Testing Tumbled Beads

After the first success of tumbling the seaglass pendants, of course I turned to my ladies next.

I tumbled only a few, to test before possibly ruining a whole bunch at once :) and here is the result:

On these I am not quite as enthused about the clear lines. It doesn't show much on the ivory ladies, but is very prominent on the black one. I checked in on them at 10 hours, but this is the result of 24 hours of tumbling. If I tumble them anymore there will be no nipples left, and still the clear does not seem to go away.

Which was of course the entire point I was raving about earlier, and so -

Here are my new babies!

Beads with deliberate patterns as impressed lines, then tumbled for just 4 hours. They are sooo delicious! All frosted and smooth, still translucent, and with clear paths trailing all around. They are fairly large for what I normally make, but on a short cord you don't even notice the weight.

I have a second batch in the tumbler as I write this, in other patterns and other colours, and they are huge! Also, I build them up with clear cores and just two layers of a transparent colour on the outside, so they would be a bit lighter in colour than these, which are colour all the way through. It is summer after all :)

I can't wait to see how they turn out ... :)

ETA: The before and after ...

Shiny beads

Frosted! I like it :)

Yay! :)