What a difference a year makes!

I my 3 + years of bead making one bead style I haven’t really spent much time working on is sculptural beads. I don’t know why I haven’t been drawn to work on sculptural pieces, but I haven’t, so I can count my sculptural attempts on my digits. To date I have made one extremely poor goddess for a web challenge back when I was working on my hot head torch (she’s in a bowl somewhere), the simple bird that graces my Canary Beads page, another similar bird for a “birdie” friend, and four simple fish that where gifted to kids. Maybe another thing or two I’ve long since forgotten. Around this time last Christmas I tried to make some snowmen. I like snow, so I like snowmen, so they were one sculptural type bead that I was actually interested in making. I failed dismally - either I over melted the glass and made blobs, or they cracked on the mandrel or in the kiln. I only tried a few, then got very frustrated and quit.
Fast forward to this year. The first snowfall gave me the itch to try snowmen again. And low and behold, I can actually do them now. What a difference a year makes. They aren’t all perfect, and I did loose a couple (not pictured!) to cracking, but I can actually make snowman now! It’s funny how these small things that makes me happy!