Studio Cleanup Miniseries

Are you a frugal beadmaker? I admit it I kind of am. I just hate waste, so I like to make the best use of all my materials. I like to melt my rods down to the last inch or so, so my “shorts” are really short. Short enough that I probably should throw them away, but instead I save them and find uses for them. Sometimes they become frit, sometimes I hold them with pliers, melt them and pull them into stringers or use them to create twisty canes.

When I did my last studio clean up I unearthed a bunch of very short bits of dichro strips; pieces that must have thermal shocked off when they were introduced into the flame. I hated to discard them but they were too small to do much of anything with until I thought a minute and had an idea.

I melted a nice paddle of transparent glass, stuck the piece of dicro on it, heated it up and gave it a twist. Voila’ I had a nice twistie, with the just enough dichro to give the right amount or sparkle to my beads.

I layered my twisties on some transparent beads with some enamels, did a few surface twists and I had a nice little miniseries, all inspired by my desire to not waste my snippets of dichro.

Linda beads and blogs from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah!