Recently, I attended a bead show here in Monroeville, PA! I found these really great flowery spacer beads and had to have them! They are pewter so they were very reasonably priced!
I really liked them, but wanted to use them when making earrings or dangles. But being flat spacers, they just don't look right.
That's when I had my little revelation! I'll try and dome them! If I try one and it breaks, no biggie! But if they do work, YAY, bead caps!
So I got my block out,
Inserted the spacer in one of the domed crevices that pretty well matched the size of the spacer,
And proceeded to use my rawhide mallet to beat the little things into submission!
Voila! A beautiful little bead cap made from some funky spacers that I love! AND, the bonus is that they can fit a variety of bead sizes! The pink quartz is a 10mm bead, while ...
the lampwork bead I made is 16mm! One thing to keep in mind. If you beat the little spacers too much, you may break them.
But breaking one was worth the experiment. Maybe you're reading this and saying, Well, duh Sue! Of course you can do this with flat spacers! But maybe I sparked an idea in your head to work with another type of flat bead (filigree, perhaps) and you may experiment with doming! I know I will be doming some more flat things soon!
I really like them a lot, but wanted to use them when making earrings, too.
Voila! A beautiful little bead cap made from some funky spacers that I love! AND, the bonus is that they can fit a variety of bead sizes! The pink quartz is a 10mm bead, while ...
Comments
Thanks,
Lynn
Try heating the spacers with a heatgun before trying to dome them. Use a dome space larger than spacer on the first try, then move down a size. Less stress on the spacer.
Try heating the spacers with a heat gun before trying to dome them. Start in a dome space larger than needed at first, then move down a size. Less stress on the spacer, less breakage.