Halloween Beads Tutorial

Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
Happy Halloween beads for you to make! Learn
techniques that make sculpting glass easy, even for the “I
can’t do cute” crowd. Have fun!
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
This tutorial is meant for the beadmaker who has experience
working with molten glass and knows about all the precautions one should take. Please make sure you have proper
ventilation and didymium lenses to protect your eyes and all
that other safety stuff you learn in beadmaking classes.
I am not responsible for any damages or injuries caused by
using this tutorial.
Please contact me if you have any questions about the information contained in this tutorial or if you just need help figuring something out. I’m happy to help!
Please print this tutorial out for yourself but do not distribute
it to anyone else. It is for your personal use only.
Want to make these beads to sell? You have my complete
and total blessing to do so. Go forth and make and sell
them as much as you want. I don’t own these designs.
Don’t tell anyone, but I copied them from mother nature,
popular culture and various trips around the block while trick
or treating with the kids. :0)
Have fun and THANK YOU so much!!!
Love, Lori Peterson
[email protected]
www.loribeads.com
www.loribeads.etsy.com
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
First Project:
BATS!
Go batty with these
cute little sculptural
bats this
Halloween!
These bats are great for earrings and bracelets. The
faces are on both sides so they are always “face up”!
I’ve made them with all kinds of colors for eyes but my
favorites are transparent light grass green (shown
above) and transparent striking orange.
For this project, gather the following supplies:
 Vetrofond or Effetre black rod
 White stringer
 Transparent light grass green stringer
 Vetrofond black stringer pulled very fine
 Tweezers
 Marver
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson


Make a tube of black.
Can be done using a marver of
any variety but I used a marver
from Stacy Russom.
 The tube length can be adjusted
to any length, depending on if you
want the bats to be earring sized
or pendant sized.
 Make sure those ends are nice
and puckered!
 If you have a pointy end just wrap
a tiny bit of black around that end,
heat gently and marver again.

Apply two dots, one on each side
of the upper part of the tube as
shown.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson





Heat up the dots, one at a time and pinch them with your tweezers.
I use tweezers that don’t have any serration. If you have a petal
puller tool from Karen Leonardo, those work nicely for this, too.
Make sure there is enough glass to make pretty good sized wings.
If there isn’t enough, just add some more at this point and re-squish
the wing.
Don’t squeeze too hard or the wing will be too thin.
Let the wing cool for a couple seconds and reheat each so that it
forms a thicker outer ring around the outside of the wing. Don’t
worry about figuring out how to do this, the glass does it on it’s own
during the reheating process. If you loose wing shape, just lightly
re-squish the wing back into shape.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

Spot heat at the base of one of
the wings
 In the bat’s “armpit” push upward
with a razor tool as shown.


Spot heat half way up the wing
Push upward and inward on wing
with razor tool as shown
 Repeat process for other wing
 Don’t forget to keep everything
warm by flashing both sides in the
flame
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson



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
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Place two white dots for eyes
in between the wings
Optionally, you can put them
on both sides of the bat so that
the bat is always face up!
Melt the white in just enough
to adhere to the bead but not
so that it is completely flush
with the black.
On top of the white, put a dot
of transparent green
Repeat for each eye
Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

Heat up each eye and flatten it slightly (or a lot, if you
prefer)
 I used the side of my
tweezers but you can also
use a marver or just about
anything flat

On each eye, place a tiny,
black eye dot.
 I use vetrofond black pulled
into a very thin stringer.
 If you want to get fancy you
can use intense black but I
find that it doesn’t ‘stick’ as
well and is very finicky—
there is a small window between adhered and bleeding
all over the place.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

After all the black eye dots are applied, give the entire
bead a good warming up in the back part of the flame
(also known as “insurance heat”) and put it into the
kiln.
Hints and Tips:
Try other colors for the eyes such as transparent red,
orange, blue, aqua, brown or even rubino oro!
Take a rod of intense black, encase it in Vetrofond
black and pull thin stringers for super-black eye dots
that don’t bleed all over the place and stick easier.
Effetre black tends to look purple when the dots are
this small.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
Second Project:
SKULLS!
Whimsical little skulls for
lots of fun this
Halloween!
I just love these cute little skulls and they make great earrings!
Again, they have faces on both sides so they are always “face
up”. Add a pink bow and *presto* it’s a girl skull!
For this project, gather the following supplies:
 Vetrofond or Effetre ivory rod
 Pink stringer (for bow) - optional
 Various pokers—

Fine point (for nose)

1/8” blunt point (for eyes)
 Xacto knife
 Tweezers
 Marver
 Lentil or Straight sided lentil press (optional)
 Parallel mashers (instead of lentil press)
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

Make an ivory bead in a fairly
wide football shape.
Flatten bead with parallel
mashers or with lentil press.




Heat up one side of the bead
and use the Xacto knife to create
the “cheekbone”. You’re going to
want to pivot the blade from
about 45° to 90° to the mandrel.
So it goes like this: Heat, poke,
pivot.
Repeat for the other side of the
face.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

Here’s the basic shape after
creating the cheekbones.


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Heat up the bottom half of the
bead and make the teeth with
an Xacto knife by putting three
lines at the chin end. Repeat
on the other side of the bead if
you want it to be reversible.
Heat up the top half of the skull
and poke the eyes with a blunt
poker. Repeat on both sides of
the bead to make it reversible.
Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

Heat up the surface of the face
very slightly and quickly poke
the nose holes with a sharp
poker. Repeat on other side.

If you want the skull to be a girl,
add a bow now. I like pink!
Here I’ve taken a rose cane
(rubino oro over opaque light
pink) stringer and put a good
sized dot on the side of the
head.

Take the Xacto knife and slice
right down the center of the dot
to make two half-dots. This will
make the two ‘loops’ of the bow.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

With a tweezers, slightly pinch
each side of the bow so that it
stands up a little bit.

YAY! She’s done! Pop her in
the kiln and make another!
They’re very addictive.
Hints and Tips:
Skulls can start out as either lentils, straight sided lentils, tabs or
pastilles, as well as just taking a round bead and squishing it with
parallel mashers. Experiment and find out what works best for
you.
I use the Corina pokers but any will work. Try a 1/8” mandrel as a
blunt poker for the eye holes.
Ivory glass works well but also try opal yellow, silver pink and
even some of the silver glasses would be awesome!
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
Third Project:
PUMPKINS!
Flat or fat, plain or with
faces, they’re all fun for
Halloween!
There are so many variations for pumpkins! I’ve done two to
get you started—fat sculpted and flat with a face. You can
combine these techniques to have other varieties, too!
For this project, gather the following supplies:
 Any orange or coral rod
 Brown, tan or green thick stringer for stem
 Variegated green stringer for leaves
 Optional thin green stringer for tendril
 Fine point poker
 Xacto knife
 Tweezers
 Marver
 Lentil or Straight sided lentil press (optional)
 Parallel mashers (instead of lentil press)
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
Here’s the first pumpkin we are
going to make. It’s flat and can
be decorated on both sides
which makes it perfect for bracelets or earrings!

The first step is to make a lentil, straight sided lentil or tab
bead in orange or coral. For
the one I’ve shown, I used a
straight sided lentil shape.

Then make a thin wrap of
brown glass at the top to
make the stem.

Heat up the orange part of the
bead and use the Xacto knife
to make two ridges on each
side of the bead as shown.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson

Use fine point poker to put two
eyes on each side of the bead.

Add a tiny dot of orange for the
nose.

Use Xacto knife to cut a slit for
the mouth.
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson





Use fine point poker to poke in and pull up on each side of the
mouth to create a smile.
Repeat on other side of bead.
Add small black dots to the eye-poke spots and pat them down
with a marver or just the side of your tweezers.
Add leaves to the top of the bead where the stem meets the
pumpkin as shown.
Put in the kiln!
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
Here’s the second type of pumpkin
we’re making. It’s round and plump.
You can add a face if you wish but for
this one, I’ve just left it plain.
Ahh, the joys of photographing
orange...everything shows up black
so I had to let these cool so you could
see the detail of these steps.

Make a fat round bead of coral or orange and let it cool a bit before
reheating. When you reheat, heat up just the outer layer of glass
and leave the core cool enough to maintain the shape. Take your
Xacto knife and put 5 or 6 slices into the round bead.

Add a small wrap of brown or green glass to the top of the pumpkin
for the stem. Use the tweezers to shape it into a cube, of sorts.
Not a lot, just slightly. This makes the pucker better on the hole and
it also gives it more of a stem look. If you want to add a face, do it
now. If not, it’s time to add leaves!
 Take a variegated green leaf cane and add 4 or 5 swipes to the
pumpkin. To do this, take the leaf cane and heat up a bit at the end
to form a ball. Starting at the brown stem, swipe directly down the
side of the pumpkin.
 If you want, you can add a very thin green stringer in a curly-cue to
each side for the tendrils. If you’re having a bad stringer day, leave
it off. They’re still super cute without them!
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
Hints and Tips:
To make variegated leaf cane, take an opaque green rod and
swipe 4 or 5 black stripes about an inch down the side of the
rod. Encase that part of the rod in a transparent green. Heat up
the whole inch to molten and pull a thick stringer out of it.
Pumpkins look great etched so if you’re braver than I and want
to etch them, go right ahead! If they have a face, you can always dab a little white glue or clear nail polish on the eyes to
keep them shiny black.
Here are some pictures of my tools, studio, PuppyGirl and more
beads! Thank you so much for reading this tutorial! I hope you
have enjoyed it.
-Love, Lori Peterson
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Halloween Beads
Tutorial
by Lori Peterson
Happy Halloween!
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