there's even easier than optic molds!
pick a rod of glass for your "base" color- that's what the "triangles" will be.
pick another color for the stripes.
now you have several options, that will give you different looks. play and experiment! you get different looks the way you stripe your glass, but also the way the colors "behave", and i believe the hand of the artist has a role too
so here goes:
my favorite is to pull stringers of the colors i chose for the stripes, heat the rod of the base color, stripe the stringer on it (about 1"), and pull.
you can also-
* make a barrel from the base color so that you can fit more stripes on it/get more cane out of it
* use a rod to stripe instead of stringer to get thicker stripes/or just because you might prefer working with a rod than with a stringer
* you can also use a mandrel for holding the whole thing rather than the base rod- just take a short piece of the glass you chose for base color, heat the tip a little, heat the tip of the mandrel to glowing orange, and stick it in- as deep as the mandrel is wide is just enough (tip courtesy of drew fritt's book), but don't forget to flash the joint in the flame from time to time while you work because if the joint gets cold your glass will just fall off the mandrel! using a mandrel might make it easier for you when it's time to pull, but it's all personal, you have to experiment and see what you're most comfortable with.
* you can pull with a mandrel or with tweezers, i usually pull with tweezers the way i do with regular stringers, but if i want to twist it then i use a mandrel so that i can twist with both hands.
now, as for the pulling- you want to pull thicker than a stringer, or your stripes will be so thin they practically dissapear! again, the thickness you aim for depends on several things-
* how much glass you had to begin with
* how big you want the stars to be (which might also be related to the size of your beads but not necesarily, it's a question of style mostly, i believe)
* how you're going to use your cane
* just how you like it
now- how *do* you use that cane?
there are 2 ways that i can think of, if there are more i'm sure people will chime in and add them
if your cane is thick enough (again, it's personal. i'm sure there are people who call "thick enough" canes that i would think are way too thin
), you can cut it into slices. you want the slices to be thick enough so that you can actually see the stripes on them.
or- you can simply use the cane (which is how i like to do it
).
how do you use the slices? you heat the spot on the bead where you want your star, pick the slice with your tweezers and flash it through the back flame for a moment to heat it a little (it's so small you really don't need to spend time on it usually, make sure you don't spend too much time so that it starts to melt and sticks to your tweezers!!!
). then you place your slice there. now comes the step of transforming your stripes into the star! you just heat the slice, and poke its center! the poking draws the lines to the center, to create the star!
you can leave it poked, you can add a dot on the center, you can cover it with clear to trap a bubble where you poked, you can heat it until the poke is gone and leave it this way, or heat it and then cover with a dot or clear, etc...
and how do you do it if you use the cane?
here's the way i do it- i heat the spot on the bead where i'm going to place my star, heat the tip of the cane, i touch the bead with the cane while pushing it, then i quickly pull back out, and melt it off. the pushing helps you get the width of the star (rather than a tiny rounded blob) without having to melt it too much, and it also helps you make sure it's stuck to the bead without having to melt it too much. you have to quickly pull back out so that the stripes are drawn to the center, otherwise they'll only go half way there. it depends on how fast you like to do it, the result you're going for (you might want that for your design!), the viscosity of your base color, etc...
now you can melt that protruding tip flush, i usually heat it, squish the star flat, then poke the center a little even though the stripes are usually already in the center.
the reason i prefer working with the cane directly than cutting slices is that i feel it allows me to make much smaller stars, and it also saves some steps
ok, lots of words and no pictures, i hope everything i wrote makes sense...
if you have any questions- just ask!