How in the world ?

well - if you think you are going to START OUT making that kind of bead -- you are going to be REALLY disappointed with your first efforts...

lol Cheryl DRAGON BEADS Flameworked beads and glass

Oh I know hon. I have made my living being a craftsman all my life. Not a pencil-neck man here. I have found that it takes 5 to 10 years to master most crafts.

Uh oh. Say good bye to Scott, guys...... ~~ Sooz To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. ~~Joseph Chilton Pearce

Yikes, Scott is in for a deep shock......in the rest of the websites. (Scott, don't snap pictures, just save the links. Snapping pictures is a copyright infringement.) ~~ Sooz To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. ~~Joseph Chilton Pearce

Lol heheheh, they can have my snap shots of pictures, when they pull my cold dead fingers from my keyboard. Lol Sorry, I am a NRA member ). Does it show? I took snap shots and left their pictures on the web. I will tell you of a silly law. I'm a Ham radio operator and as you probably know we have scanners. It's against the law to listen in to cell phone or home phones. By the way I could care less to hear what people have to say when on a cell phone. I was sitting he the bath tub naked as a J bird and I got to thinking about all the radio waves that were shooting through my body and into my home. I told myself, self, if people don't want me to hear what they have to say. Then they better dam well keep their radio waves out of my body and home. But thank you for your concern. I have been online with computers for about

Scott

Oh, brother.

The Blessed Fiddy, Patroness Saint of the Disorganized LC in Sunny So Cal Personality Development Specialist (Full-Time Mom!)

Hey Scott, I'm a ham too: KA8ELJ. That cellphone law has always freaked me out. In fact, I was playing around with my new mega-Kenwood several years ago and stumbled across a cellphone conversation. Like a moth to a flame, I listened. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was a "lovers chat" between the 16 year old neighbor girl and a female teacher at the local high school.

So what do you do?

I've been online since 1978 or so, which was the year I built my first computer, a Heathkit H-8/H-9 system. It still works.

Tink Check here for available work:

Whoa! ~~ Sooz To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. ~~Joseph Chilton Pearce

There's a place for imported, mass-produced cheapos... you should buy a handful of those, Scott, so you can see how incredibly different your own beads will be. You can literally feel the difference, as well as see it; even rank beginner artisan lampwork is in a different league from the mass-produced stuff. Since the workers are usually paid by the piece, and the quality doesn't have to be good, they rush through steps we consider crucial... like dot application... and the beads aren't annealed at all. They simply lack the resources to anneal their work.

-Kalera

Yes. Shoot for round, and take it from there. :)

You will probably be surprised by how had it is to simply center a bead, and to get something that is balanced, with puckered ends. You'll want to move on to ornamentation right away, but IMO you will do yourself a real favor by spending time mastering "round". Any bead, no matter how plain or hideously decorated, is salable as long as it's well-shaped and everything is properly melted in. OTOH, no matter how fabulous the ornamentation, a poorly-shaped unbalanced bead with sharp ends is not marketable.

-Kalera

Ah, you know whereof you speak! And, as a craftsman, you already know the advice I gave in my last message... disregard it, I didn't need to tell you! It might be useful for some other reader, though.

-Kalera

What crafts have you explored, Scott?

Tina

Interesting. What did you do online with computers 25 years ago? Did you say you worked for NASA at one time?

Tina

I would call up The LA times" newspaper from Richmond Texas with my little

Scott

Hi Karlera, I did buy a few hand full of the mass-produced cheapos and they look great from 20 foot away. Kinda like when I do an oil painting.

That's why you have to paint BIG, so people can only view them from 20 feet away... LOL!

-Kalera

Hehehe, for sure ).