What to do with teardrops that didn't end up the right color? Invent a new color scheme!

Sonoma Earrings in ombre Syrah color. All except the top teardrop is actually made from the same glass!

Whenever I sit down at my magnifying glass to make a particular color of Sundrops, I make a lot.  For popular colors, I'll work for a few hours at a time over the course of days, until I've stocked up a hundred or more drops of one color.  Some drops are long, some drops are short, and because my earrings are more popular than necklaces I need to have enough drops that I can find matching pairs.

 And the problem is only exacerbated when I'm dealing with glass that changes color when it is heated, like these Ultraviolet teardops made from Bullseye's Violet Striker.  It starts out blue and "strikes" to purple when melted in a kiln for the proper time at the proper temperature.  Unfortunately, melting with sunshine doesn't provide a lot of temperature control!  So, often these sorts of colors are more variable, ending up with streaks, or some drops that stay the original color entirely.  And this is especially a problem with the little short drops.

The tiny glass teardrops above are all made from the same glass, but turned out very different colors!  The top set is closer to the original glass color, with just faint hints of the Ultraviolet I was aiming for.

What to do with those drops??  I can't sell them as Ultraviolet - they're not what people are expecting based on my website photos.  But they're a little too close to both Ultraviolet and Cobalt for me to want to add them to my standard color lineup.

But combine both colors from one glass, leveraging their variability... voilà!  The Sonoma Earrings were born!

I now have four ombre colors of Sonoma Earrings - these that I've named Syrah, another from Magenta and Lavender (Magenta glass has the same problems as Ultraviolet) named Pinot Noir, yellow-gold Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc named after it's grape-green gradient.

So far I've only made one pair in each ombre color scheme, so if something catches your eye... don't wait!