Finding My Beadmaking Style

If there’s one thing lampworking has taught me, it’s patience. When you’re working with molten glass, the flame has its own rhythm, and you either learn to dance with it… or you end up with a bead in the dunker jar.

One of my earliest lessons at the torch was dot placement. A dot might look simple — just a tiny spot of colour added to the bead but that little detail is the foundation for endless designs. Dots can stack, stretch, melt, or shift, creating flowers, geometrics, or patterns that look like they’re alive under the glass.

I spent hours (okay, years!) practicing my dots. Some ended up round, some went wonky, and some melted into unexpected shapes I never could’ve planned. That’s the magic of glass: even when you’re aiming for perfection, the material has a way of surprising you.

Over time, “dot beads” became some of my favourite designs to make. They’re playful, colourful, and each one is a lesson in patience, heat control, and letting go. The way the dots move in the flame means no two beads are ever exactly the same.

And that, for me, is the beauty of handmade: every bead carries a little bit of the unexpected.

Every bead tells a story — come see which ones speak to you.

✨ Next time, I’ll take you into the bead bin, where inspiration often starts just by running my hands through glass and letting colour combinations spark new designs.