First, I dip my mandrel into a soupy substance, called bead release. This forms a barrier between the hot glass, and the mandrel, which allows me to get the bead off after it is completed.

I heat the glass rod and mandrel, until both are red hot, and the glass begins to flow.

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When the glass is hot enough, and ready, I begin to wind it on the mandrel, first making a thin, even loop on the mandrel, and then building onto it with more hot glass.

The way you lay the glass on the mandrel to begin with has to do with how the bead's final shape will come out. If you lay it onto the mandrel right, it will save work later, trying to fix a lopsided bead.

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From the initial "footprint" of the bead on the mandrel, I like to build a bit out to the sides, and then add in the middle, this way, I get a nice "pucker" on the side of my bead where the hole is.

This "pucker" helps to not cut threads and wires, as it makes the hole edges nice and rounded.

After adding the amount of glass I would like to start my bead with, I keep heating it, until it flows into a nice uniform round even shape.

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When the bead has been rounded out to my liking, I begin to decorate it with other colors of glass.

As with the first rod of glass, I have to heat the new color slowly, to avoid shocking it, and when it is ready, I add decor to my bead.

When adding new colors, I pull the bead back out of the flame some, so that the base bead color doesn't pull up and mix with the new color being applied.

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On this bead I have done a central row of turquoise, and then add outside rows, on both sides of the bead, being very careful to not touch any of the previously laid turquoise.

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After adding the first color, I melted it in most of the way, and then began to add the next color, which for this bead, happens to be the color of the original base bead.

Again, I do all three rows of points, being careful to not hit any of the others. I pull the bead back out of the flame a bit for adding these, as I don't want to get the previously made points too hot, or they will melt and mix with the color currently being applied.

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Now that all three of the rows of points are added, I melt them all into the bead, until they are flush with the base bead.

After rolling the bead in the flame for a couple of minutes to make sure the shape is right, and the decoration is even, I add more decoration.

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This time, I am adding clear glass to the bead, because I want to make a barrier between the last color, and the next part of the decorating.

This time, I only add glass to the center row of the bead.

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Once I have added the clear glass, I roll the bead until the clear glass is even with the rest of the bead.

I grab a tool that is called a "tungsten poker" that highly resembles a dentist pick, hooked on one end and a straight point on the other.

After letting the bead cool just a bit, so it doesn't stick to the tool, I plunge the point of the poker into the bead where I have just added the clear glass.

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Now, I am adding more clear glass over the areas that I just plunged holes into, to cover the holes, and form an intentional bubble under the newly added glass.

Before adding glass to cover another hole, I melt the end of the glass rod until the tip is pulled back to a nice round gather. This helps make sure that the hot molten point of the rod doesn't just jab into the hole, making the bubble very small.

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In this picture, you can see that I am melting the new clear points into the bead, and I roll it, again, until the clear dots are flush with the rest of the bead.

As the glass melts, the bubbles take a more prominent shape, and begin to become easier to see. They rise a bit towards the surface of the bead. The first layer of clear glass ensured that the bubble will look more 3 dimensional, or floating in the center of the design.

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Here we are, with all of the clear melted in, and you can see the bubbles perfectly.. But we are STILL not finished with this bead!!

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Now, after the bubbles have been formed, and everything looks good, I take a chance at destroying a perfectly good bead, by adding MORE decoration. It is often the final stages of a bead, where something will go haywire for me, and I will have to feed what would have been a great bead to the "bad bead jar."

Here, I am adding more clear dots to the bead, between the areas where I added the first colored dots.

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I add more clear dots until there are 3 rows, all off-set from the first 3 rows of dots.

These dots I will not melt in, but will turn the bead in the flame, until they are evenly melted in, while still sticking out of the bead.

This was my final decoration for this bead.

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This is what my bead looks like before I put it into my kiln, and I will cool it some of the way, very slowly, to make sure the beginning of the cooling process is done evenly.

After it isn't glowing to the point of flowing glass anymore, and is at a point that I know it wont be marked by putting it into the kiln, I drop it in.

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This bead, and all of the others I made today, will be in the kiln, annealing at almost 1,000 degrees for over 2 hours, and the very slowly cooled over another 3-4 hours time, until they are ready to come into the world, and be happy, wonderful, and beautiful hand created glass beadies that will last for possibly hundreds of years to come.