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My name is Deborah Mailhot and I live in The Woodlands, Texas with my very supportive and loving husband, Eric. I truly enjoy making jewelry and working with glass has been very rewarding for me. I've been a lampwork artist and fuser for less than a year, but I love working with the different colors and using different techniques to make that special one-of-a-kind project that usually can't be duplicated. I love the freedom to be able to make what I need for a jewelry set and am anxious to continue learning and expanding the talents that God has given me.
This is me making a glass bead on the torch. Behind me is
the kiln, which I also use to do my fused glass.
Lampworking is a process in which you take rods of Italian glass and melt them in a torch. You then wind the glass around a mandrel (which creates the hole in the bead) and decorate it. Each bead is then immediately placed into a digital kiln to anneal (a process which allows the bead to cool at a slow temperature and strengthen).
This is a picture of a set of glass beads still on the mandrel in the
kiln waiting to be annealed.
All my glass (fused and lampwork) is annealed digitally in the kiln
(slowly decreasing the temperature and holding it at a specific
temperature for a length of time). This insures the glass' strength.
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