Tricks With Shorts - or - How to Make Marbled Beads

Grab all your turquoise glass rod shorts and your nippers.
Light turquoise, dark, smurfy, atlantis, rainforest, copper green, opal, all of 'em and some sky blue too.

Chunk them up with your nippers.
I use a plastic colander to catch them, otherwise they go rocketing everywhere.

I keep them in a small, plastic frit jar.

To make the beads just pick up a chunky chip with the blob at the end of a rod of turquoise.
I carefully introduce them into the flame by sneaking the chip in around the backside of the blob.

After you've melted in a bunch of different hued chips, and have a nice size gather going, just wrap the whole mess on to your heated mandrel. The more you stretch out the gather to wind it the more marbled the bead will be.

Obviously this works great with all sorts of colors and mixes of colors.

I always have a jar of turquoise on hand, as well as a nice mix of corals. Greens are good, a mix of greys and browns, I'm thinking of making a mix of black, dark silver plum and ivories.

(some of these also have some frit too)