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Old 2006-03-21, 8:38am
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LaurieBSmith LaurieBSmith is offline
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Join Date: Aug 16, 2005
Location: Port Saint Lucie, FL
Posts: 2,666
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My first tip: Buy enough glass to have enough freedom to make mistakes. I tried to learn with a pitiful amount of glass and it was awful. So, I called and ordered 5 lbs white, 5 lbs of clear, 5 lbs of black and a pound of every color I truly liked. Then, I got a quarter pound of everything else. It was so expensive and so worth it. The freedom to play made the practice more fun and gave me the opportunity to finagle the colors, learn the viscosity of melted glass, figure out for myself how different the colors can be in all sorts of uses.

My second tip: Spend the initial money on glass and hand tools. A kiln is absolutely necessary, but it can wait until the beads reach usable quality. I bought my kiln about 6 weeks after the big glass order. (And when I look back on those beads, the first ones I saved . . . I cringe.) I probably could have waited another ....say, 6 months!....

My third tip: The old Carnegie Hall joke . . . PPP. Kalera's right, any time spent at the torch is helpful. Uninterrupted time is important. For me, personally, my head and my eyes knew what I wanted, but I didn't have the muscle memory in my hands and arms to do it. That took time. (I'm a slow learner when it comes to physical coordination.)

AND....enjoy it. It's so much fun and so rewarding and so special.
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