Art Bead Scene - In Progress

Well, whadayaknow? The jewelry muse has struck! I actually ran across a crochet project I threaded about a year ago - which as any bead crocheter knows is half the battle! The cord is now as long as my arm and I'm nearly done in less than a week!  Whoo Hoo!

I'm taking tomorrow off from the bead blog but will be back Thursday with a special announcement and coupons for Black Friday / Cyber Monday.

Yada Yada Yada

My saga continues...yada yada yada. But I'm too darn tired to talk about it! Let chat about something FUN!

The Art Bead Scene picked a painting by one of my favorite artists for inspiration on this month's contest! YAY! I haven't been rocking on their choices this year at all! So it felt great to look at the painting and just "see" the bead I wanted to make and then go make it!

 HUGE lentil!!

The inspiration painting is Tree of Life by Gustav Klimpt:

Now let's just see if my jewelry making muse shows up in time to meet the contest deadline!

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Just a couple of reminders as we head into the weekend:

• The Fire Divas will start voting on the holiday bead challenge any day now, so I hope you will check in over the weekend and vote.
• I'm giving away $50 Gift Cert on the 15th for my faithful voters! I hope you will pop over, vote and enter the contest!
• Have a wonderful fall weekend! If you are out shopping for the holidays, I hope you will consider buying something handmade !

Celebrate

Coming into the holiday season, everyone is so busy. We rush to and fro, picking up this and that and rarely take a moment for ourselves.

But let's make this holiday season a little different. I hope everyone will realize, it is the little moments that those we love will treasure. It's not the presents; it's YOUR presence.

But I'm hoping to be present, aware and relishing the moment not only for those I love, but for those little quiet stolen moments for me.

I promise, I'm going to curl up by my fire and make toasted marshmallows for my pup and I'm NOT going to worry about all I have to do.

I'm going to linger in my creek and feel the joy that wells in my soul when I am there. I'm going to stop  for just a minute and celebrate the end of another day.

I vow to spend this holiday season finding joy along my path, celebrating my loves as well as my passions-

 I will seek out laughter and joy. I will celebrate life. I will celebrate me.

It's about MEEEEeeee!*

My left arm is completely numb... I've been on the computer too much and I've decided... I do weird things to my left arm. More on that on Creekhiker later.

But that means today's post (and the two others I have yet to write) have to be brief!

So I thought I'd send you blog hopping for more scintillating content than I can provide here, today!

I've been writing for the new, Timothy Adam handmade site called Handmade Spark. LOTS of good info about selling there! My articles are HERE.

Some of you know I also write for the Art Bead Scene's Blog Carnival. The third round of posts are officially up - all about Anticipation. Check them out... all inspiring!

My fellow Fire Diva Lea of LAJewelryDesign wrote an article about me for her blog.

And finally, there is a tax day sale on HollysFolly and my Artfire. 10.40% off and Fan page members get free shipping!

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*When my BFF was the hottest karaoke act in Los Angeles, she once had a customer sign up and then repeatedly come to the sound board, whining, "When's it gonna be MEEEEeeee?" She was dead serious! Whenever we get a bit full of ourselves or self centered, the BFF and I look at each other and whine, "It's about MEEEeee!!!" Forgive me!

Almond Blossoms

Almond Blossoms #2
Originally uploaded by HollysFollyGlass

Well, I did it! If you read my post yesterday, you already know I was running late with my Art Bead Scene entry. And I woke up with a dream of how to design the piece! In the end, the aqua bellflower wasn't enough but this Evil Dark Purple one was! It added the punch of pink I felt the focal lacked.

This March Art Bead Scene contest, inspired by the Van Gogh painting called Almond Blossoms.

ABOUT THE BEADS: The art glass beads were handmade by me, Holly Dare of Holly's Folly ~ Glass. The focal is made of layers of opaque and transparent teal glass for depth. The flowers are white with a bit of pink. I didn't want the pink to overpower the piece.

The Bellflower dangle is an opaque pink on stainless steel wire.

ABOUT THE PENDANT: The upper part is a wired wonder! The flower petal shaped bail, the roller coaster swirl and the large hammered flower are all ONE piece of sterling wire! I carried out the flower motif with a smaller hammer wire flower dangling from the large one. The bellflower dangle completes the piece.

In my efforts to continue to educate the folks about the wonderful Revolution Money Exchange, I am offering this pendant at a $10 discount to anyone who checks out using RME. The Revolution Money Exchange does not take money from vendors for using it's services (or from customers either!) It's FREE for both parties!!! Help a struggling artist keep more of her hard earned money and save money too! That's a bargain all around! Here it's $45.00. When I move it to my website the price will be $55.

Under the Gun...

OH, but I'm a bundle of stress today! Not only am I frantically finishing taxes for the tax guy on Saturday, I have two blog posts to write...not counting this one! Another in the wings for the Fire Divas jewelry challenge on Friday, text for a bio due and... if all that is not enough... I've got a hankering to tear down and rebuild my website (these urges always hit at inopportune times!) which distracts me from my deadlines by making articles on web code interesting! And then... last minute Lucy that I am... My Art Bead Scene project is due TODAY!

I gave a preview of the beads here but... the ideas have come fast and furious but none seemed right! Until... I sat up in bed at 5 a.m. this morning and sketched it out!

So, this is my plan and I'm sticking to it! I'll post some pics on the flipside of this deadline!

Anticipation - It's Making Me Wait

I'm giggling as I write this because I actually looked up the definition of anticipation - the theme of my second Art Bead Scene Blog Carnival post.Webster's defines anticipation as " the act of looking forward; especially : pleasurable expectation."

I don't know that I've EVER associated the word "pleasurable" with anticipation. There's NOTHING pleasurable about it. I would call it "tortuous expectation."

Sometimes, beads look better than you even dreamed they could!

First of all, wait has never been my favorite word. I want it right NOW ...or yesterday would be better. So that I choose to work in a medium (glass) that requires some cooling down time is perplexing. It's so NOT me.

It kills me to know that I made a bead that I cannot touch, feel, marvel at right NOW. I have gone to bed and been unable to sleep and found myself bundled up in a housecoat and winter coat to traipse across my yard to the shop...just to see... knowing full well the kiln had not had enough time to ramp down. Sometimes I sit there staring at it, making sure it is ramping down...willing it to ramp faster.

And...sometimes they look worse! This bead idea came from one of my best selling fused pieces. It doesn't work as well as a torched bead...

The painful expectation continues when I finally do get to open that door...will the beads look as good as I thought they might going in??? (Glass changes colors when it's hot and the length of the time in the kiln can affect color too.) Will I be happy or sad when I open that door? Will I love it? Or will it be a disaster??? Will the beads work as I intended??? Or will all my hard work fall apart in my hands?

The Eggster Bunny

Some days, the anticipation leads to elation. Other days, I swear I need to sell my torch! No matter what, I always seem to find a new avenue I want to explore, a color I want to try, a scale I want to play with. And I find myself, staring at the kiln one more time, wrapped in the throes of tortuous expectation yet again.

Jacked Up Tools: Key Mandrel

I'm sure my regular readers know that I love to jimmy with my tools. I'm forever finding a way to make something work for another technique or make a tool work better.

I fell in LOVE with Jelveh's Key Mandrels. I first tried making beads on a key ages ago and was immediately turned off by how hard it was to shape a bead when you could not spin the "mandrel" - in this case, the key itself - evenly. Then came the key mandrels. I bought two and kept them loaded with keys in case the muse hit during a torch session. I love the tool!

The Key to Love

But I'm never one to leave well enough alone... I recently invested in a Carlo Dona Bellflower press. I say invested because it's the priciest tool in my shop. I got on a waiting list for it months and months ago when I had a little extra cash... and it arrives from Italy when I'm broke. But a commitment is a commitment and that's what credit cards are for, right?

It had been so long since I looked at the tool, I had to take it down to my pal Donna for a quick refresher course. I was in love with what it could do... but, my red head sensibilities (it's a proven fact, red heads feel more pain than people with other coloring!) simply would not allow me to hold the wire in my fingers as I applied hot glass. I had burnt my fingers once doing that... the wire got so hot, SO fast... I said NEVER again!

I came home and tried placing the wire in a hemostat...hated it! So I started looking around for something better... something round that could hold a piece of wire. A pin vise would work...but I didn't have one. (Many lampworkers use a pin vise for making bellflowers.) Then I saw those key mandrels, ready to go. Hmmm...

I took our my round nose pliers and place a U in the bottom of the wire and secured it between the metal plate and the back of the mandrel. It WORKED! But I didn't like only being able to make two at a time... So... I tried cutting the wire to 7" in length. My thinking was that I could make one, place the flower in the kiln with the key mandrel sticking out, cut the wire in half and go back to the torch for #2; Cut off #2 and have a piece of scrap left on the mandrel. Quench, open the tool, release the scrap and hook on another wire.

This worked except, 7" gets a little unwieldy with hot molten glass on the end! I now cut the wire a hair over 6". I can still make two bellflowers without having to mess with the tool. Since I have two key mandrels, I can make four, set the mandrels aside to cool and reload them with wire after making a few beads!
Here are some leaves, also made with the key mandrel and a leaf press. Next are the two bellflowers still in my key mandrels and the bottom flower with a U hook in the wire. I cut that part off.

The teal bellflower is to be part of this month's Art Bead Scene entry...Wonder what these will be??? I better get moving! See you Monday on the Bead Blog!

It's a Carnival!!!

Some of you may have thought this post was a little unusual for me. It's true'; it was. That's because it was part of the Art Bead Scene's Blog Carnival!

A while back fellow lampworker, Cindy Gimbrone, asked if any of the regular readers of the Art Bead Scene were interested in blogging on a theme. Many of us were...so many that we only have to blog every other month.

I found myself part of a group of extremely talented art bead makers from variety of mediums! And I'm thrilled that a fellow Fire Diva, Janel Dudley will be blogging with us. Janel is a really talented lady, creative and contemplative. She, like me, maintains multiple blogs! Janel will be writing on the months that I'm off and I'm really looking forward to her contributions.

This month's theme is on beginnings. There are so many talented writers and bead artists in this group and I hope you will take the time to read what they have to say. Go for a fun carnival ride!

Winter Monet - Revolution in Progress

Winter Monet
Originally uploaded by HollysFollyGlass

January's inspiration painting was cold, wintry scene called The Magpie by Claude Monet. I knew right away I would attempt one of those fantastic tree beads... but I wanted a cold, translucent feeling.


I made the bead and etched it. I found some of the new colored beading wires in shades of blue and some delicate blue opals. I had always wanted to try a design that allowed some of the beads to float and move around on the beading wire. I used crimps and crimp covers to act as "stops" for the opals. A Bali silver clasp and 10mm sterling balls balance out the design.


I wire wrapped the focal art bead in 18 gauge sterling with a rosette bottom.

This was also my entry into the January Challenge for the Fire Divas. I came in 2nd place. Congrats to Lauren of Maybeads on her first place win!

Winter Monet Originally uploaded by HollysFollyGlass

As a special, limited time offer, I am going to place a check out button here on the blog for $30 dollars OFF the list price of this necklace, provided you check out through Revolution Money Exchange. This is the only free way for vendors like myself to receive money. Other online payment systems and credit card processors take a nice chunk of artisans hard earned money and this is my way of educating the public and other artisans about this fantastic service! So there are two buttons there: One for RME ($65.00) and one for PP at full retail (95.00)! Let's see what happens!

Art Bead Scene - October - December 2009

Whew! What a journey this has been!


October - The Folk Art of Ruby C. Williams

I enjoy folk art and I especially enjoy folk art that incorporates words into the piece. And the necklace I envisioned was elaborate in a whole different direction... this is a case of what an artist envisions vs. what I feel capable of when sitting in front of that big ol' torch.

Since religious imagery is a large part of many pieces of folk art including that of Ms. Williams, I "thought" I would create a necklace made of five tabular beads, each with one word / symbol which when strung together would read:

I ♥ Jesus ♥ ME


But when I sat down to torch, I felt shakey and just wasn't up for that much stringer work. Still struck by the concept of love....love = xoxoxo.... so that's the direction I went in. In the end, the beads were not as elaborate but the necklace really was!

The story of this necklace and process is HERE.

November - The Fairy Fellers' Master Stroke by Richard Dadd

I found this piece so dark and disturbing...nothing I wanted to duplicate. I almost didn't enter this month...with the fires and the disturbed person calling me and many of my friends and other fabulous artists frauds. It was a trying month.

Determined not to be whipped, I decided to pick one element and do some free form thinking. Fairies... magical...hopeful... flying...wings. WINGS! I will do a wing! I had been playing with some silver rich glass but hated that when it was reduced, the layers of glass underneath became irrelevant. Even the surface texture was not as prominent.

So I started experimenting with twisting the silver glass into a mix of transparent and non-reactive opaque glasses so that when the twistie was used and reduced, the whole piece wouldn't go all shiny! And it worked.



And so the Fairy Fellers necklace came to be.


December - Lee (Lenore) Krasner's Untitled (1948)

OK! I'll admit it! I was so stressed about leaving town for the holidays, I don't think my beads really "go" with the painting. But I tried... and succeeded the whole year! So give me a tiny break, please!!!

I rarely think of earrings for the Art Bead Scene entries.... and I don't know why. They are really nice bits of jewelry and they're quick to make. Maybe it's the thought of having to make two of something!



The original post on the earrings is here.

And the Art Bead Scene has kicked off this year's competition with a lovely Winter White Scene. Hope you'll stop in to check out what I'm up to this year!

See you Monday on HollysFollyBeads!

When Inspiration Strikes...

Inspiration can strike anywhere, anytime. For this reason, I "try" to have some semblance of a sketch pad with me most of the time. But when I don't, I've been k nown to sketch on napkins, scratch paper and even my arm!

A few weeks ago, I had to be the substitute host for my friend's karaoke business because her regular host was sick. And suddenly, I "saw" a necklace in my head (two variations even!) and HAD to sketch it out. So there amongst song titles is my would-be necklace.


So what to you do when inspiration strikes? What's the strangest place you've written down those visions???

Well, it's been an interesting 2009 ( the most polite thing I can say about this year!) and I for one can't wait til 2010. Check back next year - er - week for a recap on the ABS projects I did all year long!

December Art Bead Scene Entry - Krasner

It must be awfully chilly in Lucifer's lair...My Art Bead Scene entry is done and it's not the last three days of the month! ;-)

The inspiration painting is this untitled piece by Lee Krasner, who may be better known as Jackson Pollock's wife.

I'm not much into this modern squiggle, excuse me but for lack of a better word, crap. I'm more of a landscape kind of girl. And I admit, it's hard to be inspired when you don't really love the painting. But being artists... we can find inspiration in strange places. I knew right away would make some sort of squiggle bead and somehow along the way became obsessed with turquoise and brown.

And knowing I was leaving town so early in the month only added to the pressure. I realized I had never attempted earrings for the ABS challenge and liked the idea of meeting the challenge with a relatively simple piece.

The beads are brown with lots and lots of turquoise frit with a brown squiggle on top. Now looking at the painting again, I wish I had used white!

The earrings are created with hand made sterling silver headpins, turquoise lentils, my beads and Swarovski Colorado topaz AB crystals. They will be for sale on Holly's Folly later in the winter.

The Fairy Fellers by Holly's Folly

Fairy Fellers NOVABS by Holly's Folly
Originally uploaded by HollysFollyGlass

My November 09 entry into the Art Bead Scene's monthly contest.

I was struck by the idea of an angel or a fairy leaving a wing behind and my art bead is a wing.

I wanted to keep the jewelry simple so the wing is strung on sulfured sterling Figaro chain. At the neck, there are Swarovski crystals wire wrapped and leading to the lobster. Since I made this necklace for someone, I wire wrapped a length of cable chain to extend the length of the piece for different occasions.

Continuing with the wing theme, there is a Swarovski crystal butterfly at the end of the cable, dangling down the back of the neck.



And here is the painting that inspired this piece:

Sulfur and Silver

NOTE: My blogs have all been hit by spam bloggers lately and as of this post, all comments will be approved before posting.

Sometimes, when I make a piece of jewelry, the silver that I love suddenly looks garish next to my bead. That was the case with my Art Bead Scene project. When this happens, I love to blacken my silver to make is disappear into the project.

I use chunks of Liver of Sulfur:

I microwave a cup of water for about a minute and drop in one chunk. I stir with a wooden skewer or chopstick.


Here's all my silver bits:

And here they are drying off. I ended up not using them all. As always, the jewelry takes on its own direction as I work.

Publish Post

Check in here tomorrow to see the finished piece.

Sometimes, the Inevitable Happens

I KNEW it was gonna break! But did it have to break in such a nasty way???

Lots of glassy bits STILL in this cut!

I'm talking about a bead, of course. I was working on a base for a bead for my ABS entry (due today! Silver parts drying off after a sulfer dip, waiting...on me!) and I was reverse encasing. I knew I wanted a white base but the bead was so large and required so much stringer work, I had to reverse encase white over a clear core.

And suddenly, I noticed that new rod of white was not turning clear in my piping hot flame. WTH??? I added a bit more... and then super heated it.... still off white. OFF white???? I started to suspect what I had done and threw the bead in the kiln to run a test.

I keep my Bullseye rods on the left side of my work space; 104 on the right. I must have grabbed a Bullseye rod of French Vanilla. I grabbed a rod of Bullseye opaque pink, heated it and placed the suspect rod on top in the flame. I carefully pulled a stringer, cut it and waited.... absolutely nothing happened...which means that yes, I was using 90 on my 104 bead. And it was now doomed to break.

Why, oh why, didn't I pull it out of the kiln and toss it in the water??? Maybe, I just thought it would be cool to see HOW it broke the next day.

Only, when I opened the kiln, it was not broken. So I whacked on the kiln.... STILL not broken. It was pretty warm - around 200. So I plunged it into water around 40 degrees. It did not break.

Thinking I may have used so little 90, I started fussing at myself for not finishing that bead. I put my pliers on the rod and grabbed that bead in my hand... and it shattered to bits with my index finger taking a direct hit...I'm still picking little glass bits out three days later!


I'm gonna go finish that ABS project and nurse my cut finger some more. Tomorrow's post will be about jewelry and sulfur dipping. See you here on Holly's Folly Bead Blog.

Fussy Girl

Maybe you've noticed I haven't been blogging about my Art Bead Scene entries the last few months. There's a reason for that.

I haven't been happy with them! I have issues with both September




and August.



I like the art beads I made as the interpretation of paintings. I like the accompanying beads I chose for the jewelry. I even adore the concept of my August entry.

But I don't really consider myself a jewelry maker. I make jewelry because I have to. I teach and I often have to have samples of my beads made up into wearable pieces. And I do enjoy the challenge and even the process (sometimes)...but the best part of making jewelry is trying to think like a jewelry designer, which ultimately makes me a better bead maker. Because, for me, that is what I really like... the beads, not the jewelry.

I will tell you that I have issues with the structure...not that it is bad on either piece but, it could be better. It will have to be better before I offer it up for sale!

So, when one of my close friends pointed out to me that my "trash pile" is probably full of treasures and that maybe, just maybe I should do something about that... I decided to call myself out in public. Let's just see how long it takes me to do something about this. I'm hoping this public outing will make it sooner rather than years from now later.

Holly's Folly Kandinsky - June ABS Winner!

Holly's Folly Kandinsky Project 1
Originally uploaded by HollysFollyGlass

Oh my goodness... The good things keep on rolling! I won the Art Bead Scene's Monthly prize with my bracelet. Wow! It feels so good after struggling a bit with this design. I'm not a natural jewelery designer... I rip it out over and over! And I know I'm not the only one!

I do hope to get this up on the Holly's Folly site in a day or two. It' been a quiet but busy week and I'm torching every chance I get...instead of photographing beads!

Holly's Folly Kandinsky Project

Holly's Folly Kandinsky Project 2
Originally uploaded by HollysFollyGlass

My contribution to the Art Bead Scene's June project inspired by a Kandinsky painting. Straight sided lampwork lentils in Blue, Purple, Red and Chartreuse.

The bracelet combines hammered silver bead frames, Bali Beads, Silver lined e beads, Swarovski crystals and a sterling toggle clasp.

The bracelet will be available on HollysFolly.com in a few days.