a process that has endless possibilities of shape, color, and design.

It will take more than a single excerpt to cover everything involved in lampworking. There are numerous topics to address. We have to discuss the safety issues, of course. Then there will be the tools involved, preparing the mandrels, the types of glass, the shaping process (that’ll be several posts by itself), the kiln annealing, and lots more.

The best place to begin will be with the history of lampwork. The term itself has evolved from a time when glass was actually melted over the flame of an oil lamp. We’ve come far, but handmade beads predate contemporary techniques by thousands of years.