HOT, HOT, HOT- Kalypso Silver glass Discoveries & Tutorial

Hello friends!

Well it is HOT outside for sure! I guess that makes this a perfect time to post for a few reasons. 1. It's too hot to turn on a kiln and torch inside when it's about 104 outside. 2. These firey got glass colors are prefect for the hotness outside.

So you may have been seeing my beads pop up on my facebook as I have been making them. I was fortunate to have a ton of luck with the silver glass considering I don't really use it much in my work. The glass will run you about $100lb which is CRAZY expensive for glass. The glass is so pricey due to it's high silver content.

I ventured out on my silver glass discovery to match my  Copper Big Hole focal for Kristi's Challenge.

Here was the donut I received from Kristi. I didn't quite capture all of the gorgeous pinks and oranges in my donuts heat patina, but trust me, they are there.

 

Here is where my adventure began. I checked out a few quick notes from Double Helix to see how to work the glass. I had all of ONE rod to not only learn, but to create some special beads! Yikes! How's that for pressure?! Here is what I learned...

From left to right:

B1- effetre White, Rubino, super clear, Kalypso and super clear. 

B2- effetre Clear, effetre Orange, Kalypso.

B3- Messy Peace, Messy Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, and Messy Clear.

*B4- Peace base, Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear- I got these gorgeous results by layering all of the glasses to Kalpyso. 

You super heat kalypso as you melt it into the surface. The glass will somewhat look clear. You want it kind of hot and soupy.  Then you let the bead cool til the glow completely dies out. Check your bead under you work table where it's dark. I then turned down my oxygen to make a reduction flame. I flashed the bead in and out of the flame until the silvery luster appeared. Keeping your bead out of the flame, turn back to a neutral flame, and encase in clear, taking special care NOT to get your bead directly into the flame as you will burn off the luster you just added. When you have encased the bead, bring it to the back of the flame and gently heat. You will see an iridescent blue flash as you are melting in the glass. DON'T OVER HEAT! If you don't see those blue flashes in the glass you have melted off the luster even under the clear encasement.

Also *** Make sure to get your Rubino, Cranberry, and Clockwork covered in clear! If they touch Kalypso you will see black as the silver glass and other glasses have a chemical reaction.

B5-Peace base, Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear. 

*B6- Messy Clear, Clock Work, Messy Clear, Kalypso and Messy Clear.

I did the steps above and reduced again(turn down oxy flame til you get a bushy flame). You will see the blues appear as you reduce. Gently flash in and out of the flame until you get a nice sheen on your bead. Encase like above.

B7- effetre Sunny Mango Coral odd lot, effetre Transparent Orange, Messy Clear.

B8- effetre Sunny Mango Coral odd lot, Messy Clockwork, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear.

*B9- effetre Opal Yellow, effetre Rubino, Messy Clear, Kalypso, Messy Clear.

Followed the same steps as above for * results. It seems like you could see the luster in the bead when you after it was worked and put into the kiln. So if it looks pretty going in, it will be gorgeous coming out of the kiln later! It's nice that you can see the results and know you got the glass to sing :)

 

Below you can see the AMAZING results I got from the * posts above. I think the Clockwork, Messy Clear, Kalypso, and Messy Clear produced the best results! Those are the first 6 results from left to right. 

For more of a golden orange results like the next to spiral coin beads, I used: Peace, Cranberry, Messy Clear, Kalypso, and Messy Clear. 

FOR BEST RESULTS:

To get the ULTRA blue/purple iridescence you want to reduce the bead until the sheen looks dark. It doesn't take long. It also looks like you may have over-reduced the bead, but as you encase the bead and re-heat it in the flame to melt down the encasement you will see it lighten and the blue iridescent flashes appear!

The bright pink flahes come from super heating the Kalypso when you first melt in the layer of glass. make sure to use a hot oxidizing flame to get the glass clear looking when you melt on the Kalypso layer!

I have found that using Clock work under Kalypso gives you the perfect mix of firey orange to go with the hot pink and blue/lavender iridescence. 

Want to see what you can create using those techniques???

 

Just look at all of that COLOR!

 

Look at those gorgeous flashes of iridescence on the firey HOT pink and orange!

Be sure to stop back to see how I incorporated this incredible beads into my desgin with Kristi's gorgeous Copper large hole focal!

See ya on Saturday!!

xo Genea

Bridesmaid Jewelry!

Hello friends!

So if you remember my post from the other day I was talking about finishing my jewelry for the wedding. I decided last minute to put together some beads and jewelry for my dress. 

 

Here is my dress! Perfect huh? Nice and BRIGHT! None of the wedding party will be matching so we just had to get a cute sun dress. This dress is not only pretty, but it flatters my body shape so much! It feels like the dress was tailored to me specifically :D It's such a nice feeling to put something on and feel gorgeous in it!

 

So the other day during my amazing lampworking session(one of those days where you are just amazed at your artistic skill) I whipped up these flower beads to match my dress. They flowers on the dress are pretty free form so I made this big disc, creased some petal shapes and then pressed across the length of the flower to give it a petaly feel.

I, for once in my life, decided to do something really simple. I grabbed some sari silk, leather and wire and quickly assembled this piece! It looks fantastic with the dress! Just perfect enough to catch your eye, but also blend beautifully!

 

Here is the jewelry worn :D

I'll post some wedding photos after this weekend! 

Have a great weekend and see you soon!

xo Genea

New Packaging!

Hello friends!

I'm excited about my new packaging I have been working on! After receiving such amazing wrappings from my dear friend, Karen Totten I decided to step up my packaging!

So first I had always seen my logo as a stamp in my mind. I could use this stamp for all sorts of things like hand stamping my own cards, bags, boxes , whatever...

Here is my stamp. The one on the left is my silicone stamper. On the right is a traditional rubber stamp. I bought my logo stamp from my rubber stamp 

So my original idea was to use acrylic paint, brayer the paint together to make a gradient and stamp.

The paint was kind of thick....

So I tried, and tried, and tried. I even tried some old stamp pads I had lying around and those didn't quite work right either....

 

This was about the best one I got. Dang.... still not quite right.

So off to the store I went in search of an ink pad. My rubber stamp suggested using adirondak stamp pads. I went to my local crafty stores to see what they had. While looking I found these amazing inks by Color Box. Mmmmmm just my colors all in one stack!!

 

Here is a photo of the stack with my stamper, a stamped box and my matching sari silk. the photo is a little dark since I took it with my cell phone, but you get the idea ;)

 

Now to make the cards! My friends have a Silouette machine(its like that Cricket scrapbooking machine). My friend Brandon created me a circle shaped card . While Brandon is creating the image he ask me "Do you want perforations?". I said "Perforations?! YES!!". So I'm thinking it's just a line, right? NOPE, it's a cut dashed line so that you can fold the card perfectly in the middle! Wow, fancy pants machines they make now a days!

Here aer some of the cards cut out. They look like boobs or bikini tops. Lol. When the machine cuts out the images it sounds like an evil circus. If you have ever heard those engraving machines, that is exactly what the sound is. All these funny pitches and noises. I think its some sort of weird robot language. It may have been trying to rally my printer and keyboard against me! Why knows... 

After the cards are folded they get inked. They  are ALL INDIVIDUALLY INKED ONE at a time by my hands. I take the colors and hand mix them as well to get that pretty gradient. So in short, THESE CARDS ARE A LOT OF WORK! So when you receive one, just at least keep it for a little while? ;)

Like little soldiers.

 

Here's a close up. Again the photo is a little dark from my phone, but you get the idea. I had some ask me why I didn't print on white. Well here is why... I wanted my items to have that hippy recycled feel. Kraft colored paper seemed like the perfect way to give my work that look and feel :)

Now onto the silk. I have loved recycled sari silk since the first time I have even realized it was around. I am a super green girl, so I LOVE all things recycled. So this recycled sari silk was PERFECT for my new recycled hippy packaging!

 

I purchased my lovely silk from Nancy Camp-Zolun. When I ordered I told her what my ideas were for my packaging so she kindly sent me a variety of her silks for me to see in person and decide on my color :D Wow, huh?! They were all so beautiful, but the multi-colored greeny/teal/aqua "Tropic Seas" was my absolute favorite!

 

Here is my bundle of silk that arrived today! It's even prettier all unraveled! 

 

So here is what some of the finished packaging looks like. I love the idea of having a silk tie around my packaging. It's a little extra bonus to be used for designing as well as looking awesome! Again, if you don't end up using the silk, please recycle it, give it to  a friend, tie up a gift, whatever, just re-use it! :) In the future I plan to order some kraft colored boxes like in the photo above. 

I also received some wonderful goodies recently that I would love to show-and-tell.

  

I received these lovely beads from Karen Totten! I can't tel you my plans for them yet since I don't know who reads my blog(they are gifts) ;) Anyways, I am super excited about these and can't wait to get them worked up into something! 

Well it's still crazy hectic around here so hopefully things will settle down after our friends wedding this weekend.

See you soon!

xo Genea

Reduce, Reuse, Recycled... BEADS & Headpins!

Hello friends!

Yes, I am still alive. I bet you may have noticed the dust around here ;P Well it's been hectic to say the least. So I guess before I go into my topic of today, I will fill you in on what you've missed in my personal life(I won't be offended if you skip this part to get to the beads) ;P

Ok so it's been hard to leave everyone in the dark about what's been going on. So in short here is what you have missed. Remember me coming home for a "family thing"? Well that family thing was mom having some surgery. She went through her surgery and is recovering well *whew*. Then dad ended up having a visit in the ER. He is doing fine as well. *double whew*. So through that all I have been super busy caring for them and doing the normal house duties for their house and on our basement floor along with caring for our dogs and theirs. I am POOPED to say the least. I didn't get much work time in, but am slowly getting time to create and blog.

Ok other big news, so with me coming back "home" to care for mom after her surgery, we decided to move back to Kansas City, Missouri. Yep, you heard it. We loved the PNW and Portland, OR for sure and miss it, but we really did miss family and friends as well as feeling like I should be home with mom for her surgery. So Ricky transferred his job to the 24 hour fitness in Shawnee Mission, KS(about 30 mins from us). He also got a teaching job at the school in which he graduated(Pinnacle Career Institute, North Campus)! So we are really excited about that! 

You know moving back to the midwest we don't have transit like the Northwest, which is a total, 

bummer, BUT.... we got his amazing little 2011 Kia Rio! 

It's actually a compact car, but in this shot it looks kinda big. It gets 36 highway and 27 city. We are pretty stoked since Ricky's trip to work for training is 50 miles! Yikes! 

Ok so about those recycled beads...

 

I took these...

 

and did this...

 

and this...

 

and this(yeah takes longer to melt the glass down than make the beads ;P)

 

and made THESE!

Here's what I have to offer YOU...

 

"Spiral Earth Coins"-Ice Aqua 

 

Earth Droplets"Ice Aqua"

 

 Spiral Earth Coin "Kelly Green" 

Earth Droplet "Kelly Green"

 

Spiral Earth Coin "Olive" 

Earth Droplet "Olive"

 

Spiral Earth Coin "Root Beer"

 

Earth Droplet "Root Beer"

Now how about some inspiration? Remember this bracelet Staci Smith created for herself with my beads? I absolutely LOVE it!

 

Are you drooling over her jewelry? You can collect some here :D

Want to see my latest treasures from Staci? They just arrived in the mail the other day!It was such a nice surprise to have these gorgeous beads in my mail box!

 

Don't worry, we are also working on our collab beads while we are away from our blogs. Staci even took some amazing pics of our beadies happily hanging out together. You can read about it here on her blog !

Have an amazing day! See you soon!

xoxo Genea

The spoils from Staci and Karen+Super *Secret* news with Staci Smith REVEALED

Hello friends!

Well the time is finally here for the super *secret* news you have been hearing about!  But first, I want to share some of my goodies with you. Don't worry this is like the pre-story for the main event ;)

So let's start out with my friend, Karen. I had the extreme pleasure of a trade with the amazing, Karen Totten of Starry Road Studio! Wow did she SPOIL me!

 

Just look at all of these AMAZING BEADS! If you don't have any of Karen's beads in your stash, you totally need some! Not only is her work amazing, but the details, and skill in her work are just outstanding! Did I mention the packaging as well?! Wow, she has literally given me the BEST packaging I have EVER received! It's such a treat to open her packages!

Your goodies from Karen will arrive in some of these pretty recyclable textured craft boxes.

Upon opening them you will see this.

Under this, you will see this.

 

If you ever wondered about the scale of her work this shot will give you an idea.

Karen's work is so masterfully detailed and tiny. She told us she has little elves that come help her do her work. There were 3. I can't think of their names at the moment, but they sure do a good job, don't they?!

Here is another shot of the beautiful oil lamps Karen makes. You can find them in her shop here I just love this awesome black clay with the glaze at the top and the bottom left "raw"!

 

See! Look how teeny he is! This is one of her infamous whale beads, if you have heard of their legends. I think she will be making some more soon if you don't see any in her shop. If not you could always send her a nice little message to see when she will have more in stock ;)

 Not only is Karen, super amazingly artistic, but she is probably one of the NICEST people I have ever met as well! I have enjoyed getting to know her so much, and I am so grateful to call her my friend :)

Here are the GORGEOUS spoiles I received from Staci, whom is also one of the most amazing people I have met. I am so happy  and honored to call one of my good friends! She is such an amazingly talented and super sweet person! I don't think I can say enough nice things about her!  If you have not seen Staci's work, then you simply must run over to her shop and familiarize yourself!

Aren't the BEAUTIFUL?! I just LOVE everything she sent! Oh, did I mention she SPOILED me as well? (A girl could get really used to this spoiling business! Being the oldest, I normally get shafted! ;P )

Wow, well where do I begin? Staci makes some amazing bronze clay pieces and patina's them. You can find them in her shop here.

She is also doing some AMAZING new painted polymer pieces. OH the HEARTS *swoon* All of the colors and texture in them. They remind me of beautiful batiked fabric! Some even have these little kinda barbell guys sticking out of them. They kinda look like they have little piercings ;)

I made some matchy wing dings(more about this below).

She even creates these wonderful nautilis shell connectors and such with this amazing crackle finish!

So just one more thing before I deliver the news.... Staci ended up picking up some of my recycled glass bottle beads and created this amazing bracelet I want you to see.  I take the bottles and simply melt down the glass to work them into beads. Here is a quick photo I took from my phone as I was making them :)

Here are the finished beads  and glass headpin from this photo. These are in the hands of Miss Karen Totten, but don't worry. I will be making more soon. Stay tuned for updates on those ;)

So about that bracelet....

 

This is the bracelet she just "whipped up" LOL. I was like just "whipped it together" huh?! This is AMAZING! Don't you LOVE it?! I think it's absolutely fantastic!!

So speaking of inspiration(this is the part you were finally waiting for ;) So When I received Staci's package I was so INSPIRED by her work I just HAD to match some beads to her wonderful pieces(You can read about more of my inspiration in my LMAJ Blog post here).

You know how much I LOVE color and I have such an eye for color matching, it's retarded ;)

 

So off I went, matching, and matching and making, and making. WING DINGS galore!

I was so excited about it I came up with this wonderful idea and ran it past Staci.

So here is the BIG BIG NEWS... I am excited to announce that Staci and I are working on a collaborative project together! We will be making some LIMITED ADDITION beads to offer up together complimenting each others work!!

 

Here is a little teaser! Staci will be creating some of her beautiful hearts and I will be making matching wing ding sets! We will only have a LIMITED amount of these color sets and focals available so when they are gone, they are GONE. 

In the coming weeks we are both busily creating this special collection for our friends and designers out there! We are SUPER excited about this wonderful project and can't wait to see what you all think!

As we get further on this project we will be updating everyone on our blogs(here((If you are reading this then obviously you know my blog address ;P lol)) and Staci Louise Originals) and facebook pages Genea Beads and Staci Louise Originals)so do check in to see how our project is going!

See you soon and thanks for stopping by!

xoxo Genea