Inspiration Wins! Yellow Inspires

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll. I had asked readers what kind of topics they'd like to see more of on the blog. If you didn't take a look at the results, the Inspiration/Background/Research topic got the highest number of votes followed by jewelry projects. Personal stories and Glass beadmaking tutorials tied for third place and in last place was Beadmaker tip alerts.

Here's a quick bit of inspiration - the macro picture of the forsythia bush. It seems like over night the Bradford Pears and forsythia has burst forth into bloom. I took this picture 10 days ago - just before the weather warmed up enough for the blooms to open.



I love yellow this time of year - well, I love yellow all the time but almost everyone else loves yellow this time of year too. After the white of winter, people are happy to see a bit of green and lots of yellow.

Transparent yellow glass is difficult not to over heat and make cloudy. Once I mastered how to do it, I shared it on here and started incorporating it into the spirals like the Three Colored Spiral below:

You may not love yellow except in the spring - leave me a comment and let me know if you love yellow, hate yellow or only love it in the spring after a very lonnnnnggg winter.

Transparent Yellow Tips

Today is Studio Saturday over on Art Bead Scene. I'm the featured beadmaker and I always have waaayyyyyy tooo much to say! So I'm going to have a two parter - the general beadmaking insights over on ABS and the glass insights over here.

My tips on the glass color today won't be as detailed as Color Addiction, sorry no swatches (maybe add later) but a few tips for working with the glass in the Rainbow Spiral. Making the spiral shape wasn't going to be a problem, my concern was the transparent yellow. Yes, I've talked about loving the opaque yellow on my blog but the transparent yellow is another story! It's very finicky and if you get it too hot, it will go all cloudy on you.

Transparent yellow in the rod form is faintly yellow because it's a striking color, i.e., you bring out the yellow color in the flame. Therein lies the rub - if you strike it too hot, it goes cloudy. It will still be yellow, but it won't be transparent. Here are a few tips to keep it transparent:

Never heat the glass to a white hot. Heat it to an orange-red glow.

Avoid reheating as much as possible.

Encase the yellow in clear transparent as quickly as possible.

Once encased, you can re-heat and re-shape without cloudiness.



Transparent yellow is a great color as long as you treat it well. Just remember to "keep it cool" baby!