Might give the kiddies nightmares....

Is this just freaky looking or what? These are all our little faces made from murrini canes; they're about 3/4" in diameter, on average. They have to be annealed because that's really quite large - otherwise they'd self-destruct.

These have to be made in several parts. You make the eyes, the nose, finally the mouth. These pieces are put in the kiln and brought up to a bit more than 1000 degrees - hot enough to reintroduce into the torch without disintegrating, but not hot enough to slump. To make the face, you first pick up the nose - the center of the face. Start adding pink glass to the area just above the nose; add the eyes. Continue adding glass to build the forehead. Then, come back down below the nose, start adding glass that will become the upper lip, and finally add the mouth. And then, yes, the chin. At all/any points you're shaping, shaping, shaping....After the face is together, you attach "punties" - basically glass handles - then heat the glass bundle until it will flow enough to be pulled out into a long shape. The magic of murrini is that the "picture" you've created remains the same, just reduces in size. There were 10 people in the class, and the reason you see so many faces is because you get several 3" to 4" segments from one pull. The segments can then be used to go into a larger piece (see the murrini on Loren Stump's site) or sawed into little face slices with a glass saw.