fire in ice

Pictures.

2012-02-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

After my recent panicked post I wanted to do something upbeat. Here are some pictures I'd like to share.

These I made just for me. Tres Mardi Gras, non?

I don't remember where I saw this idea but I just had to do it. It's a lampwork hollow filled with seed beads. Is this cool or what?

Just in case I forget about hope, spring is around the corner.

This is BAD

2012-02-07T18:08:00.001-05:00

I don't know if I've ever been as desperate as I am right now. I think my kiln just died and I'm crying so hard I can barely type. Selling my lampwork has been my grocery money and with Joe out of work I'm running out of options fast. Getting a new kiln is out of the question financially. Please, God, let it be a power blip or something....

Kiln Fairies

2012-02-06T15:02:00.000-05:00

The kiln fairies were very nice to me this morning. I was using up rods on the bench last night and didn't realize how neat these looked together until I took the beads out of the kiln. All I could think of was raspberries. We've got black, red, and candy! Now I've got to try to make beads incorporating all 3 colors without washing them out or muddying them up....

Not sure how much of the lighter pink glass I've got left either....

Vetrofond Extra Light Olive?

2012-01-22T16:36:00.000-05:00

I may have missed something here. The label on the rods says they're Vetrofond extra light olive and, in fact, the unworked rods ARE extra light olive. When I work them they go pinkish beige with a heavy coppery reduction that reminds me of Picasso finish on Czech glass. My old batch didn't do this but I'm at a loss as to why. I do like the color but it wasn't what I was expecting.

It does work great for bunnies!

Randomness

2012-01-07T07:09:00.002-05:00

I've been playing around with the idea of working lampwork into chainmaille and so far this bracelet is all I've been able to come up with. It isn't to be worn--it's made with practice links I mangled. The design needs work. I'd like to do round segments of chainmaille but haven't learned that pattern and haven't been able to figure it out yet. The original design idea was to do 5 rows, working the lampwork into the center, but that didn't work out as the glass links are too thick, or alternately, the holes are too small.

These turned out just as I'd hoped. This shade of red is my absolute favorite color and I love the way the shapes turned out.

Seasonal madness continues but I renew my promise to myself to pause and look around once in a while.

Post Holiday Post

2011-12-26T20:18:00.002-05:00

What with Christmas and all I haven't posted in a while but I'm happy to say I've been productive. I've made a few vessels lately and am thrilled with the way this one turned out. Joe suggested an amphora with a classical theme and this fits the bill nicely. I wanted a Greek key pattern but, frankly, wasn't turned on by the idea of the stringer work. I think this one has the same sort of feel without the aggravation. I think the shape turned out well.

Spring and Easter are coming so these are the first of many eggs I'll be making. I made them with sky blue opalino and am happy with the opal quality of the glass that...almost...shows up in the pictures.

Anyone mention Valentine's Day? I had to make a special glass order for the red. I did order some, but what arrived was closer to a brown. I do know that some colors are notoriously hard to get consistently but let's say I really had my fingers crossed for my emergency order. Thankfully it came in a deep red wine color. Whew!

These are just pretty. I used a base of Vetrofond classic marble, which is rumored to have a (very) subtle pink hue, an older, lighter dark red, and CiM desert pink, which I am completely enamored with.

These sliders were made with subtler shades of pink. They are, from the left, Vetrofond moon rock odd, CiM plum (discontinued, rats), Effetre lover boy, a wild batch of Vetrofond strawberry sweet and Effetre spring willow.

From a shop standpoint I've been wrestling with the idea of charging for shipping again and have finally reached the decision that I have to do it. The upside is that I'll be able to offer a wider selection with smaller sets or even single beads.

And Here There Be Dragons.....

2011-12-10T20:23:00.001-05:00

Have you ever seen a copy of an old map, before the oceans were explored? They had the most beautiful drawings (or not) of the imaginary monsters that inhabited the realms no one had come back from.

With this in mind I have been making entirely different things.

My blue twisting dragon is now a book thong.

And I made a little black one. This one even has eyebrows.

He has slightly larger wings.

Not quite large enough wings though. In this shot you can see where most of the glass is.

Right, a vertical pendant he is, paired with some silver lined twistie beads that came out a bit too dark to use for what I wanted.

While I'm Experimenting

2011-12-09T14:44:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to share this little guy.

Sadly, he's top heavy and wants to turn upside down. I need to give him longer wings or a heavier tail. Needs a bit of work....

Christmas Ornaments

2011-12-08T21:08:00.001-05:00

As the yule approaches I thought to blow a few glass ornaments with my dinky little hothead. My results were very lame. Since I have neither pride nor shame I'll share.

The first one I did was the tiny one on the upper left. Great shape, an almost perfect sphere. Just really dinky. A little bigger than a quarter. Then I did the ugly one on the lower left. The shape was ok, at least roundish, but the red and green twistie decoration looks terrible. The blue one on the right is a bit bigger but the shape is funky to say the least. I like what the low heat of the hot head did to the CiM Cirrus, though. Not quite what they had in mind by milk glass I'm sure. Sort of a low level devit. Trust me, this was as molten as it was going to get when I worked it....

Well, happy holidays. Maybe by next year I'll get it.

Playing with Keys

2011-12-06T17:09:00.001-05:00

I've been playing with skeleton keys for a bit, and have enjoyed it tremendously. This is a key keychain I made using a key I bought from another Etsian, Sara of cantapunks http://www.etsy.com/shop/cantapunks

This was to celebrate getting my learner's permit to drive! Yeah, pretty pathetic at my age just getting my license again but I'll take any minor boosts I can get.

Intermission

2011-12-03T19:16:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted in a while but I've been busy making beads and getting ready for the holidays. I've been experimenting a lot with gold leaf and just love the way it looks melted into beads and left unencased. What sparkle.

These beads turned out soooo cool. The blue is Vetrofond intense blue and it is very vivid indeed.

I don't know what is different about the way I'm taking pictures but all of a sudden black backgrounds are working. If anyone has any idea what I'm doing right let me know. I have no idea.

These are little jewels I did for Christmas and if they don't sell I will be completely content. I'll just have to use them for myself. The sacrifices we make.....

I decided it was time for some more purple in my life and am thrilled with Effetre medium amethyst. I usually use the transparent violets but have been drawn to the warmer, redder purples lately.

I used a periwinkle blue under the bubbles instead of white and like the way it adds a very subtle color of its own.

Joe's been busy too. He devised a unique cat bed for Gracie. She seems to approve.

A larger picture shows the construction. A bit different but recycling at its best. She's sleeping in it now.

Mostly Beads

2011-11-13T09:48:00.001-05:00

Fall is in full swing and I've been making lots of beads with fall colors, which for me means using a lot of silver glass and the colors that fume with them. These were a base of Vetrofond biscotti with DH Psyche.

I've also been gearing up for the holidays with lots of red and green and I can't stop making heart beads.

I liked the way the Reichenbach iris orange reacted with the Vetrofond mauvelous in these. More of a dusty rose and more mauve than self beads.

More Vetro biscotti, this time with layered dots of triton and silvered ivory.

These just turned out too cool. Stringer of DH Psyche and biscotti on Effetre Marmorin. I love the way the psyche and biscotti together made a kind of wine and cream combo.

These were just too cool. Base of Effetre dark ivory with CiM Canyon de Chelly and Psyche stringer, a little silvered ivory thrown in too.

Did I mention Christmas is coming?

I've been making quite a few hollow beads too. I'm looking for the perfect bead caps to turn these into ornament baubles.

For Christmas ornaments you need red and green, right?

I just love the colors on these. The purple is CiM simply berry and the amber is Effetre med topaz. The iridescent bead is DH Clio. The glass struck the same amber as the orange rounds. How cool is that?

I'll be honest, right now I'm going through a bit of a tough time and torch work is therapeutic so I have more to make than I have to say. Hopefully things will improve and I'll be less of a hermit and come out of my virtual cave soon.

October is for Breast Cancer Awareness

2011-10-22T12:17:00.000-04:00

Looking for bead soup? Here's the link to my reveal.
Here's Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party link.

It's been a fairly chaotic month so I haven't been working at the torch as much as I'd like. I've made some new beads in honor of October's breast cancer awareness month.

The last batch of 456 rubino oro I got was very streaky and light enough to make into self spacers. I was trying to use it in frit and rose cane, where it didn't work at all, but what it wanted to do was make a lovely, juicy fuschia all on its own.

Here's where CiM cranberry pink gets it's name. There's a pretty thick encasement layer over a white core and I love the way the transparent glass adds depth.

I made these with CiM Peace, Effetre medium silver plum and Effetre 256 dark pink. I'm noticing at least with my hothead it wants to go lavender and I like that with the purple.

The pink and lavender works well on the heart beads in this set. For stringer that's not melted in I'm not as sure unless it turns out uniformly varied (how's that for an oxymoron?)

This pink egg focal started life as a simple white heart round. It grew up as a perfectly shaped egg. I wish I could make this shape when I was trying to.

I've got a new set with reducing Double Helix glass and some neutrals it likes to play with and some textured beads I'm working on now and should have ready to post soon.

CiM Opal Greens

2011-10-09T11:39:00.000-04:00

Creation is Messy just released a few opal greens and I couldn't resist giving them a try. These beads aren't my usual run of testing each one against a variety of other glasses but I hope they show me what they are nonetheless. All the opal greens have a similar blue-green hue. Had to try them together.

The base of this tabular bead is Effetre petroleum green and I layered CiM Rainforest, CiM Jade Palace and CiM Seafoam. I really like it and may do something else along these lines soon. I wanted to see how translucent these glasses remained and stacked them on black. They all stayed pretty opal and I was thrilled to see the color was still perceptible.

The base glass is CiM Tuxedo and I layered dots of Seafoam, Jade Palace and Rainforest, melted everything in and shaped. I was pleased that the Seafoam stayed visible over the black and even more pleased that the black is still visible under 3 layers of opal glass, some cooked for quite a while. Now on to see what they do on copper green.

I loved the combination of copper green and Rainforest, so what about the other 2? Hard to see the copper green under all that glass but it does the same cool separation thing it did with rainforest. What I hadn't realized was that under the Seafoam, the copper green looks like it could be white. On its own, all the blue-green in the copper green seems to have collected in a border on the edge. It's easier to see on the edge of the bead.

It's the bit not near the hole where it's grey but just on the edge of the pale green (which is Seafoam.) I wanted to see if Seafoam did anything neat with Cranberry, which it doesn't unless you count just plain looking nice together.

The above bead was such a pleasant combination that I was determined to try out some rose cane one one of the opals and I picked Jade Palace.

The roses are horrible and the Rainforest leaf is nearly imperceptible, but the combination bears further testing. When I was holding the Seafoam, its similarity to Effetre nile green opalino was striking. There the similarity ends. As far as melting, piece of cake. No shockiness, no burning nothing funny.

Comparing side by side beads that have been annealed, they are not at all alike. The Seafoam stays translucent and is bluer and greyer. The top bead is Nile green opalino and is effectively opaque. I dug this small mystery bead out of my fun for the kiddies jar and while I have no idea what I made it with past copper leaf (maybe peacock green?) the color match is pretty amazing.

Some really cool colors I look forward to playing with some more.

Fascinating Effect

2011-10-08T09:50:00.000-04:00

If you're looking for a bowl of bead soup click here.

Things have been a bit chaotic here the past week, with a surprise visit from my daughter and some of life's challenges, but I did manage to get a bit of time at the torch. I had intended to make more Halloween beads with orange and purple and am still looking for the perfect purple. EDP devitrifies too much to use and reacts with orange as well. Evil Queen reduces to a bit of a metallic sheen and devitrifies a bit. Ditto light silver plum (no surprise there) and Plum is too light and translucent and Mulberry is too dark. I didn't even try Poi because I think it would grey out but I might as well. You never know until you try.

I did get a totally awesome effect with the EDP, though. I think the 5-pointed star or flower effect is so cool and I love the way the orange faded. The dark circle from the reaction makes this bead even cooler. I wish the EDP hadn't devitrified so much. It even made the black next to it bubble.

Here's another view of the end. I think this is so totally cool. I wish I could figure out a way to use this bead so the end is out, since, sadly, the bead doesn't look like much from the side, where it would be seen with ordinary stringing. Any ideas?

Beads on the Table

2011-10-02T23:26:00.000-04:00

If you're hungry for some bead soup, here's the link for the necklace I made with Hilary Frye's beads. http://fire-in-ice.blogspot.com/2011/09/soups-on.html To see the full list of participants, here's the complete list.

I've been on an evil eye kick and this focal is one of the beads I made in this style.

The core is CiM Tuxedo, which is my official go-to black. It's very black, doesn't pit or boil or go metallic or do anything else ugly. And the price is about the same as the Italian blacks which do all of the above. The white is Effetre because it really is a bit denser than the others and over black I really didn't want any translucency. The aqua is CiM Pulsar just because I like it.

Spacers, lots of spacers. Oh, and another set of eyes. Trying to get the small ones the same size gave me fits. To make eye beads, I make a core of black and add large dots of white, melt it in, then add medium dots of blue and melt and small dots of more black and melt again, all the while trying to keep it round. I finally discovered that if I flatten the bead slightly before adding the first layer of white it's easier to round out in the end. I only wish I figured this out when I started.

Halloween is around the corneer and I wanted to do a set in Victorian mourning colors because to me, they are so classic. Who knew Effetre light grey separates on top of tux? I used Vetrofond pearl grey for the large beads because that was what I had and was pleased with the match, but under black it goes a bit blue. It does something weird with CiM Evil Queen, too. Still, I think these are nice and Halloween-ey.

And now for something completely different. We've had nothing but clouds and rain for so long I'm seriously running out of patience. These were, sadly, taken with artificial light because the watery light we've been having isn't cutting it. The lime green is CiM Ephalba, the turquoise is CiM Smurfy (never do I buy Effetre turquoise again), the orange is Effetre light pumpkin and the purple is EDP. It was a lucky break that the darker orange beads came out even but the "striking" of this color is impossible to predict. I like the Effetre, I really do. It's a nice orange when it doesn't go brown. BTW, I tried EDP and pumpkin. I got fantastic color out of the EDP without any devitrification at all, but the reaction with the orange is horrible. Don't melt it in. Trust me on this.

One Thing Leads to Another

2011-09-23T12:10:00.000-04:00

I've been oh, so slowly working my way through Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party and at the rate I'm going may finish by Thanksgiving. For a link to my bead soup reveal click here.

Making jewelry was such a challenge and such a rush, I felt compelled to keep it up and have been working on some new pieces I'd like to share.

This necklace was created at the request of a friend and will be auctioned to benefit the local humane society. I used a set of matching lentils and spacers I had and made some more spacers, added a few copper accent beads and joined it all together with a simple leaf clasp.

This bracelet uses one of my tabular focals and some lampwork spacers in black and silvered ivory that I combined with pewter findings, black glass rounds and a cool pewter snake toggle. It's a drama piece but I love the way it turned out. It is currently in my Etsy shop here.

I'm having so much fun I've got more in the works. I'm trying out another asymmetrical design using beads I made with CiM African Gray and DH Psyche, some iris black pearl coins, gunmetal and miscellaneous bits and bobs I've got. I'll confess I've got this idea in my mind but am having trouble getting it together. I need something to lighten up the colors visually, or do I? More to follow, I'm sure as I work this one out.

I'm on the Page!

2011-09-19T22:46:00.000-04:00

For a bit of beady goodness on the blog hop, click here.

One of the things I love to do is try out new colors and techniques. Creation is Messy has been wonderful enough to keep coming up with new colors to keep glass addicts like myself checking our mail boxes and I hope to be able to say something coherent soon about their newest colors.

For now I'd like to share that they've included some of my blog posts on their product pages. This is so flattering and I can't believe they're so wonderful. Here are some of the posts and the links to their website so you can see what other folks are doing with their amazing glass. One point I'd like to make is that I do not prewarm my rods unless I know they're going to be trouble (the Effetre hand-pulleds spring to mind) and CiM colors seem to be super-annealed or something because they simply do not cause trouble. Just saying. Really fun to work with.

If you go to the CiM website and look up African Gray (which is sadly sold out) you'll see my beads here.

This was such a surprise. I was expecting CiM Canyon de Chelly, which is a truly stupendous color but due to a slight error caused by myself not reading my own labels, I got African grey instead. I so love what the DH Psyche did, but with no more glass available I'm not pushing it.

I got listed as a tester on this one, which I get a little kick out of because every time I sit down to torch it's a bit of a test. http://www.creationismessy.com/color.aspx?id=38

I need to take better pictures. Or something http://www.creationismessy.com/color.aspx?id=22

OK, I'm stuck on watermelons, but Cranberry is really the only glass to use for them.http://www.creationismessy.com/color.aspx?id=25

Hope you enjoy your stroll through glassy goodness. I bet you have to check it all out. I always do...

Soup's On!

2011-09-17T11:06:00.000-04:00

Here's the necklace I made for the Bead Soup Blog Party! Hilary Frye of FryeStyle sent such a wonderful assortment of beads I was overwhelmed! The little piles of beads were so pretty together I decided to keep them together to make more of a visual impact. The decision to make it asymmetrical was a tough one. I tried a few different things before I decided to go with it. I wanted something that would look finished and balanced and contemporary. I got such pretty beads I wanted to use them all.

Most of my stash is earth tones and darker colors, but I made up some transparent pink ruffles, which I thought complemented the lavenders and blues.

The silver components sparkle so beautifully, I had to keep the look going with more silver and I thought making each lampwork round its own link kept it light and let the silver come through.

I got a lot of texture with the silver components and ruffled beads and was able to keep it light in weight by spacing out the heavier beads.

I hope I did justice to the beautiful beads Hilary sent me. I know I can't wait to wear my new necklace.

Here's a link to Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party. Please visit and check out some of the 362 people making jewelry! http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/

Another Weird Reaction

2011-09-14T21:46:00.000-04:00

This is one I did quite by accident. I thought the rod I picked up was CiM Canyon de Chelly (even though it was clearly labeled CiM African Grey) and proceeded to make a twistie of it and Double Helix Psyche. I went on to use it on a rectangular tabular bead with matching plain spacers, only instead of the silvered ivory I usually use I tried Effetre intense black stringer. For whatever the reason, Psyche just came alive! In addition to the usual reduction rainbow I usually get, the Psyche fumed the African grey and also the Psyche seemed to have struck! I've got all kinds of wild color development.

The bead looks even cooler than this in real life and I'll be using this myself. To be honest, the spacers didn't turn out to match. I think I'll use African Grey as a base color. I can't wait to try it on my other silver colors to see what it does. I'll also try it with some more intense black just in case, but I really think it's the base glass and not the decoration on this one.

Unless it's something strange with my torch chemistry lately. I've noticed some more reduction than I usually get and have been wondering if it's time for a new orifice. I could be working lower or hotter than usual too. The speed my poor old hothead achieves is not what I would call breathtaking. I'm trying out different places in the flame to try to get the d4mn glass to melt and I don't know if this neat effect is a result. Probably not, but more tests are in order for sure.

Now What?

2011-09-10T22:57:00.000-04:00

I usually don't work for an extended period of time at a stretch due to fatigue issues, so kiln crowding has never been an issue before. This said, I've been stretching my capacity and it's resulted in a couple odd oopses. The beads below were the result of putting one bead right on top of another.

Here's the overview. The green ones were only mildly fused but I didn't catch them and they stayed pretty well intact.

By the time the turquoise ones happened, I knew what that odd, tacky sensation meant. I tried to pull them apart, hoping I could at least save one of them, but only made things worse.

The way the bead release started pulling away, I gave it up as a bad job before I not only had a bead I couldn't use but a cake tester.

I've vowed not to put beads into the annealer before they are well and truly not glowing and hope this at least prevents part of the problem. Why is it that a half cooked bead I put in will fuse itself permanently to another while an intended decoration I don't cook in long enough will pop off the minute the bead cools?

Spreading the Love

2011-09-09T20:56:00.001-04:00

I haven't figured out how to share pictures I didn't create, so my apologies for not giving you any eye candy. Check out these links and you'll have it. Dora at Coffee and Paint Drips http://coffeeandpaintdrips.blogspot.com/2011/09/photos-for-friday-artists-creation-is.html wrote about the beads I sent her and I'm on cloud nine! Here's her Etsy page http://www.etsy.com/shop/DoraArtDesignStudio but don't expect anything to last for long. I nod to the master. Thanks, Dora!

--Carol

Looking at Your Listings as a Buyer Would

2011-09-07T17:46:00.000-04:00

I have never had the oppurtunity to look at my Etsy page with a shopper until today, and what an eye-opener it was. I now realize why it's so hard to sell my beads. Below is my primary picture. I felt this showed how pretty each bead was best. She asked me what they were and how they were used.

I then had her click the view below and immediately, she got it. "oooh...I want a pair of earrings in these colors, showing me which ones on the picture.

I've tried very hard to photograph my beads as accurately and attractively as possible, but as a seller. I'm thinking of how the colors and texture and clarity come out and she's thinking how do I use this? I'm going to start changing a few things in the way I photograph and props. She knows what she wants, I have to show her what I have in a way she'll find it. It was an aha! moment in a dreadful day and the little light it lit was more precious than rubies.

At my day job we don't have problems, we have oppurtunities. Personally I think this is a bit of risible spin doctoring but in this case, I see my oppurtunity and I'm going to see where it takes me.

Here's a picture of the finished earrings. I hope they are what she had in mind...

Natural vs. Artificial Light

2011-09-06T22:46:00.001-04:00

I hate dark weather, not only because my pictures come out lousy, but because I'm solar powered and my mental health suffers during periods of prolonged cloudiness. I've got this light that's supposed to mimic natural daylight but I'm beginning to find it useless. Not only does it not portray colors quite right, it does nothing at all to warm up my mood. Here are a couple pictures to illustrate.

This one's in natural, albeit dim light.

This one's done with my supposedly full spectrum bulb. What a difference. The first looks more like the bracelet, but the second was all I could do after I reworked it. It's a nice, clear picture but doesn't look much like the bracelet.

I'm sticking to natural sinlight when I get it.

Back in the Groove

2011-09-02T11:16:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to recover from the debacle of 2 days ago and have some new work to show off. The leaves are a favorite of mine and I love the way the etched glass looks on them.

These ruffled beads in transparent fall colors are so sparkling and I love the texture.

I also made a few more critter beads, these in etched clear glass.

A Day in the Life

2011-08-31T19:11:00.000-04:00

I won't go into all the details of my horrible day other than to say that it started at 8 PM last night and has so far involved 2 1/2 hours sleep, 13 hours of day job and work related BS, a major quarrel and many tears. To top it off, I'm only just now getting to have some time at the torch, which would have allowed me to focus and clear my head of all the fatigue-induced insanity that's threatening to overwhelm me.

I may not produce anything other than spacers, but I will have the satisfaction of seeing the glass melt in the flame and conform itself around the mandrel. I may even imagine a face in the glass but I've never been any good at that sort of thing so I'll settle for getting my mind off my fatigue and emotions. A close friend once said that counted cross-stitch was a lot cheaper than a therapist. Assuming I don't burn the house down, I can use some cheap therapy.

Play it Again, Sam

2011-08-27T19:28:00.000-04:00

Ever have to make a bead/set similar to one you've made? Ever forget what you used to make it? This one was easy, because only two glasses look like this, CiM Canyon de Chelly and Double Helix Psyche. I never tried to get such a thin layer of Psyche to reduce but the biggest effort was not to get too much gold/green in the spacers. Canyon de Chelly is so easy to strike...and unstrike!

This set, believe it or not, was a little more difficult. Please forgive the difference in pictures. As we brace for Irene, the clouds were rolling in faster than I could take pictures. I was pretty sure I used CiM Smurfy for the base turquoise since I hate that grey thing Effetre does, but I'm not sure. I decided to go with the CiM anyway, because I hate that grey thing Effetre does.

So what have I been doing? I'm not sure it's a good practice to get into to list the glass I used for each bead/set in my listing, but when I'm saving to my hard drive and publishing to my facebook album, I'm listing what I made everything of and any special processes. This way if I ever need or want to repeat something, I can.

What's New?

2011-08-24T14:32:00.000-04:00

These are the beads I sent my bead soup partner, Hilary Frye. Sadly, and embarassingly, the rust colored leaves wound up being unstable. The rest arrived in good shape and I can't wait to see what she does.

I listed this little brown jug on Etsy a day or two ago and heard it was (very briefly) on the front page. I didn't even get to see it, it was gone that fast.

I love working with Effetre mosaic green even though it's both gloppy and sparky and hates being marvered. The color is just too cool. Grass green pastel is a (sort of) close approximation but the shade is a little different. Here's the listing for my black and green set.

I made this tiny, wee, little acorn earring pair just for fun. I used Cim Maple, and boy, is it a pain to photograph. I think it's a little less amber and a little more green, but any changes in my picture I tried just made the color less like the original.

I was running low on gas (now I'm out) so I decided to keep it small for this set. The middle beads on the bottom are encased but the rest aren't.

I have a lot more new, but not a lot of space to go on about it. With no gas for the torch, I'm concentrating on other tasks I've let slide. I have some polymer clay beads to do the bench work on and turn into earrings, a pair of bog shoes to make for Joe, some sewing I did at Pennsic to reinforce and, oh yeah, I should get on some of the routine things I've been neglecting.

It's Bead Soup!

2011-08-22T18:51:00.000-04:00

My beads from my bead soup partner, Hilary Frye of FryeStyle, have arrived! I rushed out to catch the last of the sun and have pictures!

Here's the whole set, containing a lovely floral focal and textured toggle clasp and accent beads of Thai silver with some gorgeous lampwork, lucite teardrop beads, blue Czech glass rounds and pale opal pink crystal.

Here's a closeup of the silver elements. I love the texture.

Here's a closeup of the lampwork. The color shifted a bit here but the beads are still fantastic.

This is supposed to be a challenge and it will be. I haven't done much with these shades of pinks and purples before and will be putting my thinking cap on.

New Beads at Last!

2011-08-20T14:59:00.000-04:00

I've been working like mad in my "studio" and have felt like I'm just treading water, so it is with great pleasure that I am sharing the newest beads I've listed on my Etsy site.I've been gravitating toward simpler color combinations and red and black is one that has always attracted me. I love the intensity of this red, Effetre dark red. With white or ivory it washes out to a fire engine red and with black it deepens to a bit of a burgundy, almost like it's picking up some of the color it's with but it's nice and saturated at the same time. For a look at the listing click here

With this set of leaves, I was going for simplicity and complexity at the same time. At the most basic, they're just black and white. What makes them interesting to me is the contrast of milky and metallic and shaped leaves and plain spacers. To see more views please check out my listing

I love the sparkle on these. I based the beads on blue aventurine filigrana and for the focal put on an opposing wrap of goldstone and encased the whole thing in another layer of clear. It reminds me of stardust. This is the listing for these beads

Finally, I've been thinking of this one for a bit. It's a warm bottle brown wrapped in handblown silvered ivory shards. A simple, warm brown for fall. Here's the listing for this vessel

Please check out my new additions and the other lampwork in my shop. I've decided to continue my 20% off sale with free domestic shipping through the summer because we all like a bargain.

The Week in Review

2011-08-16T12:30:00.000-04:00

Joe and I just returned from camping with the SCA at their big yearly event, Pennsic. This year we finally got a proper entrance to our camp.

Joe relaxing outside our home for the week.

I went for the shopping and it shows. Most of the pictures I wound up taking were of the market. The variety of goods was amazing and I was able to make a purchase or two.

I was able to get a little beading in. This is a friend holding up the Viking necklace I made for her. Please forgive the informal presentation. I didn't want to pack the whole photographic kit. She'll wear this between two oval brooches on each shoulder.

It wasn't all work and lounging around at the camp. This is the dress I wore to our annual party. My hair turned out wild that day, didn't it?

This little cutie wound up living outside our tent. I have the zoom way up. He didn't like sudden movements nearby.

While we were away the world kept turning and had a good extra spin or two thrown in. In addition to the Bead Soup Blog Party I'm participating in

Joe's mom wound up in the hospital severely ill. She's going to be ok now and may be able to progress to rehab/physical therapy in a few days. I'm also getting my spare room ready for my daughter because she may be joining us in the next few weeks. Time to have fun playing closet Tetris.

Bead Soup Blog Party

2011-08-14T21:15:00.000-04:00

I'm participating in Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party and would like to introduce you to my partner, Hilary Frye of FryeStyle on blogger. She has the most amazing and varied talent and I can't wait to see what she sends. Here is a link to her blog http://fryestyle.blogspot.com/ . I hope you'll check her out. Her Etsy shop, FryeStyle, has very cool rayon strips that can be dyed for beading. Very cool for people with metal sensitivity.

I'm Off

2011-08-02T22:11:00.000-04:00

Well, not quite yet. I do have to get everything in order but here are some pictures of years past...

Some of the kids couldn't resist recreating the plague

Plenty of pageantry

and a really cool conference room

Of course, this was my usual view, and vacation is a good time for horsing around.

Effetre Dark Pumpkin Revised

2011-07-25T19:49:00.000-04:00

A while back I tested out Effetre dark pumpkin and swore I would never, ever use the color again. I lied. Halloween fast approacheth and I find myself making pumpkins, and the light pumpkin, while still pumpkin colored, doesn't have the oomph for what I wanted. So I put on the safety glasses and removed anything remotely flamable from my work area, preheated a new rod in the annealer and held my breath. Keeping in mind the explosiveness I had experienced in the past, I gennnntly heated the rods and to my amazement, after the end popped off it settled down and was workable. I did get what I think might have been a bubble in the rod that blew the end off once, but no more raining chunks of hot glass. Yay! I might be able to use this color if I remember it needs to be annealed first. I also took the precaution of running a long soak and a slow cool with the finished beads just in case. The above pendant is made with dark pumpkin with CiM split pea and Slytherin vine cane. The set below is the same combination of glasses. I was very happy with the way both came out. Will I use dark pumpkin again? Yes, with extreme caution and not when I'm wearing anything I'm attached to.

Giveaway!

2011-07-20T16:06:00.000-04:00

If you'd like to win these lampwork beads, made by yours truly, go to my Facebook fan page, like me, and leave a link or way to contact you on the "I wan't some beads!" topic under the discussion tab. After I receive 20 entrants or on July 30, I will draw a winner of this lovely set of beads

I'm also running a special sale in my Etsy shop. I'm offering free shipping for all US orders and reduced shipping to Canada and elsewhere. In addition, everything in my sale section is at least 20% off. I've added new items, like

My Crystal Flowers bracelet

and my Black Veil lampwork set

and this cute Candy Corn earring pair.

Check it out and take advantage of the savings!

Carl's Bracelet

2011-07-15T08:37:00.003-04:00

My friend at work asked me to make him a bracelet to commemorate his time in Viet Nam. He served as a radio man during the Viet Nam War and the one thing that kept him going during that painful time was hope. If you read the bracelet from the clasp counterclockwise, it spells "hope" in Morse code. How cool is this?!

Another friend had sent him a similar bracelet, but it was delicate and feminine and he gave it to his wife. What he wanted was a manly equivalent he could wear as a reminder. I hope this does it. I asked him what color he wanted or style and he said blue and plain. To him, it's the message that matters rather than the embellishment. I couldn't resist either the sentiment or the challenge.

When I select a gift for a family member, I try to pick out something that says who they are and who I am and I put a lot into the selection. Don't get me wrong, I've given my share of ivory sweaters in my time, but I really try to find the perfect gift if I can. Carl isn't family but because the sentiment is too cool and out of the respect I feel for how he served our country I owe it to him to do the best I can. I hope this does it. It's simple and manly and I checked the fit on Joe to make sure a man can wear it without cutting off circulation to his hand.

Here's to a good man and a good thought! Cheers!

Facebook Giveaway

2011-07-11T09:31:00.000-04:00

I'm having a giveaway on my Facebook fan page Fire in Ice Lampwork. If you'd like to win this set of beads

please like my page and leave a link under my discussion tab "I want some beads!" Once I've got 20 entries I'll randomly pick a winner.

New Beads

2011-07-09T17:18:00.001-04:00

I've been making and listing lots of new beads, and here are a few. My Summer Meadow set pictured above is newest on Etsy here

or you may fancy my Peacock beads

If blue's your thing, these Deep Water beads might be right up your alley

or a quick visit to a tropical beach with Tropic Sands beads.

Finally, the above set of Seashell beads sold but I couldn't help posting them anyway because I am so thrilled how they turned out.

I've got these beads and more in my shop, and with my coupon freeship1 for free shipping and my expanded SALE section there's a little something for everyone!

Product Review: Planet Glass Universal Bead Release

2011-07-06T21:53:00.001-04:00

When I started lampworking, a bottle of Fusion Products bead release came with the kit and that was what I used for a while. It worked well, and suited my needs because I hadn't tried anything else. Once in a while, I would marver a little too vigorously and the bead would come loose and I'd have to be finished whatever I was doing. That was when I remembered someone talking about this blue "dip and go" stuff that was so much better. Nothing I looked at was blue, but there was a product from Milliron Tools called Dip-n-Go Sludge that seemed to fit the bill. It worked very well and suddenly, flakes of bead release on the beads and having to quit real quick weren't a problem anymore. It comes in a wide-mouth jar and is a bit of a pain to mix but is smooth, consistant and reliable. Then a jar of Planet Glass' bead release came with some glass I bought and I had to give it a try.

I'd like to note the shape of the bottle. Long and narrow is a good thing. When it comes to using it, though, there are one or 2 little issues. Dipping the mandrels results in uneven coverage so often I've taken to dipping them twice. Also, flame drying this much bead release results in a bit of flaking, which I'm not at all comfortable with. Assuming that I have the foresight to dip ahead of time and am careful, I have mandrels dipped in release. It works well. I didn't have any separation or flaking off when using and the beads are cleaned in a fraction of the time it takes with my standard Dip-n-Go.

Short and squat results in a lot of product that is just sitting on the far and not the mandrels, and I have to combine almost done jars to get enough to use. It flame dries beautifully and doesn't come loose. For cleaning either. I often have to keep scrubbing.

Would I buy Universal Bead Release? Probably not. I like my standby, even though I wish they'd come out with a different package. That uneven coverage thing and having to dip mandrels more than once is a drag.

'Tis Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Darkness

2011-06-28T19:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was beautiful, sunny and just the right temperature. It was, in short, the perfect day to take pictures of the beads I've got piling up for listing. By the time I got home from the day job, it was too late to do anything more ambitious than make dinner and catch up on my down time. I did not take advantage of the fading light to photograph anything.

Today dawned hazy and, indeed, while I was slogging off to the bank and grocery store, errands that needed to be done if I wanted the cats to let me back in, there were even a few brief moments of hazy sun. This was not destined to last and as I put the last can of cat food away, the sun went behind a cloud for good.

I was forced to decide whether to list these with pictures taken with artificial light, not showing their best, or wait until the sun reappeared and hope I was at home when it did. This deep transparent purple vessel actually doesn't look too bad. It looks a bit better in sunlight, of course, because it is transparent and artificial light doesn't show this well but if I have to use these pictures I could.

This vessel, made with CiM Sangre, is not going up until I can get a decent picture. The one on my hand isn't bad but it's nowhere near as red as it is in real life.

This one isn't as good. I had to use a lot of editing stuff, and it looks it. The others I took aren't even this good...

So is it better to light a candle or curse the dark? Not sure. I'll light a candle anyway but still curse.

Sweet Summer Dreams

2011-06-24T12:39:00.000-04:00

One of the things I like most about summer is that all-too-brief respite from the daily toil and strife known as vacation. I'm actually taking one this year, and to celebrate, I've created a special sale section of my Etsy shop. click here to see it

My little cutie above is in it and more. All prices are reduced 10-25% and will return to normal when I get back. I will be putting the shop in vacation mode from a few days before until I get back, and I'm leaving my coupon codes "bonus1" for an additional 10% off and "freeship1" for free shipping active, so the oppurtunity for saving is very great indeed.

Here are some of the other beads and jewelry items I've discounted:

My Earth bracelet

My Leaf necklace

My Sea Lentils bead set

My Some Like it Hot earrings

and my matching Some Like it Hot necklace

These are only a small number of the items on sale, so check it out!

A Different Way to Spend a Day

2011-06-22T17:55:00.000-04:00

I had planned to spend today photographing and listing pieces on Etsy, but the sun did not cooperate so I browsed Etsy and created this treasury list.

I also made quite a few beads, a few of which I hope turned out. There are always so many that aren't what I thought they were going to be.

One of the things that kinda freaked me out glasswise was my last batch of CiM Stoneground. It is a wonderful color that I had been having pretty predictable results with. CiM is known for the consistency of their colors and when they have one that doesn't perform within parameters, they label it as a unique. Their standards must be pretty high, because some of their uniques are practically indistinguishable from their standard colors.

The last batch of Stoneground I got was not a unique but for me it's not at all like the last two I bought. It comes out lighter and strikes differently. I don't know if it is because of the silver content and the extreme variability it adds to glass (which is why a lot of us like it) but for whatever reason it strikes pink and purple like Canyon de Chelly instead of the golden brown I'm used to. Here are some pictures to illustrate

Here are rods of both and a bead I made with the new. The top rod is the new batch and the bottom 2 are the old. The worked end shows some of the difference. Notice how the struck end is pinker on top. Pay no attention to the way I work a rod down until the 1" masking tape I have at the end catches fire and burns my fingers. The color of the unworked rods isn't too different, but I can see a bit of pinkness in the shimmer on the top rod that is absent in the bottom. The bead didn't come out as golden as I'd hoped for this animal print bead, but under all that amber and topaz it isn't ugly.

The vessel on the left is the last one I made with the old batch. I got a little pinkishness on the flared part where I suppose it received the most heat, but this is pretty much what I was getting all along. The other vessels and beads were all made with the new batch. I thought the blue lizard would show up very nicely against the golden vessel, and he still would have looked nice if I hadn't given him a snout like Jimmy Durante. I'm calling him my Rodney Dangerbead. The strange vessel with the blue aventurine and silvered ivory was an effort to see if working it longer helped. It made it worse, and to make matters worse, I somehow deflated the back of the vessel and cracked it near the rim trying to fix it. I just popped it into the annealer and resolved to do better next time. I like the other blue lizard even though his bead is still pinkish.

I'm getting used to the new batch and if I look at it as a different color, I like it just fine. I love striking glass and glass that does weird stuff. Now I just have to learn this one's tricks.

Of Beads and Pictures

2011-06-19T15:24:00.000-04:00

My "studio" has been invaded by wildlife, of a glass variety. This little cutie showed up yesterday and I'm hoping to find him a good home. He's just over 1 1/4" long including his vessel. Snout to tail, I guess he's about the same, but he wiggled a little.

The leopard may not have changed his spots, but some of them are on this Euro style bead. It's a shame that the color doesn't show up very well in this picture. The one above is the most true to the color of the bead, and the one below is most like how it actually looks. I hate the way the first picture looks so photoshopped too. Meh...

I Got My Etsy Back

2011-06-19T01:26:00.000-04:00

I little while ago I was moaning about losing my Etsy widget from my blog, which I must have removed in a fit of madness when I was making beads again but not listing anything. That empty spot did seem to mock me. I started listing again, but lo and behold, I couldn't figure out how to find it again. I searched high and low on Blogger and on Etsy, but nada.

There it was, on Etsy the whole time. I clicked on my account, and under promote was the Etsy mini widget. No more roaming through widgets that for me were meaningless. Gone were the (for me) too challenging bits of HTML and words like source code. Five minutes and no pain. Now if I do something insane and lose it again I'm set.

To recognize this momentous occasion, here's a picture of a vessel I played with a lot before I got it down, a blown glass mini flask that holds almost a tablespoon. When the sunlight hits it, the CiM sangre is the most gorgeous, transparent red!

Key Beads

2011-06-16T16:04:00.000-04:00

NEWS FLASH!!! I tend to obsess. Seriously, I'll get stuck on something and nothing will do but for whatever obsession it is to run its course and then I can move on. For me, right now, it's keys and vessels.

I don't know whether it's the secret hoarder in me or whatever, but the possessiveness of keys and vessels drives me. I suppose a good therapist could fix me but first I'd have to want to be fixed. (Getting a little agricultural here)

At any rate, the blue Pandora's key and the marbled ivory key are available in my Etsy shop but the black and white key is a wee bit wobbly for sale. Don't forget to type in bonus1 for a discount.

Expect the Unexpected Part 2

2011-06-15T01:48:00.000-04:00

I make beads because they make me happy.

I love to learn new things, and every time I sit down at the torch, I do.

Sometimes it's learning to look at something a new way...

...and sometimes it's a reflection.

I'm running a coupon in my Etsy shop for my blog readers, 10% off. Just enter the coupon code "bonus1"

Expect the Unexpected

2011-06-14T11:08:00.001-04:00

It's not always easy working with glass and I've had a few stellar burns, but this is to be expected. It's the hidden challenges that make life interesting. Like settling down for a spot of picture taking in a sunny window and accidentally picking the one the cat wanted.

My window!

Yes, I'm still here. By the way, that is only one cat. She's wrapped herself entirely around the dish and got her body going in two directions at once. Only a cat can do this.

Maybe outside will work out better. Oh, I forgot. It's milkweed season. It's almost as bad as cat hair for finding its way into shots.

Glass works its way into every aspect of my day. Sometimes very unexpectedly. I was sidelined yesterday with an exacerbation of my leg problem but finally found my way off the couch into the kitchen. I stepped on a short piece of stringer that had imbedded itself into the rug. It drove itself almost all the way in and I did the one-footed dance of pain until I could work up the nerve to pull it out. I did not take a picture of the glass or my foot. It wasn't pretty. Joe helped mop up the blood.

Decent Pictures?

2011-06-13T15:09:00.000-04:00

I'll be the first to admit that I am photographically challenged. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that my camera and setup are miserable and the second is that I am working on my attitude towards taking pictures of my work. I've always had a casual attitude about pictures in general, something like "I know what it is." This doesn't work for trying to sell things. I am working on improving both my attitude and my ability. Above is a picture of a pair of earrings I recently listed on Etsy. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Below is a picture of the best I would have been able to do before I figured out how to use that part of my editing software. It's a decent picture, but in the one above, these earrings really shine.

Same with these beads. This one's with software, and below is without, and I am very happy with how the software works.

Of course, there are still things I don't know how to do, and one of them is to make things show up well on black. My pictures are either washed out of blurry, or both.

Here are the watermelon beads I just listed, and I am happy with the picture above both because it spotlights the beads and because it is a slightly different composition than the ones I've used before.

Taking on the Learning Curve

2011-06-12T09:33:00.000-04:00

I'm trying out new stuff again and this means making a few mistakes. Case in point: Blown vessels. I've been making some good ones by coiling glass on the mandrel but they come out a bit solid. These are nice and lightweight but ugly and holy. The one that looks whole is cracked. It cooled off too much before being annealed. It's also fugly.

This guy's cute even if he is a little twisted.

My hands do get truly filthy cleaning beads.

I seem to have a lot of room to improve on this.

The biggest problem: Gravity works. Need to set the hole a little higher on the bead if I want him to fly right side up.

Warning: Excessive Photo Content

2011-06-09T20:10:00.000-04:00

This is why I hate taking pictures. I take about a million pictures of something I have made and they all turn out to be not quite what I see.

This is a nice vessel. It's hollow. It's a pretty color. I like to think that it is saying what I want it to say. But these pictures don't convey the size and weight of it, nor the volume of what it holds, nor the way the light really hits it.

This picture is ok. It shows at least how big it is, and a little of the way the light looks when it goes through it.

This shows the color and all, but I'm not exactly thrilled.

We're not getting better. Quit while I'm ahead.

This is a cool necklace. I had a lot of fun making it and am really happy with the way the beads turned out. So can I take a decent picture of it? Not a chance, but not for want of trying. Thirteen pictures were worth fooling around with, and none of them show what it looks like in my hand.

This one's pretty, at least.

Got some nice sparkle from the light on this. I made that clasp myself.

Here's that close up. Note the natural sunlight.

Yep, it's a pile of beads.

What was I going for here? Don't know. It's a good picture, but of what?

Not doing it for me, sorry. Good picture--everything in focus, pretty good detail, It's got nice color and composition, but it's not happening.

This does show what it would look like on the wearer, if the wearer is made of black velveteen.

There you go. If in doubt, bring in the frog. It may not show the necklace to its best advantage and I'm sure there's lots wrong with it as a composition or whatever else, but I like my frog, and he's making me happy.

It's a Long Story

2011-06-06T15:31:00.000-04:00

Pull up a chair and I'll tell you a story. Once upon a time there was only one phone company and you had to pay 10 cents a minute to call across town. It worked very well and many people were employed by this megagiant of the communications industry. You also watched TV by accessing an antenna on the roof or by a goofy looking device called "rabbit ears" on top of the television set. Then computers came. At first, you had to pay the aforesaid 10 cents a minute to use the internet, and this tended to cut down on using computers for much after the first bill arrived. Then the government said the telephone company was too big and had to be split up, and at about the same time cable television became available to many people who had never had it before. Now computers took off. In competition for your business, all calls within the country cost the same and it was possible to get faster and faster service on the internet. We were all hooked. Which leads me to today.

After my computer woke up with a migraine and switched off internet, phone and television to keep the noise down, I had to unplug everything then plug it back in one by one to reset whatever it was that was causing it agita. I then rushed off to the post office to mail a package because I couldn't figure out how to fix the printer for the mailing label that would have made my life so much easier and in the process, locked myself out of the house again. I locked myself on the balcony earlier in the week and had to shout to the neighbor to call Joe at work to come let me in. This time I had my cell phone (a diabolical invention in its infancy when our story begins) but due to the decline in craftsmanship brought about by the need to produce equipment faster and cheaper, Joe's cell phone switches itself off randomly and I wasn't getting through. I eventually got in and the long (mostly) and the short (not so much) is that I don't have any new bead pictures today.

Hopefully my story is amusing. Here's a picture I didn't post on my blog yet, but it is in my Etsy shop.

Vessels!

2011-06-03T21:56:00.001-04:00

I made a few vessels for the event I went to last weekend, and sold them without taking pictures, so they're gone. I feel a sense of loss, since they are off to their new homes now and I don't have anything to remember them by. Horribly sentimental, I know, but that's me. I just listed these on Etsy, and I do have pictures, so it's all good here. The above bead is really close to my heart because it turned out nothing at all like I thought it was going to, and I love it more because of that. Its shape is what really freaks me out. Here's me thinking I mucked it up royally, and I now look at it and think, "Brilliant! How could I have known?"

I will always call this one (just to myself) my three-handled-moss-covered-family-gradunza. It was meant to have 2 handles but they just weren't doing it.

This one should have been shorter and thicker than it turned out, but I think it really works with the color and deoration and I'm not complaining.

Help!

2011-06-01T09:48:00.000-04:00

I just listed these items in my Etsy shop and now discover that the widget for a mini Etsy shop has disappeared from my blog. No amount of searching on Blogger or Etsy will bring it back. Does anyone know either how to fix this or at least how it happened?

At any rate, check these out! I'll be listing more stuff as time and patience allow.

Post Weekend Warring

2011-05-30T20:51:00.000-04:00

My camping trip and bead sale are done and I'm tired. It was a busy, successful weekend and I didn't even think to take any pictures until pack-up time. Thus the swarms of people in their colorful clothes, myriad of wares, and my booth are not pictured. Next year I remember to take pictures just after setup.

To get there we had to tote everything in the tired old truck. Joe is a firm believer in tying stuff down securely. Thus, this tote is secured by duct tape, a bungee cord, rope, and a cargo net. I don't think it could get out of the truck if it had legs.

It's a pretty drive. I took this on the way back around Scranton, PA. It does have its hazards, though,

like this falling rock zone....

or holiday traffic. Note it's going the other way. Yay!

The secondary purpose of out trip: Scoring Joe some scrapple. I'm not sure if there is a penalty for smuggling pork products across state lines. Glad we weren't caught. I wouldn't want to have to explain a cooler full of forbidden sausage.

Kids Project

2011-05-25T16:53:00.000-04:00

We all have a lot of beads, some that we didn't like the look of, some that are a bit funky, or in this case some that were done to test what cool reactions I could do. I've got mountains of them. To string them all together in a beaded curtain was the original idea, but Joe came up with a better one.

I'm going camping this weekend with a bunch of my history nut friends and many of them have decided to reproduce fairly recently. Wouldn't it be fun to let the older ones make their own necklaces/bracelets while Mom or Dad shopped? Yes, it would. For me and for them. I've got a bunch of stretchy cord and it's bead away. Hopefully I'll have a bunch of pictures of the little tyrants--I mean tykes--doing their thing.

You gotta be kidding

2011-05-22T15:15:00.000-04:00

I had to leave work today because of stomach issues. I'll get better, but for now I'm looking for any help I can get to make it through my day. This helped. Yes, it really is a lawn tractor that someone fixed by bolting on a kitchen chair. I think we ticked off the guy transporting this tribute to American redneck society by slowing down to take a picture, but we couldn't help it. If you are going to put this out in the open, people are going to stare. I have to hand it to him, at least he secured his load properly. It is on a real trailer and is strapped down. Not so sure about the plastic shrouding the delicate electronics from the threat of a sprinkle. God bless America.

The Wonderful World of Exploration

2011-05-21T11:31:00.000-04:00

I've been playing around with a few ideas I've had for a while, and my reach continues to exceed my grasp. In trying to make long beads on my hothead, I am constantly running up against the challenge of keeping both ends warm on a relatively cool flame. This one didn't turn out too bad, since at least I had a good tank of gas and was able to get some decent heat up. The base is Effetre apple blush and the ends are Effetre dark matter. I came up a bit short but that's a design feature because I will be making a hanger to allow this to hang from a belt. For now I've got a spacer holding its place.

Got some reduction on the DH Psyche there....

This is the same bead right after annealing. I got some color out of the Pandora, but I think I reduced it a little too much.

I like this aspect...

This is the same combination of colors on a focal. I love the colors I got and The fuming from the silver is neat.

I like the color of the Pandora on this...

This was my first attempt to make a long bead on a half empty tank and was having real heat control issues. I'd just get one end starting to melt in nicely, go to reheat the other and pop a chunk off. Neat striking of the CiM Canyon de Chelly, which is under all that, but not enough development of everything else.

I finally decided that this turd was not going to polish up any better and gave up. It's a bead only a mother could love, and strangely, I do like it.

Finally, my first skeleton key bead. Must scrub the rest of the bead release out of the teeth, unless I want to hang onto the really aged look.

I hate taking pictures

2011-05-19T22:31:00.000-04:00

My camera stinks and I have no particular talent with it. Having said this, you would think of the 30 pictures I took I would find more than 2 I could use. Not so. This is a pretty little necklace I made with lampwork beads and glass pearls, using pastel colors to pander to my springy mood. On grey, it shows up pretty much how it looks, although I would like to photograph this as a necklace and not as a string of beads. I have this neat necklace thing. Let's try it on that.

Where'd the colors go? Mind you, this is the best of the pictures I took on the black stand. The contrast is too much for my miserable setup to handle. This I got by pulling my lamp up as high as it would go and covering half of it with an envelope. Bills are good for something after all. And yes, the first picture did have a light baffle now that I think of it. The cat was standing in front of the lamp. Here kitty....

Dilemma

2011-05-16T10:19:00.000-04:00

I would like to get my Etsy shop back on line and am creating stuff to list in it, but once again I face the dilemma of facing parting with my work. After investing so much time and energy into a favorite piece, I find myself inventing excuses not to list stuff. The above necklace was a design challenge, since there was so much I wanted to do and try and it is always tough to get what I've got in my head to be something I can hold in my hand. After achieving as close as I'm going to get, I am telling myself I can't charge what it is worth to me, so I should keep it, knowing that I seldom wear stuff this dressy.

This bracelet is more comfortable to keep. I love the color combination and would wear this a lot, and I have the excuse that I've never made a wire wrapped clasp and I have to make sure it will hold up under repeated wear.

These excuses sound lame when they are written down, which is why I am doing it. I can always tone down the necklace for myself and test out the bracelet and make another if it is sturdy enough to sell.

Why am I writing this? I would like to hear how others overcome their separation anxiety. Please leave a comment and let me know.

Color Shifting Glass

2011-05-14T19:43:00.000-04:00

Why, oh why, did I order a whole bunch of color shifting glass at once. Honestly, when I unwrapped the package, they all could have passed as at least one of the other colors. To keep them straight, I made notes ahead of time, without taking the first rod out of the package, so I would know which was which. According to these notes, CiM pink champagne is marked with a periwinkle bead, CiM sepia is marked with a dark red bead, CiM blush with a lapis one, and CiM Count von Count with a white one.

In what was left of the watery daylight when I took these, note the color. Unless there is some sun soon, this is going to have to pass as the "truest" color.

These were taken under the supposedly full spectrum fluorescent lamp I usually photograph under.

These were taken under the only cool fluorescent light in the house, in the sink.

These were taken under the "soft white" compact fluorescent lights in the dining room, where I work. This is after white correcting. Without the white correcting, this picture wasn't even close. It was also taken holding the whole thing as close to the fixture as I could so I could get enough light to take the shot. The stupid camera has an autofocus lens that simply doesn't work if the lighting is too low. I have to be very careful about grabbing glass at random.

Miscellaneous Oddities

2011-05-13T22:32:00.000-04:00

I was really taken with the combination of CiM Ephalba with purple and went (foolishly) with EDP. Not only does a reaction take place, but in reducing it a bit to keep the devitrification down, I greyed out the Smurfy. Hopefully a bit of a soak in CLR will help. Interesting what the EDP did to the Ephalba. In addition to the line, there's some separation of the Ephalba. Smurfy likes to bleed into Ephalba too, it would seem.

Note to self: Make sure you find a way to keep track of the black stringer on the bench. I thought it was tux, but apparently it's metallic black, which I didn't discover until I was melting it in. Rats.

Effetre Green Tea. Very pale aqua streaks. Will play with this.

New Glass

2011-05-11T21:09:00.001-04:00

Huzzah! I finally got a striking color from Double Helix that worked for me! Following the directions on their website, I wound off a simple bead and popped it in to anneal. The second one was heavily encased in, as it turns out, Effetre whisper instead of the Effetre super clear I thought was on the table. In my lousy lighting they looked the same.... At any rate it's blue and ruby with a little green and looks pretty good by me. Good to know it doesn't react with the whisper, but next time I'd rather do clear. These were garaged for about an hour at 965 then soaked for 2 hours at 1000, then ramped down 100 degrees/hour to 500.

These beads were DH Nyx, which didn't do anything funky and organic, but didn't do anything ugly either. The bottom bead was heated to soup but otherwise left alone. I attempted to reduce the middle one but I don't see any difference other than less striking. The top bead was reduced and encased in whisper again. Now I don't know whether the brownish green streak was my technique or a reaction with the whisper. Further testing will show.

The green bead is CiM Ephalba, just because I like this combination. The bead directly above it is made with CiM Evil Queen, which I was forced to buy because Frantz stopped carrying my fav, Thai Orchid. It is not brown but isn't the rich purple of the Thai Orchid either. The bottom bead is Effetre Sedona, because it was on the table I take these photographs on and I thought it looked good with the other 2.

CiM's new super saturated aqua, Azure. Remains very vividly turquoise transparent over white. I'm not sure whether it is CiM Peace or Effetre Anice White. Definitely not white pastel.

Finally, Effetre Pale Emerald handmade by itself, over the same white and Effetre Uranium Yellow by itself. I wanted to get CiM Appletini but Frantz was out.

Happy Carol

2011-05-10T01:29:00.000-04:00

Above is a wildly colorized and enhanced version of my glass bench. I got a whole bunch of new glass. I am happy. The picture is lousy, but I'm on pins and needles waiting to try the new stuff. On top of the controller box for the annealer are not one but 2 packages of new Double Helix glass. On my Hot Head, it will probably turn to mud but I'm loving it now. Bear with me.

Oh, Those Crazy Pinks

2011-05-04T23:36:00.000-04:00

I'm gearing up for summer and it's watermelon bead time. I usually blend white with CiM cranberry to make the marbled pink for the flesh, but I have quite a bit of Effetre 456 gold pink and I wonder if I could substitute.

Probably not. My apologies for the mess on the left. The mandrels are numbered rather than the beads to avoid a wiring diagram of lines.

1--self spacers of my light batch of Effetre 456 on the left and a tiny bead of CiM cranberry on the right. It was the tail end of a very skinny rod.

2--456 over clear, cranberry over clear, and a self spacer of my DARK batch of 456. I only have one rod left but striking this dark I don't need more.

3--dark 456 over clear and white

4--pale 456 on the left and cranberry on the right. I think the colors over white show off the characteristics of each best. The light is very pale and streaky, kind of hard to strike. Making frit with this, it looks like a thin layer of 456 over a rod of clear. I'm sure this is my imagination. In comparison, both my cranberry and the dark batch are a uniform color all the way through. The dark 456 does show a bit of streaking, though.

5--light 456, cranberry, and dark 456 over white all on one bead. The dark 456 is almost a fuschia.

6--not that you'd ever know, but this is cranberry with dots of light 456 on the left and dark 456 on the right. Both burned but can't be seen on the dark background. My camera doesn't do well with a super light background. This is why I usually use a grey steel dish to photograph on.

7--this bead is half light 456 on the left and dark on the right, with dots of cranberry on both. It doesn't show up in the picture, but the cranberry actually burned a wee bit here. This is the only time I've seen this.

Here's a better view of the half and half bead, and while you still can't see the dots of cranberry the line where the light stops and the dark starts is very visible by looking at the mandrel.

Here's a closer view of the cranberry bead with 456 dots. I don't know that I can see the dots in this light (you can if you hold it up to the light at just...this...angle, which won't photograph at all) but the smudges of slightly burned bits show.

Here are some watermelon beads I'm working on and some from last year. I can't see any difference, and the batch of glass is very different. Pretty decently consistant on CiM's part, I think.

I couldn't remember if cranberry or 456 made halos around copper green so I made a mixed frit of both for these lentils. The 456 is the light batch.

To sum up, CiM cranberry seems more consistant, less likely to burn, and easier to strike than 456, but if I want a streaky transparent pink, I know which glass to use.

Tell Me Why...

2011-05-02T12:15:00.000-04:00

...I don't like Mondays. Bonus points for anyone who knows the artist from the 80's who recorded that song. It's been going through my head all day.

Seriously, it's been that kind of day. I'm sidelined with a head cold that has made me feel less than my best, and now this:

Can I have a little consistancy, please? Should I just scrap this idea? Or am I going to obsess until I can do it again? Probably the last one.

Now That's Cool

2011-05-01T23:08:00.000-04:00

These are pretty simple, but I love the effect I get when I layer the new CiM opals, Rainforest and Atlantis, with copper green. These are copper green and Rainforest. There is a little reduction of the copper green and it scums up and boils like crazy, worse if I've marvered it, like I have. I still am really digging these. I made them on 1/8" mandrels for stringing on some braided cotton cord. Now the hard part (for me), deciding what to do with them.

CiM Rainforest

2011-04-30T13:47:00.000-04:00

Creation is Messy came out with 4 new colors and I got 3 of them. I tried out Atlantis last week and this week's Rainforest, a dark teal opal. The rods reminded me of CiM Mermaid and Effetre grass green opalino. I imagine it is also similar to petroleum green, but don't have any.

It isn't hard to see why it reminded me of Mermaid. I thought it would be basically an opal version of that, but a look at the rods, specifically the rod ends, shows that they are both teal but that's all they have in common.

Effetre grass green opalino seemed closer, but the rainforest retains more of its translucency when annealed. Note how the opalino on the rainforest shows up much clearer than the rainforest on the opalino.

The plain spacer is so small it didn't really lighten up any, and this is a dark color. Wrapped in silver, reduced and encased, you can still see the mandrel under the light glare and my fingerprint. I didn't get much reaction from the reduction and there is a reason for that.

It's really hard to reduce things on this glass. Both these beads are made with DH Triton. Note how it only reduced on the edges. I had a fresh tank of gas and had it turned up all the way to do these, and only reduced the edges of the Triton, and that only without encasement. As soon as I put another glass on top, away the metallic bit went.

This one would be easier to describe if I hadn't put one of the beads on the mandrel backward. From the space between the beads is CiM Tuxedo, copper green, EDP, opal yellow, ivory, and CiM Peace. Black is barely visible on top of Rainforest and Rainforest is invisible on black. I love what's happening with the copper green. Must do a bead like this. Nothing ugly with EDP, but not doing much either. Opal yellow looks neat with it, but I don't care for what I can see with the ivory. Peace looks pretty ethereal with it, and I wonder what would have happened if I did layers and encased it.

I want to try this out with copper green and peace (perhaps not in the same bead, but hmmm...) and I think this will be good to use on its own. Like Atlantis it is a very rich, juicy color, but what I'm hoping for is this shade in an opaque....

Spring Willow Revisited

2011-04-29T17:35:00.000-04:00

Here are a few of the beads with Effetre Spring Willow. The blush looks a lot better now than it did going into the annealer. Kiln striking? Don't know, but I like it. I threw in a few spacers of Effetre Sedona to highlight the colors, and I do like the combination. Both glasses are very variable and I think they work well together.

My leaf.... Quite a bit of drooping going on in the annealer, and that bubble on the right side wasn't there going in. Rats. I'll just say it adds to the organic feel of the bead.

On the back in the protected, unstruck part beneath the mandrel, is the color the rods and beads start out. Now it is easy to see why I thought this might act like Effetre copper green. When I feel better I'm going to play with this some more.

Patience is a Virtue

2011-04-28T16:59:00.000-04:00

Patience may be a virtue, but I'm not at all virtuous some days. I'm listening to the annealer relays click and wishing it would get on with it. I made some more beads with the spring willow I blogged about yesterday and I can't wait to see what happened. Like all cases of infatuation, there is that initial glow and the inevitable disillusionment.

Today's disillusionment came when I changed the tank on my MAPP gas. The flame is hotter and voila, not only is spring willow soupy but it boils. Badly. Ever so much worse than ivory. I've never seen huge bubbles form within the rod as I'm heating it. Must see what it does with intense black and Hades. Usually when I get an air bubble in a bead I heat it more to get it thin, let it cool a little and pop it with my probe. These puppies just keep reforming. It also seems to scum up quite a bit the way turquoise does. Don't know what will come out of the Chillipepper....

The first bead sagged so much while I was trying to get a bubble out that I finally decided to go with it and let it sag all the way, pressed it in my leaf masher and drew it out to a point. It didn't seem to strike as beautifully today either. Probably needs to be done at a lower temperature. Assuming the beads anneal at some point I'll throw in some pictures.

The apartment is about 90 degrees with the heat wave we've been having and the torch and kiln on. Dinner tonight may very well be leftovers. I don't know, though. I don't get home until 11 tomorrow and have to be at work at 5:30 on Saturday so I'm not loving the idea of cooking tomorrow night.

Until I have pictures of the beads I made today, here are some that feel right for the weather.

Effetre Spring Willow

2011-04-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

I ordered this color with intense reservations, remembering my experience with Effetre mint green, which for me was just a variation of their copper green that didn't do anything special for me. The picture on Frantz' web site looked very similar. A little more yellow perhaps, with some streakiness. As soon as I started heating it I knew this was not the case. It went transparent the way the ivory shaded odd lots from Vetrofond did.

The top bead is perhaps the worst lentil I've ever made. Ignore the shaping and it is with silver melted in and reduced and encased in Effetre super clear. This glass stays very soupy, and droops in the kiln a bit if it isn't set well going in. It also strikes to the most delicate pink, which looks phenomenal with the pale green. Melted in silver doesn't improve it, but that's OK, I like it just the way it is!

Because it melted like Vetrofond biscotti, I tried it out with DH Triton. I didn't get much reduction (my fault, not the glass) but the fuming is gorgeous. Have a close up. It's almost like another glass.

I didn't actually test this on ivory and I wish I had, but here it is with other colors. It looks good with CiM tuxedo on the left on both beads. The top bead has a core of spring willow and the bottom one is with other colored base glass. Next up on the top bead is copper green, which gets lost. Copper green is the middle right band on the bottom bead, and other than the spreading, nothing dramatic, so spring willow isn't an ivory. Opal yellow is on the right end on the top bead and middle left on the bottom. It so gets lost under the spring willow, both as stringer and as a base. Peace was the last test color and it holds up a bit better than the opal yellow but bleeds a lot.

I like this glass and I'm thinking 1/4 lb. isn't going to last too long. I want to do some plain beads just with spring willow to explore that blushing thing, and you can bet I'm going to see what it does with Psyche and a larger bead with Triton, probably doing a set for myself.

Onto other stuff

2011-04-26T01:50:00.000-04:00

Sefko, I'm sorry I missed you. Have a safe trip and enjoy your family. When you're ready, so's your necklace.

What has this to do with what else I've been working on? Absolutely nothing. I'm sick of trying to figure out why what is supposed to be Effetre dark periwinkle is having compatiblility issues with everything I put it on, all of a sudden. It is probably something different, but I have no idea what, as I only use COE 104. CiM grumpy bear and Effetre light periwinkle split too and I'm sick of fooling around with it. As far as I'm concerned, I somehow managed to get a weird stringer and the rest has already been thrown out.

This is a cool thing I've been able to get Effetre dark silver plum shards to do. I wrapped a bead of Effetre Sedona with shards of silver plum and super heated them. I got lace. Cool. The silver plum stayed plum, which is cool, but I couldn't get Sedona to do its tricks. Still cool. The slip is showing on these beads, because I couldn't bear to waste glass making a whole bead out of Sedona. Now I'm going to have to see if it does it on other colors. I had some CiM cirrus on the bench and tried it there but it didn't lace and it went metallic. EDP would be a waste of time, since EDP and Sedona act very similar. Maybe a green or blue.

Green and Periwinkle

2011-04-24T20:35:00.000-04:00

On Friday I posted an unforseen reaction I found when trying out one of my favorite color combinations. I had hoped that the problem was with CiM peacock green, which I love but can work around. Apparently, it is with the combination of this blue green and Effetre periwinkle.

This was the first bead, made on a base of peacock green with cracks surrounding the periwinkle lines.

Since peacock green is relatively demanding with regards to annealing, I hoped that switching the glass and being careful with the annealing would yield better results. The result on Effetre nile green opalino belies this. I was extra slow annealing in my Chilli Pepper just to be on the safe side. There are still cracks all around the Effetre dark periwinkle scrolls. If I didn't melt the periwinkle in, nothing bad happened, but apparently there is some stress from the glass itself so I don't expect the bumpy one I did will hold up long. I've used this periwinkle on other beads with other bases so it's just the blue greens that are a problem.

I made a small, spacer sized, bead with peacock green and CiM grumpy bear melted in to see if it would react the same way. I am thrilled to say it did not. Note the separation in the middle of the periwinkle lines is opposite what's happening with the Effetre periwinkle. It looks like the bead might be cracked, but what is happening is light reflecting on the bottom of the sunken in scrolls.

I think for kicks I'm going to do a bead of grumpy bear with Effetre dark periwinkle decoration and see what happens. This is driving me nuts.

Now that's bizarre!

2011-04-22T12:18:00.001-04:00

This is a reaction I never would have thought to test for. The glasses involved are CiM's beautiful peacock green and Effetre dark periwinkle. The bead worked normally and went into the annealer just off red hot. As the annealing cycle wore on, I began hearing the dread clink at around 600 degrees F. I allowed the beads to cool, then removed them to discover this. I did make a solid peacock green bead this size that did fine, so I can only assume that there is a slight incompatibility between the green and the periwinkle. Check out the neat separation thing going on on the surface of the periwinkle.

Kind of bizarre the way the periwinkle sort of formed a clear bubble around itself that is reflecting itself onto the peacock green. It seems to be sinkin in too.

Tiny hairline cracks formed all around where the periwinkle was applied.

The cracks around the periwinkle really show up well in this picture, even though it's out of focus. I couldn't get the camera to focus properly in this shot, but it shows the ruin better than any of the others. What a bummer. I would have liked this color combination. I did something similar with Effetre nile green opalino that is holding up so far, so that will have to be the green and violet blue I was looking for in this piece. Anyone have a similar experience?

Happy Earth Day!

Honeysuckle?

2011-04-21T10:21:00.000-04:00

Pantone's color of 2011 is 18-2120, called (by them) honeysuckle. To see a more accurate portrayal of this color, check out this link from Pantone's color and design page.

How would you get this in glass? The only thought I have is to layer a dark pink like CiM cranberry over a light color, such as a very pale yellow. Maybe it's best to use the honeysuckle in other elements of the jewelry design and stick to coordinating stuff for the glass.

Is there a type of honeysuckle that is this color? The kind that grew wild where I grew up was white to start out with and yellowed out as the flowers aged. Maybe the kind that is sold in nurseries or grows in a different part of the world is a different color. Sort of like daisies. I lived my entire life thinking that the only types of daisies were Shasta or Mantauk (I know I spelled that wrong), Gerbera or African. All of them are compound flowers with large oval-ish petals surrounding a central hub. Think of those white and yellow flowers from the old show "Please Don't Eat the Daisies." Turns out there are English daisies that don't look anything like their American namesakes. They are uniformly tufted with more slender, pointed petals that start out white at the base and turn dark pink at the ends.

So how do I plan to translate this color into glass? I don't. I plan to make what I like and let this trend slide past. It is, after all only the color for one year. Maybe next year they'll pick a shade of green. I am almost certain to have it.

CiM Atlantis

2011-04-19T17:41:00.000-04:00

I finally got a chance to replenish some of my glass, and CiM's yummy Atlantis was a new color. It's a bit of a cross between Mermaid and Ming, and a bit of an opal, though it isn't really evident if it's not layered over anything. Like all the CiM colors I've tried so far it has been easy to work, without boiling, oozing or being all shocky.

These odd beads are, from left to right, self spacer, encased with Effetre clear 006, over clear a little too thickly to see how translucent it is, with reduced silver foil badly encased in clear as my tank ran out, and the same bead badly reduced but properly encased. The glass gets a little lighter on the ends, as visible on the plain bead. I'm not sure whether working it longer or hotter makes it lighter or darker. I think the lightening is like the devitrification you see on EDP, but it isn't devitrification because it remains glossy. Cool fade effect, though. I would like to blow some shards of this to get a nice thin layer of encasement on clear to get a better translucency. I acutally like the enencased portions of the bead I reduced with silver foil better, but I'm not sure what kind of bead I'd use it in. I'll probably like this better for it's clear color.

CiM Peace separates when applied on top of Atlantis, and Atlantis spreads pretty dramatically on top of Peace. The separation of the white was still there but not as dramatic when I did this with Effetre white, probably because Peace is very slightly translucent. On the top row is a bead with a thin shard of silvered ivory melted all the way in but too small to see anything. The next is Atlantis with EDP dots. Nice edge and little reaction. The black spots on the EDP are where I overheated it and burned it. Not the glass' fault. On the right is with DH 331 test batch, a sort of Terra light, and I failed to get much color. Not a surprise considering my skill with striking DH glasses, really.

I wasn't impressed with what happened when I combined Atlantis with ivory. On the left I superheated things a bit to get the maximum reaction, and got it. The effect I got with the barely melted shard of silvered ivory was much more pleasant.

Opal yellow lightened a lot when I used it with Atlantis, and I like the absence of a reaction. If I wanted an ivory look I'd use the opal yellow. Some separation here as well, but tis cool. I'm digging the bead with CiM Tux and Atlantis. The blue is still visible but only just on top of the black, which is very neat.

This one didn't reduce well, or reproduce either for that matter, but it's with DH Triton, on the left unencased and encased on the right. The reduction effect is actually visible on the bead, but I would have liked more drama. It is my fault, not the glass.

This one surprised me. Who knew copper green would do this? It's like the copper green was trying to sink into the Atlantis but getting stuck on the edges. And the dark rim in the middle of the copper green waves and dots is just weird. I wonder if it's some sort of reduction on the copper green and if soaking the bead in lime scale remover would help? It's as if there's another color running down the middle of each copper green spot. Not when the Atlantis is on top, though. That just spreads out all over the place. I wish I'd studied more in chemistry. This is so neat and I have no idea why it does what it does.

I love this color. It's so pretty on its own I may not combine it with anything else but I'm glad I paired it with stuff ahead of time so I don't use up a whole lot on something that's not going to work the way I think it should. Maybe I should get a little more now. I tried to order some CiM Appletini and it was already sold out, and this is sure to go that way soon if they don't make more. I hope they make more of both.

It's a Day

2011-04-18T12:21:00.000-04:00

I did work on the torch yesterday, but nothing was worth taking a picture of. There are days like that. So I'll muse instead. Feel free to ignore my rambling on.

The new year is now over 3 months gone and how am I doing on my unofficial New Year's Resolution? Not perfectly. Have I benefited? Somewhat. Did making a resolution make a difference? I don't know, since I didn't actually resolve anything specific. Does making a resolution matter? What purpose does resolving serve on New Year's Eve or any other day?

I resolved unofficially to do better in 2011. Not anything specific, since I've had plenty of practice with weight loss and other resolutions. I have done better. I lost a ton of weight last year and even managed to lose 15 more pounds or so this year. The past 2 weeks haven't been a good example but I've been hitting the gymn and am quite a bit fitter. The house is reasonably dirty rather than extravagantly. I've been minimizing TV time. I have felt generally better.

The fact that I didn't make an actual resolution makes it easier to keep. If I had, say, resolved to lose 20 lbs. and vacuum twice a week and work out 5 times a week I would have failed, giving me the excuse to abandon the effort. This way, I can say I've made progress and continue to try.

New Year's resolutions are notoriously hard to keep, and are nonetheless important. They reflect a desire to be a better person.

Shards

2011-04-17T14:39:00.000-04:00

Readers of the Dragonflight series will remember that "shards" was an oath and I did my share of swearing when trying to achieve this technique. I started with a 1/4" OD stainless tube and made a bubble of glass on the end, heated it to cherry hot then blew into the cool end of the tube, blowing tissue thin shards of glass all over the table. A little too much pressure. I then applied much less pressure and produced the very thick, unusable bubbles shown. After much experimentation I finally figured out my problem: I was trying to heat evenly and was not able to see what I was doing. Perhaps looking down the tube at the end of the bubble wasn't the right way to go about this. If only I could look sideways and blow at the same time. I needed some flexible tubing, which I obtained. No real success, since to heat the glass evenly it must be rotated and it is almost impossible to rotate the mandrel with 3 feet of flexible tubing hanging off one end. Off came the tubing and enlightenment dawned. Heat the bubble evenly while holding the mandrel sideways, then blow gently in the end out of the flame. Cue the heavenly music. The completed bubble is about the size of a duck egg and did shatter when I cut it off the end of the mandrel. Oh well, 3/4 of an egg is better than none at all.

After a (not so short) break...

2011-04-16T23:54:00.000-04:00

Yeah, it's been a very long time. I haven't been entirely away from my torch but I haven't been at it as much as I'd like. The above set is the result of a couple weeks of doing a couple beads here and there. The base glass for this is Creation is Messy's Canyon de Chelly, one of my absolute favorite glasses to use. Not only does it play nice in the flame, but it does some pretty cool stuff with other colors and techniques. It is a striking color that changes color depending on whether it's just heated and cooled or heated, cooled, and reheated. And then there's the size of the base bead, which makes a difference. It's easier to get it to do the neat stripey thing on a large bead than a small one. Shaping the bead with metal seems to give better effects, so the rapid cooling and partial reheating is key, and sometimes after the color strikes it unstrikes again, but unpredictably. It doesn't seem to change color in the annealer, which I really dig. What you see going into the annealer is what you're going to get.

The earrings on the right were my first stab and combining CDC with Double Helix Psyche. I don't know how evident it is in the picture but there is a reaction on the CDC where the silver laden Psyche touches it that doesn't occur with DH Triton or silvered ivory. I call that neat. The central beads contain only CDC and Psyche. The border on the dark Psyche is the reaction from the CDC. It has to be melted in and superheated. Notice in the top photo and the vessel that it doesn't always do this.

With this bracelet I was going for balance and similarity between the glass and the dyed freshwater pearls I used in the earrings, since the pearls were too small for the bracelet. The glass I used on the spacers is Vetrofond plum. It does this neat metallic thing similar to Effetre silver plum when treated the same way, that is allowed to air cool until the glow is gone and reheated gently in the top of my hot head flame, but stays more purple, so call it light silver plum. Note the beads three beads in from the clasp. The base glass is yellower because it didn't strike at all, being CiM Stoneground. I couldn't remember whether I used Stoneground or CDC on the earrings and the lack of reaction on these beads reminded me. Hey, this bracelet is for my own use and with the weight on the clasp it stays right side up so no one will see them anyway.

I had so much fun making this vessel I'm keeping the pictures big and showing both sides, so there. I used a 3/16 mandrel and built the end on the end of the mandrel again so it was a pain to clean, but with a solid color vessel and not planning to sell this I went for the stability of having two base beads to build from. This meant I had two ends to keep warm but for every flower a tear. I didn't melt the Psyche in all the way but I was loving the way the CDC was striking and I wanted to leave it the way it was. I also hate the way the camera washes out the reduction effect of the Psyche, but trust me, it really is there. The handles and rim are made from an actual rod of Effetre Lace Agate I have been hoarding. On the smaller beads I used silvered ivory, but it wouldn't do for functional handles, since I can't really pull stringers that thick.

I have missed working glass. There have been compensations, like losing 50 pounds through diet and time at the gymn. I hope to continue losing about 20 pounds to get back to my "feel good" weight, but the signs of diabetes that scared me, the blood clot that sidelined me and the limitations that my excess weight caused on my mobility are gone. I recently acheived a time on a mile "jogging" (more of a fast walk, really) that I haven't achieved since I was 15. Now I have to try to incorporate the things that I really like doing with the things that I need to stay healthy. I'll never achieve perfection, but all I ask for is a fighting go. I may even post a new profile picture if I can find someone who knows how to work my camera.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-09T14:52:00.000-05:00

I'd just like to wish for a happy holiday season and one of peace and health. I've been away from the computer a lot and it sits there glaring accusingly at me. I've been making some beads, and am loving the new annealer, and generally taking it quiet for a while. I'm using bifocals now, and am not sure I like the way they focus. My left eye doesn't seem to align as well as I would like and I'm seeing double when I'm trying to read. This is not helping at lampwork. My glasses come with a guarantee, so I'll go back and have a talk to the optometrist.

I've decorated the tree, with pretty much the same stuff as last year. I have to work on a new ornament or two. Last year I made a whole bunch of hard candy ornaments out of glass, and some holly leaves and berries on copper wire, but they are rather small and don't show up well. I was thinking of a few gingerbread men out of polymer clay. Maybe a sugar cookie or two as well. Oh, and I forgot to hang the candy canes. The cat is chewing on a branch. I can hear the little bells I hung up so I know she's busted. Hopefully she won't try to climb the tree (again.) She likes to hang on a branch like a fat, fuzzy ornament. It's adorable but does trash the tree. I have to remember to unplug the tree tonight so she doesn't electrocute herself while I'm at work tomorrow.

Time to get cracking on some baking any day now. I've got some kind of a bug so today isn't a good day to start, but soon. People love to make fun of fruitcake but it does go a long way.

These are a few of my seasonal beads. I'm still wondering why the snowman's scarf cracked a bit but I won't be doing much with these, other than wearing them as pins at work.

After a Short Break

2010-11-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple weeks since I posted last, primarily because after I had surgery, I got sick. Isn't that always the way? I did make a few beads to test out the new annealer, and have done more since.

I finally got Devardi coppery black to lustre, by making the bead, turning the torch up to rocket and striking it then. I also discovered that if I anneal the beads afterward, the lustre disappears in the kiln. I may try setting the annealing temperature lower, say 925. I may not, because this glass uses so much gas to bring up the coating, I don't want to take a chance. I also discovered that when other colors are added on top, if they are left raised the coppery black doesn't have enough contact with the flame to lustre, and if the coppery black is left raised on top of tuxedo, for instance, it doesn't lustre either. A bit of a pain to use.

I wanted to see what Clio did in the kiln, since I read somewhere that it finishes developing color in it. The two beads on the bottom are Clio, on the left, just Clio, after I attempted to strike and reduce it, and on the right, the same thing with a layer of clear on top. I like the effect under clear, with the milky reduction modifying the color. I was hoping for a more ruby color, but I suppose I should be glad I could get anything other than yellow with the hothead.

I ordered in some more Effetre pink 256. This bead is the old on the sides and the new in the middle. I was fairly disappointed that the pink isn't more vivid. Oh well, try again another time.

So, how's the annealer working? I made the encased beads pictured here with the express idea of testing this out. I've had problems with the old kiln cracking encased beads, especially when the beads had a thick encasement layer or were squashed into lentils. I love the way these turned out. I still can't do florals to save my life, but I thought the lentil came out very well.

Not the best bead I've ever made, but it served its purpose, which was to see how well a nice long soak held the bead together. I encased a core of tuxedo with clear, in this case Vetrofond, which I've had more problems with cracking than Effetre or CiM, then added decorations of green and some bizarre poke flowers, which Joe was very kind about but he's color blind, then encased in another thick layer of clear and shaped the whole thing. It stayed intact and didn't give me any trouble at all. In cleaning this one the few other encased beads I made, I noticed the absence of a phenomenon I noticed with my cracked beads before. I could tell if a bead was going to crack by feeling a concentrated vibraton along a line along the hole while cleaning it, even if it didn't crack right away. It felt almost like an electric shock. Now I know why it was happening, because none of the beads I made this time did it.

I was testing out how CiM Tamarind worked on these beads, layering them fairly thickly with a twistie of CiM Canyon de Chelly, DH Clio and Terra2 and a bit of silvered ivory, then swirling it and encasing in clear. I got some ruby out of the Clio here, and I generally like this combination for a twistie. I can't really figure out where all the color came from, but that's OK.

This is the backside of the same bead, again showing the strange interaction of color.

This is the same twistie on a base of tamarind with the silvered ivory and squashed in a badly overfilled lentil press. It's a pity. I have to try this again without overfilling the press, because I think it looks pretty neat.

This bead ticks me off. I used a base of white, I think CiM peace, covered it completely with every bit of stringer and twistie I found on the bench, spun it and added ends of tamarind. I love the way the twisties looked and the colors I got, and am fairly happy with the shape of the bicone.

What I'm not happy about is the dimple I left on one of the ends. I don't know how it got past me. It totally wrecks the shape and I should have been able to see it.

Yep, there it is, right on top; it looks like someone scooped a chunk out of the bead and ruins what would have been a decent bead. The worst part is that since I was just using up bits of twistie loitering around on the table, there's no way of redoing it. Oh well. It sure looks hand made.

Coppery Black?

2010-10-28T18:58:00.001-04:00

I've been whiling away the time waiting for my new annealer to come, but the excitement has kept me making some beads. I was attracted by a new glass available from Devardi, supposed to be usable only by hothead users and rendering a finish similar to the very expensive silver glasses, only in copper, not silver. Why not take a chance and order some? Here's a link to Devardi's site and Golden Coppery Black is about 1/3 of the way down the page. There's even an instructional video showing how to bring up the lustre. It looks so easy, doesn't it.

What I got was a slew of black rods, one with a tag bearing the label "golden coppery black", and another with a suspicious spot of color change, distinctly silvery. You can just see it in the rod in the above picture. I've included a loop of copper wire in case my picture didn't come out well. After making quite a few beads with the suspect glass, I believe that the rods were mislabeled. I tried the rod with the label on it as well, hoping that at least that would be the color I ordered. No luck.

In the photo above, the bead in the upper left, still on the mandrel, was treated as I would CiM gunmetal, and I got a very similar effect. The paddle on the end of the rod was simply mashed, cooled and flashed in and out of the middle of the flame like the video suggests, as were the rest of the beads, except for the one on the right with the DH Triton bumps, where I was trying to reduce it to see if that would help. The center bead, right next to the copper ring, is made with both ends the Devardi glass and the middle CiM tuxedo, and nothing doing here at all.

I'm very disappointed by this glass. I really don't need any more gunmetal, which is what this seems like it's going to be, not to mention I was looking forward to a new glass color just for me as a hothead user. Devardi glass is less expensive than Italian glass or CiM, but it is shocky and boils and pits if it isn't worked cool enough. I've received rods that were mislabeled before from more than one source, so unless something miraculous happens to my technique I'll assume that's what's happened.

In the meantime, my annealer was just delivered and I'll be spending the next month trying to figure out how to program it. Directions so simple a child can program it. Bah! Anyone got a child to program this thing, cuz I'm having VCR flashbacks?

10/29/10 Devardi glass wrote back and explained that I've been doing it wrong. I have to make the bead, turn the gas up to rocket and flash the bead in and out of that once it's cooled to no longer glowing. I'm not used to working with so much gas, since I'm pretty stingy with the MAPP fuel. I gave it a try with the labeled rod this morning and will post a picture of the resulting beads. I definitely had some golden irridescence going into the kiln. Apparently, MAPP gas gives you a golden hue and bottled propane gives a coppery one. I wonder if I'll have to get a tank of propane just to see what it looks like. And I'm still not sure about that rod with the silver smudge.

New Jewelry and Hope

2010-10-23T17:25:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple months, but I finally have something to say. I have made the odd spacer or two, for my own consumption since I don't feel comfortable selling beads that may crack. I haven't been enjoying lampworking though since my lack of a way of annealing them properly and the loss of some really nice beads has put a damper on my creativity. I've also been getting used to working with a pair of diddys. The soda flare never really bothered me but I talked to an eye doctor about torchwork and she scared me into buying a pair. I don't know whether it's the lack of the cue of the soda flare or being rusty, but suddenly all my beads were coming out lopsided and I was having the devil of a time with all kinds of other basic issues. I've finally worked out my shaping, heat control and stringer placement issues and produced the necklace, bracelet, and earrings above.

I lost some weight and my wardrobe needed an update, and purple is one of my favorite colors, so I needed some nice jewelry to go with the new duds. I like the way these colors come together and have always favored many different shapes in one color group. The set is made up of CiM Thai orchid, Effetre silver plum light and dark and a few violet transparent. For decoration I mostly used black metallic with some CiM tux, which has a different kind of reaction with the Thai orchid I used it over. I restocked headpins and finally got some that will work with 3/32" holes. I didn't have them when I made this pair of earrings, hence the wirewrapping, but will have them when I get back to beadmaking for real next week.

I still have a bit of time for benchwork because I recently had minor surgery and am able to sit and torch but not walk around for extended periods or lift more than 10 lbs. I'll have to have Joe set up my new annealer when it comes on Thursday. I'm so amped. It's brand new, straight from the factory and hasn't been ruined by anyone else first. It says it can't be used for PMC but I think if I place a ceramic shelf that's all that is usable from my old kiln in it, it will work fine. ANYONE WHO HAS ANY FEEDBACK ON THIS IDEA, PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT. After waiting so long for a proper annealer, I don't want to mess it up. I haven't done PMC yet and can put it off indefinitely if it means I can make beads that won't crack. I stole this picture of the chilli pepper I'm getting from the Heritage Glass site in my links. They have some really good prices and ship really fast. I had thought about the small Paragon due to its firebrick sides and floor, but decided on the extra bead space, since I can't see making only half a dozen beads and quitting for the day.

So, to sum up, I've been pretty busy. I lost some weight, started taking better care of my eyes, had to relearn how to torch, had surgery and am looking forward to a new annealer and glass. I even caught up on some of my housework. Hope can give you so much energy. Right now I'm hoping I can get a little momentum with the positive changes I've made to tackle some more of the stuff that's holding me back.

Miscellaneous Work

2010-08-27T19:54:00.000-04:00

Time for the awful truth: My kiln is dead. I put this bead in it and left it alone, figuring it would do its thing. What it did was allow the bead to soak for an undetermined amount of time then essentially air cool, without even a fiber blanket to keep it warm. Its performance has been so so for a while, I think, but this time I caught it. I'm holding the bead together here. It was merely cracked, but fell apart in my pocket, cutting my hand as I tried to retrieve it. I am particularly angry with this bead, since it really was pretty before it cracked and then it went and bit me.

It was supposed to be the focal to go with some of these beads, all made with Effetre Caribbean blue. The focal shown didn't come out as I hoped because I smeared the yellow badly while encasing and it went particularly ugly with the dark line reaction with the light sky blue of the Caribbean.

This happened a while ago. It's just taken me a while to feel objective enough to write it down. I've been making spacers and stuff I can do in annealing bubble, but it isn't the same and I've been doing other mediums, such as polymer clay and wire. Above is a copper chainmaille bracelet I'm chewing up and the framework for my first effort at Viking knit. I have to get a chunk of wood and drill some holes to draw it through.

This is the finished polymer clay tree. I quit when I realized I would never be able to sand it past those gouges left by trying to press it out with my fingers without ruining the tree entirely. I now own a nylon rolling pin (meant for fondant) and some toungue depressors.I'm at a bit of a loss to explain those white marks in the color. Any answers, polymer clay folks?

I did pick up some new glass, hoping to lift my spirits while I'm whiling away the time waiting to save up for a new kiln. The left 3 beads are DH Clio, looking as unlike any Clio beads I've seen as they could. I don't know whether I messed up the strike or whether they would have finished striking during annealing (sniff) but the darkest I got was a root beer kind of color. It could be the reducing HotHead, too, because even the plain bead on the left got reduced, and I wasn't even trying to. 2nd in from the left is Clio over clear and 2nd from the right is Clio reduced and encased with clear. On the right is CiM African grey, which looks a lot like hippo. I have to dig out my hippo beads and make a comparison. I'll be honest, I'm really not as excited as I should be about getting the first new glass I've had in almost 6 months. I'm over halfway there. Another couple months and I'll be either crazy or back in business.

But Not a Bad Day

2010-08-23T18:26:00.000-04:00

I've been working really long days and today is my first one off, so I needed to go shopping. After a grueling session of grocery shopping followed by assembling the new trolley I bought without instructions and minus one cotter pin, during which it rained a bit, I felt too wiped out to torch so I headed back out for a walk downtown. This is something I haven't done in the 2 1/2 years I've lived here, and I learned quite a bit.

Rome is not a large town and I was able to walk from the northwest corner to 1/3 of the way on the southern edge and then to the southeast corner and back in 2 1/2 hours. There are some nice, old houses in town, some of them quite well maintained, and some pretty areas I wish I brought my camera along for.

I was on a mission to find a "real" health food store that didn't just sell sports supplements (which wouldn't do me any good at all) and I found two. Plus, I stopped in the shop that sells smoking paraphanalia to see if he carried lampwork and if so, if he had a local source (he doesn't sell beads or jewelry, just pipes and T-shirts, hmmmm.....) Then I was drawn by their window display to the local jeweler, who does carry lampwork beads, but they looked like mass-produced numbers and the salesperson was helping a couple look at rings and I felt I shouldn't wait for them to make up their minds if I wanted to be home in time to make dinner. I then suffered a whim of nostalgia and stopped in at a game room stocking the latest in Dungeons and Dragons literature and offering Thursday night gaming for oldsters and other games for the young (Magic, the Gathering still seems to be popular.) I was the only one in the shop other than the shopkeeper over 12.

All in all, a good walk. I should have checked out the coming attractions at the theater (yes, it's a theater, not a cineplex) to see if any shows were coming I would want to see. The weather was pleasantly cool and overcast but it didn't actually rain until I was almost home. I'm already dry and the walk must have done my diet no end of good. It's still early and I may yet fire up the torch, but I don't feel at all like I wasted a day.

Polymer Clay Tryout

2010-08-20T17:19:00.000-04:00

I've made Christmas ornaments and things out of polymer clay before, but never anything with any degree of complexity. This is my first effort at anything more complicated than gingerbread cutouts and snowmen and stuff. Naturally, I had to try more than one thing at a time, in this case blending colors to fade and inlaying a tree. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, all in all. It still needs the benchwork, like sanding and drilling and whatnot, but it works in the heat and can be carried on late at night without annoying the neighbors. All the scraps and trimmings got rolled into an egg shape and will become some sort of spring ornament. I was surprised by how much darker the colors looked after baking. Shows what happens when you've only done a few things before.

Bus Trip

2010-08-18T15:44:00.000-04:00

On this one, the bead turned out exactly as it should have, if not how I imagined it. I wrapped a core of Effetre light pumpkin with copper leaf, added a few odd twisties that I had lying around the workbench, probably involving silver glass, swirled them up, encased the whole thing in clear and swirled that, then melted and reshaped the whole thing. It would have looked cooler if the texture I started out with had been preserved, but I seem incapable of heating just one spot without blowing the shape of the whole bead.

What I really like is the way the silver glass fumed into the clear. That I wasn't expecting. I should have remembered how much lighter the corals get under encasement, but oh well, the pumpkin is doing what it should do and I don't mind the school bus yellow. Kinda cheerful.

As far as the personal stuff that's been keeping me up at night, I'm feeling a bit better and will continue to pick a household chore at random to ignore.

Beads and Bull

2010-08-17T00:57:00.000-04:00

The blue bead in these pictures is a core of clear with CiM lapis, then bordello around one end and silvered ivory around the other, with squiggles of psyche and a twistie of copper green, terra2, and aura. I have so much trouble striking the terra2 I don't know why I keep using it.

Hope springs eternal and while I don't get the real color this glass is capable of, I am getting some strike and a neat mother of pearl effect rom all the reduction.

I think the base glass is a large influence upon what I wind up with because the ivory bead is the same stringer and technique but a lot more drama.

Speaking of drama, a few weeks ago I asked what is most inspiring and I got a couple answers, and they amounted to being around other creative people. I can say for a fact what kills creativity, at least for me, and that is negativity. I'm trying to keep upbeat and see the good in every bad and having a rough time of it. Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight and wake up in the morning and see things in a different light.

Inspiration in Red

2010-08-12T20:10:00.000-04:00

OK, I wasn't exactly inspired when I made these beads, but rather was trying to make a similar bead to the one in my last beady post that turned out even and with red ends. As is frequently the case, at least with me, the inspiration comes afterward.

I partially achieved my objective, and even more, since I believe that some copper green stringer worked its way into the project and I like the result. I also am going to attribute the inspiration of these beads to another artist working around the turn of the century. The way the reactive stringer and twistie fumes and reacts with the apple blush and the lines formed within and around the silvered ivory remind me of some really cool book illustrations I have.

Arthur Rackham was a British illustrator whose best known work was done from 1900 or so through the First World War. This is what Wikipedia has to say about him.

I have The Romance of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table written around 1917 (I do not have the first edition but the one I have still has the cool art work), a framed print of Tatiana Sleeping from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a couple of smaller prints from Das Rheingold. The picture above is from Wagner's Ring and the one below is from A Midsummer Night's Dream. These sort of show what I'm talking about.

Hopefully the paintings and illustrations I'm showing give a bit of insight into some of my creative process. If nothing else, have a couple pieces of eye candy. It's totally non-fattening.

Inspiration

2010-08-10T11:17:00.000-04:00

Going back to work has left me a bit tired in the area of finding inspiration. Last night, after arriving home too late to get any torching done, I decided to cruise the web and see where I wound up. I actually wound up studying the complexities of the styles and titles of nobility, but I stopped at some neat places along the way.

One of the places I visited was the Wikipedia entry for Gustav Klimt, an Austrian artist who worked from the 1890s through 1918, though his most popular work dates from the time around 1907. He got into some trouble for painting what was regarded as pornography at the time, and I suppose if he was working today he still would be censored. As a society Americans are still shocked fairly easily. What I like about his work is that while he does deal with adult themes, they are rendered without the smut factor. Artists are always getting censored for mature content, but life can be pretty mature at times. It can be pretty infantile at times too, but that is for a different post.

He was influenced from many sources, notably the classical art that influenced so many in the late 19th century, the Byzantine use of embellishment and flattened aspect of the figure, Medieval European art with regard to detail upon detail (I'm thinking of the Unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters in New York,) and his heavy use of gold leaf is similar to the Japanese art that was enjoying a revival in the late Victorian era.

The disparity of the two paintings I chose is notable. They were only painted four years apart but seem like they were painted by different people. I think this was because Klimt was interested in different things. He was trained as an architectural artist in a traditional school and retained a love of the landscape and buildings around him, but he also lived in a world populated by people and represented that aspect of his life as well. So, to sum it all up, sometimes it is a good thing to let the mind wander and watch where it takes you.

My Favorite Oops

2010-08-08T22:59:00.000-04:00

This is my favorite bead yet that didn't come out the way it was supposed to. I got the shape wrong, so I can't sell it. The ends are a bit off and the taper on the long bicone is irregular. What a shame. I'm just going to hate making this into a nice piece of jewelry for myself.

The body of the bead is apple blush, covered with a twistie made from opal yellow, psyche and Terra2, CiM adamantium ends and silvered ivory and psyche stringer decoration. The Terra2 didn't strike very well but I got a really cool mother of pearl effect and the opal yellow struck to a pinkish blush, which goes swimmingly with the small bits of apple blush visible under the stringer. The psyche reduced better in some places than others, but I was at the end of the cylinder.

I can't quite put my finger on what this bead reminds me of. Something Japanese and/or Mucha. I have a set of Mucha prints that depicts the four hours of the day, morning, midday, evening and night that this reminds me very strongly of, but others have said that it reminds them of Japanese art or desert branches.

With any luck the couple beads I made to match will turn out ok and I can make this into a bracelet or necklace.

Off Mandrel Pendant

2010-08-07T10:58:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you get eggs, sometimes you get nothing but a bunch of shells and a mess. The leaf bead I posted last is no more. I had it strung on some wire for a pendant and dropped it. The leaf stayed intact but the loop broke off. Nuts. I made another one and strung it with the Effetre light pumpkin one and one I made with opal yellow, and have a nice pendant I am slowly turning into a necklace.

Opal yellow is a tricky color to work with for an off mandrel leaf. It is very soft and wants to flop around all over the place. I committed the extra sin of wanting a notched, oak leaf appearance and chopping at it with my glass shears. This was done with the glass very nearly cool, then I reheated the piece to fire polish it. The resulting leaf was a bit strangely shaped, but, hey, it looks like a leaf. The spots are Terra2, which apparently likes to reduce as well. I didn't mean to, but it isn't ugly so I'll take it. I also got some reducing frit in with the bordello, as evident on the orange leaf.

The way I'm making the leaves is to make a gather on the end of the rod, rolling it in frit or decorating it with stringer, pressing it in the leaf masher, heating the end and attaching an only slightly heated steel chopstick and cutting off the rod and forming the loop. Then I hold the loop in a pair of pliers while I remove the punty and polish the end. I'm sure infinite shapes are possible this way, but right now I'm stuck on leaves. If anyone knows a better way please let me know.

As far as my color diet, I'm retiring olive for the time being. It is a great shade of green and truly appropriate for fall but I'm playing with apple blush until I can figure out how to get a predictable orange blush or get sick of it and give up. I am also going to play with some CiM pheonix shortly, probably in place of the Effetre light pumpkin.

My First Off-mandrel Piece

2010-08-04T18:06:00.000-04:00

I am absolutely thrilled how this turned out. I made it last night with Effetre apple blush, one of their more recent colors that I tested out back in April but never made any beads with. There are a few technical flaws, notably the chill marks on the space between the veins on the front and the fold marks on the back, to say nothing of the blob of glass that stuck to the leaf as I was attempting to free it from the rod, but I am 100% unapologetic for these. They add character. I did give the bead a few sharp whacks on the steel dish I photographed it on and applied pressure trying to snap it just in case, but it seems solid as a rock.

I would have been happier if the orange shading that occurs sometimes when this color is struck was a little more pronounced. It really only shows up on the point of the leaf and the stem. Hey, one of the things I like about working with glass is that it isn't entirely predictable. Leaves turn all kinds of colors in fall and if this one gave up on the tree before it fully changed color, that's the way it wanted to do it.

This is also the first bead I made with a leaf press I got at about the same time as the glass but haven't used at all, because it is curved and won't accept a mandrel, and I was afraid to try just heating up the end of the rod and pressing that, since how could I hang it without a hole? Found a way. I made another one similar out of light pumpkin with bordello frit I'm now dying to see. The only bad thing about glass (other than the expense): Delayed gratification.

A Different Kind of Glass

2010-08-03T18:56:00.000-04:00

Warning: The following paragraph consists of nothing but whining. Skip it and I'll write about glass in the next one.

I'm back at work. It is soul-killing and destroying any patchy creativity I ever had. I have been putting in 12 hours at a time and come home too tired and in too much pain to do more than throw together something vaguely nourishing and fall asleep on the couch until it's time to go to bed so I can toss and turn in the more traditional setting.

I haven't been at the torch in about a week. But I did find some neat glass in the parking lot. I'm pretty sure this is a chunk of obsidian, or naturally occurring volcanic glass. And no, I'm not even going to try torching it (Joe asked if I was going to.) It has quite a few bubbles in it and I doubt it wouldn't explode. It has chips like glass would and a strange gunmetal irridescence in the places that are not covered by the matrix or freshly chipped off. Not sure what the matrix is. Parts of it look like it contains metal but a geologist I am not. This is what Wikipedia has to say about obsidian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian

Sounds good to me. I'm off tomorrow. I ought to be able to make a bead or two, and will try to make one or two tonight.

Baking Soda Beads 2

2010-07-29T13:44:00.000-04:00

I was pretty happy about the beads I made with baking soda. It adds a really unique finish to the beads and there is a lot of variation in the way it turns out. Making earring pairs using this method is going to be a trick because even a pair made with the same glass at the same time may not match.

The set on the right turned out pretty well. I used a twistie made from CiM tuxedo and peace, then silvered ivory. The silvered ivory turns out even more organic looking than usual, and the peace has a sort of translucency that the baking soda treatment doesn't entirely remove.

I like the way light transmits through the translucent beads in this batch. It seems like the lighter the color, the "harder" the glass remains. The 2 lightest transparent colors are Effetre light brown transparent and kelp.

Here's a family portrait. Like all family get togethers, a couple members didn't make it to the event, but they're around somewhere and if they're any good they will be photographed in due course.

Here is where it gets weird. The arrows point to two beads made with the same glass at different times. Both were made using a clear core with a coating of some stringer made from copper green and olive. I didn't do as good a job of covering the core on the bead on the left and the result is that it is lighter in color and almost translucent. The bottom right bead with the arrow seems almost like partially polished old jade.

I told you this was strange. The bead marked with the arrow in this picture is before cleaning. It is actually darker with a hard, shiny, rough coating. When I removed these from the mandrel and stuck them in a bowl of water to clean them, the coating sort of dissolved into a slimy mess and underneath was the top left bead in the picture above. I liked the way the first green bead turned out and was trying to match it. Obviously, this didn't happen, so I tried it again and am waiting to see how they turn out.

Tie Score

2010-07-27T22:51:00.000-04:00

I'll show the good beads first for a change. I really like the baking soda beads that Andrea has been making at Powers Art Glass, so I decided to give it a try with different colors and textures. I found that different glasses react very differently to baking soda. All look super-etched, but some look like they've boiled on the surface and others do not. In addition, the metal salt used to color the glass comes out in some of the colors. Pardon the color of these pictures. I wanted something positive to say and took these on the end table with yellow artificial light.

I would be hard pressed to say exactly what is in the left 2 beads in the photo above. I had a bunch of stringer and twistie lying on the bench and pretty well applied it all over a base of clear. These look wild. The second 2 on the top picture and the left 2 on the middle picture were made with a twistie of tux and peace wrapped around a core of clear, then the space between the loops filled in with silvered ivory stringer. I would be wrong no matter what I said the right 2 beads are in the middle picture. Copper green was involved. And some odds and ends of twistie and such from the bench. I seem to think I made a twistie of CiM chai unique and DH aurae that isn't on the bench anymore. I'll have to check the floor, otherwise it's either in these or the first 2. I think it was the first 2, because these have a green cast that I think comes from the copper green.

Transparent glasses didn't do much for me using this treatment. They seem to be "harder," to use a vague term. In these, the baking soda just looks like a heavy etching. The feel of the top bead on the left is odd, kinda soapy. Underneath it on the left is bordello, which looks ok. CiM adamantium with silvered ivory looks pretty cool, but you can only see the top here. Effetre kelp is pretty boring as well. Ivory pastel over clear is very boring indeed. I thought it might do something neat since it's so soft and prone to boil anyway, but no, it had to behave itself. I can't remember what the top bead on the right is, but I'm thinking odd lots of stringer. The one underneath is as cool as it gets. It looks from here kind of like a pierced pea, but in real life it looks like carved rough green turquoise or something. It is a stringer made from copper green striped with CiM olive and wrapped more or less randomly over a clear core. The last bead is just olive. It looks ok but does not do anything weird.

Can't put it off anymore. The shoes aren't happening. I've been trying to make a shoe that's daintier and more foot-shaped and by reducing the glass around the mandrel and shaping it too close to the mandrel, every bead I've made has cracked. These three are the most intact. The one I'm holding (together) held up through cleaning and I was going to photograph it and try to reproduce it, but I noticed a whitish line across the instep. I applied a little pressure and the bead snapped in half. I can make these shoes as chunky and heavy or not at all. Rats.

Here's the pile of shame. Note one of them even has a stilletto heel. It couldn't hold up, though. Back to the drawing board.

Messy Color Update

2010-07-24T16:39:00.000-04:00

For anyone just joining me as I wander across a field of glass, I've been honored by having some of my work mentioned on the Creation is Messy website. I've also been trying out new techniques while I work out colors. This is such a bead. October is breast cancer awareness month in the US, but women are diagnosed every day and a friend has asked me to make some pink high heeled shoe earrings to help spread awareness. Creation is Messy has pictured my bead on their page for Gelly's sty, which I think is the absolute best glass to use for this purpose. It is nice and stiff and screamingly pink.

I am frequently frustrated by my inability to get the beads I see in my mind's eye to come out on the mandrel. This set was one of my rare successes. It took quite a few tries to get it just right, but I am very happy with how they turned out. They are mentioned on the Lapis page.

This is the original by Vincent Van Gogh. I think the mood came out pretty well.

This set reminded me of a seaside landscape and the blog post it appeared in is linked to CiM olive.

Hopefully this has been an enjoyable excursion to Creation is Messy.

Fall (color) Diet Pictures

2010-07-21T17:35:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted many pictures since the weekend, but I have been working. I really like the way the glass is acting on the new diet. I confess to a certain amount of premeditation with the way these turned out in that I knew that many of the colors I picked were going to do neat things when I combined them with metals and silver glass.

The bead on the left is made on CiM lapis with a twistie of copper green, CiM bordello, DH Aurae, and DH terra2, with some silvered ivory thrown in for good measure. Believe it or not, the weird greenish stripe bordered with black is the bordello. This, I was not expecting. I can only speculate that the greenish color is it reacting to the silver glasses next to it and the black stripes are it reacting to the copper green with the silvered glasses. If anyone else has any suggestions of what it could be, please leave a comment because I like it but I'm stumped.

The long bead on the right is a base of Effetre dark red special, 1/2 rolled in silver foil and melted, rolled in a DH reducing frit blend on the other half, wrapped with the same twistie as above and silvered ivory stringer, and swirled in a couple places.

This is where the battery on my camera died, so I had to settle for a group picture of the remaining beads. You'll see more of the copper green stringer, plus one made with just DH terra2 and aurae, and another made with EFF dark red, light pumpkin and trans topaz on a base of clear. I used silver foil, DH reducing frit, and silvered ivory stringer pretty liberally on all of these. The only one that has anything different is the center bicone, which has another stringer made with a very tight twistie of CiM adamantium and silvered ivory.

I hope you've enjoyed this sneak preview into the beads I will be listing over the next week or two.

I'm going back to work tomorrow so I don't know when I'll be torching next, but when I have new beads I will post them.

Carol Tries on the Glass Slipper

2010-07-17T12:06:00.000-04:00

All right, it was a poor fit. Too small, too big, and of a shape no human foot would never conform to. A customer asked me to try making a pair of pink high heeled shoe earrings for charity and I had to give it a try. CiM Gelly's sty is just exactly the right color. It screams pink and more importantly, is nice and stiff so it holds its shape while I dither around with the torch trying to figure out how to make a convincing shape. It was meant to be a classy, high heeled pump with a beaded decoration on top, but neither one of these things happened. And I forgot that Gelly's sty devitrifies. I'm running low on gas again so I couldn't heat it enough to get rid of this, and I'm not sure the heel would have taken it if I did.

The heel gave me the most fits. From this angle it looks pretty good, but what you can't see is that it had to be pretty wide to stand up to the heat without wilting. The heel area in general is a bit wide, though. I'm going to try starting with a smaller bead to anchor it and work from there, which should allow me to make the instep area a bit narrower as well. This picture is good. It hides the immense wideness of the wrong areas.

The top decoration didn't really work out, because I added it before I was done shaping the glass and it all melted together. I was pleased with the fact that there was an open area between the heel and the toe. I shall keep this and work on getting the rest to be more foot shaped. Another thing I was thinking of was not continuing the hole all the way through the tip of the toe. It would be really cool if I could hang the earrings from the heel, the way you'd carry a pair of shoes with 2 fingers. I need to have the mandrel reach the toe because I am not at all confident of my ability to keep the shape of a scoop shaped bit of hot glass in the flame. I can see the toe swinging all over the place.

I'm not at all unhappy with the way this turned out as a first attempt. Most of the stuff I eventually wind up with takes many tries to get it the way I like it and I've done worse. Previously, I've made some snowmen, fish, a frog and a penguin or two. This is an entirely new shape and much more technically challenging. Even if I never wind up with earrings I'm glad I tried it. I'll amend this post if I ever get it right.

Pepsi Refresh Everything/ Beads of Courage

2010-07-17T09:26:00.000-04:00

Beads of Courage has moved into 16th place. Please vote to help kids with cancer! Starting at 10th place it can win $25000!