Meet Tony Harrison

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]

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

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!

Kelley's Bead Studio Blog

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

Etsy in the NYT

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!

Thanksgiving

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!

How Many Beads in a "Set"?

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.

What I'm Working On

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!

Balancing an Egg on the Equinox

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!

In Like a Lion?

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 :-)

Snow in Arizona?

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:

Happy Groundhog Day!

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

The Shave Ice Gekko

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!

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!

Avenue Beads on Justin.tv

Want to watch Joe of Avenue Beads work hot glass live in his studio? You can on Justin.tv! Here's the link:
http://www.justin.tv/avenuebeads

Warning: This is too much fun. You will get sucked in and not get any work done. There is a chat going on at the same time as the live feed, and Joe answers people's questions as he's blowing a shard or heating a giant blob of glass in the torch. What a multi-tasker!

He says he's usually in his studio nights and weekends. Just click the link to check if he's there. As I'm posting this it's Saturday night Nov. 29th and he is broadcasting right now.

CiM Sangre - A Luscious Pomegranate Red

Mmmm... Pomegranate!It's the end of the fruiting season for the beloved pomegranate tree in our back yard. This is the pomegranate's last clinging fruit, named by my daughter "The Tiniest Pomegranate Ever." It's about the size of a ping-pong ball! While I was sitting outside cleaning beads, she picked it and brought it to me. The skin had burst open, revealing seeds the exact color of the beads I was working on.

The red glass is called "Sangre" from Creation is Messy. It's a beautiful blend of transparent and opaque red, making a visible spiral where it's wound around the core.

I've used Triton for the scroll designs, and I was happy to discover that the Sangre did not get sooty and dark when reduced.

Sangre is a great color, definitely my favorite red for the way it holds its yumma-licious color even when worked hot for a long time, and it doesn't have a bad reaction with silver glass. Its mix of transparent and opaque red gives it a lot of depth and lets light in through the bead.

Kids! *Sigh*

These are two of my favorite photos from the web. Whenever I have one of those days I just remember these photos and know I'm not alone!...and you just know that's permanent marker and oil-based paint!
(Does anyone else see Snuffle-upaguss in the corner of that TV?) :-D

Stringer Pullers

There are lots of ways to pull stringers. I used to grab the blob of molten glass with my tweezers and pull, but that was only occasionally successful since the glass usually slipped out of the tweezers, drooped down to the bench and gave me a very curvy stringer. My preferred method now is to melt two rods of the same color together into a blob and pull. However, when I don't have a second rod of the same color handy, I reach for my trusty "stringer pullers":They start out as a short of one of the stiffer 104 c.o.e. colors, usually clear (visible in the upper left corner of the photo), which I use as a punty to grab the molten glass blob. Then I just continue to use that clear punty as a stringer puller time and time again. It's fun to see the history of what colors I've used. The stringer pullers stay on my bench for years, sometimes breaking, but I just pick up the biggest piece and keep using it as a stringer puller.

The stringer pullers are so colorful now, they're inspiring me towards some bead design but I can't quite figure out how exactly to translate their random colorful-ness into beads.

My First Beads

Stashed in an old "Whitman's Sampler" chocolate box, back in a forgotten corner of my bead closet, I recently came across the first beads I ever made:These are from my first beadmaking class in 1997 at Snow Farm in Massachusetts. I'm glad I still have them. Now that I look at them all these years later, they're not half bad!

If you are interested in lampworking classes, glassblowing, or other kinds of craft classes, and you're anywhere near New England, I highly recommend Snow Farm. It's art camp for grown-ups! The setting is a beautiful old New England farm, complete with rolling hills, a pond, and barns that have been transformed into classrooms and studios. Don't pack a lunch, instead sign up for their healthy and delicious home-cooked meals and eat in the dining hall with your fellow art campers!

Eye See You!

I made beads the night before Halloween, and this is what emerged! I've always wanted to try an eyeball. I used a base of CiM Marshmallow, the absolute perfect eyeball glass! The iris is made with a Kronos/Intense Black twistie, the pupil is an Intense Black dot, and I added a lens of clear over the top.The hardest part was rounding out the bead without distorting the iris. I realize now that if the Marshmallow base bead were much bigger in comparison to the iris, more like a real eye, it would be easier to make round.It was a lot of fun to finally try this. Maybe some of you have seen the amazing glass eyes that Pipyr makes? They're like dragon or creature eyes. She has a tutorial on how to make them for sale on her website.
Practice, practice, practice!