Hi again! I promised this tutorial over a year ago and its super easy, but for some reason I only got around to it this week.
Upcycled Glass Bottle Beads are super easy to make, but I've had loads of questions about how to deal with the shards of glass without them shattering when the flame hits them. I tend to pull them into cane to store them and I preheat the finished cane in a kiln when I'm ready to use them.
Remember, these bottles might not all be the same COE, so I tend to make them into single-color beads. So, your first thing to do is to get some bottles!
Lets take a look at some of the ones I like to use.
BROWN BEER BOTTLES
Brown beer bottles tend to make pretty scummy cane. They boil a lot. I still really like them because the finished beads look rougher, which makes for some nice "upcycled texture."
GREEN BEER BOTTLES
Heinekein beer bottles are great to pull into cane. They are smooth to work with and don't shatter easily when you reintroduce them to the flame.
WHITE WINE BOTTLES
White wine bottles come in a whole range of color, but I like these light olivine bottles the best. They are super creamy to work with and just have a wodnerful color to them.
RED WINE BOTTLES
These also come in a whole range of colors. The darker ones just read as black when you make a bead. I don't use these a whole lot. The clear bottles get really scummy in the flame.
SAPPHIRE GIN BOTTLE
LOVE this color bottle for beads. It can be a little shocky to work with though, so I make sure to pull canes and then preheat the canes in the kiln.
SKY VODKA
Makes a clear, good cobalt blue bead. This is the glass I'll use for this tutorial.
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edited to add - because of a few people from this thread, I'm adding Bud Platinum, which I've never tried, but apparently works out beautifully.
