I love winning!!

Well, not that I've actually won anything....yet. But I'm hoping that I do :) I entered this frit challenge contest that Lori Greenberg is holding and am hoping that I will be the lucky winner of Val's Frit Secrets book!

I've been using Val's frits...well...pretty much ever since I started lampworking. I'm more for letting the frit blends speak for themselves and love to use them mostly in crystal shaped beads where the colors really shine. Someday I'm going to take Val's class where I'll hopefully learn how to do more with frits than just put them on a bead and encase them :D

Here are some of my faves....the ones above were all made with Val's Glow frit on different bases, encased with different colors, with silver, without silver. Very neat!

These ones to the right I used Raku frit for the background which I thought gave these beads a lovely earthy feel.

Below is more yummy Raku-ness. Gosh is this particular glass every hard to work with though. Very tempermental.

I don't think I've used Raku for much in a long while. Maybe it's time to whip it out to see what it'll do for me now that I have a new torch setup. Maybe it'll play nice. It was like pulling teeth for a while. I'm really envious of anyone who can make Raku sing. Like Kim Neely...and a whole bunch of other beadmakers who are infinitely more Raku-blessed than I have ever been!

My faves though are the crystal beads with just the colors and a nice thick clear encasing to make them shine. Yup...those I love the most.....my ROX. All made with Val's frit blends except for the last set which I blended up myself as a special request for "Java Blue".