Kiln Harvest and Lani Ching Tool

Today's Fresh Glass Beads... And a tool I've had on my work table for ages but am now in love with!

Confession time: My name is Holly and I have an addiction. I.... am a tool hog! I love tools. Maybe it's leftover from my childhood obsession with my dad's plumbing tools but I've often owned more and better tools than the guys I've dated. Glass is the perfect venue for a tool hog....there's always something newer and better! It's my embarrassment over this that keeps me from talking about tools very often. But I have to with this.

The proper name of this tool from Arrow Springs is The Lani Ching Shaper. And before you run out and buy it, let me tell you, there is something newer and better! I've had mine for years...probably since I took Lani's class in 2008. But I only recently figured out how to use it and why it's so wonderful. I only wish it were a bit longer so I could use it with my long skinny beads I love so much.

First of all, this all goes back to the dot challenge... My goodness! Is that silly challenge ever going to stop teaching me something???  It was early on when I was struggling with consistent sizes and I was taking a break. I picked up an ancient issue of the Flow Magazine and Craig from Arrow Springs had written a piece about the new Cylinder Speed Shaper. I read that and got back to work... and noticed the Lani tool on my desk.

Before, to shape a cylinder, I had been using a brass mold with very shallow sides...kinda like the opposite side of the Lani Shaper... which I rarely use. I find I have to make a specific size bead to have that side work for me.  But I immdidately recognized the value of marving two sides a of a bead at once and the slanted groove side does just that!

Suddenly, making a huge cylinder was easy!! I had struggled with volume control and keeping things centered before...but not with this tool! And messy ends are GONE!

And here we go back to the dot challenge. While I didn't use tools in that...I learned something about repetition. While I'm a total dropout on the 2nd Challenge as I get ready for my Trunk Show... I am making LOTS of the same basic cylinder! I've had several regular customers request that I make wine stoppers / bottle openers as gifts this year. So every session...I've been making substantial cylinders...look back through those fresh glass photos if you don't believe me!

By making this same shape over and over, I've taught myself so much!

• Footprint is vital when making beads to a specific size. 
• Once that footprint is set, unless I do something stupid, it's really hard to actually mess it up!
• Marvering two sides at once really helps keep the bead centered perfectly! 
• Volume control is also easy breezy... heat a little where there is too much glass and a lot where you want the glass to go. Marver in the Lani Shaper and viola! 
• Heating and marvering each end one at a time off the edge makes a bead that can stand up on it's own! 

Here are how I marver both ends:

I'm certain the Lani Shaper gave birth to the cylinder speed shaper and the Arrow Springs video of the speed shaper in action is pretty darn cool to watch. And yes, the speed shaper is on my covet list. But either one is a nice addition if you are making cylinders. These are "must have" tools!!

Chinese Glass Beads - You Really Do Get What You Pay For

It's happened time and again at shows and online. "Real" glass bead artisans find themselves next to a poser. Someone pretending to be an artisan but she really imports the beads from China and sells those glass beads for pennies on the dollar. You sit there in your booth, hoping just to break even while the fake "artisan" is selling hand over fist. People really don't understand the vast differences in price between artisan beads and Chinese. And they more frequently than not will opt for savings.

So... let's take a look at what you get for your hard earned pennies when you go for cheaper Chinese glass beads. I ordered the beads below from a Chinese reseller on Ebay over 15 years ago before I knew what quality in a glass bead was. I just wanted something with a pink ribbon on it for my sister.  Upon first glance, they seem ok. But not really... see that while line in the middle of the bead? That's bead release that has not been properly removed. These are dirty beads...

When I took a needle nose tweezer to them, look at all the release I scraped out with very little effort:

When you make jewelry with dirty beads, the beading cord rubs against the bead release and soon, the whole piece looks nasty. Over time, the dirt breaks down the beading cord cutting years off the wear of the piece.

But that's not the only problem. Chinese beads are never annealed. Glass must be returned to room temp from a liquid state in very specific and controlled stages. This takes time and costs money! Digital kilns are not cheap and are often the most expensive tool in the artisan's possession. When you don't take the time to do this, the beads can break easily, often right along the hole.

I am a klutz and you know I make big beads. I have often dropped one of my big honkers on my tile kitchen floor and.... NOTHING happened to it! It did not break because annealing made it strong!

But I dropped one of these on my tile floor just to see what would happen. Being a small bead, I thought it might not break... but it did!

Jewelry makers have to realize that their reputation can depend on the beads they choose for their work. Are you happy getting quick sale or do you want to be known as an artisan of quality pieces? Which one is likely to create repeat business? Is the money saved on these crap beads really a value or simply wasted??

You have to take responsibility when shopping. Grace, Austin Hamilton and their ilk import Chinese crap and try to pass it off as artisan glass, when it is dirty, not annealed and made in a factory for pennies.

When shopping in person, if you see someone selling glass beads much cheaper than other booths at a show, ask them who makes their beads. Is it one person or many??? Do they have boxes and boxes of the same bead? That's a dead giveaway. Most true artisans make 3 -5 of a similar bead but opt for greater choice at a show.

Online, know that even spacer beads should cost at least a buck a piece. If you are buy six or seven beads for $7 including shipping, you are getting Chinese beads. You most certainly won't even receive the beads in the photo.

Photos that show many sets in the same style are another giveaway. So is seeing the same exact item (often using the same photo from the manufacturer) for sale in different shops.

Narrow your search functions be searching for specific glass artists you know of or using the term sra. Be a responsible shopping and you'll find quality glass beads that allow you to create lifetime treasures!

Cross Pollination of Skills: Cake and Beads

As a life long crafter and even a producer of craft television shows, I've tried almost every craft on the planet. Even entertained several quite seriously. One of those was cake decorating. Another was rubber stamping. It seemed like kismet that I would end up working for, then owning the only food safe rubber stamp company!

But more interesting to me is how the skills I pick up in one area...seem to migrate into another. Silk screening and printing skills helped me easily grasp the manufacturing of wood mounted rubber stamps. Crochet lead me to bead crochet which lead to kumihimo. Rubber stamping lead to carving my own images which developed an interest in wood turning and now, laser carving...on glass! See??? One thing leads to another.

Red Velvet XL Cupcake Glass Bead

But one of my best tricks as a bead maker is... cake decorating!  It's no secret that I love making pastries in glass. But I'm talking about decorating a basic bead... you can get some FABULOUS pointers from cake decorators that can easily be adapted in glass.

For instance: This spider web video. When she's dragging the icing, you realize that you would do the dragging as you lay the line down in glass.


Here's another web where she makes the spider... except for saving the legs for last - in glass they go on first - there are some great shaping techniques!



Here's another fun one on leopard prints...which is an ever-popular bead design!




Because both mediums are two dimensional, the shape work and layering is basically the same! Find a few cake decorators you like on YouTube and follow them! Their work is often season, like ours and you will certainly pick up some great ideas that translate to glass!

Dot Diaries - The Afterglow

It's odd ... my brain cannot process all that I learned by doing this exercise. I simply cannot recommend it enough. We all have time when our muse is lost; we're upset over lack of sales or...life; we feel like we're making the same thing and we're tired and uninspired. I promise you, make 40 beads! It WILL help!

 

Color Tests for the 3 color 40 Bead Project

The other day, I had to make some boobies for an order and it was the first time I torched "for real" - for money - in a while. I zoomed through those beads and no longer seemed to stuggle with size issues. If there was an issue, I fixed it...easily! Even the aureoles didn't give me fits, which they often did in the past. !

I've had an idea for a pandora glass bead I wanted to try out...test some frit and top colors. I often struggle with size issues...lopsidedness, etc. And, I didn't! I cased well... how novel! And then comes the thing I always say to myself, "Time to mess up a perfectly good bead!" !

I've often said I make really awesome background beads. And I think they end up looking like caca because I (me) decorated it. If I could just hand that background off to some "good" beadmaker, all would be fine! !

But this time, it went oddly, weirdly smooth. I'm not happy with the bead because I simply forgot how my beloved pine green goes all transparent when stretched...grrrr. But as I lay down the leaf and started pulling points for holly leaves, I was calm and relaxed. I found the rhythm of pulling a point with a stringer, melting off, melting the pulled glass back down on the stringer soothing. Then came the dreaded dots... again. All was fine. !

I think this has come out of repetition of making so many of a similar bead! I think I'm going to keep that bead for my own bracelet as a little reminder of how far I've come.

Dot Diaries: 40 Bead Challenge Complete!

I finally finished the first Dot Series! I was shocked when a friend on Facebook bragged of doing hers in ONE session... OMG... hand me the bullets! I'm not made to do that! Plus, the instructions said to limit your beads to a few every day to allow the ideas to percolate. I know I wouldn't have gotten much out of it if I attempted one session!


The last two sessions focused on triangles. The beads are lined up from session 1 to the end, L-R:

 A lot of good lessons were reinforced:

• Heat the bead well and then put a LOT of heat where you want the glass to GO!
• Slower is better (but tortuous!)
• Volume Control... Something I find hard to read between torch sessions. Just like wire work, I need to make a few to get my rhythm!  Most all of my remakes were volume control issues!
• Limiting your color choices really does make you stretch for what you can do to make the bead interesting! 
• Footprints and puckered holes are really not that difficult! 
• I still have more ideas for this combo! Weird! 

I'm glad I did this...wish I had done it when I started! Odd that I'm feeling like a better bead maker at a time when I'm considering not making beads for sale any more. More on that landslide later! 

The Dot Diaries - Days 7 - 8

I'm starting to hate this exercise... sigh! Day Seven's returns were most disappointing. This is the worst set yet!

The first set was to be a somewhat Morrocan Tile pattern... an elongated ellipse with smaller dots on top / bottom and both sides.  Something like this:

And... as you can see above, they look more like soft diamonds... ugh!

Carrying on with that theme... I wanted to make "flowers" with four petals and then with five. Each time, I started with a large center dot, melted it and added stringer dots. This was my first use of stringers in this project. And... it sucked! They don't look floral-ish at ALL!  More like "drunk clouds!"


But I will say, I get more ideas each time I do this... Keep pen and paper handy and you will have your next torch session penciled in! This session made me want to try butterflies.... OY!

--------
Day 8 
Now, I'm doubting my color choice! Great Hol, you're  26 beads into a 40 bead project and NOW you doubt your color choices??? Sigh....  But I seriously wish I hadn't used a reactive ivory. It bubbles and doesn't always go on "clean."

But first, I allowed myself to make a bead that's not in this project... And I love it. I also made another mini focal from a dot bead that got weirdly big on me....

I started out making "rat heads" - I made the vertical ones first... they mostly look like mishapen hearts, But the horizontal ones hit the mark.

Butterflies were attempted next. I had the bright idea that two larger dots placed next to each other with two smaller dots on top might melt into a butterfly... They didn't. I was hoping this might give me a successful idea for a better looking flower... but no.

I'm at a cross roads where I'm questioning my skills and my own laziness. I realize how much I rely on a marver ...but it is FASTER to marver. I also realize just what an impatient bead maker I am... I hate waiting for glass to melt. And forcing myself to do it slowly is torture! Maybe if I hoped to actually sell the beads I make, it would be worth it. But at this point... it's not a career. It's a hobby.

Still, I've learned a lot and as of this writing... I'm only two beads shy of 40!

The Dot Diaries - Days 3 - 6

It took me a while to get back to my project as I've been busy in the stamp shop. This should really only be Days 3 and 4 but... I had some setbacks...

 Day 3 was way too brief and I only got to make four beads. The focus was layered dots. This is really an amazing exercise in that you get such a good lesson in volume control. All those stacked dots make it really easy to understand a square bead. And heating between the dots is as vital to rounding up the bead as heating the dots themselves. I've always heard, "Heat where you want the glass to GO!" and this day showed me that in volumes. Also, heating without marvering... elongates the dots. Mine are ovals...

 Day Four -Got off to a really bad start... My bead got all wonky as I tried to melt the glass for a smiley. I got frustrated and I know myself well enough to know not to play with fire when things start this way.  It's better to do something else. 

Still, I really like the look of the smiles from the top vantage point... These "boomerangs" are a design element I like and have since dreamed of!! What would happen adding opposing dots of the base glass near opposite end of the boomerang... I think it would make a nice S shape. Worth exploring ....

Day Five -  I got to make a few smileys before I had other obligations. After several more failed attempts at these.... I had to break the rules. I KNOW we are not supposed to use tools but I quickly found I could not melt my smile in correctly without marvering that top layer of base-colored glass! So... I used the glass rod as a "tool."  I've decided smileys are advanced bead making! I'm still not totally happy with the ones I'm showing here but they do make me smile and I think that's one of the points!

Day Six  - Oh No... I lost my sizing! Reviewing beads from previous days... I had gotten HUGE and way off scale. Hey, I like big beads and I cannot lie! 

But this is also a size exercise. Remakes were in order. I HAD to rework some of those smileys that I thought were fine! ARGH! So what do I so when I start??? I zone out and look down and ... have HUGE volume of glass on my mandrel! ARGH!  Determined not to have another wonky nuttin on my hands, I made this...DON'T LAUGH:

I actually like this mini focal... I've forgotten how awesome the Bullseye palette is!  Must play with this color MORE... I love the olive reaction from the Nougat... very cool!

Finally, I was able to make more smileys...  Here they are with the wonky boomerang from above:

+++++++++++++

Just a reminder... there's a huge album of glass beads I'm GIVING AWAY with purchases!!!

More Merchant Services Research

It really pays to check the price of your merchant accounts from time to time. I had been with Intuit and loved it... 24/7 AMERICAN customer support by phone is a BIG plus to me! (Wish more banks understood that!)  And their prices were cheaper...when they started... but not any more!

The above is my research... the yellow highlights are companies that won't work for my business for one reason or another... some of which you can guess by my notes on the right: lots of charges charges (charges for no reason), no phone support, etc.

I was kind of shocked that I can save so much money by encouraging people to check out with Paypal and putting in their own credit card number vs. me putting it in. Another thing I hate about that is, I have to have my phone or Ipad handy even though I'm working on a computer in my shop... sucks when your space is crowded!

The last column is one I recommend anyone test when checking out a  merchant processor. What is your average sale amount??? Run the numbers on what that sale will cost you with that merchant. How many sales do you average every month? And what are your total sales? Knowing those numbers will help you save!!

This research made me want to send folks directly to Paypal for almost a 40 cent savings on my average order... Hey, when you are a starving artist...every penny COUNTS!

But I knew folks have a bad view of Paypal. I posted notes on my fan page and home page and the comments piled up! Did you know that if you are locked out of your Paypal account and yet your credit card is tied to that account, you cannot pay the "simple" way that Paypal advertises!??!

I was surprised that Google (a much friendlier company in many eyes) has Google Wallet now. So I set it up on my bead site and created some new buttons to make the shopping cart clear as mud...

Hopefully it will save me a few pennies. I will be switching to Paypal Here for classes... again a few pennies savings. And you can always get Paypal Phillipines on the phone (yaythat'sgreat...NOT!) and even sometimes Paypal Colorado...which is great!

------------------
My ebay sales were a bust and I still have a puppeh surgery to pay for so, relisted and reduced and ending in two days! Please take a l@@k at my auctions!

Fighting eBay for My Own Copyright

The last three weeks have provided a painful lesson in copyrights. I have been cleaning out some production over runs in the stamp shop by selling them off on eBay - with even cheaper prices on my rubber stamp website. And they sell there on eBay (Always do your research before buying there and check out your sellers... they probably offer the same item cheaper elsewhere!) which is fine. I charge enough there to pay my eBay fees and make a little more than I do on my site.

It all started last year when I got several large wholesale orders in a row from a studio in New York. I have a policy against selling my stamps below retail on eBay. It makes it hard for other retailers to compete and wholesale orders fall off and so do my retail ones. Much to my surprise, I started getting emails from customers finding my stamps there. I looked and found it was this customer in NY! And she was barely selling over wholesale, clearing trying to just cover her eBay fees and cost of the stamps! And... she was using my images and text from my project sheets!

I yelled, I emailed; we went back and forth. I couldn't afford to buy the stamps back from her only to have them sit here. At the time, my thinking was, let her sell them...she won't get any more! But I had no idea what that would do to the rights to my own images and text  further down the line!

Times being what they are and wholesale orders being non-existent and the fact that I have thousands of images made by the previous owner sitting here, I decided to sell them myself on eBay. Some money is better than none, right?

And then the trouble: 

Three weeks ago, I got a notice that two of my auctions were being pulled due to copyright violation. Wha???? I thought it was that I had copied the auction format from a customer of mine who had been sellign the same stamps on eBay against my wholesale policy... I checked and I had accidentally linked to her auctions. My bad... I fixed it and relisted the stamps.  And they got pulled again.

Each time I would call eBay and get the Trust and Safety Dept in the Philippines (although they are not allowed to tell you they are in the Philippines). I was told I was violating a copyright but given no information about what exactly I was doing wrong. I looked over the html file for my auctions and assumed that because I was linking to MY OWN website (I needed a web address of an image so that my customers can see the image while reading about it and not have to scroll up to see the pics... one of my pet peeves with eBay.). So, I moved the image to Picassa and relisted it... and again it was pulled.

I uploaded new images: one of the recipe stamped on a cookie and one straight from my catalog in black and white... and it got pulled again! I got Trust & Safety Philippines again. This time the idiot told me that since someone had used MY image on eBay before, I could not use it!???? That's like saying, "Since John Smith sold an iphone on eBay first, NO ONE can ever sell one again with a photo of an iphone!" The logic defies reason!

Our rubber is a food grade and can be used to stamp on pastry.

 Over two weeks in, I finally managed to be connected to Trust & Safety in Utah. Sweet Mother of God! America has tech support! There I finally got the truth.

"Someone" claimed I was using both their image and text.  I was certain this all led back to the customer in New York. But she had no product to sell... so WHO would make such a claim??? While Trust and Safety Utah would not tell me, I suspect it was a large auction hosting service who my customer uses to list her auctions. Regardless, they've made my last three weeks very difficult!

Because the text was also part of the complaint, no matter how many times I changed the photos, I had to change the text too. I pointed out that the text was stolen from me as well as the photo. One of the things the Philippine office had wanted me to do was to write eBay's VeRO to complain my image had been stolen... on an auction over a year old! What good will that do?


I pointed out I had changed the text more than 10%... which is the threshold for copyright law but that it was hard to change it more as we are talking about rubber stamping on cookies, a technique my company invented!  But to list a fall themed stamps, I would deleted the text. Fine! I relisted and took the steps to notify eBay of my legal claim to both the images and the text as advised by the Utah rep.

Fighting for my rights:

I sent eBay Trust & Safety Utah a lenthy fax to prove I was the owner of the images and text in question. It included:

• The history of the image: who drew it and when, who wrote the recipe on it, who colored it (ME!) using what techniques. (Let the claimant to that image provide all that!)
• HUGE scan files of the original image I colored in. Anyone with some photo experience knows you can't take a tiny file and make it bigger... it just won't work. The pixels aren't there! By giving them a huge image, they again would have something the claimant could not provide!
• Bill of sale to the customer in NY, & her eBay user id.
• A copy of the project sheet where she stole the text. 

While it took a few days, I won my case and my actions are finally up and running. And I'm spending way too much time water marking all the photos on my stamp site so this can never happen again. 

Doing the Numbers on Credit Card Processing

My contract with the oh-so-crappy credit card processor, TransFirst is expired! All I can say is "YAY!"  I had originally thought I would return to Costco Merchant Processing. They were exactly what they promised: fees clearly stated up front and never came up with "charges-charges" like TransFirst did! There were months where half my earnings went to that shyster company!

But in doing the math, I realize my business is not what it was when I started. And, I have more and more in-person sales at shows and classes than I did in the beginning. Yet, I cannot afford to have two "gateways" or merchant accounts.

I signed up for square and then realized that Paypal HERE is just a few pennies cheaper (and in my world, pennies MATTER!). Plus, I'm familiar with Paypal. The money is there immediately. But still, that 3.5% for my mail orders seems high!

I can pay a cheaper amount by diverting my web customers to paypal directly... 2.9% + .30 transaction fee... which on a $30 sale saves me 3 cents! Hardly worth paying a web-developer for!

But the fact that Costco "seemed" so much cheaper kept bugging me. When that happens there's nothing to do but sit down and do the math!

For comparison:

Costco  1.99% on keyed in transactions + 25 cents per transaction. Costco also has a monthly fee of $20.
Paypal Here 3.5% / keyed transaction + 15 cents per. No monthly fee.

I started with what I wish I made: 4K a month. I guestimated 80 transactions.  Using those numbers, Costco would cost 119.60 vs. Paypal Here's 152.00. But... I don't make anywhere near that!

So I put in 1750 and 70 transactions. Here the prices were close: Costco came out to 72.33  vs. Paypal's 71.25

I upped it a bit to 2000 a month and 70 transactions... and Paypal edges ahead to 80.50 vs. Costco's 77.30.

Now I know that somewhere between 1750 and 2K a month, I need to get a cheaper processor. While it's nice to have goals, I haven't seen that kind of dough in five years.  Anyone wanna buy a swiper??? ;-)

Pros and Cons of Moo Cards

Last week Moo was having a sale and I've long wanted mini cards for my Creekhiker blog and since I had a bead show coming up, I thought it would be fun and eye catching to have lots of my bead images on my booth table.

File Tabs

But, largely due to feeling ripped off on the shipping, I ended up with cards for the blog ONLY.

They've arrived and I thought I would write a pro and con for other consumers.

Pros:

• I'm giddy over the little file tabs making it easy to separate my cards from the cards I collect at a show.
• Moo allows you to put up to 50 different images on one side of your cards. The other side must be the same image. 
• Moo can use photos from your online photo albums! They have links to Picassa (Blogger's album), Flickr and more. Or you can upload from your own computer.
• Easy editing. Moo's software allows you to move the pictures to frame each image and flip the cards from vertical to horizontal.
• They have all kinds of accessories for your Moo Cards:

Key chain card holder

• They are darn cute!!!

Just SOME of the 50 images

Cons:

• The cards are pricey at .20 each. My full size, double sided, UV coated business cards are about a penny each (GotPrint.com).
• Software does not allow you to choose the same photo multiple times. I have a logo photo from my other blog and I would have loved multiple duplicates of that. In the end, I worked around this by uploading the photo several times under different names! But I would have loved it if their software would have allowed me to just say...Print more of this one!
• Their access to the online albums only go back so far. I was frustrated that I couldn't access some older photos.
• I was also frustrated that I couldn't combine resources i.e. pull pics from blogger AND flickr or blogger AND my computer. I realized I don't have all my pics in any ONE spot!
• I found their shipping outrageous! To order 300 mini cards and a holder was going to run me 18 bucks! Not in the age of flat rate shipping! I kept playing with different configurations and the price would drop low or go way high. I wrote to their tech support and they openly admitted "a glitch" in the cart calculation. Glitch aside - their shipping costs are off the chart. 
• This is my package - It weighed 9 ounces (2 sets of mini cards and a holder):

This should have cost them 2.73 to mail (actual postage) and around 3.45 to allow for the packaging material, yet I was charged 6.50

Just to compare, all my items would have fit in a priority mail box (the small one!) which is around 5 bucks and the post office provides the packaging: 

I picked up the orange box without moving the green to be sure I could get THREE boxes of cards in there:

It fit with room to spare! This combination - which could ship for $5 - would have cost me $18 at Moo. 

All in all, it really tortured me purchasing because I always felt that the shipping was a HUGE ripoff. If I worked at Moo, this would be Item #1 on things to improve! 

I will say, IF you are photoshop savvy, MyMiniCards.com is a much more cost effective option. 16.99 / 100 and FREE shipping!  The downside is they don't allow you to upload from your web albums. But if you know anything about graphics...this is a good thing! Some of my Moo cards are pixelated from being too small! If I had it to do over, I would download the templates at MyMiniCards, prepare a file of 50 images in one place on my computer and go that route. It's a little more work but... in this crappy economy, I have more time than money! 

Boutique Glass

Boy, I don't mean to be a grump fest this week but yes, I have another gripe. I'm partially responsible but I also feel the boutique glass I used is mostly responsible.

First a little background. I'm a firm believer in seeking inspiration ELSEWHERE... i.e. not from other beadmakers. And I was majorly impressed with this set of sheets from Crate and Barrel.

I just knew they would make the perfect bead... and they did!

 It was big and fantastic and opaque yet transparent. It was amazing! WAS???? Yes, WAS!

It's full of cracks:

Why? Not because of heat control. No, as I mentioned earlier, the fault lies in the way I make large beads and the fact that I used boutique glass.

A bead this large uses just over a whole rod of glass! And, to save money and not waste pricey glass, I make a smaller core using "trash clear" - the ugly, cheap, not-clear-enough-to-case-with clear. I then reverse case with the pricier stuff. I get the same effect but I don't waste money... generally. With the prices of beads dropping lower every day, it makes sense. Also, I like using a clear core because it holds the heat of a large design well! Softer cores can get limp under that much heat.

But to get that shade of purple... translucent and opaque at the same time... I foolishly chose a boutique glass color.  This particular glass (And please, beadmakers... if you out them in your comments, they will be deleted!) is known for it's spotty annealing schedule with temps ranging from 940 - 1070!

That is the very reason I buy so little of the boutique glass. We have a fellow Fire Diva who makes gorgeous stuff with boutique glasses mixed with other 104 glasses. But when I try... I get cracks! Between the higher price and the fact that I feel many of the colors produced by boutique companies are near identical to the Italian glass that has been produced for generations, I just can't justify it.

And as a fickle artist, I often don't know what I'm going to make when I sit down at the torch. How DO you plan for quirky annealing temps?? Make a plan and work from high to low? But how do you keep track of the temps??? A schedule in your shop, over the kiln? I just can't wrap my brain around it.

Save for the fact I love this color purple, I've not invested in much of the stuff... thank goodness. And even this color really gets my dander up... sometimes it's rich and lovely. Other batches I've seen are pale and icky! And I'm expected to pay more for this... something I can't just call up and order. I have to see it to make sure it's the version I love? No thank you!

But all is not lost. I made a matching set of SMALL lentils using only the purple rod...no clear core.

And a matching set of spacers.

Giving It Away

I joined one of "those" websites this week. You know the type... they promise to get your name and your shop "out there." While I do like the concept of socializing online with artists from other mediums... let's face it - the glassy peeps I prefer hang out with really have no need to BUY beads. I hoped this might present other selling opportunities.

Eye of the Tiger - offers protection to the bearer!

But I quickly realized I had made a mistake. I imported this blog there - which I really gave little thought to. Until, I got an email that one of my blogs was featured on their site. I clicked the link and found MY words, MY work slathered with google ads with NO reference back to THIS site.

Um, excuse me but if anyone is going to slather MY works, beads and jewelry with google ads... it's going to be ME! As an artist, I work SO hard for every PENNY I make, and for this site to come in and take that away with NO link back... SUCKS! My words and images are for ME to make a living, not some other person!

I do feel very strongly about this. When I first started blogging over on Creekhiker, within a few months a website was stealing my content. I was so ticked off, every blog post started with this paragraph:
 BITACLE.ORG steals content. JESUS GLEZ is a THIEF. If you are reading this post on BITACLE.ORG, you are supporting theft of intellectual property. This post was written and copyrighted by CREEKHIKER, who has not given consent for material to be reproduced. Please visit CREEKHIKER to enjoy this content LEGALLY.
If you want to know why this message is in every post, read this post.

Bitacle is now out of business. As a writer and an artist... all I have to offer is the intellectual property that spills out of MY brain. And since I'm not making much of a living, I sell ad space on my blogs. For someone to steal that... is WRONG! But in this case, I gave that right away... and just as quickly took it back!

Don't give your words away. Don't loan your images unless YOU get something real and tangible in return. Learn from my mistake!

Protecting Your Business from Scams

Good day,

We browsed through your web page and we are interested in ordering some of your products,we are located in Norway,we will like to know if you have the items in stocks,so kindly get back to me with the right contact person email,phone # and confirmation of website so that we can place my order quickly, and i want to know if you have your own personal shipper or can the order be picked up at your store,please advise so that we can proceed by going ahead to place the order.

Regards

Purchasing Manager

James.

I get emails like this ALL the time. So does my bestie who runs an online custom golf club business.  We both laugh at these... and NEVER EVER respond! First of all, they have our emails, which means they have our dot coms. If James were really so interested, why not just type that dot com in and uh... shop a little?  Trust me if you choose a country I won't ship to ( and there are countries I will NOT), you will hear from me...right before I block your email!



Not only that, but the same dot coms have a contact email and phone number. And if James IS in fact in Norway, WHY would he want to know if he can pick up???

Anytime you get an email that defies logic... it's probably a scam.  Save yourself a headache and hit delete!

---------------------------

I've been working so hard in the shop and I'm taking a few days to stoke my creativity and just catch up on things like tidying up the shop, making some beads that are just visions in my head and ... cleaning all the beads I made LAST time!

These are the ones waiting for the dremel: 

And these are still waiting to come off the mandrels!

If you have some time over the weekend, do check in on my glass beads website. I'm hoping to get some new goodies listed, including ring kits!  And don't forget to vote and get your chance to win a $50 Gift Certificate for FREE BEADS!
Have a wonderful weekend and do come visit me here on the Bead Blog  next week.

So, What's Your Name???

Naming your studio has to be one of the most difficult decisions an artist has to make because it's also an important decision. The logical choice may be to use your name like some of my friends do. Janel Dudley Beads - That says it all.  So does Lutrick, Lara Lutrick's studio name.

But you may get hung up on "who knows me??" Or the privacy issue...It can be intimidating to put your name "out there" on the Internet. So the next logical choice may be something that reflects your name like LA Jewelry Designs ( studio name of fellow Fire Divas admin, Lea Avroch) or Tease Beads (Another Divas admin, Theresa Ehlers. This is a play on her first name: "T's Beads"). Yet another idea is to name it after someone. Artist Lori Bergmann named her studio, Ashlyn Designs after her daughter Ashley.

Another option is to name your studio after a place near and dear to your heart. Dorset Hill Beads and Rivers Edge Glass are two such examples. I thought long and hard about naming my studio after the mountains or town I live in but Verdugo and Sunland really didn't say much. I also thought about the river I hike near daily...but no one outside of this area can even pronounce Tujunga. Why think small and local when your market could be bead lovers anywhere, right?


But this brings up yet another issue. Many artists like the anonymity of the Internet and having a studio not related to your own name provides some level of that. But after a while, it becomes obvious that customer and fellow glassers want to know who YOU are. I've literally seen posts in the Etsy threads that go like this:

"Lauren, cute snowman! Lisa - love your new set. XYZ - That's a really pretty focal."

People don't know who they are talking too and have a hard time putting your name with your studio when it gives no hint of your own name. Of course you can always close posts with your name so people start to associate the person and studio together.

In the end, am I happy with my studio name? Yes and no! Yes in that it's part of my name and I don't keep people guessing. No in that I should have taken my own advice. When I work as a marketing consultant on a product launch, I insist on Internet name searches and if the company is big enough, we do a legal name search as well. I did neither. I liked the name and the rhyme and went with it. When I first launched my glass bead website, I wondered why I had so many very short visits for folks looking for Holly Folly instead of Holly's Folly. Holly Folly is a popular gay pride holiday festival. I always feel like those folks must be a little disappointed when they find my beads instead!

Making the Social Media Nightmare a Little Easier

I must say that being without a computer for the last few weeks has been rather eye opening. I've been reassessing EVERYTHING I do online and realizing what a time suck it is. I'm 46. I'm over halfway done with life. Do I REALLY want to spend this much time online, especially if is does absolutely nothing for my glass bead sales??

Hmm... thoughts to ponder for sure!

And so I've been looking into things that will make my online life a little easier. One thing that I've tried and LOVE is Qwitter. Let's face it... everyone on Twitter has something to promote. I have serious doubts as to whether or not ANY customers use twitter at all. And unless I find someone's website offensive or they are in a business I care NOTHING about (like all the wigmakers that follow me... OY! I have enough hair for me and three other people. I doubt a wig is something I will EVER need!), I will follow anyone that follows me.

But many people will follow hundreds of people trying to get follow-back suckers like myself and then go around and unfollow us. Qwitter sends you an email within a few days of someone unfollowing you! Why follow those people??? It's a great service; just minutes to sign up and has both free and premium options. I use the free one and love it!!

And... YES, I NEVER look at my twitter cause it's so full of junk I care nothing about.  It's a jumble of ads...other tweeters just self promoting. It difficult to find the stuff I'm interested in - say my friends, fellow designers or those amazing choreographers from Dancing with the Stars - vs. the stuff I'm not - say, uh, wigs.


But right before my crash, I found HootSuite. From the dashboard, I can tweet, schedule tweets, read all tweets and direct messages and mentions and... I can create lists. It even picks up the lists I created within twitter and I can add other beadmakers on the spot. I can also follow and unfollow. HootSuite is the interface you WISH Twitter was! It's also fairly easy to search. Wow!

Click to see larger image.

I hope these time savers help you reclaim some of your life as well! And THANK YOU for spending part of that time with ME! See you next week here on the bead blog.

Terms of the Trade - High Silver Glass & Dichroic

Continuing on our terminology journey, today we look at silver glasses and dichroic. High silver & silver saturated are two common terms you hear when shopping for glass beads. The meaning is pretty clear... there's lots of silver in a particular glass. Even though this is a basic vocabulary to glassy peeps... I hope you will keep reading...some good tips here for making glass beads!

Silver in glass? Yes, metals are common elements. Copper and Lead are also common in glass. If you are curious about what these metals do, check out the Bullseye website which lists the elements in a particular glass and what other elements may cause a reaction.

Glass artists are often looking for a reaction. One glass makes another "bleed" and create striations of color. Or the lovely black line that appears when turquoise touches ivory or coral. This button by fellow Fire Diva Rivers Edge is a perfect example. See the black line between the colors? That's a color reaction.
But back to the silver. Silver adds amazing shine to glass...a spectacular sheen! You can see what I'm referring to on this pandora style glass bead by Giapet.

This is a specific reaction that occurs when a silver saturated glass is "reduced." Reducing or reduction flames are mostly propane, starving the bead of oxygen. Silver needs oxygen to be a happy camper in the glass and when starved for oxygen, the silver molecules gather on the surface of the bead...where there is more oxygen in the air. Reduction is usually the last thing done to a bead before popping it in a kiln. This keeps the silver on the surface, creating that beautiful rich shine!

Here are another example. My fish has silver glass fins and the speckles on his body are silver glass as well.

Silver glass is very popular in spite of the cost. Starting at around $48 / pound and going up to $100 / pound, it's best used sparingly!

But that is not the ONLY thing silver does to glass. Silvered ivory is another term you hear alot, certainly on this blog! It's one of my favorite techniques! I simply love the rugged, ancient look you can get but adding fine (.999 pure) silver to ivory glass. Here are two examples, the first by Janel Dudley Beads called Sprouts. Check out the bottom half of her bead:



The second bead, I made. It features both techniques...silvered ivory on the inside with silver saturated glass on the dots and surface decoration.


The last glass I would like to show off to you is called dichroic. Dichroic glass was actually invented for NASA - I can't imagine what for but, I'm sure glad they shared it with the glass industry! This definition is from the website of CBS-dichroic, the best known manufacturer: "Quartz Crystal and Metal Oxides are Vaporized with an electron beam gun in an airless vacuum chamber and the vapor then floats upward and attaches then condenses on the surface of the glass in the form of a crystal structure."

Fancy, huh?? Well, the results are beautiful, sparkly and double colored....hence the name di = two; chroic = color! The two color are the color you see looking straight on at the glass and the color that light reflects back. See how the strips of dichroic look purple AND gold:
This bead is a perfect example of ways to use dichroic: There are THREE techniques here: Surface, encased and what one of my favorite teachers, Janet Andersen calls "party stringer."

That surface coating is the subject of much debate among lampworkers. Many say you cannot put the coating on the outside... but you can. You see it right there. The trick is, you MUST work cool. Too hot, and you have scum! But it can be done! Keep the coating away from the flame and wrap in reverse.... and keep working cool!

The dots on the bead are clear, clear glass traps the coating and makes it crackle and get all interesting. Most the dichroic you see is trapped under clear. That doesn't mean it's any less challenging to work. Many bead makers will clip a small piece of dichroic into their hemostats with the coating side up to stick into the flame without burning it off...but with me, my hemos fall over and then I'm panicked with a hot bead in the flame! OY!

But then I remembered an old fusing trick! Lay your fingernails on the glass. If your nail is touching the glass, you are touching the dichroic. If there is a visual "skip" between your nail and the glass, you are touching the glass side. The dichroic coating is on the back and creating a mirror effect! I can lay down my hemos and check with one hand while keeping that bead warm!

The final technique - exemplified by the pink and gold thin ribbon running around the bead between the surface application is party stringer. Lay down several strips dichroic onto a hot clear rod. Case well and pull. This makes dichro go a long way...which is a good thing! It too is pricey, running from 65 cents an INCH to 1.50 an INCH.

Check back tomorrow for some twisted beads!