Strange Dreams

Where DOES the time go??? Anyway...I was chatting about strange dreams in my last bead post. I wanted to tell you all a bit about this strange guy:





He was the result of a dream too. I've always been fascinated with octopi. And the thought of making an octopus bead was intriguing on one hand but seemed wasteful on the other. Wasteful??? Yes! Many lampworkers will make a gorgeous bead for the octopus to sit on but I get so annoyed at how much of that fabulous bead gets covered by the tentacles.

I knew if I were to make an octopus on a bead, the base bead would just HAVE to be simpler. And then a heart popped into my head....one of my favorite shapes that can lent itself to both simple and complicated techniques.

So there you have it: a simple red heart, add some tentacles of my favorite rich gray glass and then fill in the details of the critter. I think he's rather cute and one of the few beads that came out just how I dreamed of him!

Hanging on to Love is available on my website.

I have some news and "should" be posting a bit more this week...

Fish Tales

I promised a post about the new directions I'm taking and thought I would chat a bit more about inspiration.

There are literally times I dream in beads... they are strange dreams indeed!

Recently I awoke after having the most intense dream about hearts and fish. (I told you they were strange!) I'm a Pisces - sign of the fish. Would you believe I found this little tidbit of advice on my favorite Astrology site: Your answers to your most pressing creative (and other) questions will arrive in visual forms, as if in a storyboard, a dream, or as a little movie?

After this dream, pondering it all, it occurred to me that fish are really undefined hearts. So I sat down at the torch to make it a bit more of a solid definition. This is actually the second, more clearly defined vision and is currently on Etsy. I really love how she came out. And that she looks like both a fish and a heart depending on how she's worn.

This was my first attempt and will most likely appear on Holly's Folly in the coming days. Being my first attempt at recreating my dream... I stuck to red... Red heart, red fish. I used opaque and transparent red on her body and fins with a touch of rubino on her lips.


And, like version #2, she can be worn as both a heart and fish depending on the mood of the jewelry artist.

The most hilarious part to me are her lips... she looks like she's not sure she wants to give you a kiss or not. I love how something like that can set the tone of the piece.


And finally, this guys is on Holly's Folly... He's the result of another dream. But I'll save that strange fish tale for another day.