A Floral Pressing Question

[DesertDreamer]

I've been seeing many pressed beads with florals that are flush with the surface (aka not raised). Since I'm still a press novice, I'm very curious....how are they being made, order-wise? I'm thinking you all are making the basic shape (maybe a little short of final size?), placing the flowers and pressing again for the final shape. I totally suck at florals but I love the look enough to at least give it a try and humiliate myself a time or two. Hints, tips, a 2x4 step-by-step are all HUGELY appreciated!

(Don't feel threatened, I'm horrendously floral impaired. ;)

[maddog1050]

I can tell you the method that works for me:

I make the base bead first and start to form into the shape I want using the top/handled piece only. I heat the bead and press one side into it then the other. I might do this a few times to make sure I have enough glass where I need it. This is especially important for square beads. If I don't have enough at the corners - which is usually the case - I add a dot of glass at each corner. Then I gently melt these but keep them as soft corners. Then I heat the bead and press into the top part again. The reason I only use the top piece like a hand held marver to this point is that I can actually see what the base bead looks like as it fits the mold and where I need tweaking.

At this point I have a base in a fairly good final shape. Next I decorate with vines, flowers, whatever and manipulate/poke as needed and melt in flush. I do this carefully to keep the base shape as well as I can. I don't want it to round up or get really distorted. Then I press again front and back with top and if I'm pretty happy I heat again and at this point use both pieces of the press to shape. By the time I get to this step the bead is pretty much in final shape. If I need to correct any part of the bead I might spot heat and use a tool to clean it up. I reheat and repress as needed.

I have a lot of presses and consider myself press challenged but this is how I tried it this weekend and was (surprisingly!!) very successful. I was using Zoozzii's Kalera Nugget press. Once I got this down, it went pretty quickly. I just had to get past my mindset that the press would do it all on the first pressing!

Hope I've explained clearly enough and that this helps. Try it.

[SuzyQ]

Here is what I do.

Wind on enough glass to almost fill your press (at the point where you wouldn't get any sides to polish out) as if you were going to just do a plain bead. Make sure your footprint, when squishing the bead, is just where you want it. This takes practice to get the right feel and even now I lay the bead down in the press to check size at least once when winding.

Round out the bead and decorate.

Round out the bead again and when it forms a skin gently press it in the base. Press just enough that it starts to fill the base. Flip it and gently press the other side. This should keep your design from distorting. Then do the top down real press. Sometimes if I futzed too much with the first two gentle presses I may have to heat the bead, without losing the shape, again to get a good final press.

If you did it right you should have the tiniest amount of fire polishing to do.

Be kind to yourself. It takes practice and even after hundreds of beads there are days when pressed florals just won't work for me.

[Steph'sBeadCorner]

Hello! In addition to the great tips here, Travelin Gal, Deanna also posted a tutorial here on LE

Pressed Foral Beads (http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=423)