I use many of Donna Felkner’s (www.cgbeads.com) bead rollers, because they’re just fabulous. She comes always up with some new shapes, the handle stays cool (and looks amazing) and she uses a very smooth graphite that is a joy to work with. I even turn these bead rollers around to use as a marver, because the graphite is so superior compared with my normal marver LOL.

No surprise that I have many of her various shapes and sizes. Last time I counted, I think I had 12 bead rollers (pssst, don’t tell my bank manager).

Yesterday I finally received with the mail the newest shape in her range of her bead rollers. It’s a ribbed donut bead roller (Donna calls it the hickup, but that’s a different story!). Here it is in all it’s glory.

As you can see, there’s a variety of sizes. Notice the long paddle shape, which enables you to create several beads on one mandrel without the roller coming in your way.

I made 3 bead sets yesterday night (yes, I couldn’t stop) and is in fact so easy to use, I believe it is the easiest of all the bead rollers. It pushes the glass nicely into the grooves and shapes smooth, evenly rounded ridges. Plus: it’s nearly impossible to create anything but nicely dimpled ends.

Can you tell that I’m in smitten?
I. Love. It.

And just look at the texture that it creates. On the left you see a set with larger rounds (base of Fire Lotus silver glass) complemented by matching small clear rounds.

I think this texture works especially well with silver glass colors, for example Psyche, Gaia or Black Nebula.

Here is an example with Psyche (not encased, reduced to oilslick shine).

Next I will test her new ribbed bicone bead roller. I made just a few test beads yesterday and found it to be not quite as easy to use as the donut bead roller. But I will do some more testing this weekend – it might just be a matter of ppp (practice practice practice).

PS. I am not in any way affiliated with cgbeads even though it might sound differently LOL