Lampwork Beads by Judith Johnston
Unique Lampwork Beads for Beautiful Jewellery
I have changed all my bead listings in my Etsy shop JudithBeads to provide FREE first class or standard airmail postage WORLDWIDE, oh yes!
From now until I change my mind – Hooray!
I probably won’t change my mind any time soon though ;D
Enchanted Delphinium Lampwork Glass Bead
I hope you all had a fab weekend. I’m still tinkering about with the coding out back…. so in the meantime here is some music for you to listen to 
of the etching debacle and here it is….
BEFORE ETCHING
BEFORE Etching
AFTER ETCHING 
AFTER etching
and that is all I’m going to say about that!
In the end I decided to acid etch the water-colour floral beads because, well because I could. I would have had to get grit and other tumbling media to tumble etch them and I am far too impatient for that sort of nonsense….
So I heated the etching fluid and suspended the beads in it. I checked after 5 minutes, nothing happening, I checked after 10 mins….still not much change, I went and made some stringers for another 10 mins and….I can hardly bear to write it… the second my back was turned all the lovely watercolour flowers etched completely away leaving a chalky white mess!
If i can bring myself to take a photo I will, I have never seen anything quite like it. To be honest it was a schoolboy error, I really should have just tried one bead first but no, I had to dump two whole days work in at once! Two…whole…days work utterly destroyed in under half an hour SOB!
Ah well never mind, one thing is for sure, I won’t make that mistake again.
Anyway here’s a bit of Lucy for cheering up purposes, she ALWAYS makes me laugh and this is one of my all time favourite clips
Yesterday I was feeling chinzy… I had an idea for some watercolour florals and I made some with the sole purpose of etching them. Now I loathe and detest certain bead making substances, enamels, etching fluid, iridizing stuff – man that’s some heavy duty shizzle! and I will tend to avoid them whenever possible but if all else fails I will go in fully suited up in Haz-Mat gear that would probably survive a nuclear winter! but I digress…
The floral beads came out of the kiln looking very lovely and I was pleased but they were begging to be etched. I think it might be nice to tumble etch them, I hope it might add a bit of a vintage-y feel to them and plus it avoids messing about with noxious chemicals. So I’m going to find out which media is required and perhaps give it a go…..pictures will be forthcoming.
Anyways here is todays’ bead photograph…
Lampwork Bead Focal "Jalinda"
The reality of simplifying everything by taking the beads from my website shop and re-listing them on Etsy is of course that I have spent every waking minute of the last four days surrounded by beads typing up Etsy listings (because copy and paste is not the way I roll!). Half the time I am struggling to type because I have lined up fourteen sets of dollymix beads in front of my keyboard and if I don’t type with the utmost care they will all dump themselves unceremoniously onto the floor. Of course I could, and indeed should, put them elsewhere but that would be altogether too sensible wouldn’t it? Part of the time I am re-taking photographs and the rest of the time I am turning beads over in my hand trying to think up descriptions and then being distracted by…… well pretty much anything else really.
So in the spirit of starting as I mean to go on and actually getting back to making beads the kiln is already ramping up and I am donning the thermals, I have an idea and I’m going to give it a spin.
Keep those mandrels turning!
Jxx
Enchanted Moonshine Lampwork Bead
Going back to my roots – yeah!
The house is nearly finished and I need to focus and find my beadmaking groove again… to facilitate this I’m going simple… I will be listing all the beads from my website shop and any new ones I manage to make in my Etsy shop JudithBeads, posting listing news on my Facebook Page with bead photos going on Flickr and I will be blogging here as often as I have something to say!
It’s going to be a busy year for a number of reasons, I’m hoping that by stripping it all back to basics I will be able to carry on beadmaking regardless of the chaos that will inevitably engulf me!
Let’s see how that pans out 
Big Red Lampwork Bead
To celebrate the fact that the end is in sight to the house refurbishments I am having a short sale in my Etsy shop and my website shop.
Type the code winterwarmer into the discount box at checkout in either shop to receive a whopping 20% off my handmade lampwork beads.
This code is only valid until Midnight on Friday 3.2.12 so hurry…..
This always gets me up and grooving, just the tonic for a Monday in January!
