What I've Been Up To!

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!

Beads for Custom Orders

I sometimes take custom orders for beads and sets. Usually I'm asked if I could make something similar to beads I've made in the past.

Here are two sets I made for a customer this week which are variations on some of my earlier bead sets. This first set is made with Caramel Apple and Silver Cinnamon glass by ASK104 and Effetre Dark Silver Plum dots. The octagonal shape was made with Zoozi's Crystal press. Some of the beads were reduced for a slight metallic sheen:And this set is transparent Effetre brown with Psyche scroll designs:

Things You Missed....

Beads have been flying off the shelves of my Etsy shop so fast these days, I haven't had time to post pictures of them or ramble on about them in my blog!

Here are some sets you may have missed in my Etsy shop if you blinked. I hadn't even closed the pictures in Photoshop before they were in the mail to customers. I'm so thankful for the sales I've had this month!

Textured Silver Plum spacer beads:
Psyche swirled over Canyon de Chelly:
Luna2 over ASK Silver Cinnamon:
Back to the torch - doin' what I love to do!
:-)

RH-169, RH-193 cont.

This is a follow-up to my last post about the Double Helix odds. I've gotten some great tips from other lampworkers about using these glasses. Here is my latest bead with RH-169:

The base is DSP with a little bit of silver foil, and the RH-169 is spiraled on top. After applying the RH-169 I heated the bead to dripping hot, then cooled, heated again, cooled, etc. for a few rounds.

While I was working it, the bead never appeared to get any color besides the regular olive green. I put it away into the kiln with a little tear in my eye because this glass still wasn't doing anything at all for me!

Soon after that I turned my kiln to the annealing cycle, so this bead was made at the end of the day... I figured less chance of it soaking a long time and kiln striking to coral.

When I opened the kiln this morning, I was completely surprised to see the purple and magenta colors on this bead! They weren't there when I put the bead into the kiln. I have absolutely no idea what happened!

I hope I can repeat whatever it was!

Kiln Disaster Koolness

This is a photo of one of the blobs from the kiln meltdown that has evidence of coolness. You can see that, had my beads survived the swelter, they would have been gorgeously groovy! See the iridescence from the DSP, and the colors from the Luna2? Ok joking... I have a strange sense of humor :)

Khaos in the Kiln!

Khaos strikes! (lampworker pun....)
What a greeting I received yesterday when I opened my kiln.... my lovely Khaos beads! :( I made these on Mother's Day, too!

Yes, those are puddles of glass.

It's either the relay or the thermocouple. My handyman boyfriend checked the relay and the contacts were all corroded... after just one year of use. Which I guess is normal for the amount I use my kiln. He switched it over to the new contacts and I'm going to test out the kiln today. I'm also ordering a new thermocouple... can't hurt to have a few on hand.

The scary thing is that this happened overnight. I'm also going to buy a special second thermocouple that will shut down the kiln if the temperature gets too high.

And those Khaos and Dark Silver Plum beads were sooooo nice!

Metallic Beads on Etsy

Here are two new sets I've got up on Etsy. This first set is encased Kronos rondelles with 3.5mm holes. The edges of the beads are left un-encased which produced a beautiful metallic deep green color that was hard to photograph:

This set has a base/center of Dark Silver Plum with an outside layer of Psyche:


Very metallic! :-)

Luna 2 Beads

I've had a chance to try the new glass from Double Helix, Luna 2! It has taken me a few tries to get the hang of it. Now that I'm finally getting it to strike, I'm loving the rainbow of colors in this glass! Here is a set of beads I have up in my Etsy shop right now:

The base color of these beads is Dark Silver Plum. When I put the Luna over it I really got the colors to pop! Maybe it's just because I've practiced enough with the Luna, or maybe it's the chemical reaction between the Luna and the Silver Plum that did it. Either way I'm happy with the results and I can't wait to play with this glass some more!

Happy Valentine's Day

I have a heart bead to show off, but this time it's one that I didn't make. It was made by my boyfriend Steve, and he gave it to me for Valentine's Day!

The heart is made with Silver Plum and a special transparent red and black stringer in the center.

These are some Silver Plum beads I've made recently. This is a set in progress, "pipes" and "jumbled up wire":

Happy Day everyone... back to the torch!

Studio Time

I just found out that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday, predicting six more weeks of winter! Well there's actually about seven weeks until the Spring Equinox, so six weeks is really not that bad.

Since the beginning of this month I've been enjoying lots of time in the bead studio. I decided to take at least three days off from the computer. I've discovered that I spend a lot of time on the computer and online promoting my beads in various ways, leaving myself no actual time to make the beads! So I set blogging and Etsy-listing aside and I've just been making beads for about four days. It's been great.

I'll have photos of my new work soon, but in the meantime here's a photo of some beads I have up on Etsy:

New on Etsy - Etched Terranova!

Here are three new sets I have up in my Etsy shop.
The first two are organic sets with large 3.5mm holes:

Silver Cinnamon, silver foil and Silver Plum "rivets"

Ivory with silver dots:

This third set has an Ivory base with silver foil and Terranova scrollwork. Like its cousin Terra, Terranova does not etch easily. So, I put this set into the etch bath and got a nice matte Ivory base with shiny, un-etched blue-green Terranova designs:

Click on any of the images to visit my Etsy shop!

Silver Plum 'End Cap' Beads

I have some new focal beads for sale in my Etsy shop. They are from my series that uses silvered glass and Silver Plum "end caps." I love the metallic look of Silver Plum, and I loved making my own end caps with it on these focal beads.

Clicking on the images will take you to my Etsy shop.

I love the rough look of this one:

This is one of my absolute favorites. I've encased the bead with varying thicknesses of clear glass, which made the Kronos stripes underneath undulate in 3-D wave patterns:

This is another favorite:

The weather continues to be cold, snowy and rainy, but the snow is really beautiful on the red rocks, especially when the sun comes out. Here's a photo from Airport Mesa, at the vortex:

Have a lovely day, and stay warm!

Jewelry on Etsy

I love the "Bead Hitching Post" pendant findings made by Bronwen Heilman of Ghost Cow Glassworks. They are changeable bead pendants, meaning you can remove the clutch at the bottom of the post and switch the beads out. The style can be changed to match what you're wearing. I've made a few necklaces with them and posted them in my Etsy shop. Here's a photo, click on the image to see the Etsy listing:

Beads on Etsy

It's another beautiful day here in Sedona. This is the month to visit if you want the perfect temperatures and clear skies. It's hard to be on the computer when the weather is like this, but I have lots of new beads to upload to my Etsy shop.

I've also made the cutest pumpkin and ghost beads for Halloween, but I don't have a photo of those yet. Next post!

Here are some of the latest offerings in my Etst shop, come on by and check them out!

More Beads

The past few days I've been posting new beads into my Etsy shop. I'm featured in the Etsy Storque Showcase today, and my shop has gotten a lot of views :) Here are some of the new beads I have up:


Hope you had a good weekend!

Silver Plum Vessel

It's been a long time since I've attempted a vessel. There is a little small-scale glassblowing at work here, as I used a hollow stainless tube and blew air down it to puff out the body of the vessel. The handles, top and scrollwork are Silver Plum, and the body is CIM Simply Berry and Effetre transparent Sage Green. I like the results... maybe I'll try a few more!

Silver Plum

I've been on a kick lately with a glass called Silver Plum. That's what the industrial-looking bead in yesterday's post is made with. Silver Plum looks just like metal to me. Eons ago when I used to fabricate silver jewelry, I was always trying to get a look like this from the silver through reticulation and oxidizing. One of my favorite things to do was pile scrap silver pieces in a kind of interesting pattern and melt them together in an organic, industrial kind of way, like a random pile of scrap metal that happens to be junked together in an interesting design.

Here is an example of a bead style I've been working on lately, made with blue-green Kronos and "riveted metal end caps" of Silver Plum:

This is an off-mandrel Silver Plum donut:
This is the first Kronos-Silver Plum bead I made, and it's still one of my favorites:

Off to the torch!