These are not an original project, but something I cribbed—out of Beadwork magazine, I think, or wherever Ginny Sycuro had her column. This is one of the few solid beads I make[1] and it starts out with a couple of winds of white, at the distal end of the mandrel; lay down a slightly bigger diameter wind of orange (orange goes in the middle of candy corn, remember) and finally a yet bigger wind of yellow. Then marver the whole business into a cone.
candy corn earrings. effetre, 1/16” mandrels, oct 08
The secret to getting nicely shaped beads is to have the cone smoothly shaped, with nice ends (especially the bottom) before mashing. If your cones are the same length and diameter, then your candycorns will match. If they're not, then you get to screw around with a marver, trying to match one bead to the other. Guess which I did? Of course, it's been years since I made the last batch, plus I was yakking to Cindi as we were torching together, so these are on the wonky side. Ah well, the kids liked ’em anyway. —But the nice thing is, they're easy enough even for a beginner to do, and they make great little Halloween gifts.
beads 21oct, earrings, photo, file begun 22oct, body of post completed24oct, intro 27oct08.
[1]though come to think of it, now that I have really thin mandrels and more practice using them, I might actually be able to make this style of bead hollow, now...
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
