What Big Eyes You Have

I enjoy making little owl beads in bright colors and even sometimes wearing clothes or accessories.

Meet Sven, the uber cool owl.

This time I wanted to change it up a little bit and instead of wearing a necklace, hat or peace symbol, this one has particularly large eyes. Which makes me think this owl has had too much coffee. He looks a little stressed out. I've felt that way plenty of times.

I used commercial murrini for these, because there they were, sitting in my murrini container just staring at me.
(Of course you can easily make them too.)

These give you a good view of how they are made. You can see the center core color which is a dark transparent green, like deep grass green and then opaque white, medium grass green
transparent, opaque white again and then light grass green transparent. The darker core going to a lighter outside color makes the center visually recede.

When I apply murrini, I spot heat the area where the murrini is going and I gently warm the murrini so it doesn't crack when placed on the warm glass. I use my tweezers to place it where I want it to go. At that point it is sticking out a lot. Gently heat the base bead around the edges and again carefully push it a little farther in. If you heat directly onto the murrini and make it too warm, the design will distort. And it seems like the opaque white spreads really easily if too warm. So slightly heat and press over and over until it's in place.

Because the rectangular murrini shape gives him a bit of a 60's mod feel, his eyes definitely have the starring role. I wanted to keep the rest of the bead simple, so it would not distract from them. The back side has his little tail that I make in the shape of a heart.

This bead is less than an inch tall. And if you enjoy a pun or two, I was on quite a roll, when I wrote the description. Click and enjoy. And then go use up some of your old murrini in a bead and send me a photo. And remember, stepping outside of the coloring lines in how you use them makes your beads interesting and unique. I'd love to see what you create.