Thank You Notes

I've been streamlining shipping lately and am skimping where I shouldn't be.  Namely, the thank you note.  Ideally, it should be an individually written card lovingly enclosed and packaged with the order.  It should thank the customer, remind them who they're shopping with, and encourage them to come back.

I'm of two minds.  I truly believe in my deepest of hearts that most of my customers toss them.  I've seen a couple board posts with people lamenting the waste of paper and packaging on simple orders.  I can't skimp on packaging - all it takes is one order arriving damaged and needing to be replaced and I'm in the red.  Promotion is a different story.  We've all got business cards and enclose them in each order.  Even with returning customers.  I keep business cards in a file on my desk with notes on them as to what I bought and if anything happened but I'm not sure anyone else is this compulsive.

Where does the thank you note fall in?  Again, this is something I have sent but stopped when I started seeing that the same people who I sent them to complained about wasteful shipping.  At the same time, I just received one from a large supplier I placed a wholesale order with and I'm rethinking the whole thing.  It was individually printed, customized to what I ordered, tasteful and shared what they did that made them different from the other places I might have gone.  There was an individual's name (first and last), their phone number (not 800 but we're all on one-price unlimited calling anyway) and an invitation to call for any reason at all.  When I read it I was struck by the thought that someone actually cared.  I was planning on doing business with this company again anyway because they have great prices and their product arrived in good condition, exactly as advertised and promptly.  I confess that the thank you note I received is tipping me more in their favor.  It was a wholesale order.  I'm a small fish in a big pond.  A person with a last name gave me their phone number if I'd like to discuss my order.  I'm impressed.

What does this mean to me as a small business owner?  I'm going to enclose a thank you card again.  I have them, I might as well use them.  The ten seconds it takes me to write one out is priceless.  Please let me know if you find this offensive or tedious.  I will flog an idea to death.  If you disagree I want to hear about it!

If you've stumbled upon something that your customers find extra special, please share it with me so I can steal the idea.

Late Night Insanity

Apparently at 3AM I decided that what I needed to make my life complete was a new BNS.  A BNS is a promotional treasury where you buy into one of the featured shops and in return get your shop featured and have people buy from you.  It's a great tool for exposure and while no one gets rich doing them the participants are wonderful supportive people and great gossips.

For some reason I decided that participating wasn't enough - I needed to run one.  I'm featured in over half a dozen of them at any given time, but I wanted the whole enchilada, so I set one up.  It should be harder than it is.  Pick a bunch of shops and a theme, usually color based (I picked purple -surprise!) and put it out there.  Invite a whole bunch of people and welcome to the party!

Here's the link to mine
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/OTA5MzcwOXwyNzIzMTE3MTM4/open-fireinice-bns-bonus-rounds-its?ref=pr_treasury

As far as glassy goodies go, I'm not sure how well the two will mix.  I've already been dismayed by how much time I spend promoting vs. making, photographing and listing stuff and this isn't helping.

Here are some of the new goodies I've made

 I'm not happy with my pictures lately.  I'v been shooting indoors because outside isn't giving me true color.  I've got to compensate, especially the blue range.  Red doesn't do well indoors, as the beads below (on a base of CiM Sangre) prove.  I only wish I could capture the complexity of the dots and beauty of the beads. They're a bit flat.

 Silver and gold are fine and I love the simple look of silver and gold just plain laid over glass.  Easy to work with.  Easy to wear.  Easy to care for - just either wear it or polish it like your other jewelry.

These were a bit of a let down - I used up my last rods of Effetre light aqua and wound up with beads that weren't the same size.  I'm going on vacation soon and can't afford to order more glass so these pretties are relegated to the seconds section.  Less than 1mm from perfection.  Honestly, I ought to have just kept them for myself and made earrings.  No one will notice a millimeter since my ears are more than a mm different anyway.  I could wear the smaller earring on the bigger ear and no one would know.

I don't know how people list new stuff day after day.  It is either promote what you've got or make it.  I'm having serious issues doing both.  Which is why I was awake at 3AM doing a treasury.

Foodies Beware

I've been shopping lately at the Amish market in Flemington, NJ.
http://dutchfarmersmarket.com/

The selection is awesome and many of the goods offered for sale are hand produced. I read about buying local and organic food and additive free but on a supermarket shelf these words are meaningless.  My local supermarket has produce from my county proudly displayed in the front of the produce aisle.  When I see it, I buy it.  Nowhere do I see meat, eggs and butter that I can point to on a map.  Here I can.  When I buy a pound of cheese I can say it came from here.  The farm is right on the label.  As far as organic goes, I know that the beef, pork, lamb and chicken are raised in what we city slickers call a farmyard.  They don't do the cage thing.  The feed they give their animals isn't ground up who knows what with a chaser of antibiotics and hormones.  Organic is a term that has lost all meaning.  It's good to know that what I'm eating was produced using farming techniques I can trace back through generations of my own family.

A bit of caution:  the fish is brought in daily from the fish market in NY.  Produce is likewise sourced.  Bulk goods such as spices, grains and flours are repackaged quality ingredients.  Many of their candies are also repackaged bulk supplies.  Do try their homemade fudge!  They've got more preserves and pickles, all homemade, than I can even name, including a few family favorites like watermelon rind and pickled peaches.

I'll close with a recipe I made tonight

Green Beans Almondine
2 lb. green beans, ends removed and broken into mouth sized pieces
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. olive oil (optional, but nice)
fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds

Combine the beans, salt, vinegar, oil (if using) and pepper in a microwave safe dish.  Cover with cling film and microwave on high 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, melt the butter and cook until it just starts going golden.  Add the almonds and remove from heat.  Let the temperature equalize and return to a low heat and toast the almonds to a warm, nutty brown.  Toss with the cooked green beans and serve.

Happy Independence Day

There is a bit of glassy goodness at the end but first I want to share this

 If you leave Joe alone for too long, he gets bored and finds something to do.  I love the skull with the pipe and helmet I found in his man cave corner.  The skulls are models he bought at Toys-R-Us, of all places and aged and decorated.  Periodically I'll find one doing or being someplace odd.  Read that part about Joe getting bored.

I haven't been bored.  The set of beads above is some new Val Cox frit (Ocelot Spots) I want to talk about.  The white bead in the middle I'm referring to as my resting state bead.  CiM Peace, with Ocelot Spots frit melted in.  It's pretty in an amber kind of way.  On the right are 2 beads with Ocelot Spots on Effetre super clear.There's a lot of variation in the way the colors distribute themselves....

The beads on the left are Ocelot Spots on a base of Effetre Straw Yellow.  I didn't deliberately reduce them, but on a hothead, everything gets reduced anyway so I might as well run with it.  Notice the greens and blues around some of the frit?  Not present on clear. Present in a lesser degree on the top left bead.  I figured since I was going to get reduction anyway, why not go for a boro kind of look and encase it?  Here are the results - I like it!

Hurray!

Today has been a great day!

Joe started his new job at Home Depot this morning!

The thermocouple for my kiln arrived today, is installed and the kiln is firing well as I type!  I'm going to make beads soon!

Time on my Hands

Having just lost my day job I find myself with a lot of time on my hands.  I'll say right off the bat that I feel horrible but I'm determined not to let that paralyze me.  I'm devoting more time in the "studio" and building my lampwork connections.  I feel creative and am very happy with the beads I've been creating.

The above is a little gift to myself.  I made a working hourglass and wired it into a pendant.  It's more of a secondglass and it's lopsided, but as a first effort I'm loving it.  My sister came up with the idea and it's a good one.  If I could come up with a way to get the glass as thin as it needs to be and symmetrical I could offer these on Etsy.  As it is, I'm going to wear it with pride and thanks to Ruth.

I've got 24 hours in a day just like everyone else.  I choose to use them doing what will make me happy.  I will not waste them in negative emotions.

Intermission

 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.

A Day in the Life

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.

It's a Long Story

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.

Post Weekend Warring

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

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

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.

Patience is a Virtue

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.

Honeysuckle?

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.

It's a Day

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

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...

 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

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.

New Jewelry and Hope

 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

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.