Born to Bead – Making Beads of Distinction

It’s not often we can find a trick that hasn’t been widely publicised, I think I’ve found one. This is an awesome effect if you get it exactly right. Wrap your bead in silver foil and burnish. Some people at this point add new blobs of coloured glas either in a pattern or randomly over the burnished silver. Slowly melt these decoration flat. At this point the silver foil will have a dark or flat finish on the surface of the bead between the coloured dots added. If you reduce the flame and flash your bead in and out of the flame, the silver finish returns to the surface and gives you a mirrored effect. If you reduce too much then the silver will go black, simply increase the oxygen to remove the carbon deposits and retry the effect.