The Better To See You With, My Dear

I often get asked how I can get so many little details onto my lampwork glass beads. When many of my beads average under an inch tall, I guess I can see it from that perspective. But in one of my earliest classes , Kate Fowle Meleney offered this tip.


Use the press-on magnified reader lenses inside your protective safety glasses.

This is the brand that I have found online and use. Here is a url for them. http://www.stickonbifocals.com/custom.em?pid=196896 I use higher magnification than what I would normally use. My readers are typically 1.5 magnifiers. Darn, it's hard being old!. I chose 2.5 magnification, but I see this site offers them even higher at 3.0 magnification. The pricing is very reasonable- the lens themselves are around $15 and then there's shipping on top of that. They last a long time.

Please be warned, that these take quite a bit of getting used to. It makes you a little crazy at first. I put mine at the very bottom of my protective glasses, (I wear old school rose didymiums), and then when I want to see something at a distance, I just peer over the top of them as my glasses slightly slide down my nose from being too loose. I am sure there are other ways to solve this problem, but this method works well for me. And of course my other rule of thumb is to have great lighting. My sweet husband and nephew installed some strong track lighting in my studio. That is even more important than the additional magnification.