Lampwork Animals

Last week in lampwork class, we made sculptural animals. Dwyn taught us how to make a cat, with a really cute red tongue:

I also had a photo of animal beads made by a woman whose name I can't recall but whose business name is called Dragonfire Beads, and I used that for inspiration to make a pig and a cow:

(she also makes the cutest little bumblebee and ladybugs earrings - I see she sells her beads on Etsy, I might need to pick up a few! Okay, I could try to make them myself as well, but just in case that doesn't work, here's the link: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5728698&order=&section_id=&page=2)

I realized in looking at the photo of my cow bead that I need to fix the neck portion where the bottom hole of bead is situated. I can see from the photo that it has a rough looking edge, which will need to be smoothed away. A rough edge like that could cut the wire that you string the bead on (if you string it rather than put it on a headpin) or worse, scratch someone wearing the bead. There's a handy tool you can get called a bead reamer which has three different types of diamond coated heads that you can use to smooth out rough edges. It also works really well to clean the bead release from the inside of the hole.