Tuesday, October 27, 2009

New Line of Beads!

So what do you do when you're super excited about a new line of beads!  It's so hard to decide - do you roll out the whole line (i.e. several at once) with hoopla and fanfare?  Or do you introduce them one at a time?  One at a time will get more views in your Etsy shop - and we all know views equal sales.  But all at once makes a more dramatic entrance!  I voted for all at once for this line, I'm just too excited about it to only do one at a time!  So what am I talking about?  

CHARMED DREADS!!




Color and motion drawing attention to your hair!  The charm lets me add elements that I would ordinarily not be able to create on a bead - like dragonflies for instance, I can never get those right! I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoy making them!  I'm headed to the torch to see what else I can do with these - I think today I'll make one with a lizzard, but who knows?  The possiblities are endless!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Ugly Beads

They say if you are making a bead and you decide you don't like it, smash it and make it into a fish.  So what happens if you are making a fish and you don't like it?  I now know the answer to that question ~ Really Ugly Beads! 

As a bonus:  ugly beads take really bad pictures!!  Do I dare attempt fish again today? 

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Color Mixing

Yesterday I played around with mixing my own custom colors.  Basically, you take two rods of glass, heat the ends, smoosh them around and pull them into something resembling a new rod.  Actually, it's more like a thick stringer when I do it. :)  I then made clear beads and encased them with the new color - the clear base makes it so my skinny rod of glass will go farther.

This set is made from effetre rosewood and dark ivory mixed about 50/50.  So far it's one of my favorite custom colors!  This is something I will most likely continue to play with, as a matter of fact, I'm off to play now!  Have a great day :)

Monday, October 12, 2009

Shards


This past week I decided to try my hand at shards again. The dismal results from my first attempts notwithstanding - I think I've finally figured it out! :) For those of you that don't know - shards are made by wrapping glass around the end of a hollow tube, blowing until you get something that resembles a lightbulb, then shattering the bulb and using the bits on your bead.


So far, the recipe I've liked the most is ivory glass wrapped in silver foil, burnished in, then rolled in aion powder. This makes a nice organic webbed effect!




The most important lesson I learned doing this is to heat the bead, not the shard! Applying heat to just the shard instantly melts it down to nothing! Sometimes doing it wrong is the best way to learn to do it right. :)
I'm off to the torch to see what lessons I can learn the hard way today! Have a fantabulous Monday!!

Monday, October 5, 2009

New work

I'm working on a few new things - night scenes and ocean scenes. Couldn't be farther apart! But I'm having fun with both :)

Here's a night scene - Blue goldstone background, big yellow moon, tree silhouette and a black bird preparing to take off from a branch.





and from a series of Starfish by the Sea - A red starfish waits on a sandy beach for the cool blue water to cover him.

I have another series of ocean floor beads that I'm working on as well. For now, I'm calling these my 'no fear' beads. My goal is to feel the freedom to add more and more elements to a bead with out the fear that the next step will 'ruin' it! It's a concept that I have difficulty allowing myself to believe :)

Off to the torch!! Happy Monday :)