What's Up Wednesday

The view from my studio window

The view from inside the studio

Guess where I'll be all day!

Stay warm my friends!

Motivation Monday - Colorful Combinations

Things that inspire me, color combinations I love, the music that rocks my studio and 

anything else that makes me want to jump up and make a bead!

It's Motivation Monday and do you know what I want to make today?  Everything!  I'm sitting here with a hundred ideas running through my head; colors, shapes, styles ~ and I just can't decide where to start.  I seriously need to focus!  

If I could make a bead from my thoughts right now, it would look like this~

or this

I think I need to listen to something really calming today!  A reminder to just breathe is probably a good idea.

There's a Jimmy Buffet song for everything!

Thanks for checking in and stay motivated!

What's Up Wednesday - New Torch

upcoming events, news, and interesting tidbits

I got a new torch! Well, I got it last summer, but I finally set it up!

  I've been using a Nortel Mega Minor for the last year.  

I love this torch!  It's perfect for what I do, the flame is big enough to melt glass fast, and small enough for detail work.  I can fiddle with the knobs for a wide range of propane and oxygen mixes to affect the colors of different glass.  Plus, it's pretty!

But, I bought this guy.  It's big.  So big that I've been afraid to set it up.  It's been in a cupboard in my studio since last summer.  I finally decided I had to set it up, so I cleared my bench and set it up next to my mega minor, because I knew I didn't want to switch completely yet.

This one has a HUGE flame!  Just about the first thing I did was burn through a mandrel. Mandrels are made of stainless steel and I didn't even know it was possible to melt them!  So far, in two days of playing with this, I've made approximately ONE bead that wasn't totally ugly.  I even pulled out my boro glass, and still got ugly beads.  I'm going to have to use my smaller torch for a while to catch up on orders, but I WILL master this one!