The Bead Blog

Beads with Canyon de Chelly Glass

2011-07-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite earth tone glasses is Canyon de Chelly from CiM. It reacts in interesting ways with other glass colors. Here are some examples of beads I've made with Canyon de Chelly:

Canyon de Chelly base with ASK Caramel Apple scrolls, etched
Canyon de Chelly and Effetre Copper Green, etched
One of my favorites - Canyon de Chelly base with Double Helix Psyche scrolls
This might be my favorite set ever with CdC. The base is Copper Green and silver foil, the scrolls are CdC :) The beads are etched
This silver-cored bead has a Canyon de Chelly base with Psyche "flowers" I made from a striped CdC/Psyche latticino
Here's a set made with the Psyche flowers
So, there's a gallery of my favorite Canyon de Chelly beads to date! There are so many other glasses I haven't tried CdC with, but if I find some great new combos I'll share them with you here.

Hint: If you work with Psyche and Canyon de Chelly together, give the Psyche a couple rounds of reducing/oxidizing, getting it metallic, then erasing the metallic shine. This will develop more colors.
:)
Have fun on the 4th!
Love ya beautiful bead peeps!

P.S. Soon I'm moving my blog to my website. I'll let you know when that happens. I really don't want to leave the glass community here on the Blogger blogs though, so I'm still going to keep this blog open and post here too, to some degree, I'm not sure how it will all work yet!

Marbles

2011-07-02T16:51:00.001-07:00

Over the past month or two I've been making marbles. I learned how to make them years ago from a video, but I haven't tried them again in a long while. Here are a few of my recent ones:

For the clear on these marbles, I used some large diameter Effetre rods. If you go over to my Facebook BeadAbundant page, you can see all the pictures of my recent marbles in my Marbles photo album.

Maybe some time I'll make a video of me creating a marble (Thanks for the inspiration, Kathy!). It takes about 1/2 hour to make one, so I need to get a bigger card for my video camera so I can capture video longer than 10 minutes.

The hardest part of marble-making for me to get has been removing the final punty, melting the bump flat, and tossing it in the kiln before it cracks or rolls away! (The roll-away thing has happened a few times. I've always been able to grab them up off the floor with my hotfingers, toss them in the kiln and never had a problem with them!).

These days I'm busy building a new website, and I'm deeply engrossed in all the crazy coding and all that technical lingo I don't understand. It's the kind of project I have to get intensely obsessed over for a few days, because if I leave it and come back after a day or two break, I've forgotten little details like the hex number for my background color or where in the CSS code to put my header width. I forget all the terms and what they mean and what I'm doing, and then it takes me a while to get back on track.

A person can't simply be a maker of glass trinkets these days and expect to survive in the cut-throat world of lampworking, oh no no! You have to be an ace studio photographer, a Photoshop geek and a technological wizard! And that's just to get started! Then you have to be a savvy marketer and sales person, a prolific blogger, social networker and emailer, and have pretty packaging to boot! I knew being a Super Mom was training for something!

Well beautiful, loyal, wonderful blog readers... I will be moving my Blogger blog (that's this blog that you're reading) when I finish re-doing my website. My blog will be integrated with my site and will be its homepage. For a while I will be double-posting, but after a while I won't be updating this blog anymore. Not leaving it yet, but soon. I will give you more warnings, and the link to my new blog.

Have a great Fourth of July weekend, USA bead peeps! And happy weekend to everyone else too!

Nyx Hollow Beads

2011-06-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Greetings bead lovers! I'd like to show off this simple pair of Nyx glass hollow beads I made recently. I'm still practicing with hollows so the shape is a little "organic." At least I got dimpled ends on this pair, that was my main goal. I love using just a single glass color in my beads, and Nyx is great for that because of its variety of metallic shades:

It's been ages since I've written in this blog! I often think about my blog and miss it like a good friend I haven't talked to in a while. It's so good to be back in touch.
More soon I hope. I've been making marbles and want to show you some pictures of them!

Spring Is In The Air

2011-02-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

We're still having some cold weather, and there's still snow on the ground in lots of places around the country, but Spring is indeed on its way. I found these daffodils sprouting up in my yard last weekend:
I've made another bead video, still practicing with the video editing software and having fun with it. The video below demos an Ivory bead with Gaia scroll designs, like the beads in this set:The background music is a little dramatic! (turn down your volume :-D) ..but I had to find a music piece that fit the length of the video, and it was some pretty cool music, so there it is for you. Enjoy...

Latest Bead Sets and Adventures

2011-02-07T23:59:00.000-08:00

Good morning bead lovers...
I have a couple of new sets listed in my Etsy shop today. For starters, this Aurae encased set with a beautiful ethereal look in purple and blue pastel colors:These beads are decorated with Psyche stringer designs. Psyche gets nice oil-slick colors if I put it through a couple of reducing/oxidizing cycles. At least that's the look I was going for here:I made this set over the weekend for a custom order. I used a Double Helix odd lot of Terranova called TN-212. The scroll designs are Triton:
The weather is getting a little nicer here. Last week it was freezing cold, 10 degrees, which I've never seen in Sedona before. We're having highs around 60 now. Nice enough to spend time outside again. Here's a photo of my daughter at her riding lesson on Saturday:and the stables with the Tuzigoot ruins in the background:Today she's off to Belize to vacation with her dad for a week. Then off to Grammy and Pop-pop's in Florida for another week. What a life :)And therefore, Mom is going to have lots of bead time and quiet times these next couple of weeks, which is always a welcome luxury!
Have a sparkling Tuesday!

Video: Silver Coring a Bead

2011-02-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

February has arrived! Not my favorite month, but at least it's a short one and spring cannot be far away. I know most of you are buried in snow today... good time to curl up with a warm beverage and read blogs! :)
Here is my first bead video about silver coring. It's only the second video I've ever edited and completed. It doesn't go into a lot of depth because like my javalina video, it was mostly for practice. Maybe if the bead business doesn't pan out I have a future in Hollywood film-making!? Yeah!!!

Here are some beads that have emerged from my studio in the past week or two. This first set is made with Ivory and Gaia scroll designs:
These beads are made with an odd lot of Double Helix glass called CE-352G. They have a beautiful brown-ish gold color with streaks of opaque light brown:
I have a couple of Triton sets too. Click on the images, some of these bead sets are still available in my Etsy shop:
I'm editing my next video right now which is a demo of me making the Ivory/Gaia scroll set pictured above. I'll post it here when it's ready.

Are you following my Facebook bead page? I often post there first when I have something new because I'm already on FB 24/7 anyway (hee hee). Come on down for a visit! http://www.facebook.com/beadabundant
Stay warm!

New Videos and Beads

2011-01-31T18:20:00.000-08:00

Howdy bead lovers, I'm back to the blog after a long time away for the holidays. I feel like I've been busy with domestic duties and house-guests since November. I think just this week I finally exhaled!

I have a lot of things saved up to write about. One of my newest enterprises is making bead videos and posting them to YouTube. I have one bead video posted so far and a few others that are shot but not edited. For practice editing and posting videos, I started with this one of a javalina in my back yard:

This week at the torch, I made these silver cored beads using Triton, Aurae and Ivory and encased them with Aether clear. They were all made with the same glass recipe yet turned out so differently:
And this one with a base of Ivory and scroll designs in Gaia:
On to February, let's make it a great month!
:)

Emerging from Turkey Day - a few listings

2010-11-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

Wake up, it's Monday! I'm just emerging from my turkey and Virginia ham coma, so it'll be a short post today! My Thanksgiving was great, I hosted 16 for dinner. It was a full week of being hostess with the mostest and entertaining in my house. Relatives came from all over the country. It was really good all around, no mishaps, the meal was great, and it was a refreshing change of pace from my usual hermit lifestyle. I'm actually feeling quite energized from the whole experience.

I haven't made many beads in the past 2 weeks because I've been busy with the holiday, but here are a couple of listings from my Etsy shop. These are made with the lovely CiM Sangre and gold leaf:I also have two sets of pebble-shaped organic beads. These were made by mixing several different colors together in the flame, pulling the molten glass blob into custom-colored rods, then using the rods to make beads:
Hope your Cyber Monday has been prosperous!

Coffee Beads

2010-11-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

I've been busy getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm hosting dinner for 16! My parents are arriving tomorrow, which means I've been housecleaning! Scrubbing the stove, re-arranging the furniture, scraping the kids' modeling clay off the floor... and I think I've located the dust bunny warren! All of this cleaning just makes me want to relax for a minute with a nice hot cup of cinnamon French roast coffee...I made this set of coffee bean beads and a coffee mug bead last week, it's listed in my Etsy shop. The coffee beans are etched and look very realistic! I thought I had sold the set a few days ago when a customer put it in her cart. She hadn't paid after a day, so I sent her a reminder. She replied that she could not figure out how it got into her cart, and then discovered that her 7-year-old niece had put it in there as a "surprise" for her! :-D Oh well, it's back on the market now!

Also this week, I've made a silver cored bead for a custom order. It has a base of Aurae Light:My customer emailed me about making a silver cored bead for her based on this set of Aurae Light and Kronos frit beads I'd made in the past:When I took this glass recipe and made a silver cored bead with it, the Aurae Light base glass struck to a reddish-orange color, I think because of the heat required for the bigger bead. The Kronos frit and the Aurae fumed nice blue, green a purple colors.

TGIF!

***ETA: My customer for the silver cored bead can't use it because of the orange-red color, so I'll be listing it in my Etsy shop soon. [Not having much luck with the sales of these beads this week, am I? :-D]

Silver Glass Crystal Beads

2010-11-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

Good evening bead and jewelry lovers!
I'd like to share a few beads I've made this past week, but before I do, I just need to say one more time I LOVE MY NEW KILN!!! I look forward to torching just to use it. The old kiln I was using was my very first bead kiln. I bought it in 1998. It was one of the first kilns designed specifically for beads, called the Toaster Kiln, made by Brian Kerkvliet and sold by Frantz. Kiln manufacturers have really improved on the game since then. This new kiln from The Glass Hive is like a luxury Cadillac SUV compared to the old Datsun 210 of a Toaster kiln! If you've never seen a Glass Hive kiln, click on this link --> The Glass Hive and check them out!
And now, to the beads...

These sets were made for a custom order. This first set uses Ekho:These are Luna:These are Triton and Kronos:All of the beads were encased with Aether clear and formed with the crystal press.

My customer had actually asked me to make her some Luna crystals based on this set (below) I'd made for her before, but I couldn't do it for the life of me! The Luna crystals pictured above as you can see turned out dark blue! The difference is that my skills have changed with Luna and I can strike it better now. But is it really better? This older set is actually more colorful. Try as I might, I could not undo my skills to make poorly struck beads. Ha!
I have more stuff I could blab on about, but this post is already getting long. I'll have to come back tomorrow and show you what else I've been up to.
Cheerio!

New Kiln!

2010-11-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

I am so excited! My new Glass Hive "Regular Guy" kiln arrived! Let me share the excitement of opening the box with you...And here she is, all shiny and stainless steel and gorgeous:The photo was taken before I screwed on the door handles and the mandrel shelf that comes off the front. Now it's all put together and in my studio and I just love staring at it! I did manage to shake myself out of my love-sick trance last night long enough to fire it up and give it a test run. My beads came out great, with no kiln marks or anything.

It's a very roomy kiln at 20 inches wide. Much bigger than my old kiln. I'm going to be able to fit lots of beads in here. With my old kiln I could only work about 4 hours before it was filled. I think I could get 6-8 hours out of this kiln. Another great feature of this annealer is the handles on the top. It's very heavy and those handles are great for transporting.

Javalina Home Invasion

2010-11-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

Last night around 2 am I heard a snorting and a scuffling on my back porch. Javalinas again. Javalinas are like wild pigs, though they're more closely related to rats. They stink pretty bad and they travel through the neighborhood in packs, devouring anything that might by any stretch of the imagination be considered potentially edible. I once saw some javalinas eating an aluminum pie plate.

Tonight, they were after my bird seed and potted plants. I keep the bird seed in a metal pail with a locking lid next to the back door. The lock was child's play to these beasts. At 2 am birdseed was scattered all across my back porch and 10 javalina adults and 3 babies were rooting through it. Two potted plants were eaten down to nubs or less. All that remained of them were tipped-over pots and dirt everywhere.

I tried scaring the javalinas away to get things cleaned up, but it's hard to scare a javalina. All they did was back up a few feet and stare at me with beady eyes. They can be especially aggressive when they have babies with them so I was a little cautious. It took about 1/2 hour to scare them off after that. They'd just hide in the bushes and come back when they thought I was gone. Finally I gave it up and hit the hay.

This morning I woke up and made my sleepy way to the kitchen. Through slitted eyes I could see the bag of cat food had been ripped open. Cat food was strewn across the floor. Hmmm. Now who could have done this? I only have one explanation, and it's not my little sweetums kitty-cat Tony! It was the cute baby javalinas! They're the only ones in the pack that could have fit through the new cat door I just installed! Wow! So javalinas came into my house while I was sleeping?!?! Great!!!!!

I really really do think November is going to be a great month, despite this and the fact that every candidate and ballot measure I voted on yesterday lost. This is McCain country after all. Gotta love Arizona! Javalinas, scorpions, tarantulas, Republicans, it keeps life exciting!!!

Disclaimer: No javalinas or Republicans were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Peace my friends, hope you had a happy hump day!

What Is A Memory? [poem]

2010-10-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

Something non-bead-related for you tonight...
My daughter Tara is 10 years old and she loves to write. She has written over 40 'books' and countless poems. This is a poem she wrote tonight for my Dad's 70th birthday.

What Is A Memory?

What is a memory?
A memory is a small warmth in your heart
A memory makes you cry
A memory makes you laugh
A memory is something faint in your brain
A memory is a friendship
A memory is a loss
A memory is something very valuable
A memory is something that hangs in your thoughts until the end of your days
A memory is a memory in so much special ways
A memory is a dying flower or a growing weed
A memory can even just be a seed
A memory is a spiral
A memory is a line
A memory is every thing!
Every second is a thought
Every day is a memory!
Jump and dance!
Enjoy life!
Have a ball!
Scuffle across the floor!
Do something no one never done before!
We're headed to Florida tomorrow to celebrate my Dad's birthday. I'm looking forward to the beach!

Bead Pairs and Nyx Spacers

2010-10-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm figuring out the loaner kiln I got from the Glass Hive and last night I made a set of Nyx spacers. I really like the oil-slick colors I got on these:I've also found some nice orphan pairs in my collection of extra beads. They're not exact matches, but either they're close or they go together well. They're listed in my Etsy shop:

New Metallic Orphan Beads

2010-10-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

I have two new sets of metallic and striking Double Helix orphan beads in my Etsy shop. This set of blue, green and gold metallics:And this set with pink, purple, orange and gold:Just a quick post tonight, I wanted to let you know about these sets!

Pancakes in the Oven

2010-10-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Pancakes, yum! Love pancakes! Hot on a plate with butter and maple syrup.

I had pancakes for breakfast this morning. Not the edible kind of pancakes though... I'm talking about "pancake beads" in the kiln.

You know when you make pancakes, the first one is usually not that great? Maybe it's pale, it soaked up too much cooking oil, something just isn't perfect about it? Well it's the same thing with beadmaking for me. When I torch for the first time after being gone for a few days, the first couple of beads are always my "pancake" beads. They don't turn out that great because I'm just warming up, like a pancake griddle.

I've been away from the torch for a couple of weeks now since my kiln died. I'm ordering a new Glass Hive kiln, and while it's being made, they've kindly sent me a loaner to use!

Last night I fired it up and made beads. It was great fun, but I was so out of practice after being away for a few weeks that I made a whole kiln full of pancakes. That's all right though. It's kind of a blessing that none were that great, because when I took them out of the kiln this morning, almost every single one had a kiln mark!!!! Kiln marks are those dreadful rough spots that can happen when you put a bead into the kiln when it's still too molten, and it gets the imprint of the kiln floor. I guess this kiln runs a little differently than my old kiln. I'll be back to beadmaking again tonight for another test run.

Have a good weekend!

Fall Colors Etsy Treasury

2010-10-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

My River Rock Organic bead set is featured in this gorgeous Etsy Treasury by AnotherCountry called "All I Want Is My Fair Share":I love the fall colors, the organic feel and variety of textures and items in this collection. Click the photo to visit the Treasury.

My loaner kiln from the Glass Hive arrives tomorrow, I'm soooo excited! I can't wait to make beads again!

Silver Glass Orphan Sets

2010-10-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

I've been going through my collection of metallic and silver glass beads and putting groups of them together. It's really amazing how many orphan beads I have, and some nice ones too. Since I make sets, there are always extras. If I want a set of 7 beads, I'll make 9 or 10 and pick the 7 that match the best. So here are groups of these extras that I've basically put together by color. Some of the sets are still available in my Etsy shop:
Blue metallics:Green metallics:Pinks, purples and gold:I have a pile of beads spread out in front of me now and I'm putting more sets together, so keep checking back at my Etsy shop.

I'm getting a new Glass Hive kiln!!! YAY!!! While my kiln is being made,they are loaning me a kiln to use! That should be here in a couple of days. I'm so excited.

Sea Storm Bead Set

2010-10-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

While I wait for parts for my kiln to arrive, I've listed a set of beads I made last week before the kiln went on the fritz. I love purple and wanted to have that color in this set, so I started with a base of Psyche. I added Kronos2 frit and layers of clear and swirled the colors together. Psyche tends to lose it's reduction after it's encased and heated a lot, so as I was making these beads the transparent purple color of the Psyche came back.
Here's the set, "Sea Storm" on Etsy:Regarding life with a broken kiln...
When you have something you love to do that is your passion, it's torture to be unable to do it! For a couple of days after the kiln broke I sat in my studio and felt sad and lost. I quickly realized that wasn't getting me anywhere. I had to create something! You know that feeling?

I've thought of a few things now that I can do. For starters I've been cleaning out my garage/studio. I've also been going through my extra beads and putting together mixed sets that I'll be starting to list on Etsy today. I have a ton of extra beads that are great quality, they're just odd beads from other sets or experimental designs. It's been fun to go through them and put groups of them together. I like the way these orphan sets are turning out, and I'll have some photos in my next post. Another thing I'll be trying in my extra time is making videos of me at the torch. (I can torch, I just won't be able to anneal any beads I make). I'm going to employ my 15-year-old YouTube-savvy daughter to teach me how to edit and post videos.

The replacement parts I've ordered for the kiln might arrive today, but I'm beginning to lose hope that the kiln can be easily fixed. I think I need a whole new element made, and I can't figure out how to remove the old element from the kiln. Honestly what I need and want is a new, more energy-efficient and better kiln. I went searching for kilns yesterday online and now I'm completely lusting after the GlassHive kiln! I'm totally ruined now that I've seen that kiln. I have to have it. Forget about fixing the old kiln! :-D

Well, I'm working on it, I'm determined, I will have this GlassHive kiln one way or another... just gotta raise $750! And maybe in the meantime I can rig this old kiln to run a few more cycles, if I can get the replacement parts to work.
Peace and love bead peeps!

Kiln Done Broke

2010-10-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Baaahhh waaaahhh boooo hooo!!!Warmed up the kiln the other night, sat down and lit the torch, then noticed the temperature in the kiln was dropping fast!

I shut off the torch, checked the controller, the relay, everything seemed to be working fine, but the elements would not heat up.

When the kiln cooled down, I opened the side to look at the wires. One wire was burnt all the way through!The white circle in the photo is a ceramic insulator where the wire connects through to an element. Now I know the source of the burning electrical smell I've been smelling in the studio the past few weeks! Omg!!!

I'm going to blame this on my ex-boyfriend! I'll admit he had the best of intentions last year when he changed an aging wire in the kiln, but he must have replaced it with a standard hardware store wire and connectors, not the special high-temperature wire and stainless steel connectors that a kiln requires. I'm surprised it lasted this long.

Monday morning I'm going to talk to a kiln part place in Connecticut that I found online. I'm hoping they can sell me the parts I need, and I can re-connect the whosie-whatchit to the whatcha-ma-callit. Electronics is not my forte.

One thing my ex told me last year when he opened the kiln, showed me these wires and *so kindly* changed an old one, is that this electrical system is very simple, basic and easy to understand. He was right. There's nothing fancy or complex about this system. I know I can fix it.

Until then, I guess I'll be bringing you more posts about my cat.

Meet Tony Harrison

2010-10-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

It's the wonderful pumpkin month of October, I hope it's off to a good start for you! I'd like you to meet the newest member of our family, Tony Harrison:A few weeks ago he was a stray, yowling outside our house for food. I'm a total softie, and we love cats, so I easily caved and fed him some tuna fish. Luckily we wanted a cat anyway!
Tony must have been domesticated before because he's very affectionate, playful, and understands the command "DOWN!!!" when he's caught hopping up on the counters. Of course not many creatures would fail to heed my bellowing "down" command, no matter what the language! He looks very healthy too... sleek coat, not skinny or feral, no mites.

And yes, he's got a people name. Tony Harrison. On reflection, this was a very appropriate name to give him. He might actually be a person in disguise. He sleeps on our beds sometimes, with his head on the pillow and his body laying down on the bed. Some of the poses he strikes are strangely human. And he talks a lot! If he were a person he'd be one of those "loud-talkers." He's a tough guy too with huge paws. He's named after one of our favorite characters, the pink, tentacled, p**is-headed-flying-carpet-riding Tony Harrison on the British comedy TV series "The Mighty Boosh."
[***Video Alert: The British do not have the same rules as the US about all the things you can't say or do on television*** :-D]

Fall is Organic Bead Time

2010-09-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

Good morning, good afternoon, happy Monday bead peeps! Fall is my favorite time of year for beadmaking. Not only is the studio cooler, but I get to bring out all my favorite brown, tan, and dirt colors and mix them all together into earth toned glassy goodness!

For starters, I have this bead set made with Effetre Dark Fossil and Double Helix reducing glass, available in my Etsy shop:A fellow beadmaker suggested I try Fossil with silver glass, so I bought a 1/4 pound to try out the color. WoW, I love it! I will need to go back and order at least a pound of this, it's going to be one of my favorite glasses for organics.

I've also been working on a series of organic big hole beads, which I've silver cored and capped with my own handmade sterling silver bead caps. A couple of them are shown in this recent blog post, and here are a few more:
This one has gold leaf in the mix and hammered bead caps:
This one also has gold leaf and a paisley or wave pattern:This one is my pièce de résistance - a bead with double caps! It started out as an experiment, I wasn't really sure I could do a double cap on this size bead, and it took a lot of time to get the bead caps to line up just right... but I had a blast making it and I'll probably do some more in the future. I recently bought some design stamps for my new line of charm necklaces, so I used one of the stamps to decorate the outer caps. The inner caps have a hammered texture:I think it's going to be a good week!
Many thanks to all the folks who've started following me on Twitter. I'm still trying to figure out how the whole thing works! I'm looking forward to the new Twitter layout they're rolling out over the next few weeks. Lately I've been tweeting every day, maybe a couple times a day. Click the link in the right side bar to see my Twitter profile and follow me! Thanks!

Follow Me on Twitter!

2010-09-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

http://twitter.com/karolendeupree

Two New Scroll Sets

2010-09-24T05:03:00.000-07:00

I have two new scroll design bead sets in my Etsy shop. This first set has Triton scrolls melted into an Ivory base. The reaction between these two glasses makes a great organic webbed effect:The second set is made with a Nyx base and raised Aurae scrolls. I love this glass combo:Here's another Nyx and Aurae set I made a few months ago:
TGIF!!!
:-)

Prehistoric Fish!

2010-09-23T20:41:00.000-07:00

These really cool, unique "Prehistoric Fish" were made by Mary Van Hoy of Van Olive Lampwork. I love her style, and love the colors... I see some metallic glass! Check out these fish in her Etsy shop:

The Fruits of My Summer

2010-09-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday bead peeps! I'm back with a blog post after a long summer hiatus. I spent July and August hunkered down in the studio like an obsessed mad scientist, having a great time learning how to make silver charm necklaces. I'm now carrying this new line of custom charm necklaces in my Etsy shop! Here's one example:I have a variety of styles, or you can design your own. The charms can include crystals, pearls, and hand-stamped initials or designs of your choice. They are so much fun to make!
I've also been hammering out sterling bead caps and adding them to my silver cored beads:Here's a recent bead set, made with CiM Halong Bay and Aurae, a beautiful combination:More photos of my new work coming soon. Have a great week!

New Silver Cored Beads

2010-07-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

I have a couple new silver cored beads listed in my Etsy shop today:The first bead is made with Double Helix odd lot KA-356 and encased with Aether clear. It looks like a sunrise to me. I love the colors and the soft look. KA-356 is translucent so the bead has an inner glow from light reflecting off the silver core.
The second bead is Ivory with Aurae scrolls. It's a nice small bracelet bead, with lots of crackled Ivory detail.

I have 10 more big-holed beads sitting on my bench waiting to be cored. It's been a while since I've listed any new silver cored beads... that's because my Mom bought the silver Pandora bracelet I have been using as a prop in my photos. She asked me how much the bracelet cost, and I thought she meant how much I paid for it. When I told her the price, she wrote me a check for the bracelet. I froze for a second, suddenly realizing that she was buying my photo prop which I need to photograph my silver cored beads. But I couldn't turn away Mom, right? Mom should have what she wants! And if it inconveniences me, well, I think I've inconvenienced her a few times with things a little more dire, starting with birth. So, I've been saving my pennies for a new silver Pandora bracelet, which has now arrived, and is now pictured in my new silver cored bead photos. Whew! And Mom LOVES her bracelet, and now I get to make her a bunch of beads for it!

Purple Lampwork Treasury

2010-06-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going Treasury-happy on Etsy now. I've created a collection of my favorite recently-listed purple lampwork beads. One of the best things about creating a Treasury is finding new artists and marveling at their amazing and inspiring talent!
You can view the Treasury by clicking on the image or the link below:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c1c2454bd2f8eef44040968/luscious-purple-lampwork
Enjoy your weekend!

Pandora Glass Beads

2010-06-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a set of spacer beads I made with Double Helix Pandora glass:I haven't worked with Pandora in a long time. It was fun to break it out and play with it again. While the glass is hot it looks transparent green, but after spending 6 hours annealing at 950 F, then cooling down overnight, it develops the streaky purples and blues... if I'm lucky!

Part of this bead batch turned a muddy pale green. I tried making two beads on the mandrel to save kiln space, but that didn't work too well. While laying down the second bead, the first bead would cool and turn opaque light green. They went into the kiln with one bead being opaque and one being transparent. Only the transparent green beads, the second ones laid down, turned nice colors. The beads that went into the kiln opaque, stayed muddy. Lesson learned: Get the Pandora hot only once and pop it in the kiln, don't work this glass too much or let it get cool and hot again.

The Pandora bead set is in my Etsy shop, along with this new mixed metallic set using mainly Nyx and Kronos glass:
♥ ♥ ♥

Latest Bead Sets

2010-06-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

These two sets are new in my Etsy shop:The top set is made with a base of Nyx and flattened wraps of Triton glass. I love the colors of Nyx and the industrial look of these beads. The second set is made with (I think!) Terra2 glass and the Double Helix odd lot KA-356. I swirled the colors together, struck and then encased.

Next on the chopping block - perhaps for tomorrow - is a set of mixed metallic beads and a set of Pandora glass spacers, inspired by Gardanne! I'm still working on the Pandora set. Some of my beads from yesterday did not strike. My set is not turning out anything like the pretty earth-tone colors in Gardanne's set, I'm getting more purples and blues, in the beads that are striking anyway.

Visit my Fresh Green Glass Treasury on Etsy to see some lovely beads in various shades of green made by some very talented lampwork artists!

Who Loves Green Glass?

2010-06-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

Sure, I've heard the rumors.
"No one likes green."
"Green beads never sell."
I happen to love green, it's my favorite color next to purple, and green beads sell quite well for me! I'm flaunting this fantastic color, with as many shades as there are green growing things and with depth and hues as varied as the many waters of Earth, in my first ever Etsy Treasury. Click on the photo to visit!
I created this Treasury quite by accident. I was surfing Etsy and clicked on the Treasury list. I just so happened to click when the lists were below 333, and I was able to create my own Treasury! I wasn't prepared to do this today, but not wanting to miss the opportunity I put together a grouping of delectable green lampwork beads. All of the listings are created by the bead artists themselves.
Enjoy, and please visit the shops of these talented artists, where you'll find many more incredible beads!

Bainbridge Island, WA

2010-06-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to travel to the magical misty forests of Bainbridge Island, Washington, a half-hour ferry ride from Seattle. I used to live in Oregon, but it's been ten years since I've been back to the Pacific Northwest. I've been baking in the sun here in Arizona since then, and needless to say I've gotten a little... parched. Going to Bainbridge Island was like adding water to a dry sponge. If it's not raining there, then it's misting, cloudy, and just about to rain any second. I loved it!

Here are some photos from the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, a beautiful property with 150 acres of tended gardens and wild forests.

The Japanese garden:

Flowers in the forest:

Baby geese!

In bead news... I have a few sets to photograph today and I'll post the pics here when they're ready.
Both of my kids, ages 9 and 15 are at summer camp in Minnesota for the next month. This is so weird, having the whole house to myself for this long. I guess it's been 15 years since I've experienced this. I can't believe all the beadmaking time I have now. And I can clean the house and it won't get messy again. Wow. I'm hoping to be able to share lots of bead chat and photos with you in the coming weeks!
:-D

Art Bead Scene Blog: Friday Finds with Lorelei: Lampwork Favorites

2010-06-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

Lorelei has included this set of my beads in her Etsy Treasury East! Thanks Lorelei!This is a 'destash' listing of an assortment of beads made with Terra, Ekho, and other Double Helix striking silver glasses.

Click the picture below to visit the Treasury page and check out all the gorgeous lampwork! I'm partial to Gardanne's "Pandora Assortment."
Here is Lorelei's blog post about her Treasury:
Art Bead Scene Blog: Friday Finds with Lorelei: Lampwork Favorites

Enjoy your weekend!

Silver Glass Destash on Etsy

2010-05-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of 'destash' orphan bead listings on Etsy, made with Double Helix silver glasses like Terra and Ekho and encased with Aether clear. Click on the photos to see the listings.

Silver Cored Beads on Etsy

2010-05-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

Here are two of my latest silver cored beads. This first one is made with CiM's Mojito, my favorite pale emerald green glass color. The surface is decorated with raised designs of gold metallic Aurae. The Aurae fumes the Mojito to a golden color and puts a blue mother-of-pearl sheen on the surface:If you view the bead from the side, you can see the Mojito green color and blue sheen:
This next bead is made with Terra2 and Ivory, encased in Aether clear. I tried to keep the bead cool as I worked it to preserve the dark purple and red colors:
I'm doing some Spring cleaning of my bead stash and I'll be listing groups of orphan beads for sale in my Etsy shop.

Terra2 Swirl Beads

2010-05-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

I love the new Terra2 glass. This set is made with Terra2 and Double Helix odd lot SL-173. The SL is like Triton, it encases with a blue/green color, and it gave the green color to these beads. The pinks and purples are really nice in Terra2, if I can work it cool enough to keep the color from washing out. The encasing glass is Aether, and I left some area on the side of the beads unencased so it got a metallic shine. This set is in my Etsy shop tonite:

Terra in My Etsy Shop

2010-05-14T02:01:00.000-07:00

I have a few rods of original Terra glass for sale in my Etsy shop!
Click on the photo to see the listing :-)

Nyx and Triton Beads

2010-04-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

Nyx might be my favorite Double Helix reducing glass because it's so easy-peasy to reduce. Triton used to be easy for me, but something happened... either it's the new batch I got, or the moon has moved out of phase this past year, who knows, but I can't easily get that nice shiny gold from Triton anymore. I've gone from Triton Queen to Triton Jester in a short span of time. Oh well! :-D

I pulled out my Triton the other day to use on this set. I love these beads... they've sold, but they were fun to make so I might have to make them again. The base is Nyx, the sprial wrap is Triton:

Fun With Terra2

2010-04-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

I'm obsessed with Terra2! I've made many, many practice beads with it in the past week and managed to get a few colorful things.
Here's a set made with Terra2, Kronos frit, and Aether clear:

This is a sterling silver capped and cored bead made with Terra2, Ivory and Aether:
And here's a second one I made very similar to the first:
When I work this glass too much, the color washes out. That has been my biggest challenge. Otherwise I think the glass is similar to the original Terra, but slightly more translucent maybe, is easier to strike, with better colors.

Kelley's Bead Studio Blog

2010-04-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Kelley of Kelley's Bead Studio has featured my beads in her blog! Check it out HERE.
Thank you Kelley!!!

Rainbow Nebula Beads

2010-03-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

Using Double Helix odd lot TE-362 again, this time mixed with a twistie of Ekho and Terra for a swirling nebula look. The three striking glasses seem to enhance each other and strike better when mixed. I made three silver-cored beads. The first one is in my Etsy shop today:

Double Helix TE-362

2010-03-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

Frantz Art Glass recently had an odd-lot of Double Helix for sale called TE-362. I bought a little and it has become my favorite striking glass.

It was advertised as an opaque Ekho, which is similar to how I'd describe original Terra glass. The difference between this glass and Terra is that it strikes faster, easier and better, and it gets a metallic shine when cooled and re-introduced to a neutral flame.

Here are some sets I've made recently with TE-362:
With Kronos frit, encased with AetherSpacers with metallic shineWith some Terra, encased with AetherI've heard a rumor that DH will be making this into a regular color!

Sterling Silver Dust

2010-03-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

A customer asked me to make a set of beads for her, based on a style I made more than a year ago. I wasn't sure I could remember how they were done, but luckily I did, and here they are:The base is Kronos and the swirls are sterling silver dust. The beads are encased with Aether clear.

I first tried silver dust because I was looking for some other way to add silver to my beads besides wire, mesh or foil. Silver dust can be bought, but I made my own by taking a rough file to a piece of silver sheet and making a little pile on my marver. I was going to use fine silver, but I didn't have any fine sheet or bezel wire. The only fine silver I have is 28g wire. Too fine to file. I suppose I could have cut it up into tiny chips - another style idea. But the only silver sheet I had on hand was sterling, so that's what I used.

After making a Kronos base bead, I rolled it in the dust like I would with frit or enamel powder. I used a Kronos stringer to twist the line of dust into swirls. Then I reduced and encased with clear.

Here's another set I made for the same order. These are Double Helix odd lot TE-362 and Vetrofond Odd Olive, encased with clear:The customer wanted them to be 15mm, and the sizes to be uniform. I was very happy I managed to make most of them 15.5mm, with some at about 16mm. Whew! :-D

I keep a brass micrometer - or whatever you call those things, that we use to measure bead sizes - beside my torch, opened up to 15mm or whatever size I'm working on. Since it's brass I can put the hot/warm bead right between the brass openings and get an accurate measurement as I'm making it.
Do you have a way of measuring bead sizes while you're at the torch, or what methods do you use to make your beads come out all the same size?

New Website Design

2010-03-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

I've got a new updated website. It's very simple, being basically a portal for where to find me on the web. I still have a few more pages to add.
Stop by for a look!

Etsy in the NYT

2009-12-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

The New York Times has an article about selling on Etsy, "That Hobby Looks Like a Lot of Work."

QUIT your day job?
To some craft enthusiasts that is just the name of a popular blog on Etsy, the fast-growing Web site that serves as a marketplace for crafts and vintage goods.

But to Yokoo Gibran, it was an epiphany.

Ms. Gibran, who is in her 30s, had been selling her hand-knit scarves and accessories on the site for less than a year when she decided last November to quit her day job at a copy center in Atlanta. Thirteen months later, she would seem to be living the Etsy dream: running a one-woman knitwear operation, Yokoo, from her home and earning more than $140,000 a year, more than many law associates.

Jealous? How could you not be? Her hobby is her job. But consider this before you quit your day job: at the pace she’s working, she might as well be a law associate.
Read more...

Very interesting article... hmmm... I think I'll get to work!

Aurae Light Spacers

2009-12-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

I bought a 1/4 lb. of Aurae Light from Double Helix a few weeks ago, just to try it out. I made a small set of spacers with it:The spacers pictured above turned out nice, but there were many more I made that did not turn out well. I found the glass to be more difficult to reduce than regular Aurae. Not that it doesn't reduce, it just reduces more quickly, or it heats up and strikes to a greenish cast more readily than Aurae. I found I had to hold it way, way out in the flame, like 6-8 inches from the torch face while reducing, and not get the bead too hot.

I think that making really shiny solid spacers from reducing glass is harder than using it as decoration. There is something about the smooth, round face of a spacer bead that lends itself to uneven reduction and striking from overheating. I think Aurae Light would be perfect for raised dots, raised decorations, and under encasing (which I've tried and it looks really pretty).

It's similar to the way Dark Silver Plum works. I learned this from Amber (Naos). If you try and make a smooth round spacer bead with DSP, it often stays black and shiny and it's tricky to get the peacock hues. Yet if you make a textured bead with it, it gets the matte metallic look and the colors much more easily. Reducing glass from Double Helix seems to be the same way in a sense - it's easier to get a nice metallic shine when there's some texture in the surface.

Does it sound like I'm complaining about glass? (There is some line about a craftsman who blames his tools... hmm...) Maybe it's because I've got a head cold right now, ugh! Also I seem to have lost my knack for reducing Triton lately which really has me upset. Is it that the recipe for Triton has changed? Have I forgotten how I used to reduce it? It's really weird. It reduces to a dark grey metallic, then goes right to an over-reduced green-tinted yuck right afterwards. Where's the shiny gold I used to get?

I hope you are healthy and enjoying yourself for the holidays!
More soon :-)

Metallic Thread Beads

2009-12-05T01:40:00.000-08:00

I have two new sets on Etsy. This first set is a "destash" of orphaned metallic thread beads. They're various sizes and shapes and use combinations of Nyx, Elektra, Kronos and Aurae:This set is made with a base of Nyx and threads of Aurae:I'm waiting anxiously for the UPS lady today who is bringing a pound of Triton from ABR! They're having a sale on Double Helix glass right now.

Terra and Ekho Beads Destash

2009-12-02T17:32:00.000-08:00

I have some new "destash" listings in my Etsy shop tonight, Double Helix Terra and Ekho beads encased with Aether clear:

Organic Brown and Metallic Beads

2009-11-30T16:57:00.000-08:00

I listed this on Etsy tonight. It's a set of 9 beads with 2 that are larger than the others and could be used as a separate earring pair. To me they look like sandstone with metallic ore running through.I'm also going through my bowls of extra beads and making up some 'destash' listings for Etsy. I have so many extras that are perfectly good, I just never made a complete set of them, or else they're a set of the same style but mis-matched sizes. There are lots of reasons nice beads become orphans.
I put up these two destash listings today and they're now sold, but look for more in my Etsy shop during December.
These are made with ASK Blue Bahia and etched:These are Ivory, not etched:

Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T22:20:00.000-08:00

My kids had the week off from school and we went down to Scottsdale, AZ to spend Thanksgiving with family. Relatives came from Tucson, New York, Connecticut and California. My Aunt Ann threw a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner. There were 23 people at the table!Ann is the woman at the opposite end of the table. She is an amazing painter, and in the picture above she's standing in front of one of her paintings. You can see her website HERE.

We're back home in Sedona now and I'm looking forward to getting back to the torch this week.
I hope you had a nice week too!

Those Pesky Hairs! A Photoshop Tut

2009-11-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Troubled by those unsightly hairs that sneak into your bead photos?

I know the story... You're sure you dusted off the bead before you took the picture - but gasp! There it is, another bead fallen victim to a bad hair day! What's a girl to do? Spend another 10 minutes re-taking the photo? It's too late to pluck with tweezers!
Relax... if you've opened the photo in your Photoshop program, just select the "Smudge Tool"!

Here is a photo of a bead that I dusted with a ridiculous amount of lint for dramatic effect:I open the photo in Photoshop and select the "Smudge Tool." I'm using Photoshop CS2 here:Starting with the background of the bead, I'll tackle the areas in the circles first:
How to erase the lint:

1. Select the Smudge Tool and make the tool radius small. I'm using the size "7" and the strength "100%" here.

2. With your cursor, place the Smudge Tool just to the left of but not touching the lint you want to erase.

3. Click and drag left to right across the lint to erase it, using the shortest drag distance necessary.

4. For large pieces of lint, only erase a little bit at a time, lifting and moving the Smudge Tool to the next section of lint until the whole piece is erased. This will give you a better looking smudge than if you try and erase the whole big piece of lint in one drag.

Here is the photo now with the background lint removed:Now I'm removing some of the lint from the bead surface. This part is trickier because I don't want to smudge the details of the bead:And here is the final outcome of the virtual lint removal:Not perfect by any means! But you get the idea. If this were a bead photo I wanted to use in a listing, I obviously would have first questioned the unusual level of dust in my house, then re-taken the picture. I must have spent a half-hour in Photoshop getting rid of all that lint.
I hope this helps. Have fun!

Beautiful Jewelry - Katinn on Etsy

2009-11-17T18:38:00.000-08:00

Kathy the Bead Lady, or katinn on Etsy, makes the most gorgeous jewelry using Bali silver, Swarovski crystal and lampworked beads. I love this combination. Below are some of my favorites from her shop.

Colorful Metallic Beads

2009-11-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

I listed these beads on Etsy tonight, and they've sold now, but I have to show them to you!

One of my customers, Jill, asked me recently to make some beads with Elektra glass for her. I hadn't used Elektra in about two years. I had 3 rods collecting dust on my glass shelf because I could never get anything I really liked out of it. I tried making some simple Elektra spacers for Jill in a seafoam green color, but just couldn't do it! It wasn't working for me at all in the way that it does for some glass artists. I had to tell her that unfortunately I couldn't complete her order.
Here are the greenest spacers I could make with my Elektra, but they're really kind of blue, not the seafoam color I wanted:

In one of our last emails Jill suggested that Elektra and Aurae might look nice together, so I gave it a try. The textured colorful beads at the top are the result. I'm so amazed by them - the color is incredible I think! They are made with an Elektra base and surface texture of Aurae.
I'm headed right back to the torch to make more!

It was actually Jill who bought these beads from my shop tonight, I didn't even email her to tell her I was listing them or anything. And she had no idea that they were made using her suggestion. Thank you Jill!
One more pic of the beads:

Click on the photos to see a larger view.
:-)

What I've Been Up To!

2009-11-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a while since I last posted on my blog! I'm going to jump right in with a few photos of some beads I've made lately.

This is a silver cored bead made with Aurae glass. I gave a light reduction to an Aurae base bead before applying clear dots over the reduction and melting them in. The translucency of the glass gives the bead a pretty inner glow:

This style I really like, it's a silver cored bead made with Dark Ivory and Aurae scroll designs. Ivory and Aurae mixed together create an incredible 'crackled' look on the bead:

These next beads are made with Dark Silver Plum. They were made for a customer who wanted beads to match a DSP sculptured bird bead she bought from Jennifer Geldard. These beads mimic the eye of the bird. It was an honor to think that my beads might end up on a necklace with a Geldard bird!
If I want to play catch-up, I really have so many bead photos I could post here! The photos above are just a random sampling of some of the things I've made recently. I will be showing more of my favorites in coming posts.

So what have I been up to lately? Life! :-D
In addition to Life, I've been up to my ears in custom bead orders for at least a month. On one day alone I received 6 custom orders which is a record for me. I had to develop a system of index cards to keep it all straight. It's been a real blessing and a great opportunity to talk to some of my customers in more depth, which I love to do. However, I'm so ready to be done with the custom orders now, make beads I 'want' to make, and focus on re-stocking my Etsy shop. I've decided not to take any more custom orders until after the new year.

Now that Life and custom orders are chilling out, I hope to be writing here more often.
Enjoy your weekend!

Silver Glass Etsy Listings

2009-09-16T21:11:00.000-07:00

I have two new Etsy listings tonight. The first is a set of Nyx accent beads:The silver glasses never cease to amaze me! I don't think I've ever made a set of Nyx beads that turned out so silver-y. Every day that I work with a silver glass it comes out a little different than the day before. It's almost impossible to truly duplicate a bead or set with silver glass in it.

Another case in point is the next bead, made with Triton and Kronos frit and encased with Aether clear. There's no way I could predict how the colors on this bead would turn out, and if I used the same recipe again a hundred times I'd have a hundred different beads:Lovin' it!!!

Siver Cored Beads on Etsy!

2009-09-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

I've been working on silver coring beads for a few weeks now. I have quite a little collection going. I love to gaze at them, polish them, put them on my Pandora bracelet. Trouble is, I love them so much I'm having a hard time letting them go. They are my babies.
:-D Lampworkers, you know what I'm talking about :-D

Yet all babies must one day venture out into the big world and find a new home and gainful employment. Such it is with my cute little silver cored beads. The separation anxiety has been a little tough, but I've finally listed a few on Etsy! Here are their photos:

Etched organic:Double Helix Kronos with Kronos frit:CiM Mojito with Triton (2 photos):CiM Slytherin and Mojito with Triton:

Have a nice Monday and happy beading :)

Silver Coring Beads: Sources and Supplies

2009-09-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

If you'd like to silver-core your beads, I've put together a short list of information sources and suppliers to get you started.

There are a few good threads on the Lampwork, Etc. message board that are worth checking out. For inspiration, this thread has lots of photos of Pandora and big-hole beads:
"Let's see your Pandora style beads"
http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80096

Tutorials
The following two LE threads written by Andrew were invaluable to me while I was trying to figure out silver-coring. I have all of the tools Andrew lists, including the polishing bits and compounds he recommends. One thing I do differently from Andrew is I cut my tubing 1/16" (or about 2mm) longer than the width of my beads, not 4mm as Andrew does. This is in part because I use the Jim Moore bead press, and the 1/16" measurement works best for me with this tool.

Andrew's excellent tutorials:
"Rivet Tutorial (Da pretty silva bit)"
http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95388

"Polishing ( Da pretty silva bit )"
http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96712

Supplies!
There are lots of places you could find the silver-smithing tools, but I got most of mine from Rio Grande. Rio Grande also carries the "brownies" and "greenies" polishing bits that Andrew talks about. I've found they work really well:
Brownies
Greenies

The Autosol metal polish mentioned in Andrew's polishing tut can be purchased on-line from Winterbrook Farm Antiques:
Autosol
The Autosol works great but has a petrochemical smell. I love it anyway though and I'm glad I bought it. It really cleans and gives a nice mirror finish to the silver.

photo courtesy of Ginko Designs

Sterling Silver Tubing
The one supply I found hardest to locate was the right size silver tubing to fit my beads and the Pandora bracelet. All of my prayers were answered when I found Ginko Designs Etsy shop! She has worked with a manufacturer to develop this unique size of tubing that perfectly fits the Pandora bracelet. Her shipping is fast and the tubing is high quality, and you're also supporting a fellow artist when you purchase from her shop!
Ginko Designs on Etsy

3/16" Mandrels
Another supply I had a really hard time finding was 3/16" mandrels. I don't know why this is such a rare size! I was very happy to find them finally at Arrow Springs.

Jim Moore bead press
The most helpful tool of all has been the Jim Moore bead press. I've tried hand-riveting with the punches, but the Jim Moore tool is faster and easier, especially if you're a beginner silver-smith. Here's the link to Jim Moore's bead press:
Jim Moore Bead Press

I hope this post has been helpful to you!
Have fun!

Learning to Silver Core Beads

2009-08-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

For the past several weeks I've been holed up in my studio, often till the wee hours of the morning, researching everything I might possibly need to know about putting silver cores in my beads and making silver bead caps. I have tables piled with gigantic Rio Grande catalogs and boxes of rusting yet resurrect-able silversmithing tools from bygone days.

Finally, last week, research done and hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars saved for this very moment, I placed my orders and waited anxiously each day for the UPS lady to arrive.

Now my studio is happily scattered with styrofoam peanuts and shipping boxes, out of which has come polishing bits and compounds, silver tubing, silver sheet, hammers, mallets, mandrels and one very heavy and gorgeous Jim Moore bead press!

The photo at the top of this post shows the one success out of my first six attempts at silver coring a bead. Here is what remains of the other five attempts:There is definitely a learning curve to this process! And I'm not even finished learning how to make the bead caps, which is another ongoing studio adventure at the moment.

Today marked Day 4 of working with the tubing and bead press, and I finally have 5 successfully lined and polished beads which I will photograph and post here soon.

Stay tuned for my next post featuring sources and resources for everything you need to silver core and cap your beads!

Ekho Crystals

2009-08-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

What was that? Ekho crystals! Just listed in my Etsy shop:These have a pretty mother-of-pearl sheen.

Sparkling Mixed Metallic Set

2009-08-03T19:47:00.000-07:00

This set of mixed metallic beads is up in my Etsy shop:The beads are made from Kronos, Triton, and a bit of Aether clear, all from Double Helix. I really enjoy making these mixed metallic sets because every bead is different, yet I need to make them similar enough to go together in a set. Fun! And fun to make into jewelry and wear, too! Click on the pictures to see the full-sized image.

De-Stash Listings on Etsy

2009-07-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

I listed a couple of de-stash groups on Etsy tonight, but right in the middle of writing this post, all the beads sold! Well, here's what you missed:I'm making up more destash listings, so I'll be back with another post when those are ready!

Tutorial: Gradient Background for Bead Photography

2009-07-24T18:11:00.000-07:00

I was asked recently in an email what I use for a backdrop/background in my bead photos. The answer is simple: a white-to-black gradient printed on glossy photo paper.

I know many beadmakers already use this technique, but for those who haven't tried it yet, I've made a short tutorial on the process.

I have a Mac computer and I use Photoshop CS2. I think the Photoshop interface on a PC looks similar to the Mac version, so this tut will work for PC Photoshop users. If you don't use Photoshop, perhaps you can adapt this tutorial to the program you use for photo editing or graphics.

The instructions below include text followed by a screenshot of the step in Photoshop. Click to enlarge the images.

How to Make a Gradient Background in Photoshop

1. Create a "New Document" in Photoshop with the following attributes:
- Name: "gradient" or whatever suits you
- Width: 8 inches, Height: 10 inches
- Resolution: 200 pixels/inch
- Color Mode: Grayscale, 8 bit
- Background Contents: White

2. With your new document open, choose the Gradient Tool from the tools palette. Also, make the background color white and the foreground color black.

3. Using the Gradient Tool, click at the top of the document window and drag straight down about 2/3 of the way and let go. A gradient that fades from black at the top to white at the bottom should appear on the document.

It should look like this:

4. Save your document as a .psd or something that will preserve the high resolution. DO NOT save it as a .jpg, that is too low-res and will make an un-even, pixelated gradient when it's printed.

5. Printing the document
In the print options, under "Print Settings" choose:
- Media Type: Premium Glossy Photo Paper
- Color: Black
- Mode: Advanced
- Print Quality: Best Photo
(Or whatever the similar settings are on your software)

Here is the kind of photo paper I've been using recently. I bought it at Office Max:

A note about printing:
I have noticed that some brands of black printer ink are not truly black. It's similar to how Effetre Black glass is not really black, but a very dense transparent purple. The same must go for when ink companies try to manufacture the ever-elusive black: they have to make it a densely pigmented version of some color or colors. Because of this, my gradients sometimes turn out with a greenish or reddish cast in the "black" area. This is very frustrating. There are a few things that can be done:
- Try a different brand of black ink next time you need to change cartridges.
- Take your photos anyway with the slightly tinted background, and make the adjustments to the tint when you are doing your bead photo editing.
- Scream, lament over the expense of the wasted photo paper and ink, give up completely, and go make beads.

If anyone knows how to solve this vexing black ink problem, I'd love to hear what works.

Variations on the gradient:
- Try clicking and dragging the Gradient Tool half-way down or all the way down the document window to change the length of the gradient, which will either add more black or more white area.
- Instead of a white-to-black gradient, try white-to-green, white-to-purple, or some other color combination to make a colored background for your beads.
- Place the beads near the center of the gradient page when you are photographing them, where it is fading from white to black. Or, put them on the white part for a pure white background or on the black part for a darker background.

Care for the printed gradient:
Gradients printed like this tend to scratch and stain easily. Take care with it. Expect that you may need to print another one up every few months or so when the old one gets too many scratches.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I think it's the first one I've ever made. I had fun. Good luck with your bead photography!

T-218 Accent Beads

2009-07-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

A favorite Double Helix odd lot glass of mine is T-218. I'm not sure which production glass Double Helix considers it an odd lot of, or whether it's called a "test batch," but I think of it as an odd lot of Terranova. It strikes in a very similar way, only it strikes faster. It takes only short cycles of heating and cooling to bring the amazing colors out of this glass.

I've made a simple set of accent beads from T-218, and they're available in my Etsy shop:
Here's a previous post I've written about T-218:
http://beadabundant.blogspot.com/2008/10/odd-lot-t-218s-and-triton.html
The post features some beads I made with T-218 and Triton, pictured below. For some reason I didn't get the bright colors out of the T-218 in this set, but I like its earthy tones anyway:Now I'm thinking that the reason they don't have the bright colors is because my striking skills weren't as good back then. I've found that with striking glass in general, whether it's Terranova, Luna or Terra, etc., the bead has to get VERY COOL before it goes back in the flame for striking. I let it get very cool during each cooling cycle, and for the heating cycle I twirl the bead far out in the flame (8 inches from the torch face) so the surface heats up slowly and I can keep a close eye on the progress.

Keep having fun and have a nice weekend :)

How Many Beads in a "Set"?

2009-07-23T19:32:00.001-07:00

I've made a poll on the right-hand side of my blog. I'm asking you the reader how many small-sized beads you like to see in a "set." I'm not talking about simple spacer beads, more like the small beads I make that are decorated with swirls or scrolls, etc., like in the photo above.

I've gotten two responses so far, and I'm amazed at the feedback. Both responses call for even numbers of beads in a set. I generally make an odd number of beads in my sets, like 7 or 9.

This question has been asked before on the Lampwork, Etc. forum, but I couldn't find the old thread (if anyone knows, I'd love the link). I'm asking you now here on my blog, because I'm curious about what jewelry makers are looking for. I don't make as much jewelry as I used to, so I'm really out of the loop when it comes to what jewelry designers like to buy. Thank you to the people that left feedback on the poll, I really appreciate it. If you haven't voted yet, please do! Or leave a comment on this post.

Etched Scroll Design Beads

2009-07-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

I have a few new bead sets made that I'm working on photographing and listing on Etsy. Here's a preview of one of the sets, made with a base of CiM Canyon de Chelly and scrolls of Effetre Copper Green. I love the reaction between these glasses! I've etched them to brighten up the Copper Green and reveal the nice dark lines around the design:I find most of the CiM glasses, like Canyon de Chelly, are a dream to work with. They have a really nice, smooth consistency, like butter or soft taffy. Effetre's Copper Green is a long-time favorite of mine, either etched or un-etched. Here is an example of un-etched Copper Green, with the grey metallic patina still on the surface:
Today I travel down to Phoenix, about a 2 hour drive. I'm picking up my 14-year-old daughter at the airport who is just returning from canoeing camp up near International Falls, MN. I bet it's a heck of a lot cooler up there than it will be in Phoenix today. According to the forecast it should be 112 degrees. At least that's cooler than last weekend when I was in Phoenix and it was 114. Ha ha. I know there's a lot of torchers down in Phoenix... how do you folks do it? Even up here in Sedona, it's not cool enough to make beads until 9 pm!
Ok, enough complaining about the summer, which I longed for all last winter. Time to enjoy this 'dry heat.'
Have a wonderful day and weekend, and stay comfortable :-)

"Stormclouds" Bead Set

2009-07-09T22:19:00.000-07:00

"Stormclouds" on Etsy:These were made with a base of Triton and Ivory, swirled together and then encased with Aether clear from Double Helix. I love the organic reactions between the Triton and Ivory!

What I'm Working On

2009-07-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a new website and an online shopping cart. I build my own website using Dreamweaver, and I've signed up for an online shopping cart with BigCartel. The shopping cart will be part of my website. Here's a screenshot of my new website in progress:And here is a screenshot of my new shopping cart. I'm customizing the colors to match my homepage: I have been wanting to re-do my website, make it easier to update, and I've been searching a long time for a website shopping cart that will actually work for me.

I am really glad I found BigCartel. I recommend it for anyone who wants to set up another online shop besides Etsy or Artfire, etc. BigCartel is just a stand-alone store that you'd have to link to from your own website, blog, etc. They are not a venue in and of themselves like Etsy and Artfire are. For a flat monthly fee - or free - you can set up an online store with all the bells and whistles. Check them out.

I'll certainly post here on this blog when the new website is up and running.
Have fun!

Terra Mini Bicones

2009-07-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a set I had fun making - Terra mini bicones:These are in my Etsy shop right now.
When Terra turns out nice for me, it makes me happy that I still have a little stash of it. On other days I get so frustrated with it that I'm ready to sell it all in the Garage Sale! These beads worked well because the Terra had time to strike through the colors while I was heating it and marvering the shape. I like the way they turned out.
*****
Isn't it wonderful to be alive on Earth right now? I think so :-)

Psyche Cubes

2009-07-08T03:25:00.001-07:00

I just put this set of cubes up in my Etsy shop:They're made from Psyche glass and encased with a layer of clear. Each bead is hand shaped.

I find the cube shape to be very challenging, but with practice it's getting a little easier. Anyone have any tricks on hand-shaping cubes they care to share?

Triton Shard Beads

2009-07-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

Once again it's been ages since I've blogged! I thought I'd put a picture up of my latest bead set. These are made with Triton glass as a base, then covered with shards made from Triton Odd glass:The set is in my Etsy shop right now.

I've written two posts about making shards, you can read them here:
Shards, Pt. 1
http://beadabundant.blogspot.com/2008/12/shards-pt-1.html
Shards, Pt. 2
http://beadabundant.blogspot.com/2008/12/shards-pt-2.html
Happy beading everyone :)

Ivory and Aurae Beads

2009-05-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

I finished one of my Aurae sets yesterday and it's posted in my Etsy shop right now. This set has a base of Curdled Ivory with Aurae scroll designs:The Aurae and Ivory react to make the Aurae turn brown with organic-looking jagged edges, and the Curdled Ivory got very 'curdled' when it reacted with the silver in the Aurae glass.

I'm still working on Aurae sets... can't seem to put this glass down!
More to come, stay tuned!

Aurae!

2009-05-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Finally the Aurae arrived, yay! I've made two sets with it so far and I'm working on two more. Here are the completed sets:
Aurae Accent BeadsEncased Aurae and Kronos Frit Today I'm working on the next two sets, one with Aurae and Ivory (nice reaction!) and Aurae and CiM Stone Ground. The Aurae fumes a pretty metallic blue sheen onto the Stone Ground. I'll post pics when they're done.
Have a great day!

Blue and Metallic Frit Beads

2009-05-08T19:10:00.000-07:00

I recently made some bead sets using Triton, Kronos frit and clear, and I was really happy with the way they turned out. They were all made using variations on the same basic recipe.

This first set has a base of Triton, with Triton and Kronos frit. I reduced the base bead, then added random dots of clear on top. Then I reduced again and encased the whole bead in clear, then reduced one more time to get some metallic shine around the holes:This set was made the exact same way, except that I didn't do a final encasing:For this set, instead of random dots of clear I applied the clear in an even pattern, and put air bubbles in the centers. This is my ultimate favorite set of late:All of these sets are now sold, but I had a really fun time making them so I think I'll make some more.

I've finally ordered some Aurae glass from Double Helix. It should be here in a few days. I can't believe it has taken me this long, but I've been using the Aurae test batches M-166 and M-232 for a while and they're running out. I'm really excited to get the Aurae, as I see there is quite an Aurae frenzy on eBay! With good reason, it's a gorgeous glass.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and have a scrumptious weekend!

Metallic Scroll Design Beads

2009-05-06T17:31:00.000-07:00

I had another special order in April for some beads with metallic scroll designs. Here is the set I made for the order, using a base of clear and CiM's Leaky Pen with Triton scrolls:
Leaky Pen has very dense color, so I thinned it by mixing a rod of clear and a rod of Leaky Pen together in the flame, creating a big blob of mixed color and then pulling it out to a 5mm rod. I then used this mixed rod for the base bead, encased it with another layer of clear only, then added the Triton scrolls and reduced.

I have more metallic scroll beads available in my Etsy shop. This set is made with Pale Emerald Green and Triton:and this set is made with Amber Rose and Triton:Stop by my Etsy shop to see more beads and photos.
Enjoy your day!

Back from My Blogcation

2009-05-06T00:37:00.000-07:00

I've taken a long vacation from blogging this past month, longer than I intended really, and now I have a backlog of new work to show you! During April I was busy with a few special orders. I had fun working on one order that used a lot of Terra and Ivory, two of my favorite glasses.

Here are some photos of the beads from that order. The first set is etched but the Terra stayed shiny. (I think if you click on these photos you can see an enlarged view, and then you can really see the detail in the crackled Ivory!)

These are made with Vetrofond River Rock and silver foil:
Some Triton leaves:
and some Triton beads with Ivory scrolls:
I'll be back again soon with more news and photos.
Happy May!

CiM Chalcedony and Triton

2009-04-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a comment from sassyglassdesigns on one of my previous posts, I've experimented with more glass colors to see how they react with Triton. Here I've tried a blue CiM glass called "Chalcedony" and I got a sea green color!Triton scrolls seem to fume base glasses with a yellowish color, so I think it's a matter of how nice the color looks with yellow added as to how the beads will turn out.

Here is a photo of some plain Chalcedony rods, so you can see the before and after color difference:
And another photo of this set, available in my Etsy shop!

Organic Bead Set

2009-03-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed making this set of organic beads the other day. The base glass is Ivory, decorated with enamel, silvered ivory stringer, gold leaf, silver foil and Triton:*click on these images to enlarge them, you get a much better view of the detail*The beads are encased with a layer of clear. The clear magnifies the designs underneath, revealing roots, trees, rocks and streams! Truly 'organic'! This set is available in my Etsy shop.

CiM Heffalump and Triton

2009-03-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I wanted to make a set of beads using CiM Crocus and Triton glass, like the set in my last post. I sat down at the torch to start making the beads. I grabbed a purple glass rod from my CiM shelf, assuming it was Crocus, and began making the set. The color looked a little strange as I was putting the beads into the kiln, but glass sometimes looks different when it's hot, so I didn't give it much thought. The next morning when I opened the kiln to see my cooled-down beads, I knew these beads couldn't be Crocus! Oh no! What the heck glass color is that?! Ooops! Maybe I used Heffalump!Indeed, I had used Heffalump. Here are the beads next to the Heffalump rods. The beads had turned a very different color from the original Heffalump lavender:It's interesting the way the Triton glass fumed the Heffalump, making the beads a tan/cream/purple color with a pearly surface sheen. I think the beads would look good paired with freshwater pearls:
Another interesting aspect to this set: some of the CiM colors have the property of changing color when viewed in florescent lighting. Heffalump is one of these colors, as well as Crocus and Larkspur. Under florescent lights, these colors get a green tint. Here are my Heffalump beads under florescents:
I'll be putting this fascinating set up in my Etsy shop today.
:-)

CiM Crocus and Triton

2009-03-24T15:23:00.001-07:00

"Crocus" by Creation is Messy is one of my favorite glass colors, especially for Spring. It's a beautiful translucent pinky-purple glass, similar to an Effetre Alabastro, but easier to work with. Here is a set of Crocus beads decorated with Triton scrolls:This set is in my Etsy shop.

I'm getting back into the CiM colors lately. Next post I'll have a picture of *what happened* when I combined CiM "Heffalump" with Triton!

CiM Sepia with Triton

2009-03-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

My most favorite brown glass color is CiM Sepia. Here I've paired it with scrolls of Triton. This set is for sale in my Etsy shop:

Just a post and run for today!

Enjoy your weekend!

Balancing an Egg on the Equinox

2009-03-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of this phenomenon, that a raw egg can be balanced on its end during the equinox? It's a little tradition of mine to balance an egg each Spring equinox, even if no one else sees it. Well today, kind blog readers, you have the chance to see an actual photo, taken only moments ago. Here it is folks in all its glory, my balanced egg:
Is it all a bunch of hooey that a raw egg can only balance on the equinox? Probably. Though I've tried to balance one at other times of the year and failed. Here is an About.com article about the urban legend of the balanced equinox egg:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/errata/a/equinox_eggs.htm

Have a happy Spring or joyous Autumn season, bead buds!

New "Destash" Category in My Etsy Shop

2009-03-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

I've created a new category in my Etsy shop: Destash! Time to do a little spring cleaning. At this moment I've got two destash listings, with more to come throughout the next few weeks.

First item up, a focal bead made with CiM Ginger, silver foil, and Pandora encased in clear. The clear/Pandora combo turned yellow, which sometimes happens when I work silver glass or silver foil and clear together for a long time in the flame. Still pretty cool I think:The second destash item is a set of etched beads made with ASK104 Bahia Blue, Violet Nights and Berry Creamy:
My 'destash' category will have everything from beads that are good seconds, to beads that have been hanging around the studio for a long time, beads that are extras from sets, as well as really special sets that I've been hoarding in my personal stash for a very long time because I liked them so much. Stay tuned!

Pale Emerald Green and Triton

2009-03-17T22:03:00.001-07:00

I hope you had a nice St. Patrick's Day! I'm recovering from the *evil dentist* visit, taking life nice and easy for a little bit, pampering myself and all that. I have had a very enjoyable week making beads, and tonight I've got a new set up on Etsy. These are transparent Pale Emerald Green with Triton scroll designs:I made a set a few days ago that I really love. These are Triton and Kronos frit beads encased with Double Helix Aether. I shaped them with Zoozi's Crystal press:I love the shiny metallic around the bead holes. They were inspired by a similar set of beads that had a donut shape, like this set (pictured below) that I made recently for a customer's special request. The recipe for the beads is the same, the only difference is the shape:
Happy beading! :-)

More New Sets on Etsy

2009-03-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

I've been away from blogging and Etsy for a few days because I had to have some dental work done. I am a true dento-phobe, yet every time I leave the dentist's office after a visit, I feel great and realize it wasn't all that bad. What was I so afraid of? The dentist is such a nice guy! Well, heh heh, lets just say this last visit confirmed every dental fear I've ever dreamed up from the deepest of my twisted imaginings!

Luckily two days have passed, the pain is not so intense, the blood is drying up, I'm feeling better and the horrific experience is beginning to fade from my mind. Back to the beads! :-D

I've just listed these three sets on Etsy. This first set has a base of Terranova2 with 'threads' of Triton:This is a set of spacers made with Double Helix test batch M-232:And this set is a favorite of mine. It has a base of Triton with Kronos frit, encased with Aether. The bead holes have metallic glass around them, which you can see more clearly in the second picture:Hope you all are having a nice week! Don't forget to floss, trust me! :-D

New Sets on Etsy!

2009-03-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

Here are three new sets up for sale in my Etsy shop. The first one is a set of Pale Emerald Green and Triton frit crystal beads, another set from my recent crystal frenzy:
This is a set of spiral disk beads, made with M-232 or "pinky purple luster," a Double Helix test batch:

And last but not least, this cool set made with a Triton base and Copper Green scroll designs. I love the reaction between the glasses:

:-)

Crystals

2009-03-04T22:59:00.000-08:00

I had an order recently for a set of crystal-shaped beads, and it got me on a crystal bead kick. I used Zoozi's Crystal press for these.

This set is Luna 2, encased with Aether:
These have a Nyx base with a little Triton frit, encased with Aether:
These are original Terra, encased with Aether:Somehow the beads look better in person than they do in these photos. They're very sparkly and colorful in the sunlight! I have another set of Pale Emerald Green and Triton crystals I'm cleaning now. I will post a photo when they're done.
:-)

Psyche Leaves

2009-03-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

This is a set of sculptural leaves made with Double Helix Psyche glass. They're available in my Etsy shop:

In Like a Lion?

2009-03-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

The lamb has already arrived here in Sedona! We're seeing the first much-anticipated signs of Spring. There are two pairs of Robins that hang out at our bird bath, daffodils and fruit trees are blooming in the yard, and the temperature this week has been around 70. Lovin' it!

I just sent my daughter off to New York City on a trip with her 8th grade class. She's part of the Montessori Model United Nations project, where kids act as Ambassadors from different countries and debate international policy with each other at the U.N. in New York. She's an Ambassador from Australia! How cool! New York is supposed to get a ton of snow tomorrow so that should be fun for them. Oh, yeah, snow is actually a fun event when you're from Arizona!

I have a few beads to show. Here's a set of Pandora and Triton beads:And a set of Triton "Leaves of Lothlorien":
Life's busy-ness has taken me away from blogging lately, but I'll be back more often this month with more metallic bead porn for you :-)

Mojo and the Reducing Angels

2009-02-24T01:42:00.000-08:00

These disks are made from Double Helix test batch M-232b "pinky purple luster":
I have had several days recently where I have lost my "reducing mojo." It's frustrating for me when this happens, since I use reducing silver glass in pretty much every bead I make. Sometimes, for some reason unknown to me, I cannot get silver glass like Triton or Kronos to reduce. It just turns to mud. I try using a different rod, a different glass, adjusting the flame, waving my hand differently, yet my silver glass mojo is just up and gone.

The other day I was working on a custom order for several sets of beads with Triton and M-232b in them. This was one of my days when my mojo was gone. After a set or two of Triton failures and mounting frustration, I decided to call upon the "Reduction Angels" to make the wind blow in the right direction or adjust the phase of the moon so I could get this darn glass to turn shiny!

So I took a deep breath and just set the frustrating custom order aside for a minute. I decided instead I would make what I felt like making - M-232b spiral disks. I was determined to regain my mojo. I waved the disks very close to the yellow reducing cones. I was gonna make that glass reduce! No tip-toeing around 6 inches from the torch face, I was gonna put the bead right into the reducing flame! To my surprise, the disks quickly turned a pretty rose gold color! My mojo had suddenly returned! Yay! Reducing Angels, thank you!

The next morning, when I opened the kiln and saw what I expected to be the Triton disasters for the custom order, I was pleasantly surprised! The beads had turned out with beautiful shiny colors:On these Triton disks I had used multiple reducing/oxidizing cycles, because it didn't look like the reduction was working at first. I kept erasing the reduction with oxygen, then reducing again. I did that so many times on each bead that they ended up looking like mud, totally over-reduced and over-struck. I put the muddy Triton beads into the kiln, "tomorrow's orphan beads" I figured. As it turned out, it must have been the multiple oxidizing and reducing cycles that brought out so many different colors.

So had I really lost my mojo that day after all, if the beads actually ended up okay? Why did they look so bad in the flame but came out shiny and pretty from the kiln? Silver glass can be really fickle. I sympathize with those who are trying to figure out its mysteries!

Also, one thing I've learned is never count your beads before they've hatched out of the kiln. What you think is gonna be bad turns out beautiful, what you're sure is your life's masterpiece turns out to be a muddy disaster, I've seen it a hundred times now!

Here's another set I made for the custom order, CiM "Blush" with M-232b scrolls. I love this combo:

Happy day to everyone!

Snow in Arizona?

2009-02-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

A couple of times each winter in Sedona, we do get a little snow. We had an exceptionally heavy snow just a couple of days ago. A few white patches still linger under the bushes, but it's mostly melted now. Here are two photos, the first one looking out my front door:

And a sunset from later that day:

Focal Beads

2009-02-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

I hope all of you had a loving Valentine's Day or simply a pleasant and peaceful February 14th!

I don't often make focal beads, but inspiration got hold of me recently and I made a few of them. The heart above is Medium Amber with Triton scrolls. The next two focals are Triton with some clear encasing and a little Nyx:
This focal has a swirled Triton and Pandora core, with clear encasing and Triton ends:The Triton focals are in my Etsy shop.
Have a nice weekend!

Happy Groundhog Day!

2009-02-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

Punxsutawney Phil, that "seer of seers, prognosticator of all prognosticators" has seen his shadow. Six more weeks of Winter, peeps! Hang in there!

More Etching with Copper Green

2009-01-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

I really like how these Vetrofond Odd Olive and Copper Green beads turned out. The reaction between the two glasses made a dark line between them and gave the scroll designs an organic look. They're etched:I also tried Copper Green over Vetrofond Moss Agate, and I love the results of this mix too. These are also etched:The Moss Agate set is available in my Etsy shop right now. The Odd Olive set has sold! :-D

Etched Copper Green Beads

2009-01-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

Browsing through the Lampwork, Etc. message board can be a good way to find creative inspiration when the glass muse is taking an untimely nap. I saw mentioned in one of the threads that CiM's Canyon de Chelly has a nice reaction with Copper Green, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I made these round beads with a base of CdC and Copper Green scroll designs. They measure about 12mm x 15mm. I'm really happy with them! It's fun for me to use non-silver glass once in a while! They're etched, which is a good thing to do with Copper Green beads to get rid of the grey metallic patina they sometimes get. This set is in my Etsy shop right now:

I just pulled a set out of the kiln made with a base of Vetrofond Odd Olive and Copper Green scrolls. I'm going to etch them, and if they turn out semi-cool I'll post a photo of them.
Have a beadyful day!

Nyx!

2009-01-12T00:09:00.000-08:00

I just put these Nyx accent beads into my Etsy shop. I love the color range on this set. Nyx can be unpredictable in the flame, and it also strikes from dark blue to turquoise the longer it soaks in the kiln. I love this glass!

A Terra and A Silver Glass Set

2009-01-11T13:23:00.000-08:00

I have been soooo slooooow getting new bead sets listed ever since the Holidays! Someone remind me that vacation is over and it's time to get back to work! I know it's Sunday, but what is up with this laziness?

These two sets will be going into my Etsy shop at some point today. Probably after the parent/teacher conference, trip to ACE hardware, grocery shopping, driving my daughter's friend home, and cooking dinner! I sometimes enjoy forgetting the 'Mom' duties!

This set is encased Terra:I love the variety of colors I get when I work with Terra. These were all made at the same torch session, yet each one came out a little different!

This is one of my eclectic mixed metallic sets. I used a lot of Nyx with some Triton:
Lovely day, everyone!

The Shave Ice Gekko

2009-01-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

He didn't lower our car insurance, but this cute gekko was ready to lap up any sugary drips from our shave ice on Kauai. Here he is peeking up through a crack in the painted picnic table at the shave ice stand:Here's a close-up. Isn't he the epitome of cuteness?Shave Ice is the Hawaiian version of a snow cone. Ours were huge and it took two people to eat one. Here's a picture of shave ice that I gleaned from the web:When some shave ice would fall off our cone and melt on the table, little gekkos came up through the cracks and licked up the puddles. So cute!

Ahhh... Kauai!

2009-01-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, brag time: I'm writing this blog post from poolside at the Hilton Kauai Beach Resort. Really, It's true! :-D

I've been here for about a week and I'm going home today. Here's a picture of the beautiful Waimea Canyon we drove up to the other day:
Yesterday we went horseback riding and hiking to a waterfall on the north shore. It's the rainy side of the island, and wow was it raining cats and dogs. Torrential rain. We had a blast, though! Here's the waterfall we went to:Here's the poor, sweet, patient horses who waited so dutifully for us in the pouring rain and squishy mud while we hiked down to the waterfall:Here's my mom and dad crossing the stream at the top of the big waterfall. The water was raging, as you can see. We had to hold onto that wire (we were also clipped to the wire with mountain climbing hooks), and wade through the torrent to the other side. The wetness didn't bother us since we were already soaked to the bone from the rain. My dad is in the yellow rainjacket. He actually has a prosthetic leg and is missing most of the fingers on one of his hands, yet he still managed to get across this stream. After we crossed here, we had to rock climb up a very wet, slippery rock wall. He did that, too. Amazing guy:We've had a great time. Back to the beadmaking when I get home, which is something to look forward to, as well!
:-) Aloha!

Metallic Scroll Designs

2008-12-18T13:40:00.000-08:00

I've made a few new scroll design bead sets, this first one with a base of Amber Rose and scrolls of M-232b or "Pinky Purple Luster," the Double Helix test batch:This set has a base of CiM Hades and scrolls of Triton:

A big Thank You to my Etsy customers for shopping with me this month!

Another big Thank You to my blog readers for visiting and writing comments, you really make my day and keep me inspired!

It's snowing here in northern Arizona. Stay warm everyone!

Shards, Pt. 2

2008-12-04T23:27:00.000-08:00

I broke up the big shards from my last post into small pieces for applying to beads:The shards are Triton Odd(r), and in this set I've applied them to a regular Triton base:I love the colors of Triton Odd! I do a cycle of reducing and then oxidizing to bring out the magentas and blues.

An on another set, I applied the shards to a Nyx base:These beads are part of my next set, which is on a base of Curdled Ivory:Figuring out how to apply the shards took a little practice, but now that I've got the hang of it it's really fun!