Encased Floral Tutorial
Warning - long and wordy. No photos either. But, I hope this will be something that helps someone out with their encased floral efforts!!!
Encased Floral Bead with Red Flowers and White Buds
You will need:
Clear: I use Effetre Super Clear or Vetrofond
Red Opaque: I like Purple Red but you can use a lighter Red
Transparent Striking Red
White: Plain old Moretti White
Sage Green Transparent or any dark transparent Green
Copper Green or any pastel Green
Intense Black Stringer
Goldstone Chunk
Clear stringer
Tungsten poker (fine point)
3/32 mandrel
Your Favorite Bead Release
Small piece of Pyrex to use as a punty
One old mandrel (3/32)
Pull an encased Goldstone Stringer
Take a small piece of Goldstone and pre-heat on a hot plate or in your kiln.
Make a flat disc on the end of a Pyrex punty, smaller than the diameter of a dime. Put a small gob of Moretti clear on the disc and marver it into a lens shape.
Heat up the little Moretti lens then use it to pick up your hot piece of Goldstone.
Immediately take the Goldstone to the flame. Heat it gently, using mashers to gradually mash it into a rough cylinder shape. Heat it a little more and marver it into a smooth cylinder or cone shape. Do not heat the Goldstone too much or it will darken and not be sparkly.
Thinly case the Goldstone cylinder with clear. The casing should be no more than 1/8 inch thick, thinner if you can manage it! I use a clear stringer to do this.
Pull a Twisty
Take an old 3/32 mandrel and heat up about ¼ inch of the end in the flame.
Put a medium sized glob of Copper Green on the end of the mandrel (size of a chickpea). Heat this in the flame until molten, then marver into a tapered cylinder, with the smaller end of the cylinder at the mandrel end.
Draw 3-4 lines on the Copper Green with Intense Black. These should be thin lines.
Case over the Copper Green and Intense Black with Sage Green (or Transparent Uranium yellow is nice, too!!).
Heat all of this up, then using tweezers or pliers, twist and pull into a nice twisty.
You can also use your Goldstone stringer to put some stripes on the twisty before you twist and pull out. It is a nice touch.
Ready to make the bead!
Put one wrap of White on your mandrel and heat it into a tiny round bead.
Marver this into a rough barrel, very thin. This should be very small, no more than ¼ inch in length, less if you can manage it.
Thinly case the barrel with Transparent Sage Green or some other transparent green. Be sure to cover all of the White.
Marver this into a barrel again. This time it will be a little thicker. Try to start getting the edges of the barrel even at this point.
Take your twisty and draw some random squiggles onto your bead. Try to not use too much! Heat the bead to be sure the twisty is attached, but do not melt the twisty in.
Randomly squiggle some lines and scrolls of Goldstone stringer over the barrel. I try to go between the squiggles of twisty in order to cover more of the base bead.
Heat gently and MARVER smooth. Do not overheat and melt the twisty and Goldstone in. If you marver smooth, you will have more depth in the finished bead.
Now you are ready for the flowers!
I like to make four and five petaled flowers, but you can make any number of petals you like.
Take a stringer of Opaque Red and place four tiny dots for each flower. Space the dots fairly far apart. I think of them as corners of a tiny square (or star, if you are doing five dots).
Try to make at least three flowers on the bead (this is a total of 12 dots at this point).
Heat the dots gently until they round up and are attached to the bead, but do not melt them in.
Take a thin White stringer and place the dots for your buds randomly around the bead. I try to put some close together, some far apart, in between flowers, around flowers, etc. Make the dots for the buds smaller than the dots for the petals.
Heat gently to round these up, but do not melt in!
Focus your flame by turning the propane down until you have a small needle flame. Aim the point of the flame at the centers of the flowers and melt the centers slowly until the flowers are almost flat. The residual heat from the flame should melt in most of the bud dots as well. Hopefully, they won’t be too flat.
Now take your Transparent Striking Red stringer and place dots on top of all of the Opaque Red petals. I try to cover the Opaque Red, but you can leave an edge if you like. It is just a different look.
Gently heat these and round them up.
Take a Clear stringer and place tiny Clear dots on top of all of the White bud dots.
Heat gently to round up.
Again, focus your flame and heat the centers of the flowers until they are almost flat. Your buds should melt in from the residual heat from the flame. Make sure the petals are pretty flat at this point. The buds can be a little more raised.
Now, you need to place the second round of petals on your flowers.
Take the Red Opaque stringer and place four more dots for each flower but this time, place the dots in between the previously placed petals. Again, use small dots. For this round of petals I place the dots just inside the outside edge of the previous petals.
Heat gently to round up but do not melt flat!!
Second layer of buds.
Place a White dot directly on top of the previous bud dot. Make sure you get all of them (I count how many bud dots I place initially, then count each time I place dots on top of them to be sure I don’t miss any).
Heat gently to round up but do not melt flat.
Focus the flame and heat the center of the flowers until the dots are melted in slightly, but no flat. The heat from the flame should melt the White bud dots a little more, but if not, melt them in slightly, too.
Now take the Transparent Red stringer and place a dot on top of the Opaque Red dot.
Heat gently to round up but do not melt flat!
Place a clear dot on top of each White bud dot.
Heat gently to round up but do not melt flat.
Focus flame again, aim at the centers of the flowers and heat until the dots pull to the center of the flower. DO NOT MELT FLAT!!!
Be sure your bud dots have been melted in a little, but again, do not melt them flat.
With the tungsten poker poke a deep hole in the center of each flower. I heat each flower individually, poke, and then go on to the next flower.
Poke a dot in the center of each bud (see, it’s a good idea to count them!!!). Try no to heat these too much as they are very tiny and will go flat easily!
Everything should now have a poke and should still be slightly raised.
Encasement
Put the bead at the back of the flame while you collect a large gather of clear. Make the gather a little larger than the bead. The bigger the gather, the thicker the encasement and the more magnification you will have.
When you have a big enough gather, heat it until it is very hot. Then drop the bead below the flame, position the hot gather over the bead. Allow the gather to drop onto the bead then PUSH the gather around the bead. You should be able to cover the entire bead with one swoop of glass. If not, add hot clear to the parts you missed, then take the bead out of the flame and allow it to cool a little.
Take a brass tool with a sharp edge (I use a brass Stump Shaper) and use it to move some of the clear towards the mandrel. This should cover up the edges of your bead. DO NOT touch the mandrel with the clear. To move the glass, I heat the glass I want to move, and then push it with the tool. Sometimes I have to heat and move more than once. The trick here is to heat the clear but leave the bead underneath cool.
When you have the edges covered, place the bead in the flame and rotate it to round it up. If you need more glass somewhere, add it now, but do not add glass to the edges of the bead. Do not heat the bead holes as this will pull the clear towards the holes and you flowers and buds will smear.
When the bead is round and centered, cool, then place in the kiln.
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Originally Posted by MaureenKennedy
