20% Off Spacers SALE!

For the next two weeks I'm offering 20% OFF of all spacers in my Etsy shop. Come on down and stock up on holiday bead supplies!

New Updated Website

I've been working on a new website. Here's a screenshot of the front page:

I'm also opening an online store, so my beads will soon be available on my website as well as Etsy.
Click the image above or here to go to my website.

And, beads! I made this set in 2013 and recently I've been trying to duplicate it. The raised trails have to be melted in just the right amount to get the best colors.

Weekend - yay! Have a good one!

Buddha Cat

This is what I want to be doing right now! It's still only Thursday but I've been waiting for the weekend since Monday...

And here's my cat Tony lounging peacefully under his bodhi tree. He looks just like the buddha cat:

Wishing you a relaxing weekend!

Sun Catcher Repair

Just as I was finishing up a sun catcher, the glass cracked...

What to do?
Throw it away?
No, I worked too hard on it and liked it too much. Time to learn how to repair a copper foil stained glass piece!

I removed the solder and broke out the offending glass.

With the soldering iron and tweezers, I removed the foil that had surrounded the cracked piece. This was a tough job and I almost gave up here!

The edge finally cleaned up, I cut and foiled a new piece.

I soldered it together again (being careful not to get the glass too hot this time) and added a ring.

Voila!

Oh yeah - the agave bloom? Guess what happened to it.

Bloomin' Hairy Agave and The Latest Sun Catcher

I was out in the yard today photographing my latest stained glass sun catcher when I caught sight of this agave in bloom:

Agave multifilifera

I call it a 'Hairy Agave' since it has woody thread-like hairs coming off the leaves.

Agave multifilifera bloom

I'm going to keep an eye on this and be sure to get pictures when the flowers come out.

The sun catcher:

Stained glass is a real challenge to photograph. I'm happy with my progress on learning stained glass, though. My solder lines are getting better and smoother with each project.

The color of the agave bloom matches the colors of my sun catcher!

Latest Stained Glass Experiments

Practicing, practicing... trying to get smooth lines with solder.

At first I was using lead-free solder, but it gunked up my soldering iron really bad.

I had to stop making stained glass for a week while I waited for lead solder and a new soldering tip to arrive in the mail. I'm back in business now and the lead solder is much cleaner and easier to work with. This is my first project using beveled glass:

Stained Glass

I love the way light shines through glass.

There is a stained glass star that hangs in the window of my studio. Being the creative day-dreamer type, I spend a lot of time gazing out the window through that star. I've often wished I could make something like that, yet for various silly reasons, I've put off learning stained glass. (Just for laughs, some of those reasons are: Hot glass is just cooler; Cold glass is sharp; Stained glass is in the Country Crafts category; I have a phobia of soldering!).

Well, no more. I just can't stand not making colorful things that hang in the window for light to shine through.

I scraped together my pennies and bought the remaining supplies I'd need to start making small stained glass projects. Luckily, I already had a Glastar grinder and a lot of beautiful colored glass from my previous foray into stained glass. This is a wind chime I made for my mom in 2013. It's my attempt to find ways to use stained glass without having to learn how to solder!

Finally my soldering supplies have arrived, I've watched hundreds of YouTube videos, and okay here we go, my first soldered stained glass thing... a pair of earrings I guess:

My second stained glass thing, a blue pendant. Really wonky, flux all over the place, hah!

Gaining courage, trying something a little more challenging:

Success!

Sun + Rain

Prickly Pear fruit/November:

Raindrops/December:

The Kiln Guy

This guy lives inside my bead kiln. He's my bead rack. He kindly keeps hot lampwork beads resting on his stomach so they don't touch the kiln floor:

Did you know he wears really cool red Converse sneakers too?

He begged me for them!

Inside the kiln:

His feet are on the left

The glass is shiny in the picture above. ^^ That's because this photo was taken before I realized that the smooth glass let the beads roll around too much, so I etched it for a rougher surface.

Here he is posing on top of the kiln for a full body pic:

Hot!

You can see that he's got a really bad case of Scoliosis. The right side of the kiln is hotter than the left and it warped the glass.

How The Kiln Man Came To Be

A couple of years ago there was trouble with my new kiln. The metallic luster was disappearing from my beads if they were positioned within 1-1/2" of the kiln walls or floor. 

This was a big deal for me since 90% of the beads I made used metallic glass. I worked with the kiln company for several months trying to figure out a solution.

For starters, I needed a non-metallic bead rack for the inside of the kiln, to keep the beads propped up and away from the walls. Rather than buy ceramic kiln furniture or a metal bead rack, I made my own from glass. I figured why not add details like a face and shoes!

My kiln still runs too hot, as evidenced by the bending 12 mm rod of Effetre Clear glass. My kiln controller is set at 850 deg. F, but if I use an independent thermometer to test that it's actually about 920. It's even hotter on the right side - it would have to be hotter than 970 to warp the glass like that.

I've pretty much solved the vanishing metallic problem now. I've turned down the kiln temp, I'm using The Kiln Guy, garaging my metallic beads on the left side, and developing the metallic luster onto the beads while they are hot. Putting the beads into the reduction flame while they're still fairly hot helps to fuse the luster to the glass.

Thank you Kiln Guy! Couldn't have done it without you!

Fixing the Kiln

My bead kiln has been shutting off randomly during a work session, so I'm replacing the relay.

Here's the opened side of the bead kiln. The relay is the black box at the bottom:

playing with electronics

I tried to read the part number on the back of the relay with a little piece of mirror, but that idea was a fail, ha ha! After some wrangling with the connectors, the relay came out easily enough. I hope the new one solves the problem.

Have you ever had a Glass Hive kiln relay fail? If so, what happened?

New Spacer Beads

Dark Fossil Spacers (Matte)

I've added made-to-order spacer bead sets to my Etsy shop. Along with common glass colors, I have beads made with odd-lot and rare and unusual glasses.  Most of the bead colors come in both regular and matte/etched. New colors are added every week!

You can also find these matte organic cylinder beads made-to-order in my shop:

And lots of other pretty colors, like this Poseidon blue glass...

...and shiny gold 'Helios' glass spacers:

Have a good week!

Terra, New and Old

I recently bought some Fast Striking Hand Pulled (FSHP) Terra from Double Helix, a quarter-pound of the "4.20.12" batch. I love it, it's a lot like the old Terra. I guess I got some of the last of it, because Double Helix is not going to make any more of the Hand Pulled version. They're switching production to Fast Striking Machine Pulled because they say the results are no different and it saves them time. I'm glad I got a little bit of the Hand Pulled - another glass to covet and stash away now I guess!

When I first worked it, I don't think I was getting it hot enough and my beads were turning out pale brown. On the next try I super-heated the glass to white drippy hot and got a very dark brown strike. The ideal would be somewhere in the middle, but I was really pleased at how easy it was to strike and control with the heat.

Here's a photo of my first good set of beads with the FSHP Terra. My studio photography seems to dull and darken my Terra beads and I can't get any Photoshop tricks to correct the colors. In real life, these beads have more vibrant color, and the clear dots bring a lot of light and sparkle to the set. Here goes anyway:

Beads with Fast Striking Hand Pulled Terra

I also have a stash of old "OG Terra" from 2008. I love this stuff too. One of my favorite things to do with it is make Autumn leaves. I love the slight blue metallic sheen on these:

OG Terra Autumn leaves

Both of these sets are available in my Etsy shop. Just click the photos or captions to see the listings.

Dragon Cloud

Early last Thursday morning my daughter snapped these photos of a cloud (or was it?) shaped like a white dragon with a rainbow tail. It flew just before sunrise, with the New Moon and Venus right above it. These pictures were taken looking east out our front door:

Dragon

Dragon, New Moon, Venus (tiny dot at the top)

Rainbows in the tail

Just like a Chinese dragon!

New SALE Section in my Etsy Shop

Come on down! Find discounted beads and orphan sets in my newly added SALE section! Here are a few things I have listed: