About

Here's My Story...

Howdy! I'm Gracie of graciebeads and would like to tell you my story... or at least the bead part of my story. To avoid any unnecessary confusion, Gracie is my nickname and Gayle, my given name, but I answer to both.

As with all glass bead makers, there's an artsy and creative side to my nature. Color makes my world go round; color and interesting textures intrigue me. I'm also a bead nut (crazy about beads!) and when I discovered I could make glass beads in just about any color that I wanted... that was it... I had to know more!

There was a class being offered in Berkeley (one of our Bay Area cities) and I took this one 4 hour beginning lampworking class. The class barely scratched the surface of what glass bead making was all about... after all, how much can be covered in 4 hours? The class did cover important safety issues and taught us not to be afraid of the flame... and... after that class I was completely intrigued, curious and obsessed with the entire process!

Over the next few months, got a kiln, a digital controller, an oxygen concentrator and more glass. From there, let go of my trusty HotHead torch and moved on to a Nortel Minor Burner, which has since been replaced by a Carlisle Mini CC torch. I spent every spare minute behind the torch making beads because lampworking had now become my passion.

I am a self-taught lampwork bead maker... Corina Tettinger's book, Passing the Flame and Cindy Jenkins book, Making Glass Beads were both very helpful and the tips from all of the generous bead makers out there in cyberspace, who shared their experience and knowledge, also helped me along this path... and... thousands of hours behind the torch... practice is the best teacher!

The passion of lampworking is still with me today. What started out as a hobby has become my full-time gig. The torch calls to me and invites me to play. If you are a lampworker, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It is really a Zen-like, meditative process for me to sit behind the torch, making beads... all troubles and concerns just seem to melt away (no pun intended) when I'm behind the torch. I get lost in the process and it's like being in the zone. This creative process helps keep me centered, keeps me in the here and now and that's the very best place to be!

Making My Beads...

Winding the glass: My handmade glass beads are made one at a time by an age old process known as lampworking. I work with many different types of glass in my creations... I use Moretti/Effetre, Vetrofond, Lauscha, Reichenbach and System 96 to name a few... these glasses come in rod shapes and I heat these glass rods with my Carlisle (propane gas and oxygen mix) torch until molten. Once I have a gather of molten glass, I wind it around a stainless steel rod, known as a mandrel. Once this stainless steel rod is removed from the bead, its absence creates a stringing hole for making jewelry. These stainless steel rods/mandrels are treated with a bead release material so that the glass will not stick permanently to the stainless steel rod.

Decoration: After the base bead is created on the mandrel, then the fun begins... the decoration! I use stringers (smaller diameter strings of glass that I pull from the larger rods), frits, metal foils and dots to decorate my beads. There are many different effects that can be achieved and the possibilities truly are endless.

Annealing: After each bead is created, it is gently brushed through the flame to flame anneal it and then immediately put into a pre-heated kiln for annealing. I never batch anneal my beads. They are treated as individual creations. Annealing is an essential part of the bead making process. It removes the stresses in the glass from heating it and stops the beads from cracking when they cool. Once I am finished making beads for the day, the temperature in the hot kiln is now digitally stepped down until the beads inside are cool and at room temperature.

Cleaning: The next morning, I remove the beads from the kiln, remove them from the stainless steel rods and clean out the bead release that is inside the stringing holes. I've tried many different ways of doing this, but the best way yet is using a diamond grit burr on a battery operated Dremel Minimite tool. By using a battery operated tool, I can safely clean my beads in a bowl of water. The water keeps the beads cool while I'm drilling out the bead release in the stringing holes.