Looking Back

I've taught a lot of people to make beads and every time I do I can always remember how tricky it was when I started out. I am totally self taught and have never had a beadmaking lesson. That's me in the photo above making beads on Horace, my beloved Hot Head torch. Everything I know I have learned from books, experience and by making mistakes. I was two years into my beadmaking before I ever saw another lampworker making beads in real life.

Maybe if I had taken a lesson or two I would have progressed quicker. But then again if I hadn't made mistakes and then had to find a way to correct them then I honestly don't think I'd have the understanding of glass that I do today.

I've decided to be very brave and I'm now going to show you some old beads so you can see how they, and my photography, have improved over time. This is pretty difficult for me (as you know what a perfectionist I am) but I want you to see how far I've come in six years. I also want to prove that I am not lying to the students and people that I tell 'It's just practice- you'll get there if you stick at it!' but I tell you, when I was delving into the Beads By Laura archive I was laughing, cringing and generally squirming in my seat at my beads-gone-by.

So without further ado I give you some of the beads from my first few beadmaking sessions. The little light blue one on the left was my first attempt :

And now we move on to my first 'set' of beads. I was so proud of these at the time but now I hang my head in shame. The colours! The bumps! The dot placement! They were the first set I ever sold (on eBay) and they reached the massive sum of £4.50. I remember being so pleased - pleased that I had made an actual set and pleased that someone wanted to buy them.

After that I was fired up with enthusiasm and I regularly sold beads on eBay. Beads like these Spiderman-inspired ones :

It's okay - you can laugh. I am. I'd been to see the movie and I just had to use Spidey's colours. I can't believe anyone bought these, I mean, look at them! But then again, back when I sold these there were only about six other UK people selling handmade lampwork beads on eBay. People seemed to like my work and I carried on selling via eBay. Here are four more of my early bead sets - just look at that 'stringer'! :

I wouldn't sell beads on eBay now but I was so thankful for it back then - it drove traffic to my own website and I started to build up a customer base, some of which still buy from me to this day.

As you can see from the photos my early beads were very basic. Dots and splodges on plain glass. It wasn't until I taught myself how to do stringerwork that my beads stepped up to the next level and I can still recall what set it was I was making when the stringer lightbulb went on and I had that fabulous 'A-ha!' moment. It was these - my 'Stratford' beads. I think they fetched about £30 on eBay and I was so elated you wouldn't believe it! :

Not exactly up to today's standard, are they? But as I said, being able to work with stringer opened up a whole new load of bead doors for me and I really got into my stride making sets like these 'Aztec' and 'Ranocchio' ones :


Most of my beads were bumpy back then. Take this 'Neptune' focal for example :

By teaching myself basic encasing I stepped my lampwork up another notch and started creating beads that are pretty similar to what I make today. These ones have the grand-sounding title of 'Intergalactic Episode II' so I'm guessing I'd watched one of the Star Wars prequels prior to making these :

So there you have it - a little voyage through the Laurabead archives. As I say - I hope it's given you a laugh and also I hope that it shows all you new beadmakers out there just what practice, endless hours of torch-time, persistence and patience can bring.

I still can't believe those 'Spiderman' beads, though ..... *cringe!*