Bead Artist -- Ashton Jewels

You just have to check out Lydia Muell's web site. Lydia is a lampwork bead artist who makes intricate, amazing works of art out of molten glass. I particularly love how she can mixes colors and makes each bead have so much detail. These are some of my favorites:

A lot of the glass she uses, such as the glass in the bead set above, is tricky to work with and requires a lot of patience and a lot of practice, and often you never know what color you'll get. Add to that the huge price difference between the reactive glass and "regular" glass, and you'll soon appreciate how special these beads are!

You can see more of Lydia's work at her site, http://www.ashtonjewels.com/ -- she sells on Ebay and her site. Be sure to check out her gallery of past work!