Warring States beads

Now this is really one of my favorite kinds of beads. These beads have tons of history and the style is very attractive to me. I love the precision of placing all the dots and getting things laid out very orderly, its the anal retentive in me.

Id like this blog to be about beads and mostly bead photos of beads I have made. Here are a few more warring states style beads....

This one is made on transparent amber glass, the turquoise kind of bled in with the black but this ended up being a cool bead.

I like the way the turquoise looks agains the amber. I do mostly 3 dots and twist them, more looks too cluttered I think. Less and you dont get a good design that fills a dot.

Timing for the twist is critical. If the glass is too hot, your twisting device (usually a thin piece of glass) melts and you get no "pulling" of the design dots, it just spins around. If its too cold, you also get no "pulling" it breaks and nothing pulls anywhere.

Here is a set of warring states style beads in a "traditional" cobalt glass color scheme. I sort of prefer to melt all my dots down and in smooth. Its far more difficult to leave them raised up and get them to stand up straight and be even around the bead.

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