What's a shard?

Sometimes I may include in my glass bead descriptions that I have decorated the surface with a "shard." 

This is a picture of a bubble of glass. First I decorate a hollow bead on the end of a hollow rod, then heat carefully and blow it up into a bubble. I then break that bubble of glass into smaller manageable pieces that I apply to my glass beads. 

These "shards" of glass are as thin as paper. So I have to be careful applying them to the bead, because if they get too hot they will just turn into a blob of glass.

The random designs on this bubble of glass is something that I could never achieve freehand on a bead.

This is what that shard looks like on a bead.

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