Torch time

I had some time at the torch this week and thought I would share what I have been working on.  Focused on lampwork this time and have some enameled pieces rolling around in my head that I need to get to very soon.  As far as the lampwork goes I have been playing primarily with sculptural shapes rather than standard round beads.  I made some rounds to and practiced and played with dots and frits, but those are not quite as exciting to see.

First up is a batch of raked or feathered hearts.  The hearts evolved after playing with it on a barrel bead and deciding it would be cool for a project I was asked to do and then evolved from there.  The pic of my hand is a sort of heart shaped burn mark that is fading.  I mildly painful reminder to make sure you pick up the glass rod you have been using to rake with by the correct end.  Purely coincidental that the burn was heart shaped when I had been working on hearts!

The largest heart in the collage is my fave!  I have mentioned before that I get all my glass from Devardi, this one has their silvery black metallic glass as the stripes.  Once I mastered getting the metallic to come out I fell in love with this glass, it reminds me of hematite.  You can see that some of the hearts slumped in the mini annealer, it may be that I put them in there a tad too hot.  Still saving up for a Chili Pepper kiln where this shouldn't be an issue. As a side note, the folks at Devardi are a dream to work with, offer affordable pricing,  carry a great assortment of colors, and always promptly answer all my newbie questions when I email them.

Next up were some more turtles and mushrooms.  These seem very fitting for a shop with the name Northwoods Creative Studio.  They seem to fit right in with my birds and owls.  Later this week I hope to tackle and master making some little foxes.

Again the black here is the silvery metallic.  I took liberties with the colors in this batch of shrooms and turtles.  The little turtle on the bottom has eyes that are a wee bit large, making him look very surprised.  The mushrooms are topped with frit also from Devardi.  I don't think it can be seen in this pic but the green shroom has a crack in the cap, I sometimes have this with my transparents, I think as a result of not getting them in the kiln quickly enough.  So, much to her delight the green shroom will be gifted to my oldest daughter.

Did a bit of wire wrapping with my shells last night.  I collected them two summers ago in FL and am getting around to using them.

I always like my work (if I don't I redo it), but I LOVE this piece and am torn as to whether or not I will be putting it up for sale.  This simplicity of this center of a conch shell and the minimal wrapping just speak to me.

While I'm very pleased with how this one turned out, I can't keep them all!  Listed this one tonite on Etsy.



Lilac

Lastly a few parting shots of the flowering shrubs at our place.  Happy spring to you all :)!

Flowering Quince

 

Copper and enamel tube beads in production

I sat down the other day and cut what seemed like a mountain of copper tubing into short lengths for enameling into tube beads.  I cut around 4 feet on tubing and here was the result.

The whole pile fits in  a little 4 inch bowl.  I flared some of the tubes to play with some additional shapes.  The flared ones look a little like spools don't they?  Then I set to filing all the tube edges so they don't cut through the stringing material. 

I have lots of ideas for these including some Monet inspired beads for spring.  So many ideas and so few tubes.  Guess I better go start cutting some more.

I plan to get them enameled and listed on Etsy this week for those who are interested.

I treated myself to a dark chocolate Dove bar yesterday,  They have little sayings in the wrappers now, sort of like fortune cookies. 

Thanks Dove.  I will try to remember to do that :). 

 

Hope you are being free, happy and you this weekend too!

Final piece from Lucite and Clay Blog Hop

Finally had some sun Wednesday to take pics of my last piece from the Lucite and Clay Blog Hop.  I used up every little Lucite bead that came in my stash :).

Here it is, a 10g copper wire cuff, wrapped with 18g coated wire.  Dangles made from balled copper wire headpins in 20g.  I think this might be my favorite piece that I made from this hop.  Hard and a lil edgy with a feminine side (kinda like me).

Hmmmm, what to do with the uglies...

So I have these beads that I made, you know the kind, not awful enough to grid into frit but not nice enough to use as is.  Some were experiments, as much of my work is since I'm still pretty new to the whole lampwork gig.  And I had been wanting to make some etched beads, because I think it's a cool look, more subdued. I thought about Armor Etch (I think that's the name) but really didn't want to take that kind of time and work to etch.  I'm basically a lazy , work smarter not harder kinda gal.

I have a tumbler for my metal and have the grit packs for stones which I hadn't used yet.  So, I tried tumbling, like you do with "faux" sea glass, but nothing happened, still shiny and just as ugly.  Then I ran across a post at For the Love of Beads about tumbling.  That led me to research some more and try again.  Turns out that one of two things were the problem for me.The last time I tried I only let them go about 4 hours with absolutely zero results, not a scratch or nick on a single bead. I checked this batch several times along the way and nothing was happening, but I thought let's just leave em go awhile. I had read on a sea glass tutorial that it can take up to 5 days.   I wish I could tell you exactly which one but since I tried both solutions at once I can't be sure if it was one, the other or both.  I added finer grit in with my coarser grit that I had tried previously and I had to tumble for about 36 hrs before the magic happened. 

Here are the results.  Sorry I forgot to take before photos.

Okay, so that one bead there in the lower right photo is still wonky, no amount of tumbling is going to fix that, lol.  That one did teach me a valuable lesson though, make sure your large beads are cool enough before they go in the annealer or they can sag on you.

The wind is starting to blow out of the East already tonight.  Normally our breezes come from the West, when it comes from the other way it's NEVER good, hurricane force storms or blizzards.  Since it's February, this will be the edge of a blizzard.  A Nor'easter, named Nemo (who names a horrible storm after a cute lil clown fish?)  is due to collide with normal our lake effect front from the north.  We will be spared what the coast is going to get.  My thoughts are with you all that are due to bear the brunt of Nemo.  Be prepared and stay home if you can.

Lucite and Clay Blog Hop Reveal

Today is the big reveal for the lucite and clay blog hop I mentioned on Thursday's post.  Sponsored by Lisa Liddy of Pine Ridge Treasures.  Thanks to Lisa for putting this all together and mailing us all our little packets of bead awesomeness.

A quick reminder of what I received to play with, lucite in shades of pink.  As mentioned in the previous post both lucite and pink are a creative stretch for me.

I created two pieces and as of tonite one is still in the works.  My procrastination and sore hands kept me from finishing the third.  Hopefully the third will be finished and added to this post tomorrow.  First up in the completed category is a little pair of earrings, the remind of gasplant flowers.  One of the advantages of lucite is how light it is for earrings!  Too bad my budget is currently on a no new beads diet or I would be searching for more of these little petal beads.

 

 

Second on the finished list is a necklace, made with that pretty floral focal bead.  I added some of my own lampwork in the way of leafy headpins and hollow beads.  Then I added a 4 strand plaited ribbon "chain".  I have never done 4 strand plait. The plait gave me a bit of trouble as I tend to do everything from cross stitch to braiding horses manes and tails in a very tight tension.  Ribbon does not appreciate being worked tightly, and when you over tighten it buckles and puckers. 

(Sorry this is a lil dark.)

 

 

The third and as yet unfinished piece is a bracelet.  The headpins below will dangle from the wire wraps on the cuff. 

 

While I finish up the bracelet, I hope you will hop along and visit the other participants.  Be sure to stop by A Grateful Artist  - Pine Ridge Treasures and thank Lisa for putting this together :).

 

Isolina Perez, Isolina Perez

Jennifer Reno, Musings of a Crafty Jenny

Tracy Stillman, Tracy Stillman Designs

Charlene Jacka, Clay Space

Therese Frank, Therese's Treasures

Kay Thomerson, Kayz Kreationz

Ashleigh Kleinhans Becker, Sela Designs Jewelry

Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs

Alice McCarthy, Northwoods Creative Studio - you are here

Rebecca Sirevaag, Becca's Place

Toltec Jewels, Jewel School Friends

Emma Todd, A Polymer Penchant

Kathy Lindemer, Bay Moon Design

Annia Failde, AnniamAe