With the Women's Fair coming up I thought I should make some Christmassy themed beads so here's a preview of some I'll have available that day -



I've wanted to make some Goddess beads as well, but can't bring myself to try the torso type so decided to take another track.  There are some beautiful torso's out there, but I don't think I could bring myself to wear a naked body round my neck (it's the prudish side of me coming out I guess!!), so here's what I did instead.  I've got some ideas to progress with these which might be fun to try.  Don't pay too much attention to the trees, they will require YEARS of practise!



And here at last is CL's necklace, I am really pleased with how this project turned out, there are so many colours in it I think it would go with anything.  I took the beads into the local bead store to see how best to string them and got such a positive response from the owner and other lady that works there that I came away on cloud nine.

Just when I think I've found the most amazing thing about the glass I'm using, I do something else and get blown away by what happens!!

These are the latest, the base beads are wrapped in silver foil, which is then burned off in the flame resulting in that wonderful colour and texture!!
 
I've put dots on top, and also used glass that will reduce in the right kind of flame giving a metallic shine to them.  

The reducing part is a bit tricky, I seem to get the effect but end up with one part of the bead where it burns off again, I guess it's another case of PPP -- I have to make more of these beads....
** A word of caution - silver fumes are toxic, so if you are going to use any glass with silver make sure your ventilation is VERY good!**

These beads remind me of the colours in butterfly wings

And the blues really pop if you put iris blue over top of opal yellow!! The picture doesn't do the colours justice.

I got my glass order at the beginning of the week and have finally had a chance to play with it.  

I got some Reichenbach reduction rods which can be used to create the 'faux boro' effect I tried before.  

The colours are very pretty that show up in the glass but you have to be careful not to use too much as it's not the same COE as the Effetre which means the two are incompatible.   

I'm trying to get the necklace made for CL, but the coral that came is more like orange so I'm wondering if I can use some of these faux beads in her necklace instead.

**Attention - Techy post - boring for almost anyone unless you happen to melt glass! **
Having tried a bigger torch out at Carp, I've been very interested in the news that Nortel has a new torch out.  It's a step up from their popular minor torch, which would have been one of my picks.  From what I've read this new torch works really well on one oxycon, putting out more heat than the minor or the Carlisle mini cc.  Not to mention it looks reeeeaaally cool too!  Artistry in Glass has it on sale at the moment, and if you are interested in finding out more here's a link to Nortel's site, they don't have an online catalogue but you can at least contact someone and I've heard they are really good at responding.

Nortel Manufacturing Canada

It's 3:40 in the morning and I can't sleep.  I'm wide awake and feeling excited - I had a great day yesterday, Jane and I went to the Carp Farmer's Market and met the nice folks from Reid's Beads.  They were demo-ing glass bead making and it was the first time I actually got to see someone make a bead.  Paul showed me their wonderful collection of beads from really talented artists, absolutely incredible!!!  I think my very favourite was the Dustin Tabor pendant, the precision in the dots was unbelievable.

Aside from getting to drool all over their collection and their own beads (figuratively, not literally ;o)  ), I got to make a bead on their big oxy propane torch.  Wow!  What a difference from my little hot head!  The flame felt so soft and gentle but hot at the same time - it comes gushing out of my hot head like water under pressure, this big torch was so quiet, a totally different experience.

Who else should show up but Evelyn, who I met at the Bridge St. Bazaar, I think she'd understand if I told you she's crazy about buttons!  I just happened to have my buttons on me so she got to see them up close and seemed to be delighted.  I have to get busy now so that I can get things annealed hopefully later this week or early next.

There was also a lady who made me feel wonderful when she commented on my necklace, she seemed genuinely impressed when I told her I had made the beads.  Then she let me know she was the treasurer of an Ottawa bead group, so I felt very happy!!  I'm still basking in the excitement of the whole morning!

Friday night was Miracle in Merrickville Night - on our street at least!  I made this bead, and I still can't believe I made it.  I haven't been able to replicate it yet, so if anyone reading this has any suggestions on how I can do it again please let me know.  Bear in mind I am on the hot head at the minute.  This bead has a base of reddish orange and swirls of copper green - I've never been able to get copper green to do this wonderful thing before but hopefully with perseverence I can get it to happen again.  I won't apologise for being a picture hog here, it's my blog and I LOVE this bead :o)

Last week was a rough week, our 18 year old cat Pickles crossed the bridge.  She'd been loosing weight and getting more frail so it wasn't entirely unexpected but still very sad.  We got her and her brother Raffi when they were kittens so it's really hard to get used to not having her around.  She was a silly little thing, it was almost like she stayed a kitten, I think she was the runt of the litter, if she sat on my knee she'd be kneading with her paws all the time, and always, always would run to the fridge door when she heard one of us go into the kitchen, she always wanted milk.  Sweet little Pickles, we buried her out by our pond as she liked to go out there to drink and lie in the sun on the grass.  While we were digging her grave the biggest dragonfly came and hovered over the pond, I'm taking it as a sign that everything is alright.  Here she is pretending she's a bird.




It's September already and I'm starting to wonder what I'm going to do when the weather cools down.  I've turned the spare room back into a bedroom that Raffi our cat seems to have taken over and I don't want to go back up there and struggle with small tanks of gas again.  Ohhh if only the sunporch was insulated at least.  I guess I'll just carry on and see how it goes out there, but there won't be much torching for me when it reaches -10 and colder.

I had a request for buttons at the street sale in Carleton Place so have been giving them a go and having lots of fun with them.  They are smallish at the minute and have a glass shank that is melted right into the front part the button.


And a little sun



Our friend CL would like a necklace for her son's wedding in October, so I've been working on that too, it needs to have teal in it - I love this first bead, but the second group have more of the right colour combo for CL's dress.





Here are a couple more recent beads and my latest bit of fun from the weekend.  I'm still working out the skeletons, I want to do more with their mouths, just not quite sure what at the minute, although I did see something that gave me an idea yesterday, and I'd like to try them in ivory too.  The picture's a bit on the dark side because it's hard to show their mouths off in a picture.

Today I challenged myself to get some things put into the Etsy shop I created a little while back.  What an ordeal that was!  Between figuring out what I was doing, taking pictures and agonizing over descriptions and prices I've been at it for what seems like hours!  

I'm pleased to say I now have some items available for purchase online.  Over the next few days I'm hoping to sort through my beads and add some beads to the listings.   It's pretty economical to put things up 2o cents a listing won't quite break the bank!

Here's the link ....  Fireseed on Etsy

I sent one of the purple beads from the last picture to my daughter Rebeka in NL for her birthday, she was thrilled with it, which made my day!

The Bridge Street Bazaar was a huge success, the weather was perfect and the street was full of shoppers all day long.  It was fun to sit with my good friend Jane because she had big clay heads that were bird feeders and they attracted a lot of attention.  

By the end of the day I think we were both suffering swollen head syndrome from all the wonderful compliments people had given us on our work.  We decided it would be fun to do something like that again.

It didn't  hurt that I sold some pieces too!

Spot the gooseberry!  I had an idea to make some fruity beads and would like to make more and possibly etch them and put together in a bracelet. The one with white and blue flowers is using millefiore.  
The little lady is another idea I'd like to persue maybe as Goddess beads.
the two purpley beads are using opal lavender (I think!), Gelly's Sty pink, and intense black.  The black webs with the pink but not the lavender.

The Carleton Place Bridge St. Bazaar is this coming Saturday so I've been busy getting necklaces and earrings together for it.  I just had an order of Swarovski crystals arrive and I plan on using them in a few things too.

I stopped by David Paterson's today and am delighted as two or three of my beads have sold!

It is official, I now have beads on display at David Paterson's Glassblowing Studio in Merrickville, (my beads aren't on his site, but you'll see the kind of work he does)



I put a display stand together to hold some single beads on cords, and have also submitted some necklaces to The Grotto, I think they prefer to be the exclusive location in Merrickville for their artists so I've made sure that I have offered them items with multiple beads that are more complicated and only showing single beads at David's.  

Here are a sample, put together with help from my David who 
thinks of mixing things that I wouldn't!









I want to try and get some listings in my Etsy shop and see if anything comes of that and will also be on the look out for any other possible locations, maybe Carleton Place or Almonte.

So, I have not been idle, even though I've been quiet!

My beads are annealed and I'm thrilled as I only lost about three of them to cracking.  Now I've started making some simple necklaces and have to get some things ready to present to the Gallery.  Also David Paterson the glass blower who does the annealing for me wants me to stop by and talk about my face beads, perhaps he'll put some in his studio I don't know.


Adding murrini to the beads is fun and I'm still experimenting with that.

Here's the necklace I'm wearing right now, a cute little lady at the cash in Dollarama said she really liked it and made my day :o)



This necklace was put together by my good friend Carole Nelson and myself, she wanted it for her Daughter-in-Law, and I do hope Dacia likes it.

Yesterday was fun at the torch!!  I am starting to understand how the size and placement of the dots can create different patterns - sounds obvious right?  Not so, my green and black bead in this picture has tiny white rectangles between the big dots, I was thrilled when this happened.  It's all about how the glass spreads and I can't wait to get back to try more things.

A couple of these have murrini in them, I want to have another go at that too, I melted it in a little too much, and placed clear over top of one of them, which I have decided I should have done at an earlier stage to make sure I covered the whole piece.

I also used some violet yesterday and got a silver reaction onthe top right bead that I'm having a hard time trying to replicate.

I have a HUGE pile of beads waiting to be annealed, I hope to get them done this week.  It's hard to bite the bullet and tell myself 'do it!', because I keep wanting to add more beads to the pile!!  These are spacers I made last week to help me put some bigger beads together in necklaces.



A couple of pairs of earrings, putting jewellery together does not come as easy as making the beads!




These are made with Kumihimo weaving, it's done using a circular board with a hole through the middle and many notches around the outside.  I'm thinking of hanging pendants from these.



Definitely still dot-addicted, infact I feel a torching session coming on as I write this :o)



More dots, dots, dots - the green one in the middle is actually very pretty, the picture doesn't do it justice.  It sparkles and looks almost like it has facets, I'll try some more of those in different colours.

Yesterday I decided to make stacked dot beads. They're a lot of fun to make, mixing and matching colours.  I can get the stacking bit going ok, but still need practice placing the dots evenly around the bead.


Here's a picture of my summer workspace, nothing fancy, and I really want to get a better fan for the window.  There's a door at the far end of the porch that I keep open when I'm torching for a through draught, but since I broke the box fan I've had to use the one in the pic and it just doesn't quite cut it.

The hardest thing about lampwork is staying focussed!

Too many colours, too many shapes, too much wonderful inspiration out there, I don't think I'll ever be able to make a set of beads for a necklace I'm having way too much fun flitting from bead to bead.

Here are three barrels I made yesterday - I even named them! - Christmas in July (because it's got red and green but not Christmas red and green and it sparkles but it feels like a summer bead), Dreamtime and Codex. Dreamtime is my thinnest and longest barrel to date, I love the length and want to get 'em longer and tapered. I know, I'm naming them, that's a bad thing, that means they are becoming family members and you can't sell family members!!

I recently got two Jim Kervin books, the Sharon Peters one and the Jim Smircich one, both have given me new insights. Jim Smircich has made me think and understand a little more about the different working temps of the glass and how to achieve different shapes, and Sharon has got me wanting to do more animal beads.

Here are a couple of pictures of some of the latest - my little rat has since lost his tail - darn! I thought I'd been really careful about heating it up well, but something went wrong somewhere -- oh for a kiln!

I'll be getting more beads annealed very soon, which means there will be a huge new assortment that will go up for sale!