Jewelry Making

I don’t have much experience making jewelry that utilizes handmade Lampwork beads. We just haven’t worked our way up to using them in designs yet, but that’s not to say we haven’t admired them from afar! These minutely detailed glass beads are created by melting various types of glass with a torch onto some sort of mandrel(?) and then incorporating tiny color swirls, dots and other neat shapes. I have no idea how it’s done really. I just know that the end result is pretty awesome.

Glass and Splinters Studio makes some really fantastic looking lampwork beads, which they bill as “contemporary torchworked beads”. The company is run by Lorraine Allan who has set up shop in South Australia. Having had a lot of experience working in the glass industry along with her husband for many years, she eventually tried Lampwork Glass and really got into it:

I became interested in making lampwork glass beads in 1997 after doing a weekend workshop with Peter Minson in Victoria, Australia. This led me on to enrol in a silver jewellery course for 12 months which I incorporated my glass beads into the pieces I made. Since 2001 I have put all my other glass making aside to concentrate fully on lampworking beads. Watching the glass melting and flowing in an open flame, is the most relaxing work I have ever done with glass, I don’t think I will ever stop!

There are lots of beautiful lampwork beads over on her site, so I decided to show a few pics of them here for anyone who might be interested in using them in designs. There’s a dime pictured by each set to show the appoximate size. It’s amazing how detailed some of the beads are. This first set of 3 clear turquoise beads are “squeezed” so that they’re almost rectangular. They are dotted merrily with seagreen and white spots, and have some teal spacers as separators.

I was also rather fond of these delicious looking swirly lozenges. Hehe, I almost feel like popping these in my mouth. They have these pink, white and red storms of color along with twists of black mixed in. This set also has spacer beads that are pink and clear with a hint of goldstone and black coloring. The beads are around 18mm while the rounds are 8mm x 13mm.

This set of 5 elegant “squeezed” beads was pretty amazing in their detail and composition. They have these autumn amber flowers floating in a pond of blue and mint green glass. It almost feels like a watercolor portait to me. I’ve seen lampwork similar to this before and I still wonder how it’s possible to do such detailed work on hot glass like this. The flowers look especially tough to make!

The last one for show ‘n tell are these highly unusual dark black beads that are decorated with vibrant yellow swirls along with blue polka dots. They somehow remind me of the jungle, or of tigers and leopards? This set also features spacer rounds that have the same interesting pattern on them.

You can check out the Glass and Splinters site at: www.glassandsplinters.com.au