Hi, my name is Jenni and I make lampwork glass beads. I’ve always been a crafty type of person and have done most of the mainstream crafts you can care to mention. Folk art, cross stitch, scrap-booking, card making and of course beading. I would always change from one craft to another every couple of months as I got bored of what I was doing and want to move onto something new. I finally thought scrap booking was the thing for me, then my husband bought me something new, something different.
Or as he likes to put it, the beginning of the end.
The 12th of October was our 10th wedding anniversary and my husband didn’t get me a traditional present like something out of tin or aluminium. Or something a little more modern, like diamonds (I like diamonds!). Nope, none of the above, instead he bought for me a starter lampwork bead making kit from HotBeadBox. Awesome!
I will confess to having always wanted to do something a little rawer. By that I mean that while the other crafts were enjoyable, and I loved them all, I was for the most part dealing with pre-purchased items and putting them together. That’s too simplistic a statement, but I think you get what I mean. Plus I have always had a thing for fire, watching the guys welding and casting metal on American Chopper fascinated me. Anyway, I had mentioned this to my husband once or twice and so he did a little research and found the kit for lamp work bead making and surprised the heck out of me (isn’t he the best?!).
The kit consisted of nothing more than a hot head torch that can be hooked up to a BBQ gas cylinder, some mandrels, some samples of glass and a book. I would make glass beads and then stuff them into an old frying pan full of vermiculite to cool. That was fine to begin with, but I needed more! Especially after I blew up the frying pan, although that’s another story?
Being able to play with fire and molten glass has opened a new world for me. To be able to create something completely from scratch using a simple glass rod, and end up with something small and pretty that I can then turn into a lovely piece of jewellery to wear, it doesn’t get much better that that!
Now my obsession with making glass beads knows no bounds and my poor husband is having trouble remembering what I look like. Oh well, all I can say is, “He started it.”