ISGB 2025 Member Creative Challenges
Get Inspired with Past Challenges
2025 All that Glitters Challenge
Wayne Robbins
Dichroic Fish
Ann Wierbinski
Dichro is my jam!! If there is any way to add Dichro to a bead I’ll do it!
Karen Crown
My beads explore the use of colors and textures and many have a feeling of whimsy. I’m always interested in learning new techniques and I enjoy seeing where this bead journey takes me.
Ann Conlin
I never get tired of using dichroic in my beads! I made this one using Riley Designs Rainbow Dichroic and made the bead into an everyday pendant that I enjoy wearing.
Marta Rossetto
Sublimation of Silver with Air
Yi Zhang
I started my lampwork journey in 2018. I mainly work with soft glass. I became interested in making murrinis not long after I passed my beginner's phase.
I made lots of flowers and some cute animals murrinis. I get inspired from everything, nature, music, universe, which along with my spiritual growth.
Carol Savage
A bouquet of spring flowers on a sparkling bed of leaves and dichroic glass.
Kathy Johnson
Sage Holland inspired me to start making beads. I love horses and still make them. They aren’t sparkly so I made some of my sparkle beads.
Marcia Brown
I've been practicing octopus since my class last year with Joy Munshower. I covered the rock he was sitting on with green and blue transparent then sparkling silver to give the water some movement. Walked back into the house after this pic and dropped it and broke off the top tentacle that I worked so hard at.
Inge Von Roos
I made this bead using Bullseye glass. The base is light green. I added swipes of darker green and dichroic glass to make the background of the design.
Susan Chambers
I've been fascinated by glass my entire life. From stringing seed beads to picking up pieces of broken coke bottles, it didn't matter. It was glass. When I went to my first torch class in 1996 it just clicked. I've been melting ever since. Serenade in Blues: encased silver foil hollow beads, approx 1" diameter.
Wally Gross
My first experience with dichroic glass was a class with Lisa St Martin at the Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee, I believe it was in 2013. The inspiration for these beads came from a class with Frank Scott at another B&B show. Made this bunch getting ready for the summer markets.
Marcy Lamberson
I've been making these little bear totems since our Albuquerque ISGB Gathering. They always make me happy. I love adding Lori Riley's dichro to the night sky.
Jackie Marr
Glittery fun fish using double Helix and Lori Dichro. Thanks for the reminder on how fun these are to make. I also tried luminaire and glow in the dark but they didn’t come out worth showing.
Erin Morris
A miniature blown glass crow vessel that glitters with silverglass and fine silver. Soda lime glass.
Eileen Robbins
I used silver and dichroic glass mixed with cremains on this Memorial Bead. It was made to help a long time friend deal with a loved one's death, and was a very moving experience for me.
Mirela Popovici
For these clear drops I have used Iris Violet reduction frit that I have found in an old box of lampworking items gifted to me after a bead store was closing. I didn't know what to expect or what the frit had. I pulled a stringer of Iris yellow with clear for the dots, sprinkled the Iris violet frit and reduced it, resulting in a bubbly drop.
Debi Lenardini
Simple bead… but “could you add more glitter?”
Laura Simone
This sparkly bead started with a core of medium red, wrapped in a layer of teal dichroic strip, then cased in clear. Finally, end caps were added and stringer work was applied to the clear surface, both in Reichenbach Deep black. I love dichro for the sparkle, but it is a constant battle not to burn it and trap scum in your beads!
Noreen Rubay
I have used Helios in my glass bouquets for the glittery moments in my work. The shapes remind us of nature, yet these are full of fun and fantasy.
The shiny copper stem leads your eyes down to unique grouping of unusual roots.
Overall, My focus is to evoke a unique feeling of joy and wonder in the space between reality and fantasy.
Sophie Mottier
Hi everybody,
Here is my bead for the "All that Glitters".
Blown bead with Effetre glass, about 5 cm diameter.
I fell in love with glass beads 20 years ago by a journey in Mali where I found my first glass beads. For me they are witnessing techniques advances and population movements along the centuries. They are witnesses of human story.
Lillian Woodburn
I liked this challenge way better than the Pantone Color Of The Year, as I am quite fond of dichroic glass and use it lot. I decided to keep it simple and just let the dichroic be the focus of the bead with no further decoration other than the edging in white gold leaf.
Heart bead - Base of Effetre intense blue, magenta/green Riley Designs crinkle dichroic, edged with white gold leaf.
Wendy Lerch
I am very pleased with how this oceanscape bead turned out. The Riley Dichroic really shines through and this is probably my best shaped bead ever! I’ve been practicing these techniques learned from Shelley Woolvin of Frantz Art Glass at her glass at GCBE 2025!
Peggy Shaw
Professionally, Peggy is a Commercial Interior Designer specializing in Accessibility and ADA. Color, Texture, and form are part of her daily language. Making jewelry has been a favorite side hustle since graduating college, and learning to make flamework beads has been her dream, which became reality in 2023. Other artistic pursuits include bag making, quilting, mixed media, pastels, and watercolor.
Janie Trainor
I have been melting glass into pleasing shapes for 17 years now. I am getting pretty good at it. Glass is my habit. That’s my first choice activity. I want to do it. I don’t get deep and philosophical about understanding my drive to make art. What I know for sure is I want to do it, I get to do it, and it’s a ton of fun. That’s all I need to know.
2025 Pantone Color of the Year Challenge
Mirela Popovici
I am a full time software engineer, night time ceramics and lampwork artist. This necklace is made of Canyon de Chelly base glass with reduction glass from Double Helix and raku frit. I used Corina's press to flatten the beads and decorated sparingly with reduction glass. It does remind me of delicious cappuccino and foam art for coffee. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed opening the kiln.
Marcy Lamberson
This one is a hat tip to chocolate bunnies. I opted to use some old Effetre Red Roof Tile which seemed the closest. It seems like a potential copyright infringement if I went with the traditional pose that is so this one is mid-leap. And for me doing sculptural beads, extending the legs and ears is a fun personal challenge to keep the glass at the right temperature without breakage or movement.
Juliet Page
For the Pantone mocha theme's monthly ISGB challenge, I took out a bunch of my glass (all 104 coe) with a coordinating palette and proceeded to make a bunch of beads! They have been strung into a necklace (worn double) with a coordinating bracelet and earrings! These are destined for a fundraiser for a local environmental non profit organization.
Inge von Roos
I used Bullseye glass to make this bead. I thought a pink background would go well with the mocha mousse color. I like the unevenness of the pink background.
Natalie Borghese
This medallion is part of my Agate Series and is inspired by worn and broken agates found along the shores of Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada. Made using Effetre, Reichenbach and Double Helix glass, the pattern was created by layering and folding opaque, translucent and transparent 104 CoE colours.
Carol Personte
I tried to use the color chart for inspiration, but kept coming back to chocolate ice cream, in particular soft serve chocolate with sprinkles! My photo doesn't do the warm cold melted chocolate justice - it's really more of a medium brown.
Amy Giraudo
I did not love this challenge. I didn't have any glass that color so I tried to make it. I wasted a lot of time and glass ending up with odd green colors. Here is a mocha rabbit.
Wendy Velasquez
Lately, I've been inspired by beautiful art vases I've found in the wild. This gorgeous vase inspired me to make flowers using light and dark topaz and a mystery silver glass.
Dorry Niclou-Spoo
Hi, these are hollow glass beads I worked with CIM Glass (Ginger and Toto), SIS, and Reichenbach shards.
I hope you like it.
Laura Simone
I tried a few colors to find a decent Mocha Mousse. Sage Green (hand pulled) was a bit too yellow... the one I ended up using was CiM Moccasin. The design is lines of R. Deep Black, pulled and pushed, with accents of Petroleum Green, Orange, and R. Rose Purple. It was fun and challenging to find a specific color of brown in my glass collection. It’s not a color I use or think about much!
Larry Brickman
Larry Brickman
Patty Lakinsmith
Making focal beads is an infrequent guilty pleasure for me as I mostly make matched pairs for earrings these days. This bicone was made from Effetre Hawaiian Clay (591685). I made a clear center (helps those more expensive colors last longer), encased it with Hawaiian Clay, and then added loads of clear dots on top. They were just partially melted in. Melting them in all the way produces a really lovely "honeycomb" effect.
Marcia Brown
When I saw the mousse challenge my brain converted it to moose. Here's what I have so far. The toothy moose makes me giggle . I have no idea what the glass was. It’s some kind of old rose. The other was made with safari brown. I enjoyed the sculptural challenge of those horns . I want to get them bigger and get the nose longer. I like what I learned from my attempts.
Aja Vaz
Mocha Mousse is a color in my wheelhouse, ha! If it's organic and earthy, I'll probably reach for it and experiment. The three middle beads are all blown off mandrel and then tumble etched to give a satiny smooth finish. All the colors used are 104 and from Frantz. One of the spacer beads even draws back to one of the extra pantone colors- cobblestone. Thanks for this opportunity to win a gift card.
Lee Woodburn
I did not think I had any glass in this color. I did find one rod of Effetre Cinnamon Chocolatta, so I decided to recreate a design I made 13 years ago. Probably one of three brown beads I've made. The shape is one of my favorites that I first made 20 years ago. I find I actually like the color once I add a design with other colors. It makes a great background.
Eileen Robbins
A chance viewing of a CBS Sunday morning show featuring Beads of Courage sent me down the lampwork path in 2010. I still love glass and also Beads of Courage. Most of my beads are created thinking of what a young person might enjoy, but I do also create things for myself and others. For this challenge I melted a color I had in my collection but had never tried until now!
Jackie Marr
I must say this color did not inspire me at first but I thought I would play along/be challenged. I rediscovered CIM seashell and making seashells and that was fun. Then I went on to find closer color matches.
Linda Wilson
Inspired by this delicious colour, I popped into my shed and out came these 3.
A blown hollow with ivory dots covered in a DH with little silver brown bobbles, reduced
A fox head bead
And a little fox charm
Thank you, I enjoyed that.
Bright blessings.
Deb Cox
This glass disc bead pair features a base of transparent mocha with Double Helix Helios golden accents!
Susan Richards
The bead on the left was made when I took a Heather Sellers class. I love the color and think it is close to the Pantone color. The dot bead is made with CiM Café Au Lait. The glass can go much lighter if worked too long but this one turned out great for this entry. Still love glass beads after 17 years of playing with fire.
Carolyn Ferrell
Here are a couple of earrings based on a Pantone “delicious” palette.
Sophie Mottier
I have to say I had a huge pleasure to work with these colors and it was really a great opportunity to go out of my comfort zone. This bead is a blown bead made with soft glass, mostly Moretti or Vetrofond. It’s about 3 cm diameter.
Erin Morris
A little coffee-house menagerie: mocha, latte, caramel, and cream! Colors include CIM Canyon de Chelly, Canoe, and Sarfari, Effetre colors Woodie, Sandstone, and White, and Reichenbach Iris Orange. Photo by E. Erin Morris.
Marlene Minhas
My creative journey meanders through many areas. For this challenge I've gone for the bear necessities.
Kathy Johnson
My name is Kathy Johnson. I have been making beads since 1989. I have been a member of the ISGB for a very long time. I could NOT find the exact brown to use so this is my entry.