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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Making Beads with Frit


For our non bead makers, this is frit. Frit is ground glass. It can be purchased or handmade. This example of frit is some that I purchased from Gaffer Glass. It's name is Purple Passion frit.

















Frit can be handmade. I often take the nubs of glass that I have and make my own frit. I have a tool that I made, or rather, Dave Mutch, from Mutch's Hardware in North Mankato, Minnesota, made for me by putting pieces of plumbing pipes together.

I can't find the photo right now, but I will insert a photo of my frit maker when I find it.

Here are some photos of some beads I made with frit.























I made this bead using Gaffer's Chalcedony frit on transparent clear glass. I simply rolled the bead in the frit before I shaped it, then I worked the bead for color by striking the frit. By that I mean I heated the bead, then I cooled it. I repeated the process until I got some gorgeous colors from the frit.
























I made this bead by starting with a base of white. I rolled the white glass in Gaffer's Purple Passion frit mix. Then I encased it with clear that I had rolled in the same frit. This gives the bead a whispy, striped look.























I made these beads using a transparent base then rolling the base in Val Cox's pink gold frit. I melted in the frit and formed the bead.

There are many different techniques that you can use to make a bead using frit. I want to cover these later. In the meantime, my addiction to frit grows. I can't seem to get enough of it to use in my beads! Now, how fun is that?

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