The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

I don't know why but I like do some sort of theme for a trunk show lately... and the number one theme of the upcoming show is PURPLE.... and kitties!

Meet the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee:

From Left to Right, Top to Bottom:  Korny, Spooky, Pie, Kernal, Viola, Christian, Callie, Olive, Moo, Nicky Sparks, Scarlet, and Taji.

Korny is going to be a giveaway promotion in the show but the rest will be up for grabs in the Glass Melters Open Market next Saturday!

The Squeezed Bead

I wanted to make a set of squeezed beads for the upcoming trunk show next weekend (OMG!!!) in Glass Melters Open Market. When I first started lampworking, squeezed beads were the new exciting shape! Back then, round, donut, free form squares are hand sculpted were pretty much it! Now, we have so many shapes, it's ridonkulous...

But OH! How I loved the squeezed bead! It felt so nice on a bracelet!I just loved how they felt on my skin! I guess I was feeling nostalgic when I set out to make this pink and gray set. And I quickly remembered why they are not my faves to make.

You HAVE to have an even bead before you squeeze ...otherwise, you get something so uneven and funky...it's not useable.

I searched my table for something to help me keep them even... I tried various rollers... round didn't quite do it. The donut made for a bigger "apple butt" on the squeeze. I finally settled on my drum roller. It worked like a charm!

Do you have a tool that needs another tool to work properly???

Fresh Glass 9.16.15

Today's kiln harvest included an amazing purple raku focal, some earring pairs and a silver glass mystery...sigh...

Fresh Glass 9.7.15

This batch has a few more itty bitty kitties, a 1" lentil and a ribbed round to finish out a set.

I'm in the throes of editing hundreds of kitty pics...OY! Meow!

Show Prep

I'm having a bad pain day complicated by having to deal with a naughty customer who backed out on an order. So instead of more fresh glass, I thought I'd show off my show prep tray where I'm stringing sets, getting beadies ready for their closeups!

And for more glassy goodness...check out what the last three days look like in bouquet form!

Pretty fun, huh?? Wish I felt up to torching today...but it was already 90 when I got up!

Fresh Glass 8.25.15

Today's fresh glass batch has a bunch of Itty Bitty Kitties and more purple spacers and some pink ones for good measure and ...the tiniest Pumpkin witch hat I've ever made. Oh and my first ever silver glass kitty...

Fresh Glass - Frustration!

Well this batch was nothing but a hot mess for the most part. I'm loving Double Helix' new Arke glass... but I've been playing with it over reactive glasses and thought it would be fun with a more neutral base glass. And my favorite neutral (reaction-wise) is purple! I was just dreaming of how fabulous the teals I'm getting from Arke would look over purple... and then the trouble started!

Oops, I left our my biggest disappointment...it was still in the kiln as I was somehow thinking it was a thermal issue and maybe, just maybe I could reheat and save it...

So apparently DH and old ASK 104 just doesn't play nice! I guess there is some kind of reaction going on... lool at the green / gold bands between the lavender and the Arke...

It was such a pretty bead....

I left this one in the kiln until I noticed this:

Then I knew there would be no saving her! UGH! What a wasted session... almost!

I did make the tiniest seahorse ever (custom order and sold already!) and a set of lavender bicones... so I got something out of it. But what a costly lesson!  That seahorse is all Bullseye glass...despite the similarity to my Arke / ASK fiascoes!

Fresh Glass 1.23.15

More Fresh Glass Beads for your viewing pleasure ;-)   A sharded silver glass over ivory... HIGHLY reflective! A gentle bicone... I was playing with Clio trying not to make it so pink... and I just LOVE what it did to the ivory! Yummers!  Bead #3... I was making a long skinny in dark amethyst and thinking about a floral tut I had read... about using a silver glass as a core but NOT reducing until the end... So I tried it right on my long skinny and LOVE IT! And that fat barrel just shimmers!!!  And a not so little seahorse...custom order.

Halloween Focals 2014

These are the Halloween Glass Bead focals I have for this fall season. Not shown are the endless variety of Halloween Cupcakes... Let's just say those are "still in the oven!"

Up first is a gigantic spider bead. He was inspired by a Halloween Candy Set I made a few years ago: 

Next up is a Witch Hat Pumpkin. I used extinct sparkle glass for the orange...It's so pretty in the light. I really do have to make myself one before I run out of this glass!

And finally a Korn Kitty:

 

 I had the most amazing time making him! Do you ever have a bead where you FEEL your skills shift??? This one was mine! Normally when I do something like this, I nitpick and add a drop of this and a line of that ... freaking over unstraight lines. But not this time... he just flowed!! LOVE him!!!

These will be on my Facebook page soon!

Fresh Glass 8.7.14

My days of endless torching are winding down. School starts next week and I'm honestly looking forward to it... BIG attitude shift since May when Mabel passed!  I'm grateful teachers are paid decently here. Having a little wonga will be nice!

It's been a rough week...dealing with a nonpaying bidder and a site that won't ban her.  Sigh... And, I've neglected to do all those things teachers are "supposed" to do in the summer. Doctor visits, hair cuts etc.  So, I'm taking a few days to get caught up on personal care!

I did finally find out why I'm blind as a bat at the torch! My eyes have swapped prescriptions! Literally, my left needs the prescription for the right from my last pair of work glasses... and vice versa! So relieved! I was afraid I was getting cataracts!

In this batch:More of those ribbed ovals I'm so fascinated with. Some diamond earring pairs and some rounds. One witch's hat cupcake and one cupcake frosted all wrong...sure to be on sale somewhere soon!

Custom Orders and Fussy Glass

A regular customer of mine who I also consider a dear friend asked me to make her a special bead based on a video game called Okami. I've played about 15 minutes of video games in my entire life so I was at a distinct visual disability.  But my friend sent me photos and even a video screen capture of the flower she wanted moving about.

That garlic bulb looking flower is the desired bead. The Okami game is stylized visually after Japanese watercolor. However, I felt the black outlines might be too much for glass - especially a sculptural piece where all the pieces parts would be made well ahead of the final  bead.

The flower has a bright orange center and the petals are actually a cloudy pink with white veining. The only cloudy glass I know of is CIM's Cirrus. And that's the where the trouble began.

I am not the biggest fan of this glass because I saw a rather fussy annealing schedule on many of the glasses a few years back. I don't feel the colors are that different and frankly I just don't have the money (or earn it back on my beads) to be buying Chinese made glass at "boutique" prices. Still I do love a few colors but... the inconsistency from batch to batch (making ordering online impossible) has made those colors lose my favor as well.

I'm not knocking what others do. I know many that love this glass and do wonderful things with it. For me, I'm only successful with CIM when I use it alone or with very little of any other glass. I have quite a bit of cirrus from a project of hollow birthday cakes I made and filled with czs. The cloudiness of the cirrus can read both white and transparent. I truly do love its look.

But when I layered it with a Vetrofond pink and dabbled on some veins in Effetre white, the entire bead cracked. I did some reading and found that fussy annealing schedule. It recommends cirrus anneal between 970 - 1040! I feared the rest of the bead would slump at those temps.

After discussing it with my friend, I slowly ramped up my kiln to 995 over the course of several hours. I fired up the torch and gently placed that hot bead back in the flames. I got everything glowing red. I healed the cracks and added definition back to some of the melted Italian glass. When I was certain there were no more cracks, I moved it back in the flame and back into the kiln.

And the next day, holding my breath, I opened to the door to... a more evenly cracked bead!

In the end, I simply couldn't sell a bead that cracked but... my customer insisted that it looked so realistic (in keeping with the theme of the game) and since she wanted it HUGE, she was just going to display it, I shipped it off. Still, I had to make her something to wear... (Yes, I am aware of my anal retentive nature!) That's what the small one is - minus the cirrus. I do love how cloudy the cirrus makes the core and I so wish there were something more compatible that would give me this effect.

 

Yes, I probable could've purchased /  used a CIM pink trans but who knows if I wouldn't have the same issue? In the end, It is a really cool looking bead and... I'm donating that cirrus to my bead group. I'm done!

I'm ending the sale on Artfire on the 30th so only a few more days for 50% off!

Deal of the Day in September

It occurred to me that I have way too much in inventory and as I have exactly zero shows booked for the fall, I should maybe try and move some of it out of here. And since I tend to leave an ebay auction in tears, I thought I would try something on my Fan page.

I'm going to offer something on sale every single day this month. One offer is good ONLY until the next offer is posted to the fan page. I "might" blog about them here but... I don't blog every day and I'm not a heavy duty sales pusher here so... the Fan page is the place to check in!

Today's deal is actually one of the very first off mandrel hearts I ever made. It's small by my scale but it's depth and color created by a faux boro technique make it so pretty to behold. I named her Blue's Gal because I was kinda shocked at the blue color she developed when I opened the kiln.


Today only! She is reduced from $15 to $12 and I will include one of my rubber necklace's to hang her from!

And in other Arfire news... I'm "hoping" to get a new Calavera up there today. Before you go, I just have show off my latest from my glass beads website - a Calico kitty bead. Ain't she cute???  I wuv her...

Sculptural

This cone is nothing more than a round bead on an inverted cone with some swirly connector bits.

I'm always amazed that many beadmakers sigh with envy when they see sculptural beads. "I wish I could make sculptural beads."

And I always answer right back, "You CAN!"

First of all, they need to realize ALL beads are sculptural. Round IS a shape. Perfecting round is whole mastery unto itself.

But let's not get side tracked. The second most important skill in tackling a sculptural bead is dissecting the shapes. Everything in the universe is made up of a handful of shapes: square, rectangular, round, ellipse. Sure you can get fancy: cones, triangles, octagons... but... even an octagon is simply two squares on axis. Keep it simple.

This vase - a design taught by Leah Fairbanks - is two inverted cones with a cylinder on top, a disk on each end and a handle.

Look at the objects around you. You will see variation after variation of those four shapes. Look at your own body. The human form is nothing more than a series of ovals. Once you start looking at objects as nothing more than shapes it's rather simple to start thinking in terms of a bead.

 Two cones with some razor marks and some swirly bits.

If the piece is complicated, you need to address what to do when. You generally always start with a base bead but sometimes you need to start with a weird part... like when making ice cream sundaes. Start with a core of red and that cherry on top will always be perfect. Add it at the end and you can mess the whole piece up.

But you don't want to put on any parts that can't take the heat... save those for the end. Same with pieces that might pop off.

This guy's beak and feet were saved til the end.

Once you've thought the bead through, choose your colors and pull your stringers, take a deep breath and you're off! It can be exhilarating, especially if you like large beads like I do. Just breathe. And if it falls apart? "Oh Sh!t, flat fish!" That always works for me! Some of my coolest fish were sculptures that fell apart.

Don't let those fins break or let those eye's pop off! (He actually was meant to be a fish!)

So we come to THE most important part of sculptural work... KEEP TRYING. Try one every day. You'll be amazed where the glass takes you!

Can you see it??? Cone with some added glass for the head shape + sideways cone + disk = Witch hat.