Tuesday, June 28, 2011

An Interesting Phenomenon

Yesterday, I spent several hours at the torch.  I mixed colors, pulled twisties, played with color combos and made what seemed like a lot of beads.  When they came out of the kiln I showed my husband.


 "Honey ~ look at all the beads I made today!"

Then I took them off the mandrels.  32 spacers, 21 beads and 2 pendants (not counting the focal that's still stuck on the mandrel.

You know what happened?

It no longer looked like several hours worth of work.


It's a good thing I'm doing this for love instead of money!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Coolest Thing Ever!!

Yesterday I was torching (Yay!!)  and I decided I wanted to make a rainbow colored twistie.  I'm not sure what the accepted way to do this is, so I set about figuring it out myself.  I started with a paddle of clear, striped on the colors, and covered the whole thing with clear. I'm using CIM clear at the moment. I took a picture because I thought it looked kind of cool.

This is the paddle, striped and encased.  I usually encase going around from one side to the other, but in this case I was afraid the whole blob would melt off the clear rod if I did it that way, so I striped on the clear.

I got this hot, grabbed the end with tweezers and started pulling the twistie.  Then I decided that since I had a begining picture, I may as well have a pulling picture.  Obviously, with both hands full, I needed help.  So I called to my 12 year old (who by the way is a real shutterbug!) and asked her to come in and snap the pic for me.  Feel free to ignore the mess in the background!


Here are the finished twisties.



While she's snapping pictures my daughter says "Hey Mom, that blob at the end looks like a heart!"  Huh.  It kind of did.  But I'm pulling twisties, so I make several more.  Then I decide to see if I actually could make a heart out of the blob.  I held the blob with tweezers, used the atached clear rod to make a bail and popped it in the kiln.

Then I made a bead with the twistie, just to see if it worked.

Not quite what I was going for. It looks as though some of the colors didn't make it into the pull.  Nothing to write home about, but it's okay.

 
Do you want to see what I pulled out of the kiln?  The coolest thing EVER! And it's the first bail I've made using this method that actually worked! I am sooo going to try to do this again!






                                                      Thank you for the inspiration Jill!!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Back to Work

Ah the poor neglected blog.

So here's what I've been up to the last several months in 50 words or less:

Got a real job.  Had fun.  Met great people. Stressed out.  Cried.  Stressed out some more.  Quit real job.  Regained personal life. Realized if I put the same energy into my own business it would be successful.  Fell in love with lampworking again. 

Whew!  Hope I never have to run through that cycle again! 

So what's next? 
Back to the torch full time, but with a new appreciation for what I will now consider my "Real Job"!

P.S.  I'm walking in the Anacortes Relay for Life this weekend.  Check out my Etsy shop to read my personal story and see how you can support this great cause.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Life Lessons from Farmville


For the last month I've been playing Farmville in real life, and in all honesty it's the best job I've ever had.  I worked apple harvest for my Grandfather who is 85 years old and has been farming for at least 60.  I had worked in the orchard several times as a teenager, but I didn't really appreciate it then.  It was incredible to go to work every day with a man who truly loves what he does and I learned so much from his passion for life. 

The very best part were the stories.  Several times a day, we would be walking through the trees and he would share a story from his past.  I heard stories about his grandparents homesteading in the area and weeks spent hiking all over creation with his brother.  There were stories about installing the first telephone lines in the valley, and  building the first irrigation lines in the area.  There was a story about the town sheriff that didn't have a car, a uniform, a ticket book or a gun; but would just let your dad know if you had done something wrong.  He told me how he milked cows every day before school and about the plane he learned to fly.  My favorite story was that when he was a teenager he was paid 75 cents for every 100 apple boxes he built, and at the end of the summer he and his brother pooled their money and bought a Model A for $75.00. 

Sometimes, life offers us amazing opportunities and when we take them and cherish every moment, our lives are enriched beyond measure.  So today: eat an apple, hug a tree, thank a farmer, bask in the sun and really appreciate the incredible people in your life.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Sunset Pastel

Yesterday I played with Sunset Pastel glass from Effetre (591206).  It's a pretty pink in rod form, with concentric lines of orange and darker pink in the core.

By itself, it ranges from coral pink to orange either with or without swirling.  The spacers in this photo were wound straight on the mandrel, the larger beads were swirled on. You can see the range of colors that come up both ways.

 As you can see in this spacer, there is some devitrification when exposed to too much heat. This one was the first of four on the mandrel.

When encased in clear, this color seems to run more toward the orange end of the spectrum. Which is really intensified when used over black.


When encased in CIM Blush, the color really leans more toward a purple tinted pink.


And when mixed with ivory, blown into shards and layered over effetre black the color also appears as a swirly coral with some crazing where it meets the ivory.


All in all, a color I will continue to play with, and probably even re-order.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

New Glass!!

I was fortunate to be able to spend the weekend at the Frantz Bash, an annual event hosted by Mike Frantz that always includes demos by fabulous artists, great sales, camping, camaraderie and he feeds you. :)   I met some great glassy people, learned a lot, and of course bought way too much glass!  The picture below shows all the new (or at least new to me) colors.  I left out the pounds of clear, but we all know what that looks like!


I ended up comming home with: Fire Lotus from TAG; XX386, HE379 and Aether frit from Double Helix; Metalic Black, Golden Harvest, Sunset Pastel, Carribean Sea, Coral Sunburst, Alexanderite, Dusty Lilac and Apple Blush from Effetre; Gunmetal, Poison Apple, Glacier, and Razzleberry from CIM; Magic from Reichenbach; Purple Plum, Mauvelous, Biscotti and Pale Pesto from Vetrofond. And of couse a few basics from all of thee above.

I'm really excited about all the new colors, and I promise to post pictures and what I've learned from each of them! (This should give me plenty to blog about so I'll be able to post more regular updates.)  :D

Off to light the torch and see what kind of magic happens!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Dark Side

That's how the glass world fondly refers to using boro ~ and I'm thinking of crossing over.  I make happy little beads.  They're little, bright, technically acurate, but they aren't spectacular.  Every time I feel pretty good about where I am with my beadmaking, some boro boy comes along and tells me "if you would just practice a little you could be as good as I am.  I've been doing this for 6 months!"  Thanks.  So you're telling me that several years of working with soft glass was a waste of time.  In a way, perhaps they're right.  My happy little beads, in all honesty, don't hold a candle to their 4 inch marbles, wine glasses, 8 inch pendants, bracelets, etc. the list goes on.  I would need a MUCH bigger torch, all kinds of new glass and tools, a bigger kiln; essentially doubling the investment in my business.  But I'm tempted, and I hear they have cookies.