Hiya!  I'm Sam!  I was born and bred in West Yorkshire but now live in North Wales with my husband and son, 20-odd chickens and a cat... 

I make lampworked beads in my converted pig-sty in the back garden - it is my own little studio haven that I call my "Torcher Chamber".  I melt glass using a bench mounted torch called a Bobcat, that runs on propane and oxygen to make a nice hot flame.  When the glass is melted I wrap it around steel rods called mandrels to form the beads.  As soon as the bead is finished, it is popped into a kiln where it is annealled to ensure it is strong and durable,  and safe to wear.

Once the beads come out of the kiln, then they get cleaned - by me. I hate that job!!!  I often have beads waiting to be cleaned for weeks at a time.....   Once I finally get around to it, the cleaned beads then are either sold on my website click here , given away, or they join the rest of my stash of beads.  Wanna see some pics?

I've been challenging myself to use up rods on my table, so there's loads of Raku, Z99, Psyche, Turquoise and Violet amongst other things.

I was also using up a few reactive twisties that were laying about, and odds and ends of stringer.

 

There was a small rod of Coral - I haven't used that colour in ages, I'd forgotten how much I like it!

 

The odd blue twisted flower on ivory you can see is done with Kugler Silver Blue.  Can you see the webbing around the flower?  This is a similar effect to the River Rock and silver effect.  I lurve Silver Blue!

 

Ohh, rudey-dudey!  There's a nipple in show in this piccy from one of my booby beads!  This pic is a bit blurred but that focal crunch is full of rich silver swirls.

I love Soft Violet frit on ivory, it is so different to when you use it on white. Its on the focal that you can just see the top of on the left with the black halo around the violet.