How to make a froggie

The left picture shows tools needed (other than a mandrel & torch). The pliers are for pulling stringer (you can also use a punty); the spoon is for moving glass (you can also use a stump shaper or Corina's magic wand); the pokey thing(yes, that's the technical term) is for poking the center of the flowers. The full rods you'll need are lime (pea- moretti) green and black. Stringers you need opaque sulfur yellow, opaque sky blue, three sizes of opaque pea green (thick, medium and thin), transparent dark emerald green and dense black.

If you don't know how to pull stringer, here's how. Start heating the rod in the back flame and gradually move it foward as it warms up. You want to melt it at the tip of the blue part of the flame. Once you have a blob of glass melted on the tip of the rod, take the rod out of the flame and allow it to get a 'skin' on the outside- it makes it easier to pull. If you take it out the flame and pull immediately it is more difficult to pull the stringer. Okay, so it has the skin grab the tip with the pliers and pull with a slow, steady motion. The stringer thickness will vary depending on how quickly or slowly you pull (thicker if you pull slowly, thinner if you pull quickly). Once you're done pulling out the stringer, I usually blow on the glass where I want to snap it to chill it and then break it off with my pliers. You can also use wire cutters to clip the glass.

We're going to make a basic round base bead in black. Begin by heating the rod in the back flame; hold the mandrel behind the rod as you're heating it since you need to warm the mandrel also or the glass will not stick to it. Once the rod tip is melted, drop the mandrel below the flame and begin to wrap the glass around the mandrel. You want to keep the mandrel below the flame so that the hot glass from the rod cools slightly while on the mandrel and you don't pull glass back off the mandrel. I usually wrap the glass around then go to the right slightly then back to the left to round out the bead. Once the bead is the size you want, burn off the rod and begin to heat the glass on the mandrel to round out the bead. Once the bead is rounded, move the bead into the back flame to cool it off, but to keep it warm.

Take the yellow stringer and add yellow dots in a 5-dot pattern (this will be our flower base). Heat the tip of the stringer, touch it to the bead (I usually bring the bead above the flame while adding the dot and then move it back into the flame to burn off the stringer) and then burn off the stringer. Continue to add dots in the flower pattern until you have as many as you want on the bead. You can also do 4-dot or 3-dot patterns, it's up to you. Once all the dots are on, heat the bead to melt the dots into the bead.

Next add blue dots to the center part of the yellow dots. Once the blue dots are added, melt these into the bead.

Heat the area of one flower; don't heat the whole bead because it will distort the shape when you poke it. So heat a flower and poke the center of the flower with a pokey tool. Pull the bead out of the flame, wait for the red/ orange to go away and then poke with the tool. Duplicate this process until all the flowers have been poked. Next, heat the bead and melt out all the poked holes you just made to get a simple floral pattern.

Take the thick green stringer to add legs. If you've made a boo-boo this is a good way to cover it up, so pick that spot to place your frog. Heat the tip of the stringer and keeping the bead to the right side of the flame, touch it to the bead and move it forward at an angle then turn it at a 90 degree angle and move it back and down (you're making an L shape). Burn off the tip of the stringer when you finish the leg. Repeat the same for the other leg- you'll be moving forward and up since it's on the other side of the bead. Heat the bead in the back flame before moving on so your legs don't pop off.

Take the thinnest stringer to make toes. Again, heat the stringer and keeping the bead to the right of the flame, touch the stringer to the bottom part of the leg and move to the right until you have toes the size you want. Repeat two more times (if you want more toes, continue until you have as many toes as you like). Toes MUST be tamped down or they shrink back in. Once I apply all three toes, I will heat the toes slightly in the back flame until the tips glow orange, then I tamp the tips down with my spoon (someday I'll buy a stump shaper!). Gently heat the foot area to smooth the joint between the toes and the leg. Before moving onto the next set of toes heat the bead in the back flame to keep things from popping off. Move on and repeat toes on the other leg. When finished, heat the bead again to avoid things popping off.

Take the medium green stringer and add two dots in front of and between the legs. Heat the bead in the back flame, including the dots you just put on, to keep things from popping off (this might be kind-of important-huh?).

Take the thin green stringer and add fingers to the hands in the same manner you added the toes. Heat the tips of the fingers after adding to each hand and tamp the tips down lightly. Heat the hand area to smooth the joints between the fingers and hand dots. Heat the bead in the back flame to keep things from popping off before moving on.

Keep the bead in the backflame to keep it warm (but not glowing) while you heat up a full rod of green. Once the rod is ready, bring the bead above the flame and touch the tip of the rod down between the back of the legs. Pull the rod up and then bring the bead and rod down into the flame to burn the rod off. This will leave you with a dinosaur-looking frog.

Move the frog body into the flame. I usually invert the frog, so it's upside down, so that the bead is out of the flame. Heat the frog body to pull the dinosaur neck into the body. Heat the bead in the back flame to keep things from popping off.

Take the transparent green stringer and add dots to the frog's back. Melt these in. Heat the bead in the back flame to keep things from popping off.

Heat the tip of the medium stringer, and to the right of the flame, touch the stringer to the frog body and move down to the hand. This can be tricky since the arm isn't being laid on the glass. Touch the stringer to the hand and burn it off. Heat the hand and tamp gently to firmly attach the glass. Next, heat the arm on the body and tamp it gently to attach it to the body. Move onto the other arm and repeat the process. I always start putting on the arm farthest away from the torch. If you start with the one closest to the torch, it will burn off while you put on the other arm. Gently heat arm area to melt in seams to body and hands. This has to be a very gradual process since you can often melt the arms causing the glass to come apart, then you have to put on another arm. Heat the bead in the back flame to keep things from popping off.

Heat the tip of the medium green stringer and to the right of the flame, add two dots for eyes. Invert the frog over the back flame and heat the eye dots gently to attach them to the body. Heat the dense black stringer and to the right of the flame, add dots on top of the green eye dots. Again, invert the frog over the back flame and heat the black dots gently to melt them into the green eye dots. You can melt the black dots just enough to stick them to the green eye dots, or you can melt them all the way into the green eyes dots (just make sure you don't melt the green eye dots into the body). Heat the bead in the back flame to keep things from popping off.

Viola! Your finished froggie. Pop him into the kiln and check him in the morning.

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