Well, I figured it out. I got two out of 4 that were a lot like my picture. This is how I did it:
I took an 18mm rod and attached about 3 1/2 inches of it to a 9mm rod, so it would not be so heavy, remember I have a lot of arthritis and this helps the strain.
Taper the end to a dull point.
Stripe stringer of Fool's Gold in straight lines about 5 or 6 lines that are about a little over an inch long.
Heat this in well, burn and boil the Fool's Gold, over heat it basically.
Prepare a graphite pad with a frit mixture of any blues you have, just not any silver glass frit, use opaques like Aqua and hyacinth, teals, and some Turbo cobalt too. I think I put some irrid in there too. ( no blue moon type of blue),
Roll the area on the tapered end with the Fools gold in this, heat a section and roll it, if you miss some area's that is ok, it's part of the plan.
Heat it in and then roll it in paparazzi small frit.
Heat that and then roll in some Turbo cobalt frit.
Heat that and then punty to the end and heat and give it a twist,
like a vortex.
Remove punty and then heat and compress start rounding it up.
Press it like a maria and look for a clear spot for your center planet.
poke a small indentation with your pic.
cover indent with a very small dot of carmel and then top it with a yellow,
I wasn't afraid of bubbles, I wanted them.( sounds like I'm a nut, but that is fact)
At this point I think I also gave it a dip or two in a black frit, and
more turbo cobalt. I also gave it a bit of blue leprechaun for sparkle and
knowing me, I dipped it in jackpot frit too, ya just can't have too much
sparkle.
Anyways, sorry I did not get a good picture of these, and sold them both
the first time they hit the table, so you know I will make more, and get a
picture to post. They really were nice, hope I can do it again!
Here are crappy pictures so you can kind of see what I'm talking about.
The bubbles really were bright in the sun, a hard sparkle.
