My Attempt at making the Leandra Bead!!

Hi and welcome, this fortnight over on the PaperArtsy Blog the challenge is 'Beads, Charms and Dangles'. There are lots of wonderful examples to whet your appetite, but it was the video of the Leandra bead that really inspired me to get out the Melt Pot --- ( which when the temperature outside has been in the 30's for the past few days is not normally the first craft I'd jump too!)

To make the beads I followed the video as best I could with what head pins, Utee etc that I had in the craft room stash.

The head pins were only 45mm and having had a go I would now buy some slightly larger ones.

To start with the pan only had clear Utee added but gradually as I popped the growing beads into various shades of blue EP lovely streaks appeared  adding extra pattern and design to the beads.

Then as the contents of the pot got a little muddy I added some Primary Apple Red, Ancient Copper Metallic and the tiniest spot of black. 

Oohh thats yummy! 

These 2 beads were shaped by pressing the round bead onto the sides of the melt pot.

As the Utee level was going down and making the covering of the beads more difficult I decided to pour the remaining contents onto the craft mat and inked up a rubber stamp with Archival Black ink and pressed it into the very hot, molten Utee.

Once cool the stamp was removed and I rubbed in some Treasure Gold in Ruby and Renaissance but ------- was not completely happy with the result so decided to cut my losses and got the heat gun out and melted the piece on the craft mat---(" Is she mad " I can hear you saying!) Well I was very pleased with the end result as the wax melted just on the top and gave a lovely marbled effect. I then very lightly added a little Pewter wax to hi-light the edges of the letters.

When I started to make these lovely Leandra beads I had no idea what I was going to use then for but was itching to make something ----

So I now have a pair of unique ear-rings

and

some lovely beads for future projects.

A big thank you to PaperArtsy for the very inspiring video and I'm now off to order some larger headpins and another pot of clear utee !

Hope you all have a great weekend and if you live in the UK enjoy the Bank Holiday if you're lucky enough not to be working. Bye for now and take care Jane x