Nyx Hollow Beads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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]