About Me

Hot melting glass and beautiful colors colliding together to create something beautiful!

My name is Marie Dyson and I live in Surprise, Arizona with my wonderful husband and one year old baby boy. I left my job in the aerospace industry as a computer programmer to become a stay at home mom in 2007 when our baby was born. I love to design one-of-a-kind jewelry that ranges in styles from elegant to rustic and organic. I also make my own glass lampwork beads (more details below). I have been designing jewelry for 5 years and lampworking for 2 years.

About My Husband Jay Dyson

Wonderful husband, father, Senior Computer Security Engineer (Computer Geek), Artist...and DIY Daddy! While HomegrownGems mostly consists of my jeweley and works my husband is a great artist and currently the DIY Daddy around the house building us all kinds of goodies, check out his bio and blog to see what project he is working on now!

I'm the grandson of a master carpenter who plied his craft for nearly 7 decades. I am nowhere near as skilled as Granddad, but I have as much of an affinity for building things of my own. Visit the DIYDaddy Blog!

My Lampwork Studio & Bead Making Process

   Below shows photos of where I make all of my beads. My husband built me a wonderful work area in our garage! Each bead is made by hand one at a time on a steel rod (mandrel) in front of my oxygen and natural gas torch. I have over 75 colors of glass to choose from. I currently work with a brand of glass called Effetre. I use a variety of tools to help me shape my beads and add decorations and designs. My average bead takes me 15 minutes to make, with more complicated items taking many times that long.

   Once I am happy with my bead I slowly take it out of my flame, let it cool for a few seconds (so it is no longer molten) and stick the entire bead and mandrel into my kiln. Glass needs a chance to 'settle' in order for it to be properly cooled, this process is called annealing. Annealing gives the glass time to sit at a stable temperature (950 degrees) and properly settle/align. My beads soak at this temperature for a minimum of 30 minutes depending on size.

   When the soaking period is complete my kiln automatically begins the cool down process, the temperature drops at a very slow rate to finish the annealing process. This entire process from soak to completely cool to touch lasts about 4 hours. Annealing beads is a must if you want to greatly reduce the chances of a bead cracking.

   Once my beads are cool to the touch (usually I do this the next morning) it is time to clean them! I take them off the mandrels and collect them all in my bucket. Beads are attached to mandrels with something called bead release, a clay like substance that lets you work your hot glass on the mandrel and gives you the ability to break it away when you are done to remove the bead. Next I take all my beads and sit in front of a large bucket of water and used a diamond tipped bead cleaner to scrub out the inside of my beads. This removes all the bead release from the inside. Rinse in some clean water, dry and they are now ready for use!

A few interesting things to know about the lampwork process:

   I wear special safety glasses made for those working with glass that not only protect my eyes from broken and flying glass but also reduces the sodium flare and IR levels produced by my torch and the glass melting!

   My work space has a large ventilation hood installed to suck up the fumes from my torch and glass.

   There are several manufactures of glass for lampworking, most produce glass rods with a different coefficient of expansion (COE) from the others which makes them incompatible with each other. Don't mix up those rods!