Kaplan Creations Jewelry and Glass Design

I actually fused these pieces together about a month ago, but didn’t get around to doing anything more with them until today. I used sterling silver to create a unique wire wrap for each one.  These are listed in Etsy and in my store.

I’m not sure that this is exactly the same pattern as the piece I showed yesterday, but it is close (and from the same batch). I had fused it on top of a black base.

The last time I bought some dichroic glass, I bought it from a different source (online). It had really pretty patterns that I hadn’t seen before so I thought I’d try it out. Thankfully I didn’t buy too much of it because there seems to be a problem with the dichroic coating disappearing at a lower temperature than you’d expect. This happened to me twice. I thought the first time was my  mistake and maybe I hadn’t been paying enough attention to the kiln (I wasn’t using a digital controller, but usually don’t for fusing small pieces). The second time I watched it carefully, and turned off the kiln at exactly the right point….and here are my results:

You can barely see any dichroic coating…it all burned off.

 I didn’t complain to the seller, just decided to stick with my usual sources from now on. Dichroic glass is too expensive to be throwing out….

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I found these really pretty fossilized coral beads about 2 months ago, and have been just letting them sit around on my beading table until I had some sort of idea. This morning I decided to use copper wire, some small copper beads, and Swarovski crystals and came up with this design. I think I will also do another one, with a different design, using silver wire.  This piece is also in my store.

Looking for a way to connect with other beaders? Check out Beaders Showcase. This new site is for anyone that does any type of beading.

Find more photos like this on Beaders Showcase

I spent the morning trying to get back into melting glass on a more regular basis. Since I had bought this new sugar coating frit, I decided to make a series of transparent beads that look like they have a sugar coating—-or they look like life savers,

or something……..

From time to time I make canes out of polymer clay, and have made some pretty interesting beads. However, when I saw these pink and black beads in a store, I just had to buy them and make a bracelet. This piece also contains Swarovski crystals and Swarovski squaredelles, as well as sterling silver beads with pink enamel.

Working on lampworking flower beads–some are better than others.

What usually happens is that I make a really  nice flower, and then ruin it while trying to encase it.

Here are a couple that aren’t too bad. The one on the right isn’t really a flower, but more like a garden..

A friend of mine showed me a clunky necklace that had very pretty beads, but was just too big for her. She asked if I could “do something” about it. Ahhh… the open ended “do something”….one of my favorite tasks. Anyway, here are the before and after pictures. I took this one big necklace and made 4 pieces (adding some silver beads and wire along the way). The resulting pieces were perfect for her.