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?

I do it my way! Free tutorial!

Making frit that is!

For the non glass people reading this blog, frit is crushed glass that is rolled into a molten glass bead for the purposes of decoration, texture, or background. Most of the time I buy or trade for my frit, but some of my favorite blends have come from my lovely little nubs of glass.

Here's how I make my frit.


Always wear a mask. It's not good to inhale fine particles of glass.
That's my handy dandy frit maker. I purchased all the parts at Mutch Hardware.

Here are the pieces of it.


These are my glass nubs that I use. They really are nubs!
This is my frit sifter. I can sift the frit into different sizes. A friend sent this to me about 2 years ago, and I love it!
The nubs I've chosen for frit.
Now they are in my frit maker.
I begin to pound the glass.

Here's what comes out of the frit maker. I put it into the frit sorter and shake.
After shaking the frit sorter, here are my two favorite sizes of frit. I have some more pounding to do to finish the batch, but in the end, I will have enough frit for quite a few beads, and best of all, I was able to use my nubs--Again!