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These are some of my latest beads.
My latest beads: Just out from a kiln anneal this morning
I've made a number of hearts in different colours. Both the hearts and crystals are about 24mm at their widest so take a good bit of glass. The pendant is of scrap window glass with yellow and blue COE compatible frit. I've made a number of these too. The blackish bead with swirls is one of a number all the same in a set.Set of beads with swirls

Just out from a kiln
anneal this morning

This bead is about the size of a 20p piece. Not quite regular and not very prepossessing colours. I finally got my sample set of 6 inch length borosilicate rods after three months on order. I can't seem to get a bead larger than that in boro. Hence the thoughts about a costlier torch. But can I justify spending another £600 or so on another torch and a few more hundred on the other ancillary equipment if there is no guarantee that I will be able to sell the beads I make.First boro bead

I've made a set of beads from dark purple glass, each with four very pale blue swirls and dashes of red. The plain smaller beads are also the very pale blue while they are separated by clear swarovzski crystals. The tiny bead caps are silver. I had thought to use larger Tibetan silver caps but after looking up the composition of Tibetan silver on the web, decided against on the grounds that the information was that this type of "Silver" more usually does not have any silver content at all. Indeed some of the cheaper caps have a large proportion of lead as their metal content.
The beads are what is called donut shaped rather than round and since they are made by hand, there is a slight variation in size according to how much glass is added to the mandrel during torching.

Not to be outdone, I've posted 11 pictures of my latest lampwork beads on
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=11160190&uid=5604171
Here's a very simple one made from scrap window glass!
Clear glass with coil
I won't bother you with the 100 or so other beads I've made in the last few weeks. As you can see, I like experimenting with the glass to produce one-off beads that are unique. There's something to be said for producing only one of a kind in any endeavour.

I haven't posted pictures of beads I've made or of the seed beads for some time so here are a few now. I call these tentacle bracelets for obvious reasons. They look better on a wrist than flat being photographed.Original tentacle bracelet: I already has all these beads so didn't need to buy more for this experiment
The pink one was slightly different than expected. I did half of the second layer of tentacles with the red crystals and the other half small white discs.Pink tentacle bracelet