Creating Glass Beads: A New Workshop to Expand Your Beginner Skills and Develop Your Artistic Voice by Jeri L. Warhaftig is a fairly recent book that's meant for intermediate glass workers who have already had some experience with torch worked glass and bead making.

It's lovely. The book starts by talking about the tools you'll need and basic safety precautions. Then it gets into the projects. The author designed the projects to use unusual techniques and materials to acquaint bead makers with new ideas. While working on the book, she sent the instructions she had written to glass artists who worked from her instructions to see how well they could be followed. The artists both put their own spin on each project and helped her make the instructions incredibly clear and detailed.

Each project starts with a materials list and a description of the tools or supplies that you may not have used before and a photo of her version of the project. The instructions are exhaustive with helpful tips to make it easier to understand and to do the project. She also explains why she chose the materials and techniques she used in the project. At the end of each project are the projects created by the glass workers who helped her with the book so you can see a lot of the variations they made in the original instructions. After which is a gallery section of glass using many of the same techniques.

The galleries are the very definition of eye candy. Even if you're not interested in working with glass, it might be worth getting the book just to see the galleries, as well as get a better understanding of the process involved in making those wonderful art beads.

The instructions are clearly written and well photographed. She gives a lot of tips for how she makes and does things so they are easy to understand.

The techniques include glass ruffling off of a base bead, encasing, foiling, using a puffy mandrel, using Silver Art Clay Paste, cutting, grinding, multiple cased projects, using various frits and using different mandrels for different effects.

My favorite projects in the book are the Eye Bead which creates a murrini cane for a lovely pupil effect and the glass memento which uses a large mandrel to create a frame that you can inlay a photograph in and cover the photograph with resin.

Recommended for glass artists and just for people who want to know more about working with glass. It deepened my appreciation for handmade beads.

You can get this book directly from the publisher, Lark Crafts or by clicking the Amazon.com affiliate link below.


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