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!!

Heat Issue

I was cleaning beads from yesterday's harvest and a piece flew off of one of my faves... so sad. I'm certain it was a heat issue but I SWEAR the bead was glowing the whole time! Sigh...

I was so proud of this bead... I never would have tried it had I not tried the dot challenge!!

As with happens with all of my "intact" accidents, I'll make myself a piece of jewelry with it. I can't tell you the compliments I get on my boo-boo beads and I stand there and tell people what's wrong with them! UGH!

Fresh Glass 10.30.13

I've been a busy bee... aren't I always??? Lots of news to share with you in the next few days!

Just the highlights:

• The Fire Divas are now hosting glass bead / Lampwork Jewelry and gifts in trunk shows on our Fan Page and the wonderful and talented Amy Sims has agreed to go first!!! More on that tomorrow! 
• I will be the third Diva to host a show... Mine is in early December... stay tuned!
• While working on a freelance medical bookkeeping project,  I got a nice size custom order and making that led to more great ideas. I love when that happens!
• Started on the next 40 bead challenge...torching aimless instead of with a plan.... more on that soon!
• Created 16 glass bead charms from the upcoming Art Charm Challenge. I didn't make matchy ones to trade...trying to keep excess stuff OUT of the house these days. But I made all of them to donate to the Beads of Courage Auction. Photos and more on that before the auction goes live! 

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!

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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:

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

The Dot Diary - Days 1 & 2

I haven't been feeling my muse... and no glass bead sales make her run and hide . Needing to get myself out of this rut, I ran across a thread on Lampwork Etc regarding Heather Trimlett's 40 Bead Challenge. I have been aware of Heather's Challenge for some time and always wanted to try it.... kinda. But, it is dots... my least favorite kind of bead.... or so I thought!

When I saw such a large group doing it... I thought, Why not??? It might shake me out of my doldrums.

But after a week of thinking about it, choosing colors, dipping mandrels... there was nothing left to do but get started.

Day 1

Per Heather's instructions I limited myself to six beads a day. I chose to do two of each, reversing the colors each time.  Heather suggested working slow...something I'm sooo not good at. For this reason, I chose to work in Bullseye 90 knowing the stiffer glass would slow me down. And my favorite blue of all time is Bullseye - Steel Blue. For a contrast, I choose Nougat.

My first beads were simple donuts with 4 dots. I concentrated on even spacing and volume control to make the dots similar.

Next, I tried six... harder.  But I was starting to see possibilities...

My final set was what I named the roller coaster... Great! Now, I'm naming dots!  Two dots were placed dead center and one dot in between but on opposite edges. Then I filled in the area in between.

When I was done, I was actually excited. .... Hmmm... can dots be addicting???

Day 2

I found I couldn't wait to torch the next day... I woke up thinking about that roller coaster...  Could 2 look like DNA???

Beads 1 and 2 were DNA or double coasters... getting harder to evenly space and control the placement.

I didn't love the vacant space created when the dots were further apart. So the next two were DNA with eyeballs in the center. I liked those better.

And then I started on stacking dots. Two dots on top of each other.

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I'm still so excited about this project even though work has kept me from the torch for a few days now. I have my next two sessions planned out. 24 out of 40 with a plan!  My next session with focus on stacking and the one after that will be a take on smiley faces.

I'm really happy I tried this. I can't wait to see all of the beads finished! If you are in a lull of creativity, I heartily recommend this exercise!

Devine Design

More artists that could use a little love with all that is going on in this big old nasty world. Please show them some love, heart their shops and visit often, and, if you can, buy something.

Isn't this bottle stopper from Lakeside Lampwork just luscious? Wouldn't it make the loveliest holiday gift for someone you need to impress.

And this boro set is so vibrant and pretty!
Check out Lakeside Lampwork on Etsy for more wonderful glass beads!

Next up, we have LenorasDesigns. Lenora is a master where I'm a disaster! Just look at her dots!!!! This red bead is mesmerizing!!!

But, you know me... I gotta drool over the purple! Excuse me while I pick up my chin!

Check out more of Lenora's work (and find your favorite color in dots!) in her Etsy shop!

Our final artist for today is Betsymn. I've spoken about my passion for silvered ivory before...but look at what Betsy does with it! I adore this Aurae and silvered ivory combo:



Or check out this version with a ruby base.... stunning!


Betsymn has lots more wonderful beads in her Etsy shop.

Please check out these wonderful shops and stunning artisan made beads!

All photos copyrighted by the respective artists and used with permission.