This past weekend Tito and I went to BeadFX in Scarborough for my long-awaited birthday gift – an introductory course in lamp working.

Lampworking is a type of glasswork that uses a gas fueled torch to melt rods and tubes of clear and colored glass. Once in a molten state, the glass is formed by blowing and shaping with tools and hand movements. It is also known as flameworking or torchworking, as the modern practice no longer uses oil-fueled lamps. <<Taken from Wikipedia>>

I love how he looks with the protective eyewear on, reminds me of the crazy scientist from Despicable Me!

It’s a lovely process – our instructor Amy walked us though how to melt the glass, ‘paint’ it onto a metal rod, shape and decorate it. The results are beautiful, I’ve already got tons of ideas on how to take this further. One of the great things about BeadFX is now that we’ve completed a course, we can rent studio time from them. I can’t wait to get back in there and try out some new ideas!

Here are Tito’s beads – we did well for beginners!

Here are my beads – this was very different from glass blowing, it felt more controlled and you could focus more on the decorative aspect of each piece.

I decided to string mine into a big, chunky, colourful bracelet – I love it!