Off Mandrel Pendant

 Sometimes you get eggs, sometimes you get nothing but a bunch of shells and a mess.  The leaf bead I posted last is no more.  I had it strung on some wire for a pendant and dropped it.  The leaf stayed intact but the loop broke off.  Nuts.  I made another one and strung it with the Effetre light pumpkin one and one I made with opal yellow, and have a nice pendant I am slowly turning into a necklace.

Opal yellow is a tricky color to work with for an off mandrel leaf.  It is very soft and wants to flop around all over the place.  I committed the extra sin of wanting a notched, oak leaf appearance and chopping at it with my glass shears.  This was done with the glass very nearly cool, then I reheated the piece to fire polish it.  The resulting leaf was a bit strangely shaped, but, hey, it looks like a leaf.  The spots are Terra2, which apparently likes to reduce as well.  I didn't mean to, but it isn't ugly so I'll take it.  I also got some reducing frit in with the bordello, as evident on the orange leaf. 

The way I'm making the leaves is to make a gather on the end of the rod, rolling it in frit or decorating it with stringer,  pressing it in the leaf masher, heating the end and attaching an only slightly heated steel chopstick and cutting off the rod and forming the loop.  Then I hold the loop in a pair of pliers while I remove the punty and polish the end.  I'm sure infinite shapes are possible this way, but right now I'm stuck on leaves.  If anyone knows a better way please let me know. 

As far as my color diet, I'm retiring olive for the time being.  It is a great shade of green and truly appropriate for fall but I'm playing with apple blush until I can figure out how to get a predictable orange blush or get sick of it and give up.  I am also going to play with some CiM pheonix shortly, probably in place of the Effetre light pumpkin.