Fairy Flowers

These little jems are sure fun to make they are hand made lampwork glass flowers they measure one inch across and a half inch thick with a perfect round center and with many layers of petals. They are just the right size for a fairy garden embellishment or any type of embellishments and could also be used for jewelry making. There is a 1/16"  hole under Neath the flower for a wire insert for a stem.  I came up with the idea because I had many broken pieces of glass rods at my workstation. With a little patience I thought they would make great petal's for some pretty flowers. 

To make one of these cute little flowers this is what I do.   There is some preparation that I like to do before I start my flowers or beads, first I check my work station to make Shure everything is in safe order. I also remember to put my safety glasses on.   I use a rod wormer and turn that on to worm that up.  I than pree pick out my glass colors ahead of time this is to save time and so I'm not searching for glass while the torch is on.  I use 104 Coe glass, using clear (for the clear disk), green (the stem), a color for the center and a color for the petals. For the petals I use glass rod about 5mm thick and cut them into 1/4" pieces to make work a little faster and to make more uniform petals.  I than pree worm them in the rod wormer using a needle nose plyers to place them in the wormer and let them worm up for 20 minutes, at this time I also add any other glass I am going to use into the rod wormer.  I like to pree worm my glass because I use MAPP gas to make my flowers and beads. Pree worming helps use less gas and the glass seems to shock less.   I start my flower with a 1/16" mandrel  and use some bead release on the end of the mandrel so the flower can be removed later.  Than used some glass from a glass rod and than formed a marble at the end of the rod using a marble marvel to get the sphere just right this is now the center of the flower.  The next step I use clear glass to form a disk about one inch wide under Neath the marble sphere to create a platform for the petals.  After that  I created the bottom part of the flower or stem using green glass creating a small ball under the clear disk for the stem.  I than used my pree wormed cut glass for the petals, I worm the glass in the flame and add the cut piece to the edge of the clear disk, I heat it up so its glowing and than I use a needle nose plyers to flatten it out like a petal  I do this multiple times to create a ruffle flat looking petal.  To cool the plyers I dip them in a glass of water each time I use it to flatten out the petal this keeps the plyers from sticking to the glass. I will repeat this until I get a petal that I desire. When the petal is done I than set the petal next to the marble were I want it so it is not in the way of the other petals. this can be also moved later on. Be shure the petal does not touch the marble at this time. Than I would add the next piece of glass for the next petal and shape the glass with the plyers like I did for the first petal. Continue this until all the flower petals are all on. The remaining petal's I add underneath the first petals.  It is very important to keep the entire flower worm the entire time you work so that it does not shock and break the flower while working on the piece.  After I have the desired amount of petals  I than rework any petals that may have lost some shape or add more ruffles to them.   When the flower is fully formed I worm it in my flame to help even out the tempiture, than it is anneald and its done!

• Delphi glass
• Davardi Glass
• Mapp gass
• Bead realease
• mandrel