Here is a tutorial on a set of organic stone-like beads. My "Jewel Stones", and I used to make a LOT of these a long time ago. May have to do these again. They were fun to make at the time!
Not really hard to make, and here's how:
1) Make a base round bead of Effetre dark ivory (about 11-12mm)
2) Roll in a strip of silver leaf (piece is a strip, cut is 1/8th of a 3 3/4" x 3 3/4" sheet of fine silver leaf)
** To cut your leaf to fit (burnish) these 11-12mm beads full all the way around, take a sheet of leaf, cut in half, then cut both of those in half, and then cut each of those in half one last time. This gives you 8 strips. **
3) Burnish the leaf in well, then hit the flame gently to melt this silver into the glass. You will now have a grey stone looking bead. If the silver is still shiny around the holes, don't worry about that at this point.
4) While keeping your bead warm, melt the tip of a rod of transparent aqua (or any transparent color, really) and then apply random dots all over. Don't apply small dots, more like large ones, like the size of the melted tip of the rod. If memory serves me well, I think there are 9 dots on each of these beads, except that focal in the first picture, which has evenly applied large dots, not random applied. Melt these in well, round up your shape, and flash around the holes to melt in any bits of shiny silver.
Done!
If you prefer, you can place evenly spaced dots, or even a stringer pattern if you want. Keep in mind, the dark ivory has a tendency to "swallow" transparent colors. Although not so much when silver leaf is applied first. But the "swallowed" pools of color are what you want, because this looks like jewels embedded in stone. I prefer to place the random dots so there is less stress on me and they are more fun to make that way!
