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You need a Hollow Mandrel with a hole on the side for blowing up the seashell.
Moretti Light Ivory and Black Dense, Tweezers, a Flare Tool, a Sculpting Tool, a Hollow Mandrel, prepared Quarz Rods with Silver and Gold, Decoration: Cz´s or Twisties or whatever you like.
1. Wind a very small cylindrical bead onto your hollow mandrel and let it cool a bit. Then start to build a cone shaped hollow bead. Don´t superheat the end, you don´t want to loose your puckered end.
2. For a more realistic look add here and there a spiral wrap of a thin stringer of Black Dense
3. Notice the cup shape with some random layers of Black. You have to put each layer slightly inside the last one and to have a good finish make a very small bead where you want to have the final size.
4. Add more glass on your cup till it meets the small bead. Heat the bead and slowly rotate the mandrel. Put a gentle puff of air into the mandrel keeping the mandrel rotating till you are pleased with the shape
5. You can decorate the shell with dots or twistied cane. I put some Cubic Zirkonia´s and covered them with a clear dot.
6. Melt all your decoration in, keeping the shape of the shell.
Take your sculpting tool, heat the end of the shell and make some intendentions while you rotate the mandrel.
7. Now spot heat only that part of the shell you want to open it
Take it out of the flame and blow into the tube of your mandrel. You will blow up a big bubble of
thin glass.
Melt that bubble carefully in.
8. If you don´t have enough glass for distinctive lips you can add at at this point some more glass arround the edge.
9. I use my flaring tool to make one big intendation at the lower side of the shell and push the glass inside.
Preheat one side of the lips and shape it with any sculpting tool you like.
Preheat the other side and make some waves with the tweezers.
10. To achieve a shiny look I use to fume the Ivory shell with pure Silver first.
Let it cool a bit and then spot fume it with Gold. I use to fume it inside for some Pink shades.
11. That´s it! Heat it up and put it into the kiln.Hope you had fun ♥♥♥
