Encasing dried flowers????? [Archive]

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tymeout

2006-09-21, 8:09am

I recently had a customer ask me if I could encase from flowers left from her son's funeral... as a keepsake bead. Does anyone know if this is possible (i'm going to the studio shortly to try it) and are there any tip/tricks that would help????? Can't wait to hear from you! Shari Barry/Maya Designs

Kikki

2006-09-21, 8:15am

I really can't see how you should be able to do it. The molten glass is really very, very hot and it will burn the flowers in an instansce.

If you accidentaly drop a blob of molten glass on a wooden surface the wood can catch fire. Been there, done that... (The wooden surface was just a block of wood I had bolted my torch to to raise it a bit so no real harm was done.)

shawnette

2006-09-21, 8:41am

You can't encase, but you can make a hollow bead and put them inside and put caps on. Those types of beads are really pretty. Especially if you put words on he caps, like "Memories" or his name or something.

Emiko

2006-09-21, 8:50am

I don't know how big the flowers are, but are they small eough to go through the bead hole of a hollow bead?

Maybe resin is a better choice.

Cosmo

2006-09-21, 8:52am

Tink does something very similar to what Shawnette is describing.

You can also take a piece of tubing, blow a bubble, pull it off the tube, and let it cool. Once it's cool, drop the flower in and gently close the other end. Then the flower will be trapped in there and since there is no circulating air, the flower should last a long time. I have done that with liquids before.

Miriam

2006-09-21, 9:57am

If the flowers are not that big, you could try making a bead with a sort of press like the "shadow box" from cattwalk and after annealing put the flower in de cavety and pour some fluid epoxy (I don't now the word in english) over it. In our country the stuff is called "Pour On".

http://cattwalk.com/tiles.htm#Shadow%20Box

shawnette

2006-09-21, 10:58am

Tannise

2006-09-21, 10:59am

You could also crush the flowers and blend them into polymer clay beads. I think there was a thread on about.com/beading about this.

Roxanne

shawnette

2006-09-21, 11:04am

Or, building on Chad's suggestion, you could make a transparent hollow vessel, drop in the flowers and plug it with a cork.

Coffeebean

2006-09-21, 6:23pm

What is a shadow box press?

Tink

2006-09-21, 6:42pm

Or, building on Chad's suggestion, you could make a transparent hollow vessel, drop in the flowers and plug it with a cork.

That works well, though I prefer making a glass stopper and using epoxy to hold it in place. This has worked well for everything from baptismal water to dried flowers to cremains.

Firebug

2006-09-21, 7:55pm

What is a shadow box press?

Its a bead press from Catt Walk. Makes beads that look like miniature shadow boxes. Pretty cool! You can find it at www.cattwalk.com (http://www.cattwalk.com)

Cheers
Kathy

RSimmons

2006-09-22, 12:50pm

I your client wants a paperweight sort of thing you can use a Clearcast resin (available from Michael's) to encase it in clear material. I've done a few of those for people. If you do it, try an experimental piece before you go for the real deal and be sure to follow the mixing and casting instructions carefully. It's not forgiving of sloppy mixing.

Robert

ChristyPhelps

2006-09-23, 4:23pm

It's not a bead, but you can cut two small squares of glass, or rectangles, or microscope slides - one clear, the other any color glass youwant and then run copper tape around them & solder them together, add a jumpring and voila.

I did this a couple years ago, it was two sided and unfortunately my flux made the photo backing visible. (the other side was a group of pics composited of the woman & chiild for mothers' day) - I think if someone wanted jewelry, I would cut the glass square. Or make a bezel setting and place it under glass that way.

That is just so sad. No one should have to bury their child. I hurt for them.