Making Glass Headpins my way

Sometimes, when making jewelry you need a special headpin. What I like to do is to make my own headpins using glass and copper wire. There are other ways to make headpins, and I'll show you my experiments later.

What you need:
My special tool ---------------->
It's handmade and easy to make!

Take an alligator clip and put it on the end of a mandrel. You can pick up the alligator clips at your local hard ware store. You should have a mandrel to fit.


You also need some copper wire. I use 20 gauge copper wire. You can also use silver wire, but at the current price of silver, you might want to experiment with copper.

Oh, and yes, those holes are in my stool because I accidentally put hot mandrels there. Ooops!























Open the alligator clip and insert your wire in the clip. Straighten out the wire as much as you can. You can just use your fingers to do that.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION NOW! Make sure you have good ventilation. Copper and silver can give off fumes that can be hazardous to your health.






















Working high in the flame, and working very quickly, warm up the wire very gently so that you can apply glass to the wire. Do not work the wire too long because you will either end up with a ball at the end of the wire, or the wire will fall down on to your work area.






















Working quickly, apply a small bit of glass to the wire. Take the wire out of the flame. Melt the glass in the flame then add more glass to the wire. You won't need much. Just keep applying the glass in little bits until you get the side the size of a bead that you would like at the end of the wire. Quickly melt the glass, but don't keep the wire in the flame or the glass on the end of the wire will fall off.






















See what I mean?






















After the glass is melted onto the end of the wire point the wire down vertically for a short time so that the glass will stabilize.






















While the glass is still warm and glowing turn the glass up vertically and it will turn into a ball. Using your mashers or a pair of pliers, remove the copper wire from the tool and put the headpin into the kiln to anneal. Be careful so that you don't burn your fingers. That's why you use the mashers.

One important thing to remember when making headpins is that the entire process takes a very short time. Don't over cook the glass and wire.

When you take the headpins out of the oven, you will see how the wire has oxidyzed. When the headpins come out of the kiln, clean the wires with a soft cloth to get rid of the excess oxidation on the wires.

Variations: Roll the molten glass in frit and melt in the frit.
Instead of leaving the glass in a ball, flatten the glass into a paddle.

Most important tip: Work the glass high in the flame and keep it cool!

Let's make broken pieces of glass--aka--shards, a mini tutorial.

I have become a shards junkie. I love to use shards on beads! If you have read some of past blogs, you've seen some of my beads that have shards. I truly love using them when working with glass. If you are a non-glass person, you might ask, "What are shards?" Simply put, shards are thin, broken pieces of glass. Shards are used to apply decoration and/or texture to molten glass beads. All right, next question, how do you make shards? The answer is: very easily with only one tool.

The tool you need is a hollow mandrel. You can see that mine is well used.



















The next step is to melt glass on the uncoated mandrel. The color choice(s) are yours. You can make shards in as many different colors as you like. You can add left over stringers, twisties, enamels, silver foil, silver foil, frit or all of the above.


















This is a picture of a molten blob of glass at the end of the mandrel before I blow the glass.



















Here I am beginning to blow into the other end of the hollow mandrel. The glass is beginning to expand.


















Look how big that little blog became. In actuality, it's a little bit too big, but for the sake of this tutorial, it's just fine. Yeah, right.

















I let the shard ball cool in a small aluminum pan that I use only for glass. In this photo, the mandrel is still attached. As it cools, the mandrel just breaks off at the edge. If, for some reason, the mandrel doesn't come off, I simply tap the mandrel, and the glass shard breaks off.

















This is the final product--the shards. At this point, I break them. I usually just use my hands. On thicker shards, I guard my hands carefully and use a small hammer. After that, I use the shards in my beads.

For those who prefer not to make their own shards, there are many wonderful suppliers of shards. Google to find the suppliers or enjoy making your own.