Lampwork Glass Beads, Playing With Fire

Making Glass Frit

2012-01-29T11:17:00.000-06:00

In an effort to clean up an an ever-growing pile of glass rod ends accruing on my table, I thought it might be time to show off my frit-making skills. I used to use my empty altoid container collection to save little bits of rods- all sorted into piles of like color- for instance, I put all of the aquas together- transparent and pastel alike. No, I did not put each aqua hue into a separate container, I'm not that organized. (And I don't use quite that many altoids). Granted, if you keep all of your 'shorts' separated by color, you can make a nice precise frit mix that is repeatable using the same methods I will outline here.
I'm not a real big user of frit- I'm more of a 'mix as you go' person. Most of the bits I had lying about were in tones of purple, green, and aqua. I piled them all together and they looked pretty good, so that was the frit mix I was going to make.
Again, I will say- your safety is your responsibility. This is what I do, it has not gone through any rigorous testing by any certified safety organization:
1) Put on safety glasses

2) Fill a clean glass jar with at least 4 inches of water and put it nearby on my torching table.

3) Light the torch.

4) Grab one of the shorts with a pair of tweezers and put it in the torch until it glows a nice red just about all over. Try not to put the tweezers directly into the flame.
5) Drop the hot glass into the jar of water. If it is attached to the tweezers, plunge the whole thing into the water and tap lightly. Usually the glass will detach from the tweezers. If there is a little bit still attached to them, reheat and plunge into a different jar of water to remove it- the 'junk' jar.

6) Do this with all of the pieces of glass. They will shatter as they are placed in the water, but not really into small enough pieces to be used as frit as they are.

7) Pour the glass through a small strainer that is reserved for this purpose.

8) Let dry on a piece of newspaper.

9) Put glass into an old broken down cereal box or other thin cardboard, or wrap in fabric. Wrap around the glass so that it can't escape easily.

10) Wrap with newspaper and tap with a hammer on a solid surface. Open and see if the pieces are to your liking. If not repeat wrapping and tapping.

11) If desired, the frit can be put through different sizes of mesh to sort it by size.

That's it! All done and I'm ready to use it. Frit made of glass with special qualities, like rubino oro or silver reaction colors, should be made separately rather than used in a mix so that the reactions and flame atmosphere can be controlled properly.
There are times when I want to make frit using specific color combinations. To do this, I simply heat the end of a rod and plunge it into my jar of clean water. It is a good idea to reheat the end of this rod right away as it may be a bit cracked at the end. This will save your getting surprised by a 'shocky' end later.

More on My New Studio

2011-12-11T08:18:00.001-06:00

I've got a new studio space- finally! For nearly two months, I had no place to make lampwork beads. Ideas were flying at me from a lot of directions, but there was no place to try any of them out. My new space is inside 'The Gallery' on Washington Avenue in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It's a sweet little town right on the Gulf of Mexico- a nice place to have landed.

What this means is that I am making my beads before an audience now. Any time anyone walks through the door, they can come and see what I'm up to. I'm usually there from about 10am to 2 pm or so. So if you're in the neighborhood, you should stop by- I'll be happy to make a little something while you watch.

I've got a few special gallery pieces available there- Ocean Springs roosters- in honor of Carl and the other roosters who wander the streets freely (a portion of the sales from these goes to support the rooster lifestyle), and some shiny silver pendants that have a wee bit of beach sand incorporated in them.

We're also offering one on one classes on my hothead torch. There are beginner classes for those who have never tried, and advanced classes for those of you who want to learn a certain technique- like making sculptural beads, using silver, making hollow beads, or anything else I might be able to teach you. And we've got 'make a bead' sessions in which you can spend about twenty minutes making a small bead, just to try it out. You'll end up with a small souvenir of your time on the coast made by you.

I can also make something to your specs. I had a family come by a couple of weeks ago- each child chose a bead that they wanted and picked out the colors they wanted me to use. I ended up making a turtle, a heart and a seahorse. I was surprised and delighted at how much the kids enjoyed watching their pieces being made.

If you'd like to set up a time for anything- a demo, a class, a special order, just give The Gallery a call at 228-875-8407 and tell them when you'd like to stop by, so I can be sure to be there. It's best to give a day's notice to schedule something in particular- just in case. Or give a call to check and see if I'm 'in house'.
Hope to see some of y'all soon!

Scrap fishies

2011-12-04T17:21:00.001-06:00

A couple of months ago, I decided to try making a fish by using up some of the twistie scraps I have lying around. I was pretty please with it, so I've made a couple more recently. They have a kind of different feel to them than the fish I normally make. First I make a clear core, then cover it with a color that accentuates the scraps I'll be using. Next they are rolled in silver foil, which I burn off to give a natural, organic look, and then the twistie scraps are randomly applied.

The other day, when my gas was running out, I took a clear rod of glass, heated it and applied the twistie scraps to it, melted it into a blob, and then twisted it. Kind of re-twisted twistie. The first fish pictured is the one I used that on. I ended up twirling it a bit on each side of the fish body to give it a nicer look. You can see a bit of silver haze on the bottom fish- I really like this look.

One thing about using scraps- I tend to use colors I wouldn't normally use together. It's always nice to try out some different things and see the results!

My Newest Studio

2011-11-16T14:16:00.001-06:00

Well, this may be a bit precipitous, but I have been kindly allowed to set up my lampworking studio inside a gallery for the time being. I have found myself in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and made a connection with Mark LaFontaine at The Gallery on Washington Ave.

Mark is planning on having a full fledged glass and lampwork studio in the near future, but until then, he has me there working on my hothead. I appear on most days for a few hours and make the beads I sell at shows, online, and at The Gallery. Lucky him!

Any time someone stops to watch, I'll explain what I'm up to. If I'm not already in the middle of something, I make a quick little leaf using my press and scissors just to show how it's done. I will also make a special leaf pendant or earrings (or both!) while you watch with the colors of your choosing. These can be picked up in a day or two, or shipped to your home.

If you're looking for one-on-one classes with me, there's no time like the present. I'd be happy to teach you the basics, or a few more advanced techniques. These photos show a couple of the beads I have made there in the last few days.

The Gallery also has a big old kiln and a saw anyone can rent, so if you'd like to try your hand at fusing some glass, just call or email to set up a time.

For more information, or to contact The Gallery, please visit their website here: http://www.thegalleryoceansprings.com/index.html

Taking Photos- New Backgrounds, New Ideas

2011-10-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

Ever since my scanner broke a couple of years ago and I had to start learning to take my online photos using a camera, I have struggled with what looks good. Generally I take a photo on a white background, and then photoshop it until it looks better. That takes a lot of finagling- I have to sharpen it (my photos always look a little blurry to me), cut it to the right size and shape for my online shop- I use 300 dpi, and cut it to 3x3 inches, though that doesn't work with everything, and then I have to lighten, brighten and adjust the color to make it look right- especially the stupid white background. It's really more energy than I want to put into each picture I take. The white background is a real bear, and black just doesn't seem to work at all for me. Maybe because I don't have any kind of official setup to use, like a light tent or proper lighting.

Oh, that's another thing- taking the photo itself- I use a rather high powered halogen lamp, lighten the exposure by a couple of clicks and shoot a closeup without a flash. My old garage-sale camera actually worked better as the flash wasn't so harsh, so I could actually use it. The flash on my present camera is covered with a little piece of paper as it washes everything out, no matter how far away it is. The scanner was really easier, and I might even go back to that if I could!

So get to the point already!!! Well, I have, by necessity, taken to using different backrounds with my photos, and I am kind of liking them. The autumn leaf background is cool- no messing with trying to get it just right- I can just concentrate on the item I am trying to feature- I like that a lot! And the newest map background, though I still often correct the 'level' to make it whiter, is kind of fun, and it is not very noticeable if it's not all bright white. And it has the advantage that I might just see a word I like and use it to name the piece. Woohoo- a twofer!

I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more fun backgrounds in the future.

Portal bead goes to Austria

2011-10-25T18:06:00.000-05:00

One of my portal beads is the focal for this lovely piece, made by Marianne Cornelius (see link below)
It is made of woven silver wire with garnets.
Marianne paints some wonderful watercolors, as well as making some very nice jewelry pieces. I have no idea how she found my beads on etsy, but I'm glad she did!
The neckpiece is currently on display at this gallery in Vienna, Austria- http://www.spiegelgasse8.com/
I am always so excited to have something of mine travel to another country, and having Marianne use one of my beads as a focal to be displayed in a gallery in Vienna of all places was doubly exciting!

Please go here to see more of Marianne's wonderful work:
http://www.mariannecornelius.com/

Glass Fish Inspirations

2011-09-19T11:06:00.007-05:00

Lampwork glass fish are one of my favorite kinds of beads to make. They are a lot of fun to wear all by themselves as pendants. Most folks who purchase them use them in this way, so I bail them and put them on cords before I ship them out.
I find you can do almost anything with a fish body and it looks pretty nice. Last week, I decided to try making a couple of more realistic fish. The first thing I did was to search the internet for photos of fish that looked interesting to me. I was looking for bright colors, colors I might not normally think to mix together in a bead, and interesting patterns. One of the fish that interested me was a clown trigger fish. I changed up the color just a little bit- adding a little more green than was strictly called for, and came up with a sweet little fish that was quite different from others I'd made. I used Thompson glass enamels for some of the color- I like the way it works when I want to imitate a natural pattern.
The next challenge I set myself was to use up some of the glass twistie scraps I had lying around. This one is purely a fantasy fish, with a base of white and silver and a lot of pastel colors that meshed nicely.
The last fish I'll be showing today is what I'm calling a sari (or saree) fish. It is an idea I'm still working out, where one pattern is pulled across a different base pattern, just as a sari is draped around a body. This red one is my favorite in that design.

Hurricanes make me want to eat soup!

2011-08-28T16:06:00.006-05:00

The weather here, though it is many miles from the eye of Irene, has been rainy and windy all day long. Reminds me a bit of my childhood in N.O. When hurricanes were near, we taped up the windows, filled the bathtub with water, checked the canned goods stock, filled up our individual giant red water bottles and prepared to hunker down for a while.
I always liked the feeling the low pressure gave me; it made me excited and a little bit scared . We were lucky that none of those hurricanes were really close enough to cause major damage. Afterwards, I have to admit, we went out rubbernecking- to see trees blown down and roofs on houses that were being built blown atop other houses.
Today I just did the hunkering down part and, since I am living in the frozen north, decided it was high time for a bit of mushroom soup. In typical fashion, I did not measure, but I will give y'all some guesstimates at how much of what I put into the old pot. This only makes about 2 or 3 cups of hearty, very mushroom-y soup. If you are a vegan, you can just use water instead of yogurt, and you may not want to use the beer unless you know they didn't use isinglass for clarity.
1/3 onion........................2 carrots
7 oz. mushrooms...........1/4 cup frozen or fresh corn
Chop onions, peel and grate carrots, and cook in oiled pan, stirring over medium heat until almost soft. Add corn. Cut mushrooms into slices, then cut across two or three times. Add to other veggies.
Add spices- 1 1/2 t. curry powder, 1/4 t. ground pepper, 1/2 t. garlic, a little basil, salt if you want, and anything else you think will be good. Cook all of this until nice and soft- mushrooms may get squeaky- that's good.
Add 1/4 cup beer, 1/2 t. good soy sauce or tamari and 3/4 cup water. Put the lid on and let this simmer.
In the meantime.... Make some roux.
Melt 2 T butter over low heat
Add 1/3 cup unbleached or wheat flour and whisk in until no longer lumpy.
Add 1/2 cup yogurt and whisk in until smooth. Add enough water to make it about like a thin mayonnaise- maybe 1/4- 1/2 cup. Turn off heat.
When the soup stock seems to be well cooked- maybe 15 or 20 minutes of simmering- pour a little bit of the liquid soup into the roux, mix, and then pour roux into the soup stock while stirring. Let that all cook over extremely low heat for just a few minutes. Keep an eye on it and stir occasionally. Delicious served with Welsh rarebit, or crackers, or something else!
I couldn't help but add a picture of one of my 'portal' beads- like the eye of the hurricane!

2011-08-15T10:09:00.009-05:00

Here's a little something made by my friend smokeylady54 on etsy using one of my lampwork glass fish beads. Isn't the tourmaline and silver background perfect? And it comes with a sweet pair of earrings too!

For more pictures and more goodies, visit her shop here: www.etsy.com/shop.smokeylady54

Fruit and oat scones recipe

2011-08-12T15:19:00.012-05:00

Many years ago, I found a recipe in a newspaper somewhere for these. I have made my own little conversions. They are one of my favorite low sugar treats- a bit crumbly sometimes, but delicious nonetheless. A little bit of butter on them would not be a bad thing!

Fruit and Oat Scones...........375 degree oven, 30 mins.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour.............1 1/4 cups oats, lightly roasted
1 T. baking powder..............................1/4 t. salt
scant 1/4 cup honey.............................1/3 cup butter
1 1/3 cups dried fruit cut into raisin-sized pieces
1/3-1/2 cup milk.................................. 1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4-1/2 t. cinnamon

Mix together dry ingrdients- flour, oats, salt, bk. powder. Cut in honey and butter til mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in fruit. Add milk and egg,mixing until just moistened. Add cinnamon. Push into ball and knead gently 6 or 8 times. Dough will be a little sticky. If it is too moist to knead, add a small amount of extra flour, no more than a tablespoon at a time.

Pat out dough to form 8" circle on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Score into 12 wedges using sharp floured knife. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Cut or break apart while still warm.

Dried apples, apricots and golden raisins are a nice combination of fruits to use.

Yum! I should have been making these instead of typing this out!

New 'Widget'

2011-08-08T20:08:00.003-05:00

Well, I was chatting with some folks the other day, and noticed that one of them had this interesting thing on their blog- a little slide show of things in their etsy shop. When I asked about it, the explanation was rather vague. But then I right clicked on it and saw that it came from http://www.craftcult.com/

If I can do this, anyone can! Just go to 'widgets' at the top of the page, the 'etsy shop' tab, fill out the info, copy the code, and add it to your blog gadgets. There are a lot of ways you can customize it- different backgrounds or shop sections. Mine is just the sea life section of my shop for now. Just a little something for fun!

Lampwork Glass Bead Rescue and Repair

2011-07-11T19:42:00.009-05:00

Here's my newest observation- wind is the enemy at outdoor shows. Well, not really a new observation, but still important. I was reminded of this recently when the wind grabbed my table and flipped it completely over onto my beads, which were now on concrete. The result? Too many broken beads. After a couple of days moping around, and the comment ' fire polish them' niggling in my brain, I realized that I had a kiln and I am not afraid to experiment with it. So I grabbed a couple of my minorly 'scuffed' beads, jammed them onto some sludged mandrels, and got to work. I'm here to tell you what I learned, just in case you need the info some day. I'm not going to go through the whole grueling process, but will just get right to my recommendations.

There's one person I need to thank for suggestions and ideas in all of this- that's Lynne of Fireball Beeds. She had some great ideas and suggestions to help me along the way. Here's her blog: http://islandgirlsinsights.blogspot.com/

The repairs I have done are fairly minor- fish fins, eyes, scuff marks and small dings. These types of repairs go pretty quickly. This is by no means a foolproof method. Sometime beads crack or break dramatically during the process. But I had a lot of lemons on my hands, and I just needed to try and make some lemonade!

********NOTE: Your safety is your own concern. I am not recommending that you try any of these procedures, just telling you what I have done. **********
Here's what I do:

1) Put the beads on sludged mandrels. I have tried this with both wet and dry mandrels. Either can work, though it is nearly impossible to push a bead down onto a dry mandrel. If using wet sludge, it helps to make it a bit thin. I put the bead on the mandrel, pull it off and wipe off the wet sludge, then put it on again. This helps me keep from getting a lot of junk at the end of the bead.

Either way, I like to put a 'stop' at the handle end of the sludge to keep the bead from falling onto my hand- a bit of thick sludge that the bead cannot slide over. Since the bead can get loose when heated, I am extra careful not to point the mandrel down so that the bead can fall onto my hand, the floor or the table. The stop needs to be made with thicker sludge.

2) Put the beads into a room temperature kiln with the ends sticking out 4-6 inches. I only put in about four at a time since I don't want to take a chance that they will touch each other and stick together. If that happens they will certainly be ruined. I turn the kiln to a low temperature and slowly ramp up to about 800 degrees. My kiln does not have a digital controller, so I turn it to low until it reaches about 300 degrees, then turn it to 3 until it reaches about 600 degrees, then 5 up to 850 or so. After that it can be allowed to ramp up quickly. The target temperature is 1200 degrees. I keep an eye on it so that it doesn't get any hotter than that.

3) Let the beads 'soak' for 5-10 minutes at between 1100 and 1200 degrees. This allows the heat to get to the core of the beads. Lynne likes to hold at 1200. I let the beads get to 1200, and then allow them to cool to 1100 and let them soak there. This is because I want to be sure the beads don't start distorting before I torch them.

4) Make sure the mandrels aren't too hot to handle. If they are, I take a damp paper towel and cool down the handle end. I also pull them a bit farther out of the kiln if necessary.

5) When I am ready, I turn on the torch, and make sure I am wearing protective eyewear. I want to grab the beads and get them into the flame as quickly as possible. I am mindful of the danger at this point- moving quickly but carefully around the lit torch.

6) Put the bead into the flame and heat slowly. DANGER- the bead can shock, crack, break, or explode at this point. It is very important that the bead is hot, and that I move quickly. This is rather similar to the initial heating of a rod while making a bead- in and out, up and down, slowly into the sweet spot in the flame.

7) Once the bead is glowing, I am ready to work on it again. I have now done quite a few repairs in this manner, and am fairly happy with the results. It is not a perfect solution, but oh so much better than tossing alot of what used to be lovely beads.

8) Turn the kiln down to proper annealing temperature. I generally do this as soon as I am done working on the first bead.

You can see the photos of the fish with a broken fin at the top, and the repaired bead below.

My daughter's work

2011-07-06T15:53:00.005-05:00

Well, it's time to pump someone else's work for a change- something that's not lampwork too! My daughter has recently begun designing t-shirts. She is submitting these designs to a site called threadless, where folks rate the designs and the ones that get the best ratings get printed. The designer then gets a cash award. I think she's doing some pretty nice work. This design, which is called 'dreamlight' is only the second design she's submitted, and I've seen proofs of some others that are in the works. More good things are coming. So, if you are so inclined, I hope you'll go here, check out the design, and rate it. We appreciate the support. http://www.threadless.com/submissi on/352062/Dreamlight

Hothead torch gas

2011-06-09T16:39:00.006-05:00

Well, after using a hothead torch for upwards of 11 years, I finally decided to try using a bulk tank of propane, rather than my usual propylene. I had heard, from time to time, that folks use it and are happy with the results. It is quite a bit cheaper than the propylene I normally use, and much easier to find.

My findings aare completely un-scientific, but, in my unbiased and totally correct opinion, it was a big mistake. I hate it. Yup, HATE it! Why, you may ask? Well the main problem is I get muddy colors. The aquas and greens tend to turn a little bit red, the gold pink gets murky- in short it is unreliable, and I really like nice, pure colors- the ones I thought I used, not some random colors the gas decided to give me. I love organic colors, raku frit, reactive glass, silver reactions, but this is a whole different animal. The beads I made using the propane won't be sold online- they're just not nice enough! They will end up being bargains at my table, until I get tired of looking at them and just end up giving them away!

As far as finding propylene, if you are looking, be sure to call all of the welding supply places you can find- the price varies wildly. And one more thing- no matter what gas you decide to use, don't let the tank get too hot- the gas will act erratically if you do. And be sure and drain the line at the end of each beadmaking session unless you want to see a large green flame that doesn't go away when you turn off the torch!

P.S. the fish at the top of this bit of chatter was made on a hothead torch, using propylene gas.

Beads for Japan

2011-05-24T06:32:00.007-05:00

With the ease of gathering worldwide news these days, it sometimes seems as if one tragedy after another is occuring, each quickly overshadowed by the next. The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan is just a couple of months behind us, and already it seems we have nearly forgotten this awful trio of events that devastated Japan.

I'm so glad the ISGB (International Society of Glass Beadmakers) has put together a fundraiser to help out the people of Japan in a small way.

I can't imagine what it must be like living in a country with such a large population and such a small bit of land that has suffered so many things all at once. The ISGB will be selling beads made by its member at the annual Bead & Button show in Milwaukee, WI in June and donating the funds to the Japan Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross. I've sent off 10 of my hollow Japanese lantern beads to be sold there. The price is pretty nominal- I'm kind of hoping that folks will donate a little extra when they choose a bead.

Thanks to the ISGB for putting this together. And if you are a member, I hope you will consider making a donation as well.

Farmer's Markets and Me

2011-05-06T16:51:00.012-05:00

Well, it's finally that time of year again up here in the frozen north- farmer's market season, and boy am I ready! I'll be at the market in King Ferry with all of the glass I've been making this winter- which means I'm stocked to the gills. Loads of fish, pendants, necklaces, portals, and beads, beads, beads! All of them my handmade lampwork glass, of course. There will be lovely hand spun woolen yarns, felted jewelry, some gently used high end clothes (lots of Flax), and who knows what kind of yummy foods. It's just the beginning of the season, but I'm hoping folks will be ready to come and see what's on offer.
The weather should be beautiful!

I've been selling at farmer's markets for years, and I love the feeling of equality and all of the amazing things you can find at them. Loads of locally handmade goodies- both food and artisan- made goods. And lots of lovely people too!

Which brings me to another point. I have been noticing lately that some of the markets are excluding crafts, or only allowing 'farm made' crafts. What a pity! Some folks seem to think that artisans have plenty of other places to try and make their living , and shouldn't be allowed to ride on the coat tails of the farmers. Now I do realize that the main reason people go to farmer's markets is for the food and that is as it should be. But I feel strongly that juried crafts should be allowed as a part of the 'buy local' movement that many small farmers are proponents of. And small artisans can be a wonderful addition to the markets, bring in more people and add to the 'buy local' atmosphere. Not to mention that artisans can really use the steady source of income that a sensibly priced market can offer. After all, one can only afford so many craft shows in a year.

Yes, my raw materials come from Italy, but from the point those materials enter my home, I do everything to make them into original little pieces of art glass. Lampworking was becoming a dying art until about 18 years ago, when there was a bit of a renaissance in the U.S. and consequently around the world. Handmade pottery, blown glass, woodworking, metalworking- all of these arts and more should be encouraged. I'm not talking about things you might learn in a class at one of the major craft stores, I'm talking about artistic crafts that take years to perfect.

It is my sincere hope that the farmer at the markets will find a way to continue to include high quality arts and crafts. I'm sure there are groups of artisans who would be willing to act as a jusy. The market in Baton Rouge, LA. is a wonderful example of a way to make this work. There is an arts market once a month, juried by the local arts council. It is a very successful program, which you can find out about here: http://www.artsbr.org/

Yes, published again- Bead and Button

2011-04-22T14:02:00.004-05:00

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about all the exciting bead things that are going on around here. No need to be jealous- my life is quite complicated right now in many ways.

I just received my advance copy of the June issue of Bead & Button magazine with a guide to lampwork terms for folks who love lampwork, but don't know what all of those wacky terms mean. It's on pages 20 and 21- one of their 'Expert Advice' columns (no, I do not call myself an expert- that's their thing).

Anyway, it's pretty exciting for me. If you look at the little words along the bottom of the cover, it says 'Shopping extra: A guide to lampworking terms p. 20'

A published tutorial

2011-04-15T16:46:00.008-05:00

Woo hoo! I just received the June copy of Bead Unique magazine with my tutorial for making this bead style! I'm so excited! This is my first time to be published in a magazine that folks can find at their local newsstand (i.e. Barnes & Noble). The tut has info about using silver foil. If you've never tried it, this is a fairly easy place to start.

Here's a link to their website:

http://www.beaduniquemag.com/

Beads in Space- Beads of Courage, NASA, and Me

2011-03-11T13:53:00.006-06:00

First, let me say I'm pretty excited that one of my beads was chosen to go up in the final trip of the shuttle Endeavor on April 19,2011. How did this happen, you might ask? Well, here is the story in all its glory. But first, a link and a look at all of the beads that will be joining mine:
https://picasaweb.google.com/101652927073622680837/BeadInSpace#

I'll just tell my side of the story. I don't know how Beads of Courage and NASA got together for this event, but I was sure glad, and lucky, to hear about it. One of my friends on facebook mentioned that she was making beads for a juried competition for glass beads to go up in the shuttle. You know how random it can be seeing what any one person is up to on facebook. I saw that and had to look into it right away. I was very disappointed when I heard about it too late the first time, so I was happy to be able to give it a try this time.

My father was a NASA engineer, so space has been on my mind for pretty well all my life. When I was growing up, space travel was still pretty new, and my father's work was leading up to the moon launch. The first clue I had that he might actually be doing something important was when I was in my late teens, and something was going wrong with one of the missions. My dad was pacing and thinking by the phone, sure that they were going to be calling him about something. I think he was a little disappointed when they didn't call.

So I got on the torch and went to work. My first series of submissions was a ufo, an alien, and a Saturn rocket ship. These beads were so hard for me to make, because they could be no larger than 1 1/4 inches in any directions- that's a little rocket! I hurried and sent them off a few weeks before the deadline,. But as it turns out, I wasn't done. For about a week, an idea kept developing- I wanted to make a man in a grey space suit with bumps along his legs and sides. But could I possibly make it so small? Finally I just had to give it a try. I made one, figured out what I could do better, made another, and crossed my fingers. I also thought I'd try a more colorful rocket if I was going to enter again. So those two and an 'earth rise' bead were my second set of submissions. The little space man is the one going into space- I'm so glad I tried again!

So, when April 19th comes along and Endeavor takes off, I'll be thinking of my dad and my mom- whose birthday is on the 20th. Dad would be so excited!!!!! Here's a link to the NASA website, where you can watch the progress of the mission:

http://www.nasa.gov/

Two publications

2011-02-28T19:40:00.006-06:00

I can't believe I didn't write a blog about this already. I was chosen as one of about 150 women to be featured in the Flow's Women in Glass winter issue. Here's a bottle they chose. Great glass, lots of tuts, and a lot of information. All for just $9 plus shipping- or get a digital copy!

Here's a link:

https://www.theflowmagazine.com/index.htm

And I just got a copy of the newest glass beadmaking book 'Creating Glass Beads' by Jeri Warhaftig published by Lark Books. This mask- 'Lalala I Can't Hear You' is in the gallery on page 34. I haven't had time to read the book yet- but there are sure a lot of nice beads in it! Here's a link to Lark, though I don't know if the book is quite out yet.

http://www.larkcrafts.com/

Oh! And that means I got a free copy of each of them- Woohoo!

Featured in a blog

2011-02-27T16:37:00.004-06:00

Here's a blog someone wrote about my beads. Kglass did a wonderful job. There's a lot of nice glass featured, as well as jewelry and some ideas about business. Take a peek here:
http://kglass8.blogspot.com/2011/02/isinglass.html

And here is a link to her shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KGlass8

Girlfriend beads

2011-02-22T12:43:00.006-06:00

Oh, I have a new bead style that I'm liking right now. So far I've only made four, and they're all princesses, but this idea isn't completely congealed yet. I decided while I was making one today that they don't always have to have a crown. So they are not going to be princess beads after all, but rather 'girlfriend' beads. Remember when tiaras were 'in'? I'm hoping that's all over with!

They can have different hair, skin, eye and background colors. And different background pictures too. Since there is a face on only one side, I have to work on making the other side interesting. I've got a new idea for that- we'll see how I do a bit later. For now, here are the first couple of princesses- the harried princess ( I keep wanting to call her Princess Harry!) and blue girl, who is a bit more staid.

The Woodwork of Irwin Seidman

2011-02-18T11:50:00.007-06:00

Here's my new plan. Every once in a while I am going to show a little something from someone whose work I think is magnificent.

Today, it is the woodwork of Irwin Seidman. He was kind enough to tweet about something of mine, and when he told me about it, I had to go see what he made. Turns out he makes incredible wooden bowls, pepper mills, oil lamps, and other things. His pepper mills are on sale right now- a great addition to your kitchen wares.

I just love woodwork. My grandfather always had something cooking with wood in his workshop, and I have had the pleasure of working with wood a few times in my life. I love the feel, the patterns, the colors- it's all good! And Irwin does beautiful things with it.

There are also some lovely paintings from Susan Seidman.

Overall a wonderful etsy shop!

Here's a link:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/mapleseedgallery

Leaves again! Lampwork glass beads for demos

2011-01-22T20:01:00.007-06:00

I know I mentioned this idea before, but wanted to bring it up again. I've started working on making a few leaves to use along with a demo.

I love to demonstrate for kids- schools, scout troops, whatever. And I know they don't have a lot of spare cash for this kind of thing. But doing it for free just doesn't work for me any more. I have finally come up with a new way to make this work better for both of us. The kids love to bring home a souvenir, and what better than something they can watch being made?

So now I offer a demo for a sensible fee, or they can buy a leaf for each child for about $5 and get the demo for free. It's win/win, I think. I bought my leaf press years ago just for demos. It's a nice quick thing that even an adult with a short attention span can usually manage to sit through. And it gives that nice 'aha' moment when the leaf is quickly pressed into shape. Of course, me being me, I always have to pull out the scissors and reshape a bit too...

Here is the link on this very blog to an easy photo tut to make some quick little crowd-pleasing leaves. http://isinglassdesign.blogspot.com/2010/01/quick-pile-of-leaves.html

Clean, clear glass for your lampwork glass beads

2011-01-13T15:06:00.009-06:00

Sometimes things just seem to come together- like when I was listening to Abbey Road while doing my high school English assignment and realized that the Beatles had used an old English poem in one of their songs (Golden Slumbers). Got my class out of a whole day of work when I brought it along to school! Woo-hoo!

The same thing happened when I saw this information about making your clear glass really clear posted on facebook by Patty Frantz: http://frantznewsletter.com/?p=2914&preview=true

Now normally, this would just go to the back of my brain, because I am not likely to want to have any sodium bisulfate lying around. But then I mentioned it in passing to the man I live with, and he thought I was talking about dill pickles. And THAT reminded me about a library book I had been looking through that mentioned a homemade metal pickling compound made with vinegar.

So I went in search of that info on the internet and ended up here:
http://idreamicanflyaway.blogspot.com/2009/01/to-pickle-or-not-to-pickle.html
Please read through this for much more specific info about the pickling solution.

Now I had all the information I needed. Would it be possible to make my own pickling solution, use it on my glass per Patty's instructions, and end up with a beautiful clear glass? I think the answer is 'yes!' I tried it out and am very happy with the results. Please do read Patty's information- you use this the same way she suggested in her article, but this is a non-toxic solution.

First- about your safety- you are responsible for that. I am not saying any of this is safe or recommended by the AMA or the fire department!

Here's what I did-

1) Used recipe from 'I dream I can fly away'- 1 cup vinegar to 1 Tbl. salt- heated in a non-reactive (ceramic-lined cast iron a la le creuset) pot to the steaming point, stirred until the salt dissolves. I wouldn't boil this stuff.

2) Let solution cool to about 140 degrees. I put the clear and transparent rods into a 15x9 pyrex pan and poured the solution over them. Don't pour it over when it's too hot, or the rods may crack. The clear I am using for this is Moretti #006. All the transparent colors are also Moretti.

3) Put that into an oven that is set to about 150 degrees. I left the door open so it wouldn't get too hot for about 15-20 minutes.

4) Took the rods out and rinsed in tepid water to remove the salt. Handle the rods carefully or use gloves so that the rods don't get oils from your hands on them.

5) Stood the rods upright to dry on a couple of paper towels.

That's it. When the rods were dry, since I didn't have gloves, I picked them up using a plastic grocery bag, bundled them according to color using twist ties, and put them into plastic bags to try and keep all the dust from my house from getting on them. That is the next challenge- how to keep the rods clean!

You can keep this stuff in a non-reactive container and reuse it. Though I haven't tried it, it seems you can also 'refresh' it by adding extra vinegar. And when you do dispose of it, it should be neutralized with baking soda.

Yes, you still need to clean with 91% alcohol to get all those nasty fingerprints off, and you may still need to pull a bit of smutz off the tip from time to time. But this is definitely worth the time it takes- which is not much. Now I can encase without fear- if I could just do it without smear!

Here are couple of the beads made with my newly cleaned clear. I normally don't even bother with this tyype of bead because of the smutz factor. With that problem out of the way, maybe I'll finally get down to the business of learning to encase properly!

A very special thank you to Patty Frantz and to Jo Hollingsworth- you two rock! And thanks to Larry Scott, who told Patty about this to begin with.

Epiphany! Lampwork glass beads for Mardi Gras

2011-01-06T18:24:00.009-06:00

Well, today is the first day of the Mardi Gras season, aka Epiphany. The season always begins on the same day- the twelfth day after Christmas, no matter when Mardi Gras actually falls. Of course you know that Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring. And Ash Wednesday is 46 days before Easter- the beginning of Lent. Well Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday) is simply the day before Ash Wednesday. The whole mess lasts right from Christmas to Easter, with some of the days for celebration, and some of them days of moderation.

If you want to know more about all of this, you should visit this site- it has loads of info about everything from the Mardi Gras Indians to Pete Fountain's Half Fast Walking Club- well at least I hope they include that! No Mardi Gras morning would be complete without a bunch of extremely drunk men walking by, attempting to play music, and kissing everyone in sight at 5:30 am or so...
http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/mgdates.html

Lampwork glass beads for the holidays

2010-12-23T17:32:00.006-06:00

Happy Holidays all of y'all out in the blog-o-sphere (is that right?) I've been working on some big ol' beads this week, and a few glass icicles. I've made a few fish, a couple of birds, and some interesting shaped beads to hang on my tree. In order to keep them from getting lost in the shuffle, I decided to go large and see what happened. So here are the results of that experiment.

I have been asked a number of times over the years whether I can make beads bigger than I generally do, and I always say no. But I suppose I must admit that I was wrong. The answer is- we'll see. If these hold up, maybe next year I'll make some in time for some other folks to enjoy them on their trees!

2010-12-19T13:54:00.006-06:00

I've been working on a special request again this last week. Thought I'd just post a couple of pictures here. I've been remiss in keeping up with my blog- again!

And another kinda scary bead- I got a book on matroyshka out of the library- very intriguing...

Pricing bead sets

2010-11-02T05:56:00.005-05:00

I have recently decided to try making and selling sets of beads on etsy. Mostly small sets of spacers at this point. I made several sets, timed myself and my bead cleaning buddy, and then tried to figure a price. Who ever thought that would be the hard part.

I figured that, with the time involved, expenses, etc., I would need to charge about $4-5 a bead. Hmm, that meant a set of five small spacers would be about $25. That sounded a little high, so I did some searching on etsy to see what other folks were charging. Surprise! Spacer beads for $1 to $2.

Now I'm not exactly a math whiz, but when a set of beads takes about 25 minutes to make and you charge $12 for it, that doesn't seem like it could be cost effective in any way. Sounds like a lot of money? $24 an hour? Are you considering supplies, gas, paypal and etsy fees, income tax, and the time it takes to photograph and list those beads? If you look at all of that, I'd say you might just as well cut that income in half- $12 an hour is really not that great a wage. And that wage only applies if you can sell every bead you make at the price you set.
So my bead sets are priced in between what I feel they should cost and what others might sell for. They are a bit more complex than those beads that are less, so I'm hoping that will be a good selling point. Guess I'll just have to sit here on my hands and wait to see what happens!

The birth of the Christmas Bird

2010-10-24T15:18:00.004-05:00

I’m not really the kind of bead maker who does anything special for the holidays, but this year there has been a bit of a change. Thanks to a special order pair of earrings, and the confluence of several ideas, I am making Christmas birds. How did this come about? I will try and explain.
First, I have been in quite a swirly mood lately. Twirls on the sides of fish, and swirls on the sides of beads have become the norm. Just a phase I suppose. Then I got an email from someone who wanted a pair of earrings to match a particular dress for his wife. I looked at the photos he sent and- wait, what is that I see- are those paisleys? And did he just ask if I ever make anything with swirls on them? Oh dear, it looked like I was going to be heading into dangerous waters. My oh-so-literal mind couldn’t just try and put paisleys on beads. I had to go the whole way and make 3-D paisleys.
As soon as I’d made the first one, I thought, “Wow, what a cool bird that would make” That idea just sat in my brain for a couple of days while I worked on some more earring choices and some other things I wanted to get done. When I made a nice red and green fish a couple of days later, I had to stop myself from changing directions in the middle and trying my first bird. It was going to be a nice fish, and I didn’t want to mess with it. But the next bead had to be a bird. And it had to be the same colors as that fish.
That little bird is now sitting on my glass table, modeling for the newest item in my repertoire- Christmas bird earrings.
Here’s the quick breakdown of the process: twirls and swirls-customer photos- paisleys- red and green fish- Christmas bird

The cover of the Autumn Flow!

2010-10-02T13:03:00.011-05:00

The cover of The Flow..............My tut bead- in different colors

I was pleasantly surprised when the mail arrived a couple of days ago. There was a package with three of my own personal copies of The Flow magazine, a magazine specifically for people who make lampwork glass. And my tutorial was inside. The first time anything other than a picture of one of my beads has been published. And my name was right there on the cover. There's lots of wonderful information inside- plenty of tuts and pictures! Go here to order your very own copy- I'm keeping all of mine! https://www.theflowmagazine.com/index.htm

I got so excited that I started singing- gonna get me name upon the cover, gonna buy five copies for my brother, gonna get my lampwork tut on the cover of the autumn Flow.....
With thanks to Shel Silverstein!

A Bit of Alchemy

2010-09-28T16:00:00.007-05:00

Magic? You Betcha!

I love to add a bit of silver to my beads. A nice silver core, some clear, and some color action over it all is a lovely effect, and it adds that 'bling' that so many folks crave.

But a funny thing often happens when I work with silver. I can't help thinking of it as a kind of alchemy. When I put the hot clear glass over the silver foil, it often turns a beautiful gold color. What makes that happen? Well, like the alchemists of old, I really can't say. My feeling is that it has something to do with the heat of the glass that is applied over the silver. But I don't know for sure. Usually, if I apply the silver foil, burnish it on well, and apply some nice hot clear on top of it, it will turn a lovely gold color, but sometimes it is a mixture of gold and silver, and once in a while it stays just plain silver. You can see how different it can look in the photos above.

P.S. Check out the newest issue of The Flow- There's a tutorial by me about scissors- my favorite tool, along with a lot of other great tutorials.

Enamels- a quick tip

2010-09-14T10:24:00.005-05:00

I'm not saying anyone should use enamels in their beads. And I am saying to use a mask and proper ventilation if you do. I do use enamels, so here's one little thing I've learned about them that has a cool look. Make your core bead. Roll in enamel- white works well. Wrap with a nice lightly colored transparent. That's it! You can see how cool it looks in the pics. No need to fully encase. I think it actually looks more interesting if you don't.

By the way, I don't care how many people say to do it, I DO NOT recommend putting your enamel in a shaker or sifting it onto your beads. Talk about some airborne micro particles that you can breathe! Ugh!

La Vida Loca!

2010-09-02T19:25:00.006-05:00

Hey there. most of y'all probably don't even realize I've been running about the country for the last few weeks. But I'm finally settled for the moment in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York. And I've started making beads again. Believe it or not, it's been almost hot since we've been here. That's scheduled to change this weekend, and I bet I'll be in shock.

Good thing I've got a torch and kiln to keep me warm! I'm gonna be thinking about things to blog about in the near future. Bead-related stuff, not things about the nonsense otherwise referred to as my life! Stay tuned for an exciting announcement....

Feel like I'm Living La Vida Loca!!!!

Keeping your cool with special orders

2010-07-21T20:00:00.008-05:00

A while ago, an organization requested that I make items they could give as gifts. This was a whole new concept for me- making a large quantity of similar items for one group. I learned a lot (I hope!) from this experience, and thought I might try and pass on some of it.

First of all, stay on top of the project. I was first contacted a full 6 months before the date of the event. I happily made samples, and expected to hear back soon. But I didn’t. I emailed a couple of times, even called once as the date approached, but still was not even sure they wanted anything. Then the event was a month away. I did not want to push, but I know I can only move so quickly when it comes to bead making. And what if I needed more glass, silver or other supplies for the project? That’s another week of waiting. I was getting nervous. They needed a lot of pieces, and I was beginning to feel it would all be un-doable. And I really did want to do this. Not just because the money would be nice, but also to stretch myself, see how I did, and of course the exposure never hurts.

So I made my case- nicely, of course. I called- again. I hate pestering folks, but I also didn’t want to disappoint them by letting the deadline come and go. I needed 3 ½ weeks to get their order ready. That gave me a week to order supplies, and 2 ½ weeks to make, clean and bail the beads. Every day that passed made me more uncertain that I could finish this in a timely manner. While I waited, I tried to beef up my regular inventory and clear the way.

And then things began to happen.

First was the phone call. I realized then that a) they really did want me to make something, and b) they were very busy themselves, and I was being squeezed in. Emails went back and forth, and a meeting was set up. During this time, I became aware that there was a lot of communication needed about what I could and could not do. I was very straightforward about things, and twice had to flat out say no, I can’t do that. I realize now that this was because they were unfamiliar with lampwork glass, and I was not explaining it well- or at all! I thought that, since they had approached me, they understood what was involved, but this is not necessarily so. To my surprise, they did not just drop me at this point, but still wanted to meet and look at the samples, something I had been encouraging from the beginning. I don’t think this project would ever have worked without the face-to-face meeting.

So on to the meeting. This was where the design ideas I originally came up with were pretty much summarily rejected, though a small part of those designs did end up in the final pieces. Fortunately, I had brought along a few beads to show sizes and shapes. And some of them were more along the lines of what they wanted. Hooray! Now we had a design plan. I never realized that they would be able to help with the design. But this is actually quite important. It gives them, hopefully, exactly what they are looking for, and allows them to be a part of the creative process. The buyers become an integral part of the process, and the piece is truly theirs.

Ok, time was really getting short now. Nearly a week had gone by, and only now did I feel like I knew what to do. I set my alarm and got up at 4:30 the next morning to make four more samples and bring them over by 10 am. Fortunately, things went well that morning, and I ended up with four different pieces that were similar. I rushed to get them semi- clean and over to the office by 10. And the person I needed to talk to was in a meeting! Oh man. I hope she didn’t realize that I was nearly frantic by now! I’m afraid that my exhaustion and panic became apparent when she asked how I’d gotten them all ready and nice so quickly. I blurted out before I left that I did it by getting up at four am. Jaws dropped in the meeting (they were all there watching). I left in embarrassment with the promise of a call later in the day. And the time went by…. It was late Friday afternoon when I got a confirmation. And they liked all the samples- I wouldn’t have to make everything exactly the same- yay! And they only needed half of what I had originally been told! Double yay!!! Things were looking up. I don’t know what I would have done if those pieces had not worked for them.

Fortunately, I have some glassy pals in town, and there’s a glass shop too. I started calling and emailing in desperation, looking for the proper pink glass. Just enough to get the project started, so I could make things while I waited for a glass order. Here I was, again, very lucky. My pals came through in spades, and when I went to the glass shop, I found that there was some glass that would work perfectly. So there I was, set for glass, design, and having the time I needed to finish the project. Hooray! All I had to do now was make beads.

I finished the project and delivered it in two weeks- a week and a half before the event, which makes me happy, and allows them some extra time too.

And what have I learned?

1) Always be friendly and professional.
2) Be clear about what you do and what your limitations are.
3) Don’t be afraid to suggest ideas and designs, but don’t be surprised if things go a different way, i.e. be flexible. Help them to be a part of the design, and make the piece truly theirs.
4) Let them know about your deadlines. If you feel they may have dropped the ball, call or email- or both- without being pushy. They most likely don’t realize how much time it might take you to complete the project, and the considerations such ordering the glass and supplies (and finding a company that has everything you need- in stock!). Most folks are unfamiliar with how difficult it can be to simply get the needed supplies in the glass world.
5) Don’t let them see you panic. Try and hold it together, even as you see your personal deadline come and go. Of course, don’t let it get to the point that the project is un-doable. So what is your absolute deadline? This can be difficult to know with a large project.
6) BE NICE! Some of the ‘extras’ included at the end of my latest project:
...Tiny tags that have their event information on the front, and information about the beads and my email address on the back. That’s good for both of us!
...Little favor boxes that I picked up at the dollar store. Ok- I probably should have asked what they wanted and added a box charge to the items. Next time I may do that.
...Three extra pendants. I always make a few extras, and included these free of charge ‘just in case.’ What if they forgot someone? Anyway, this was their design, and what else could I do with them?!
7) And lastly, be thankful when the project is successfully finished- thankful for the opportunity, the learning, and of course the added income!

Neapolitan Man and the new Vetro colors from Frantz

2010-07-04T13:57:00.003-05:00

I'd like you to meet 'Neapolitan Man'.
He's made with the six new Vetrofond colors that I just received as a sample from Frantz Art Glass- pale pesto, biscotti, cream, verde, purple and mauve. The only other things I used were some Moretti clear and intense black. Oh- and I forgot, a little bi ant of raku frit, which reacted nicely with the purple.

Sometimes I see a bunch of rods together and it says-

'look how well we go together- why don't you make something out of just us?

No other colors allowed!'

And thus Neapolitan man was born. Just seeing the words pesto, biscotti and cream made me hungry! So naturally, he had to be named for some kind of Italian food too!

Bead Wearability

2010-06-10T16:54:00.006-05:00

I make beads of glass. What do people do with them? Well, mostly, they wear them. Whether they put them in a piece of their own making, a necklace or bracelet I've made, or a pendant, they want to put 'em around their necks and prance around!

Over the years, I've had a few folks who were baffled by the whole idea of wearing, say, a fish or even a mask. One shop owner asked about the fish- what do people do with these? When I told her they mostly wore them, she simply didn't believe me! Another customer brought a bead back because it was too round and it rolled when she wore it. I exchanged it for earrings, and wondered how the round part had gotten past her to begin with. And I actually let it affect my bead-making style when she said I should only make flat beads- look around my shop, and you'll see very few of the round variety. That's not the ONLY reason for that, but it did have an impact.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about some of the things that I think about when I make my beads to insure that they 'wear' properly.

A big consideration is BALANCE. Your beads need to hang right side up when they are strung- or at least mine do. That means the bead needs to be bottom heavy. I get around that much of the time by making the holes in my beads go from top to bottom rather than from side to side, like in my fish and heart beads. If the hole goes from side to side, it will look more like my large-holed hearts.

Another consideration is FLATNESS. My fish have fins sticking off of the sides, but they don't stick straight out- they are pulled so that they are parallel to the body, but not quite touching it. I don't want bits sticking out all over the place that can break off easily, or that stab my poor customers while they're wearing them.
And then there's BAIL-ABILITY. (Ok, that can't be a real word.) There needs to be an area at each hole end of the bead where silver or a 'seater' bead can get close enough to hold the bead where you want it to stay. This means that there can't be bits of glass sticking up past the end of the hole that make it impossible to put something next to the glass. Hearts are always a challenge when it somes to this, as their lobes do stick up past the bead hole.

And speaking of bailing and stringing, I've found small silver saucer(as in flying saucer) shaped beads to be the perfect seater beads- they sit themselves right down in the bead hole, and take the stress of the bailing so that it can be nice and tight.

That's all I can think of right now! Stay tuned for more nit-picking rantings of an obsessed lampworker.

Under the Sea

2010-06-01T17:01:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm just bloggin' 'cause I'm sittin' here waitin' for an answer to an online question. Wanted to show a few underwater creatures, and wonder why folks like fish, turtles, frogs, shells, starfish, mermaids and other things so much. And what other underwater creatures can I make? I did make a squid once- well, twice really, because I didn't like the first one. Anyway, here are a few of my current favs.

Flower Tut is Finally Finished!

2010-04-28T07:09:00.005-05:00

I finally got it done and ready to sell in my etsy shop- a tutorial about making four different kinds of glass flowers- a lily or star flower, an aster, a simple iris and a fancy lady's slipper orchid. So here's the link to that:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/45703612/lampwork-glass-flower-bead-tutorial-lily

A Surprise Publication

2010-04-18T08:59:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was making my way through the new books at the library, when I saw a book called Earrings, Earrings, Earrings pulished by House of White Birches books. As I was flipping through it to see if I needed to check it out, I flashed by a pair of earrings. And then I went to that page again- there was something about those beads.....
Thanks to a wonderful jewelry maker named Ishita Ghosh, there were a pair of earrings and a matching bracelet using a few of my 'earthy' style beads- a very short- lived phase in my bead making history. Ishita bought some beads form me a couple of years ago, after we connected thanks to an article about her on the Artbeadscene blog. These are the beads she purchased

Here's Ishita's website, so you can see some more wonderful examples of her work:

http://www.gianani.com/

Here's a link to the actual piece that was in the publication:

http://www.gianani.com/asseen.html

Thanks to everyone involved for this!

Orchids and other flowers

2010-03-09T12:54:00.008-06:00

Well, I've been working on three dimensional flowers lately. It's something I've played with from time to time over the years. Since I haven't really seen anything that looks like the ones I make, I've been taking pictures and started writing a tutorial. I've written lots of mini tuts and published them here, but never tried a big old tut.

The tut I'm currently writing will start with a simple lily, then graduate to a purple aster-like flower that has two rows of petals. But yesterday I finally got to work making something really over the top. This is the flower I want to include instructions for as the final piece in the tut. The two I made yesterday turned out quite nice. I'm hoping to be able to do it again, and refine it just a little for the sake of speed and ease. But I was so happy with these- they are kind of big for me- between 1 and 1 1/2 inches across. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but it looks HUGE in real life.

The tut and a couple of the flower beads are going to be a part of the ISGB auction next month. I think they'll be up for sale in the last week of the auction. If you haven't heard about that auction, keep your eyes peeled for news. I'll post something here when it begins. There are going to be a lot of amazing pieces for sale, by a lot of wonderful lampworkers- and me! And it's all to benefit the International Society of Glass Beadmakers.

Published in The Glass Bead !

2010-02-19T12:43:00.007-06:00

I was so excited today when I got my copy of The Glass Bead in the mail from the ISGB (International Society of Glass Beadmakers). It included a picture of one of my seahorses in the 'eye candy' section. I had submitted some photos a few months ago, and thought one was going to appear this quarter, but I wasn't sure 'til I got the magazine.
But the big surprise was the picture of one of my butterflies in an article by Jim Kervin about butterfly beads and the Beads of Courage program. There was even a link to my butterfly tutorial on this blog, and to the youtube video. I'll include those here just in case you're looking:

http://isinglassdesign.blogspot.com/2009/07/lampwork-glass-butterflies-for-beads-of.html

The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5z--E_jj8

New Orleans 'Inside-Out'

2010-02-05T14:17:00.007-06:00

You thought maybe I was kidding bout the Who Dat?' chips? The fleur de lis is my latest, New Orleans inspired, bead.

OK, any of you who have been paying attention know that I nearly never talk about my personal life here. But when life and beads cross paths, anything's fair game! I grew up in New Orleans a long time ago. I actually lived there for over 20 years, and in many ways still think of it as home. I have no family there, and have lost touch with friends, so I see N.O. like a regular tourist these days- staying in hotels, eating out, etc. Here are a few of my 'inside-out' tips for any of you who may feel inclined to visit.

The first, and most important issue to discuss is food and water. First is the water issue. I brought my own, and would advise that or buying it there as the best policy. Why? Well, New Orleans gets its drinking water from the muddy Mississippi River. 'Nuf said!
Before I go any further, just let me say- I hate spending money to eat out. Yes, the food in New Orleans is wonderful. But you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to enjoy it. You can hang out in the quarter, go to the big name restaurants, and spend your inheritance there. Or you can eat beignets and cafe au lait at the Cafe du Monde for breakfast, eat lunch in the CBD across Canal Street from the Quarter, and eat dinner at one of the restaurants in the River Bend area- a short streetcar ride away. And the food is great all over!

And yes, they're streetcars, not trolleys. The drivers are like local tour guides, and seem delighted with this. Many of them announce things along the route, and they're happy to answer questions. And to the ridiculous question 'do you have to have exact change?' Have you ever been on public transportation that gives you change??? Actually the streetcar drivers are so used to the tourists that they've got a couple of plans in case you forget your change. You can just go ahead and pay $5 and get a pass that's good for the rest of the day. Or, there's something I call community payment. If you get on with a five, and only want to pay one way, the next three people to enter will give their money to you rather than the driver!

While you're in the Riverbend area, be sure to visit some of the local shops on Dublin Street (like Nuance Glass, which now has a few of my things), and on Maple Street- like the Maple Street Book Store. Do you really want your souvenir of New Orleans to be made in China? There are many shops in the French Quarter, the River Bend, Magazine St. and all over town that sell wonderful local art and crafts. And there are monthly art and craft fairs in different areas of town most weekends. Get the newspaper to see the when and where of these.

If you're driving, be sure to stop at the tourist info place at the border and pick up some hotel coupons. Though many of the hotels will charge you more than the coupons say, they will still get you a bit of a discount. The place where I stayed had a coupon which included free parking- that alone is worth about $30 a day! If you can leave your car at home, do. You won't need it, or even want to drive it around the city. The streets are a mess, the traffic's bad, and you need to watch out for those pesky streetcars if you are foolish enough to try and drive on St. Charles. Driving down Royal or Bourbon streets during the times they are open is just plain foolish. The pedestrians are in the street whether it's closed off or not. Speaking of pedestrians, if you're trying to cross Canal or any of the downtown streets on foot, be careful! I'm not going to tell you how to do it, but there is an art to it, as there is to so much in the Big Easy.

OK, I'm about done, I guess. My bag of Zapp's 'Who Dat?' chips is , sadly, empty. And I can't think of any other advice right now!

Glass Squid

2010-01-22T19:32:00.003-06:00

Just a quick blog to show the fun piece I made for my daughter's birthday. She has this thing about squids- don't ask! I've been wanting to make one of these for years, and I finally got brave enough to try. So here it is- Ta-Da!

A Quick Pile of Leaves

2010-01-13T20:09:00.012-06:00

I have an order for a pile of leaves, and thought I might as well take some pics to show how I do this. A nice, simple shape for the newbies in the bunch!

Here’s a photo tutorial to make these quick little leaves- they only take about 5 minutes!
1) Make a small base bead- shape ends nicely.
2) Decide which part you want to attach the leaf on, and melt a blob of glass onto that point. Make it kind of globular, not just a flat bit of glass.
3) Add layers of colors around that- I usually do that twice- here I’ve added two lines of clear on each side, then two lines of another green.

4) Dip in one or two colors of frit for some random coloration, or just add some squiggles of this and that.
5) Heat the leaf part of the bead to a nice glow- not completely sloppy, but pretty hot.
6) Get out your leaf press, and press into a rough shape. Try and center the leaf press on the glass before pressing.

7) Use your glass shears to further shape the leaf, and to make some nice deep vein lines.
8) Do the last step again if needed. You can also use your marver or paddle to help shape the leaf into a bit of a cup-like shape instead of having it be flat.
9) Heat the tip of the leaf, touch with a warm (not hot) rod of glass, and pull the tip of the leaf into a point if desired.

10) Pop that baby into the kiln.

The second series of photos shows how to do a leaf without a leaf press. Just follow the above directions, and press with a flat press rather than a leaf-shaped press. I really only use the press for rough shaping- then I like to tweak it a bit, so they all look different.
The leaf press is a wonderful tool for demonstrations- your onlookers get that ‘A-ha’ moment when they see the bead come out of the press. And it’s quite quick, for those with short attention spans!

Fear Not the Rubino Oro

2010-01-08T16:24:00.010-06:00

Pink. Pink, Pink, Pink, PINK!!!!!

Bubblegum core ... Silver reaction ..... 1/2 over opal yellow, 1/2 over white

I’ve been privy to some chatter lately about Moretti Rubino Oro glass (#456), AKA gold pink,or gold cranberry pink. It seems that some folks are afraid to use it, or even dislike it! Now that’s a travesty. Rubino Oro is one of the most beautiful colors you can use, not to mention that it has some amazing qualities that I've found I just can’t live without. So I’m here to give you a few pointers on using it- hopefully this will be helpful.

1) Keep cool, man- Rubino, like many other pinks, prefers a cool flame, so you’re going to have to be ready to take your time with this. Otherwise, the color won’t be all that it can be. I work this glass on a hothead, and really have no trouble getting it to be a nice pink, even when the rod starts out looking clear. If it doesn’t seem to be ‘striking’ (changing color), heat and cool it a couple of times. But don’t overheat it to a molten mess.

2) Silvery grey away- Sometimes, on the end of the rod, or on your bead, you will see a bit of shiny, silvery-grey. You most likely don’t want this on your finished bead. What's happening?Your glass is being exposed to a flame that has a bit too little oxygen- it’s 'reducing'. This can actually be used for some effects, but to get rid of it, just add a bit of oxygen to your flame. On a hothead, I find it generally means I have the flame just a bit too high, so I lower it a little. It also seems to help to be just at the tip of the blue flame cone rather than higher in the flame.

3) Just a little bit- Rubino oro is a very saturated color. If you use it all alone to make a bead, it will probably end up being an ugly muddy mess. So, you should try one of these things.

...a) Make a small core bead of Rubino and encase it in clear (or a very light transparent).

...b) Make a white (or light colored) or clear core and encase it in a thin layer of Rubino.

...c) Layer. You can do something like make a base of pastel uranium yellow, cover with a thin layer of rubino, and encase that with a nice pale purple. Layering like this adds subtle color variations. You'll just have to experiment with different combinations and see what you like.

I don’t recommend you use the Rubino on ivory. That’s not a friendly reaction.

...d) Use it as an accent color. It’s such a deep color that a little goes a long way.

4) What’s your reaction? Oh, there has been so much written about this, and there are so many possibilities, that I’m afraid you’re just going to have to try it out! Here are a few suggestions:
...a) Try it over opal yellow for a lovely pinky-brown color
...b) Use a bit of light aqua (232) on top as dots or lines- there will be a dark pool in the middle of the dots, or a dark line through the middle of the line. Try this with some other colors like periwinkle blue (220).
...c) Use it as small dots or lines either over or under silver foil. If using dots under the foil, heat it up slowly until a mesh-like pattern forms.
...d) Use bubble gum pink as the base bead for a nice deep pink.

There are problems you will run across from time to time. It may get a chalky or bubbly surface. I think the bubbly surface comes from simply overworking, and if it happens you're kind of out of luck. As far as the chalky look, that could be a bit of devit. You might be able to bring back the sheen by heating it up a bit more. There's a bead in the kiln right now that I tried this on, and I think it worked. I'll let you know!
Yes, even if you follow these tips, you will have some bad beads from time to time- even some awful beads. But just keep at it, pay attention, and maybe even take a few notes, and I think you’ll be very happy that you tried out this fantastic glass.

Here's a discussion about Rubino reactions:

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99886

And a great tutorial that shows how to use Rubino with silver:

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=119760

If you need more info, you might consider the 'think pink' a tutorial by Sarah Hornik, available here:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38097676

Now get torching!!!!!

Shopping Locally

2009-11-30T13:21:00.008-06:00

OK, I'm about worn out with all the TV and newspaper ads telling me what I can buy where for what price. So I'm here to tell you some ways you can support your local artisans, shops and community instead of mass merchants. It's easy, it's fun, and you can feel good about your purchases.

Here are a few of the places you might find locally-made, high quality gifts for your loved ones.

1) Your local farmer's market. Ok, I will be writing a separate blog about this sometime soon, but markets in a lot of areas stay open until Christmas. Though many of the farmers no longer have produce for sale, the local artisans and food producers are still hard at work making amazing things, and will be at the market. A few I know of-

*** Baton Rouge, LA. has a wonderful arts market associated with their farmer's market once a month, and in December the artisans are there every Saturday.

*** Little Rock, AR. has a variety of vendors who set up all winter long. You can find lampwork glass ( that's me!), fused glass, jewelry, candles and paintings among other things.

*** Ithaca, N.Y.- yep, believe it or not, many of the regular artisans will put on the old electric socks and sell at this open-air market til Christmas.

So if there is a farmer's market in your area, be sure to check and see if it keeps going into the winter.

2) Local galleries. A somewhat obvious choice, many galleries specialize in local art. And they have more than paintings for your walls. There's jewelry, glass, and loads of other wonderful work for sale. Here in Little Rock, I must recommend Gallery 26. Not just becase I have some work there, but because it's a great place to find interesting, unusual, handmade things.

3) Gift shops. Not sure if your neighborhood gift shop supports local artisans? Call and ask!

4) Museum stores. These can be incredible treasure troves. The Historic Arkansas Museum gift shop, for instance, has all kinds of handmade gifts like soap, candles, pottery, jewelry (yes, mine is there) and woodwork. All of it is locally made, and there is a special section for each artisan- a nice way of showcasing each person.

5) Craft shows. A great way to meet the makers of the items, and find out a bit more about them. Take your time and look around. These can be a bit overwhelming. If you live in Arkansas, don't miss the Arkansas Craft Guild's Christmas Showcase on December 4,5 and 6 at the Statehouse Convention Center.

6) Don't want to leave your house? You can shop locally online easily. Etsy, for instance has a feature called 'shop local'. Just enter your hometown, and etsy will find sellers who live right in your area. Here's a link to that: http://www.etsy.com/shop_local.php

No matter what you might need for the holidays, think local first. Support your local farmers and food producers, local artisans, small local shops, and your local economy, for a more friendly, less frenzied holiday season.

Art Bead Scene September Challenge Winner

2009-10-21T15:24:00.006-05:00

Last month, one of my pieces was chosen as September monthly challenge winner on the Art Bead Scene blog- http://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/ . It's a great blog, with lots of interesting info for jewelry designers and beadmakers. The piece I entered was a necklace I'd made that just happened to fit in with their Kandinsky theme for the month, and I entered it at the last minute.

.............. It was just a random drawing- I actually prefered this necklace that I had also entered! This one ended up going to the Netherlands.
There were prizes, and I got one of them in the mail yesterday- a beautiful button from Creative Impressions in Clay from Tari Sasser. http://www.claybuttons.com/ It is such a cool button- I think it's the biggest one I've ever seen (much larger than this photo!). Don't know what I'll do with it yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Thanks so much, Tari.

And thanks ArtBeadScene for choosing my necklace!

Parkview students' first beads

2009-10-13T13:29:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was workshop day for me at Parkview High School. Once a year, I have the pleasure of going to the jewelry class and doing a 1 ½ hour introduction to lampwork glass beadmaking. Yesterday there were about 15 students on 7 torches. Wish I had some pictures, but I was too busy to think about that. I hope everyone had a good time, and that some of them will continue practicing on the torches there. P,p,p, as we say.

Here are a few extra tips and reminders.
**Shake the bead release (sludge) well, and dip your mandrels in rather slowly to get a nice even coating. If there is time to let the sludge air dry, that is best, though the mandrels can also be carefully dried in the flame.
**Once your glass has touched the mandrel, it will not come off without breaking the bead release. If you have a sharp or thin end that needs to be evened up, you will need to add glass to that end, or heat it and take it out of the flame and point that end towards the floor and let gravity pull the glass down, or heat and push gently towards the pointy or thin end with your paddle.
**Don’t build your bead too close to the end of the mandrel- leave at least ½ inch of space.
**Don’t ever let your bead get too cool- it can break while you’re working on it if it gets too cool and you put it back into the flame- sometimes explosively. So remember to ‘flash’ your bead through the flame often. If you are working on some little detail, you must remain aware of how long it’s been since you made sure the whole bead was hot.
**Whenever you touch the bead with a tool- like your paddle or trowel- you introduce stress into the glass. Sometimes you can see it as ‘chill marks’ which look kind of like a finger print. Heat the bead a bit after using any tool on it to get rid of this stress.
**If you want to add some little bits that will stick off of the main bead- like fish fins or wings, be sure you heat the attachment point well first.

Here is a quick tutorial to help you with your first beads.

Basic glass bead technique:
1) Begin by heating the tip of your glass rod slowly. There are a couple of ways to do this– you can start heating high in the flame and work your way down into the hotter flame, or you can move the rod in and out of the hotter area of the flame. Either way, keep the rod twisting so that it will heat evenly. Always stay aware of the heat of the rod you are working with and the heat of the bead you are working on (known as “reading the heat base”).
2) When the rod has an orange glow all around the tip, it is ready to stay in the heat of the flame- between the tip of the blue cone of the flame and the area about 1 inch above this cone. Begin to heat the prepared mandrel (in your other hand) to a slight glow while you continue to heat the glass. Rotate the glass rod to avoid sagging, and continue heating until hot glass has a controllable but fairly liquid texture, similar to cold honey.

3) Keep your glass rod in the flame, and the mandrel behind the flame, as you begin to apply glass to the mandrel. The glass rod and the mandrel should be perpendicular to each other- in a ‘T’ position. Roll the mandrel up and away from you during this process. The mandrel will be slightly behind the flame and you will be pushing the rod of glass through the flame to it, heating the glass rod just in front of the area you are actually applying to the mandrel– this gives you a constant source of heated glass to use. TOuch the glass rod to the mandrel, and gently push it on, and begin rotating the mandrel. The glass rod should stay pretty much in one position while you spin the mandrel.

Make sure the glass is good and hot- it should flow easily onto the mandrel. If it feels like it is pulling, pause and let the glass heat up some more, or burn the glass off, heat it again, and then add more. If you are adding more glass to a bead you have started, make sure the bead is a bit cool (not cold) before you add the next layer of glass.

4) Wind the glass once all the way around the mandrel, then move the mandrel slightly to the left and add another wind of glass right next to and touching the first wrap. Add more glass on top of these two wraps, moving the mandrel back and forth as necessary, until the bead looks fairly even, and is about the size you want it to be.
5) When you have applied all of the glass you need, detach the glass rod by pulling up and turning the bead towards yourself, and letting the flame burn it off.

6) Now you can begin to round the bead. Keep turning the mandrel, and keep it horizontal, while you heat your bead in the flame to a nice orange glow. Take it out of the flame, turning it all the while. Look at the bead in cross-section so you can make sure it is uniform all the way around. Use gravity to help round the bead. You may need to gently marver the bead into shape with a paddle. Be sure you don’t push the glass too hard against the mandrel. You are trying to push the glass on the top of the bead into shape, not push the bead around on the mandrel.
7) When you are finished with your bead, you want to cool it slowly (flame anneal) before putting it away. This will help keep it from breaking later. To flame anneal the bead, get it just glowing all around- not so hot that it all starts moving around again- then begin to move it slowly towards the top of the flame, always turning to keep the bead from getting distorted. Flame anneal for 1-2 minutes, or until bead is no longer glowing. Take out of the flame for a few seconds, and then cool in a fiber blanket or vermiculite for 3-4 hours.

Much of working with glass is simply a case of paying attention to the heat base of your glass. Different methods and techniques are most effective when the glass is at slightly different temperatures Stay comfortable, but be aware of what you are doing at all times.

Do the Math

2009-09-20T14:07:00.004-05:00

As you attempt to get your home-based art or craft business off the ground, you may be approached by folks who have shows they would like you to participate in, or shops they want you to sell your products in. Here’s my special tip to help you make these important decisions- do the math! It’s very important to figure out how much something is really going to cost you before you sign on the dotted line and turn over your hard-earned money. What do I mean, how much it’s really going to cost you? Well, first and most important is the booth fee, or percentage the shop will take off the top. Booth fees are pretty straightforward.
Here’s an example. Let’s say I have heard about a show with a $100 booth fee. A fee of $100 is just that, no hidden costs, no percentages. But what, exactly, would I need to sell to make that kind of fee a sensible investment? I have often heard that a booth fee should be no more than 20% of your gross. So if I pay a booth fee of $100, I would want to bring in at least $500.
I would think about the number of hours the show lasts, the amount of inventory I predict I can have in my booth, etc. Does it seem feasible? I have found, in the larger shows I have done, that I can generally sell maybe 20-25% of the stock I have on hand. So for a show like this I would want to have at least $2000 worth of product on hand. I know that can be easily done. Now how about the hours of the show? Well, let’s say the show is just one day- a Saturday from 10am to 8pm. That’s 10 hours. Ok, so if I sold an average of $50 worth of items an hour, I could make that booth fee. Do-able? Well, probably.
There are plenty of other considerations, though. Is it in town? That means no hotel and minimal gas costs. Is it a juried craft show? I find that that is what draws the type of customers I am looking for. Is it indoors or outdoors? Bad weather can ruin your chances of having a good day at an outdoor show. Do I know anyone who has done the show? What do they think? This is a starting point, though folks have different ideas of what a ‘good show’ is.
All of these things and many more should be taken into consideration, but doing the math on that show fee is the first, very important step.
Here’s an example a friend presented me with recently- a craft mall situation where he would pay $100 a month, plus 15% of his sales. Hmmm… That sounded a little iffy to me, so I did the math for him. Here’s what I told him. Well, if you sold $1000 worth of your product a month, you would pay that $100 rent, plus another $150 a month in fees. That’s 25% of your sales. Is that sensible for you? Well, he knew from previous shop experiences that it was pretty unlikely that he would sell $1000 worth of product in one shop in a month. And if he sold less, the percentage he would be paying the shop would just go up. For me, the answer was a definite no. I don’t think he’s going to do it either.
Yes, there may be times when you just want to take the plunge, roll the dice, and see what happens. But I’d strongly suggest that you first do the math, and not delude yourself about how things will turn out financially in the end.
Hope this helps with some of those difficult show decisions!

In defense of the hothead

2009-08-30T07:24:00.008-05:00

Wanrted to share a bit of information and opinion on the hothead torch, which is what I use. And what, you might ask, does that mean? And furthermore, who cares? Well folks making lampwork beads care- a lot in some cases- about what kind of torch a person uses. I am not a victim of 'torch envy' (thanks for that phrase to Corinna Tettinger). I am more a believer in 'what can I afford?' and 'what works for me?' So here is my explantion of what it is, and why I use it.

A hothead is about the lowest end torch one can effectively make glass beads with. It runs on a single fuel (I use propylene) rather than propane and oxygen. It has a rather bushy (wide) flame, and doesn't get quite as hot as a dual-fuel torch does. The flame cannot be made into a pinpoint, but it can be adjusted somewhat, especially if you are using a large fuel tank rather than those screw-on, ecologically wasteful, little bottles you can get at the hardware store. I use a large tank, and it makes an enormous difference in the heat and adjustability of the flame. So I definitely recommend using a larger fuel tank with a hose going to the torch.

Many people say they cannot work with this type of torch, but, frankly, a lot of them have never tried, or never tried very hard. Not that they should- they have better, nicer torches at home, and this does work a bit differently. I have even heard this referred to as not a 'real' torch. I have used this type of torch for about nine years, so yes, it works, it's real ( I have the burn marks to prove it!) and yes, you can do a lot with it- it just takes practice, as does using any torch.

The hothead does not get as hot as dual-fuel torches, so many folks think it is slower, but I am not really convinced of that. I have asked other beadmakers about how long it takes them to make a particular bead, and my times are usually equal to or even quicker than theirs. The first melt and wrap may go more quickly, but detail work takes time, no matter what torch you're using. And many new beadmakers have problems because their torch is turned up too high. I rarely have that problem. And, believe it or not, I actually don't usually work with my torch turned all the way up.

The hothead is an inexpensive torch- under $65 still, I think, whereas dual-fuel torches start at about $170. Not really a huge difference, but there are a number of other costs that add up, the largest one being oxygen. You either have to buy a tank and transport it (which I don't want to do), or buy an oxygen concentrator, which can run quite a lot. Over the years, a dual-fuel torch might end up being less expensive, I suppose. That's some math I haven't ever done.

Lastly, I'm used to this type of torch. Yes, I can use dual-fuel torches (though I still prefer to have someone there to tell me if I have the flame right), but I'm most comfortable on my little hothead.

The one thing I don't like about my torch is that it is pretty loud. Makes listening to music hard, but not impossible. And I can't really hear the phone ring- that might be a good thing! I know I will 'upgrade' one day, but in the meantime, I am happy with my hothead.

Holly's Folly blog

2009-08-11T15:25:00.002-05:00

OK, I just have to say- I found this blog by Holly's Folly and just had to tell folks about it. Love the story, love the finished piece! Wonderful!!
http://hollysfollybeads.blogspot.com/search/label/cremains

Lampwork Glass Butterflies for Beads of Courage

2009-07-30T16:47:00.023-05:00

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5z--E_jj8

Well, as things often go, about the time I decided to stop making butterflies to sell, I needed to show a few folks how I make them for the Beads of Courage program. Here’s some more info about the program: http://www.beadsofcourage.net/
Arkansas Children’s Hospital is one of the many hospitals that use this program for children who are undergoing hospitalization and treatment. It’s a little bit of fun for the kids to look forward to at the end of some pretty intense treatments. The (as yet unnamed) bead group that I meet with once a month or so decided to make some beads to donate.

Grace's Butterfly........Debby's Butterfly
Our little three hour session wasn’t really long enough, so we’ve all gone home with a bit of homework: Make some beads to be donated, and we’ll ship them off next time.
After writing this whole crazy mess down, I have to say, for simple and elegant directions, you can go look at the ones Sharon Peters wrote here: http://www.beadsofcourage.net/art/ButterflyTutorial.pdf And then tweak it your own way!
Here's a tutorial for making butterflies the way I do it to go along with the youtube video that actually shows me doing it- see link above (thanks to Vicki of parrotise beads).

NOTE: You are responsible for your safety. Please follow all recommended guidelines for studio ventilation, face mask use, safe use of enamels, and other safety precautions. This tutorial presumes a basic understanding of lampwork bead making techniques.

......Finished!
Here’s a tutorial for making butterflies my way, as can be seen in the video:

First, let me say I had a few problems making the body- my glass had a lot of bubbles in it, and I had to pop them and work them out. So the video actually starts about 5 minutes into the session. I had some problems at the end too, so the video ends before I really finished the butterfly- I got a bit obsessive about the shape. In the end, I just had to let the wings be a little different from each other.

1) Make a tube for the body- about 1 1/8 inches long and ¼ inch in circumference is good. It will need to be a little fatter if you are using a larger mandrel. I often just make a clear body, as I want the wings to be the main focus.
2) Marver into a nice even tube and taper the lower end a just little bit.
3) At one end of the tube, add a bit more glass for the head. A couple of wraps around should do it. Melt down to a nice even shape. Make both ends of the body nice and even and a bit dimpled at this point, as you won’t have much of a chance to do it later.
4) Now it’s time to build the wings. I build them fairly flat, and add quite a few colors. My preference is to make them mostly transparent. To me that’s part of the butterfly look- ephemeral. So, start with the transparent color of your choice and stripe it along the upper 2/3 or so of the body. Make sure the body is fairly hot when you add that first swipe, so that you have a nice attachment between the wings and the body.

The body.......................the head............begin the wings

5) Pick up your next rod and make a swipe or two all the way around the first one.
6) Choose the color you’d like to use first on your lower wings and swipe that on the bottom third of the body. You can use the second color from the top as the first color on the lower wings if you like. Again, be sure you have a nice attachment on this first swipe. Try and push that first swipe up so that it actually touches the upper wings.
7) Add another color to the lower wings. By this time you will (hopefully) have ¼-1/2 inch of glass sticking out from the body on both sides. It already looks a bit like wings. Flatten with your mashers. If it’s all kind of blobbed together, don’t worry too much, we can take care of that in a minute.

another color.........begin lower wings.....ready to flatten

8) If your top and bottom wings aren’t touching each other, now’s the time to fix that. This part’s a bit hard to explain. Heat one of the bottom wings, grab it between the mashers of your choice, and push the top of it towards the top wing while rotating it down. Do the same thing on the other side. If you have watched the video, you can see my hands waving around kind of wildly after I’ve moved the wings around- it’s not part of the bead-making process, or some kind of strange tic- I’m showing the gals an exaggerated example of the motion I just used to move the glass around. It’s more or less drawing a backwards “J” while I have the glass between the mashers.
9) With any luck, you’ll now have the wings pushed together in the middle. If not, you may have to do a little bit of the grab and push with the top wings. All you’re trying to accomplish is to get a little bit of the wings melted together in the center. Why? To make it less fragile in that area. If you have melted them together too much, superheat that area and snip it apart a bit with your scissors, then melt to round off the edges.

Flattening..................flattened.................more colors
10) Add more colors top and bottom, dipping in a little raku frit or enamel along the way if you like. Try and make each set of wings about the same size and shape, with the top wings about twice the size of the bottom ones.
11) Decorate as you like, adding layered dots, bits of color here or there, or what have you.

Adding frit.....enamel............clear and dots
12) Now it’s time for the final shape. For this part I use scissors. Superheat one of the wings. Take it out of the flame and grab with your scissors. Pull a little bit to indent and shape, move and do it again- about four times for the bottom wings and six or so at the top. It may help to have a picture or two of butterflies that you can look at to help you see what shape you are aiming for. Normally I will heat one of the top wings, grab it close to the center on the bottom and indent and shape it, move and do it two or three more times, then reheat and tackle the top half of the same wing. You’ve got to remember what motion you did and do it about the same on the other side. Try not to cut all the way through with the scissors, although that can make a nice effect on the edges as long as you melt and round it out a bit afterwards.

More dots...............first wing shaping...second wing shaping

13) If the wings are not quite to your liking, you can shape them further by heating the wings and a glass rod or stringer, attaching the stringer to the tips of the wings, and pulling gently. The wings should be fairly hot, and the stringer or rod just hot enough so it will stick temporarily to the wing tip. Melt off and reheat a little to make sure you haven’t made a sharp place on the wing.
14) And now for the feelers- if you want to add them, though this may be the deal breaker after all the work you’ve put into this baby! If you are brave enough, dot some antenna onto the top of the head. You can build up a series of small-ish dots, or try dotting and pulling the glass a bit to make them. Don’t make them too long and fragile, and be sure to bend them a little bit away from them mandrel so you can still get in there with your tools to bail it.

Top wings done...shape bottom.........antenna

Whew! That’s a lot of instructions! I was lucky with the butterfly I made for this tutorial- the photos just about took themselves.

Using the Osibin Lentil Shaper

2009-07-12T15:29:00.014-05:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm just bloggin' in the wind, but I get these ideas and figure I might just as well write them here as anywhere else!

Recently, when meeting with some other beadmakers, I brought along my Osibin lentil shaper. When one of the gals said- you use one of those? Can you show me how? My confident answer was "Sure!" And then I proceeded to show that I had no clue HOW I used it- but use it I do. There are some of us in the lampworking world who don't use any of the cool lentil presses that exist. It is partly a $$ thing, and partly just a bit of stubborn- ness. But it is also, I think, a bit more time consuming and difficult to get a standard size and shape bead without a press.

So here's how I use this tool.

First of all, you can see I've made a slight modification. I used my trusty diamond reamer to make a wee slot for my mandrel. Without it I couldn't seem to get the bead deeply enough in the shaper to make a nice flat lentil. If you choose to do this, be very careful to center the slot on the lentil shape. So far, I have only modified the smaller two depressions.

Now to start the bead. With this shaper, as with all lentil shaping tools, you need to measure your starter bead-you want to make your base bead a little shorter than the press as it will lengthen slightly as you work on it. I'd say about 1/8 inch shorter over all. You don't have to make the bead large enough to go across the entire length of the shaper if you don't want to. And if you end up getting a little too large you can just move up to the next size. That's one advantage of this tool- you've got four different sizes to choose from. I started with a small black tube that I've rolled in silver foil. I started out pretty small as I didn't want to outgrow the shaper.

I added some more clear glass to encase the silver and rolled it in a bit of raku frit.

Now it's time to think about the shape you need to get a nice even press. Make your bead into a bicone, and then roll the center into a barrel shape- so you've got a kind of fat barrel with ends that taper towards the mandrel (see picture). Make sure the bead is nice and cylindrical. If it's at all wonky, you'll have a difficult time getting a nice lentil shape. Either keep that basic shape, or else let it kind of melt into an oval. If you are trying to make a pair of beads, remember which shape you ended up with, because you will be making that same shape again .

And now it's time to press. Get your bead nice and hot all over- orangey hot, not white hot. You may have to try this a few times before you get the hang of it. Pause before pressing, but only for a couple of seconds, then put into the shaper and press down, rocking the bead slightly from side to side to make the edges a little thinner. Quickly turn it over and press again. You do not necessarily want to press straight down- watch what's happening- you may need to push a little more on one side, or actually kind of slide the bead across the shaper a little to get it nice and evenly shaped. I like being able to actually see what the bead is doing and tweak the shape as I go. You may need to reheat and shape a little bit again.

According to the information on the Arrow Springs website, you'll press one side, reheat, and then press the other side, but with these beads, I went directly from one side to the other. Another thing they mention is that each of the four diameters has a different curve to it, making many different types of shape possible. I didn't know that!

I didn't use any other tool to shape these beads, and look how close they are to each other in size and shape- I used them for a pair of earrings and part of a necklace.

Six Women, Three Torches

2009-06-29T14:30:00.011-05:00

Six Women, Three Torches- Anything Could Happen!

What a day we had yesterday- it was lampwork bead day in Sherwood at Glass Concepts. Six lampwork beadmakers gathered together for show and tell, and what a session it was! Grace brought a couple of beads she’d made using the new Gaffer Chalcedony glass on a 96 clear background. She got some really nice colors, but I forgot to take any pictures.

I tried out some shards I’d made on a black Moretti background. I had a bit of success, though I think I heated a bit too long. Rita made a base of the Gaffer Hyacinth, then added some Chalcedony dots and encased them in clear. The colors seemed to be striking nicely around the edges of the dots, so she raked it around a bit and spread them out. We’re still working on getting all the beautiful colors that are possible and getting some consistency. Everybody got a bit to take home, so hopefully we’ll have some real beauties to show off at our next gathering.
One great thing about getting the Gaffer glass is that I’ve started learning to blow shards. I’ve been pretty happy with the results- now to learn to apply them properly!

Grace has had a bee in her bonnet (which has recently been buzzing around my head) about scrollwork on beads. The lovely Rita was just the person to demonstrate this technique. My suspicion is that she locked herself in a closet and didn’t come out ‘til she got it right! The bead she’s working on here is an opal yellow background with silver plum decorations (I think). Her stringer control was mesmerizing- what patience and precision. Afterwards, I tried to use a bead press and do a bit of scrollwork. No photo of that- what a mess, but Rita watched over my shoulder and helped me to understand what I need to work on.

And the piece de resistance was Debby’s electric mandrel spinner. Debby has spent some serious hours on the torch, and her thumbs are starting to show the strain. So she bought this amazing machine to help her out- it spins the mandrel around while you add the glass. Impressive, yes? It’s a great invention that takes a bit of time to get used to. The thing is it spins around quite a bit faster than any of us were used to. There is a little brake you can put your fingers on to slow it down a little, though. While Vicki trained her video camera on her, Grace gave it a try. I wish we’d had audio- she was hilarious! In the end, five of us tried it out. Glenda and Vicki actually did pretty well. They got some fairly round results. And there was a cool bead roller to use with it that we all enjoyed trying out, and an unidentified tool pictured here. Debby's going to have to practice, pratice, practice to get some nice round beads, but she's determined, and we're all waiting to see it. It really has great promise to save all of our hands from overusage injuries.

And I almost forgot. Rita had another great little tool for making flower stamens. She made a very nice example using yellows, green and some intense black. We each got a little bit to take home and try out. All in all it was an amazing day!

Here are links to show off some of the wonderful work of these lampworking ladies:

Vicki at Parrotise Beads: http://www.parrotisebeads.com/

Debby at Starlight Designs: http://www.starlight-beads.com/

Ms Rita: http://www.msritasbeads.etsy.com/

Oh, and me too: http://www.glassbead.etsy.com/

Playing with some new frit from Gaffer

2009-06-25T10:44:00.006-05:00

I bought a little bit of Chalcedony glass from Gaffer a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still working on getting some good colors out of it. My bead group is meeting again this weekend, so I'll bring some along for us to test out. I haven't really had a chance to play with it too much yet as it's pretty hot in my studio at this time of year. Right now I'm just barely keeping up with the things I 'have' to make.
In the meantime, I've been trying out a couple of the frit samples. Frit has never been my favorite thing, but these were so interesting looking that I couldn't wait to give them a try. Here are some of the beads I've made using the lime aventurine and gold pink extra frits I received.
The lime green is a beautiful bright green with some nice sparkle- perfect for frogs, I think! The aventurine is in the back end of this one.
The gold pink extra is wonderful. It's like Moretti EDP with out all the E and D. In other words, it's all the beautiful pinky-purple color without all the problems. In this bead it's swirled with a bit of gold pink on a background of white Thompson enamel- a nice color combination, and one that's really hard to do with EDP and gold pink as they want very different flame atmospheres.

I'm going to blow some shards with some of the chalcedony and some of the other rods. My fusing buddy is pretty excited about coming over and watching me make some shards. I've got a feeling he may be a little disappointed when he sees that I couldn't blow a nice even globe if my life depended on it. At least he'll have a few samples to take home with him!

I'm going to try and get some photos of the glass group at play this weekend. Wish me luck!

Flowers of glass, flowers on glass

2009-06-07T07:24:00.005-05:00

So, what have I been doing? Well, not paying attention to this blog, that's for sure.
I wrote a tutorial that may never see the light of day on making these flower beads. I haven't quite figured out what to do with it, but I do know I want to expand on it before I do anything. I made some flowers, wrote the tut, waited two days, came up with an easier, possibly better way, made some more flowers, and added an addendum to the tut.
Now it's time to go to more complex flowers and see what happens. I tried a pansy, but was not enormously happy with it, so I'll work on that and irisis, and then see what comes next. Maybe some nice bright lily colors. I have a friend who sells lilies at the local farmer's market- they are amazingly beautiful, and come in so many different colors and patterns. So I need to permit myself to buy some next weekend. I could get a receipt and take it off my taxes! It truly is a business expense. Here are some pictures I've been working on for something like cards- flowers on glass. So it's a double business expense! One for a bead model, one for photos.

Inaccurate observations!

2009-05-12T12:44:00.004-05:00

Ok, as you can see from the title of this post, I know what I'm going to say is most likely wildly inaccurate, but I've got to blog about SOMETHING, so here goes.
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting- again- with some of my local lampworking friends. They're all women- just a handful of us. It just so happened that the owner the glass shop's brother was there, wanting a few tips on how to make beads. He'd tried it a few times, but wasn't happy with the results.

Before he got to the torch, we women were having a discussion about dots and how the significant men in our lives all hated them and complained when there were 'bumps' on the beads. Well, the brother was ready to demur and claim that he was a male and didn't mind them. But then we explained what they were and, indeed, he doesn't like those bumps either. So I am concluding, from my random sample of about five women who have men in their lives and one actual man that all men hate dots that bump up on beads!!!!

OK, on to the actual training session, such as it was. I haven't taught, or even met a lot of men who make lampwork beads, so, again, my sample is small and likely inaccurate, but I the men I have had interactions with seem to like the technical aspects of lampworking. From Tom Holland, whose precision is legendary, to random men on the internet on lampwork forums, to this guy, who is a newbie, I think I've noticed a trend. It was kind of fun to bend my brain around the way he was thinking. I am a BIG paddle user- just don't have the patience to let gravity do its work. But when I tried to get him to touch the bead with a paddle, he observed that the paddle was flat and he wanted the bead to be round, so I went into the Smirchich gravity explanation- he got that right away and was very happy heating alternate sides of the bead and letting them pucker out of the flame.

Then he wanted to encase it. I always find it funny when someone making one of their first beads wants to encase, but I gave him a rudimentary lesson, and encase it he did. The bead actually turned out nice and round, without glass pulling out from the center to the surface. He only scratched the surface of lampwork bead making, but he was happy, and I got a little something to blog about!

Perspectives exhibition entry

2009-05-03T19:26:00.005-05:00

Well, this might be the most exciting news of my bead-making career. I submitted a bead to the International Society of Beadmakers to be considered for an exhibition this summer at the Glass Art Society conference in Corning, New York. I just found out it has been accepted! It is a combination of two of my bead styles- moonscape and fire beads which I named ‘Moonfire’. I was so up in the air about what bead to send, and had gotten it down to that bead or a mask. Moonfire became my choice mostly because the photo looked better. Well, also because I asked everyone I could think of on the internet and they, almost to a gal (I think they were all women) preferred it. That made it a bit easier- after all, there is a jury involved, so I wanted a people pleaser too.

Moonscape bead Fire bead
This is my first year to be a member of the ISGB, and I am pretty excited about all the opportunities it has already offered me. Yes, there is a small fee to participate in some of these things, but it is so nice to get a little bit of validation from folks who really understand exactly what’s involved in making a glass bead.
As I understood it what was wanted was something that would kind of show the connection between modern and traditional lampwork beads. So what makes this bead contemporary? What traditional techniques are involved that I thought might make this bead a candidate for this show? Well, the use of both ‘raku’ and iris gold frit and enamels are rather new. And I think the shape is fairly modern. Using silver to force reactions, well, that seems rather new to me, but it’s very possible that it’s been done forever. The techniques are rather old- really raking, basic shaping, and the use of frit in general are all older than me (and that’s saying something). It’s really hard for me to even guess, really, at which techniques and materials are new, and which are just newly re-discovered.
Anyway, I excited to be a part of this exhibit, and hope that some of you out there in ‘puter land will get a chance to go the GAS conference and have the time to take a peek at my bead and the rest of the exhibition.

Here’s some info from the ISGB about the exhibit:
ISGB is pleased to announce an exciting opportunity. As a member, you are invited to put your best bead forward for a juried exhibit that will be featured at the Glass Art Society (GAS) Conference in Corning, New York, June 2009.
ISGB members hail from all over the world and have wildly different backgrounds, and this exhibit is designed to celebrate that diversity. Artists are encouraged to submit a bead that embodies your inspiration, innovation, and personal 'voice'. Consider unique color combinations, form, and textural elements. Beads should highlight the infinite possibilities of glass with captivating styles, techniques, and processes used in contemporary glass beadmaking.
Perspectives will specifically open for the GAS Conference where artists, collectors, gallery and museum personnel, writers, and critics from around the globe will converge to muse on the medium that unites us all in fascination, glass. The exhibit will be on prominent display in the official GAS Conference hotel, the Corning Radisson, and is expected to remain on display through the end of the summer tourist season.
In addition to the opportunity to have your work showcased in front of glass enthusiasts all summer long, the top three beads with the highest jury scores will share the COVER of the summer issue of The Glass Bead Magazine! Artists of all career stages are encouraged to apply, from emerging artists to artists with established careers.

Seahorses and frit

2009-04-26T08:37:00.005-05:00

Wow, blogging once a week is a lot- I'm already overdue for this one. Too many events over the past week- I barely had time to finish out the special orders from last time and get a few bracelets made for market. But now it's time to get back to it, though I generally take Sundays off from the torch, 'cause Saturday market wears me out. I finished up those seahorse earrings; she sent the pics off to a friend, and he wanted a pair for his wife. So I might as well show you a picture. They are a little bit on the bigger side...

My wonderful library bought a book I requested! It's Val Cox's "Frit Secrets" I read the whole thing yesterday- lots of technical info, so I'll have to read it a lot of times to ingest it all. After I've kept the book for a bit and am ready to return it, I'll tell the local beadmakers it's there! I'm excited to try her full raku instructions, the boro-look beads and a couple of other things that I hadn't thought of. I have an old piece of brass from my daughter's college days, and it finally dawned on me that I could use it as a marver, so it's out and ready to go.

I have to admit, I haven't been big on frit beads in the past, except for raku and a bit of iris gold. So now I've got a little bit of a window on what I might be missing. It's always fun to try out new techniques and see how they fit into my 'style'- whatever that is! I have a few frits that have been lying around for years, so I'm ready to go kinda. But I think I'll be buying a few things from Val- she talks some of them up so much that I just HAVE to try!

Ok, I'll see if I have the energy to try a few things out today!

Going tubular

2009-04-16T13:43:00.006-05:00

My personal bead of the month looks to be the tube bead. I love making these and am having a hard time making anything else. Today I made “The Wave”, and a “Fire at Night” bead. I was so glad when Kittrell Riffkind said they would take a few of the tubes off my hands- now I can make a few more!
Here’s a quick rundown on how these are made:
Make a long tube using clear or a colored transparent. And by long, I mean really long- like two inches or so. I use either a regular small mandrel, or a medium size. I like the small because the tube can be nice and slender. The transparent core is just a bit easier to work with than a solid color since it’s stiffer. Now please start with a nice even tube- it will make everything easier as you go forward.
The two ends of the bead are going to be different- here are some examples. Roll one end of the bead in a little white or colored enamel- or both- don’t worry if it doesn’t cover everything. Cover the other end with a thin layer of black- roll that end in silver foil, and don’t worry about it burning off, that’s just fine. Now work on the other end- add some solid colors and transparent in a random pattern, or make rings of the colors one after the other, or spiral them around the bead. Or whatever!
Okey dokey, now you want to burn off any remaining silver and roll the black end in a little raku frit. And back to the other end- swirl it, rake it, overheat it and let it do its thing- your choice.
Now you’re going to want to marver this baby into a nice tube or even a kind of bicone. And, if you want some nice black ends to act as your bead’s frame, add them now right on the ends of the bead, not on the mandrel as your bead release is probably weak there. Melt down and even up the ends.
Where the two designs meet, I like to add some dots that will stick up (some of the time). The line will not be a straight line around the bead, but will move around it in its own way- just follow it around wherever it leads you! Stick that baby into your kiln. Now go do it all again with different colors and different techniques for a whole new look!
Oh, and here you can see that sometimes the tubes get flattened and shaped a bit differently.

OK, the weather is beautiful, and I have this wonderful laptop computer from my darling daughter’s closet, so I’m gonna try sitting outside and typing into this machine. I began this blog because everyone said it was something that you had to do to sell stuff on the internet. I don’t know that’s it’s helped with that, but it is a good place to talk about beads, so I’m thinking I need to use it more often for that. So, I’m thinking once a week is a good start. It never seems like I have enough time, but maybe I can manage…..
So this week in beads has seemed rather hectic. I had an order to prepare for Kittrell Riffkind gallery in Dallas, some special projects for customers, and, of course taxes to prepare (and pay!) So what have I been making, you might ask. Well, to start with, fish. K.R. wanted four or five pairs of two different sizes. Pairs are always a bit hard as I’m rather picky about matchy-ness, and I always like to get my orders done and out quickly, so I went fishing. There were twelve fish in the kiln at once a couple of days ago- I think that’s a record. The next day I re-made about four of those because the pairs didn’t match. So now I have a bunch of leftover small and medium fish for my market table. For a quick tutorial on my fish, you can go here: http://isinglassdesign.blogspot.com/2008/08/gone-fishin.html
Next it was finishing out a special request- seahorse earrings, turtle earrings and a pair of fish earrings to replace a lost one. The little seahorses and turtles were a bit of a challenge. It took me two days to decide I could make small seahorses, but they were kinda fun. One of the turtles is still cooling in the kiln, so we’ll see how this second pair goes. And yes, the request was just for one pair, but I always like to give my customers a choice- the rest come with me to market.
Well, that hardly sounds like a full week, but I’m working on some beads for the Perspectives competition in Corning ( haven't decided between the mask and moon fire bead above), and the Muy Caliente competition at the ISGB conference. And this week is the beginning of the Symphony Design House, so there are some pieces for sale there too. And there are other applications and competitions swimming around in my head.

I actually won!

2009-04-02T15:49:00.004-05:00

I actually won a contest! This is nothing short of a miracle. Of course, you can't win without entering, and I rarely enter contests, so.... Anyway it is a monthly contest put on by Artistry in Glass here: http://www.artistryinglass.on.ca/

It's a $75 gift certificate for my favorite thing- glass! And they have a GREAT selection of glass, so I'm pretty excited. I may even decide to treat myself to a tool!

I can't remember what pictures I sent them, but one of the seahorses was the winner, so here's a picture of my newest one. The pics of all the entrants will be up in their gallery soon.

Bead bending success!!!

2009-03-08T08:39:00.006-05:00

Those of you who pay attention to my meanderings may know that I have had a bee in my bonnet about bending beads for about a year. Though I was shown a method by what I'll refer to as the Holland clan (Tom, Sage and Beau) several years ago, I found it to be too hard and unreliable for me. That involved reheating the annealed, cleaned bead and bending it over the flame. Then I tried heating the beads to about 1250-1300 degrees in the kiln, taking them partway out and bending them- what a mess! I lost about 30%, got about 30% that were bent in a way I didn't like, and got a few that were good. Too much work for small results. A friend then loaned me a curved mandrel. I found that it was too shallow a curve, and it was hard to get my glass on evenly too. So my search continued to the lampworketc. forums. That was informative- people are trying all kinds of different things, but I still wasn't seeing anything that seemed easy and was curved enough to make a difference.

But THEN... well, I have to thank my glass fusing friend Judd. I've kept talking to him about this problem off and on for the past year, and finally the bee entered his bonnet and he decided it was time to solve my little problem for me. He made me a bead bender! Well, he actually made me three, but I already have a favorite- the one that has bead bender III engraved on the side. (Yes he even engraved these babies). I'm not gonna show you a picture of the actual bender as it's his own secret recipe and my secret weapon for the moment. But I will show you the amazing results.
And it's SO easy to use, even for me with my kiln that doesn't have a controller. You just slam those annealed, cleaned beads on this beauty, bring 'em up to slumping temp, crash cool and re-anneal. Yes, you do have to be careful not to leave them at slumping temp for too long or they will flatten. My second batch distorted a little on the ends as I left them there a little too long- it really takes just a minute or two. I'll be running more experiments in the near future, and then, hopefully, putting some of them in my etsy shop for sale. The next bead bender Judd makes will have a few modifications, and will have a just little bit more of a curve to it.

Judd Mann is a glass fuser who makes marvelous platters and pendants; he also makes some amazing stained glass. Meet him at the River Market Farmer's Market in Little Rock, or look at a few things here: http://juddmann.com/bowls.html

First Featured artist on the aretsy blog!

2009-03-01T10:31:00.002-06:00

Here's a blog article about me and my beads- I am the first artist featured on the blog for the Arkansas etsy street team- AREtsy:
http://aretsy.blogspot.com/2009/02/aretsy-featured-member-glassbead.html

Glass, dance, movement

2009-02-13T17:11:00.008-06:00

"Freedom, awareness, control"
When I heard these words together for the first time in my dance class, I just knew we were talking about lampwork! But no, it was all about movement and the Barbara Mettler dance method. What an amazing thing- two things that appear so different coming together so nicely. I couldn't help but apply these ideas to my years of lampworking.
Starting with freedom- when you first begin learning lampwork, your glass flows all over the place- whether you feel free or not, your glass certainly is! And I've seen enough students starting out with that freedom- their glass is all over the place, the colors are weird and crazy, and they are just sure of where they're going with that bit of glass. But you learn a different kind of freedom pretty quickly; the freedom to let the glass go where it wants to, and to let what happens happen- at least to a point.
Then it's awareness- well, this is where it gets fun for me! You become aware of what you are doing, what the glass is doing, what effect gravity is having on the whole mess, how the colors look together, how they react with each other, and a million other things- not all at once, but gradually.
And as you become more and more aware of what's going on, you begin to learn control- make that bit of glass do what YOU want it to! We usually start out with dots, then move on to lines and pulling the glass into different designs and patterns.

The glass dance continues back to freedom- now mixed with awareness of things you didn't notice last time, and tempered with control. A different kind of freedom results- a dance where the glass still performs the same way, but you move it differently for different results. and as you become more aware and learn more control. you may find yourself becoming more free with your glass. I often have dreams- or maybe they're visions- where there is glass moving in ways I don't know how to control. And it makes me want to just run over to the torch and give it a try! This is one of the ways that new ideas are born- by letting your mind run freely through things that may even be impossible.

For more about the Mettler dance method, go to the International Association for Creative Dance here: http://dancecreative.org/

Playing favorites with glass

2009-01-18T14:51:00.005-06:00

Well, let’s see if I can explain this…
I was reading info about clear glass on a website the other day- Someone mentioned that the clear glass they liked (my clear favorites are either Moretti 006, or Lauscha) wouldn’t be available again until March or April. I remember the first time I heard this about a favorite glass color. My reaction was kind of – huh?? How can that be? What do you mean they only make it at certain times of the year???
That was about 7 or 8 years ago. Things have changed so much in the soft glass world in just that short time. There are new American manufacturers, the German glass companies have started making 104 coe (soft) glass, Vetrofond has come onto the radar ( I don’t actually know when they started making soft glass at the Venice factory), the ‘odd lots’ glasses have come to be available. The story I heard about odd lots glass is that Mike Frantz was at the Moretti factory, and saw some piles of glass rods sitting in a corner of the room. When he asked about them, he was informed that they were basically mistakes and not part of the normal color palette. When he imported them to the U.S. and offered them for sale, the color-starved glass beadmaking community went wild and a whole new, but limited, palette of colors was introduced.
So, what’s to be done? Well, we must just adapt to the vagaries of the glass makers. The Moretti factory on the island of Murano has been making soft glass for centuries (though the factory has changed hands once or twice). They now have to keep up with an artisanal industry that has exploded over the past 20 years or so. Before that, the demand for soft glass outside of Italy was not so large. And we Americans are used to being able to get whatever we want whenever we want it.
Now that I’ve gotten used to the idea, I actually love the idea of being part of such an ancient art form that is still based in some old-fashioned manufacturing techniques. And I just try not to get overly attached to any one color (though I can hardly go a day without my rubino oro). I try and view it as more of an opportunity to get out of my personal box and try new things.
It a bit of Zen and the art of glass beadmaking at work!

P.S. For those of you who not so familiar with glass beadmaking- getting a nice perfectly clear, compatible, glass is not always easy. There are constant discussions on the web about what is currently available, who has it, and how folks like it. Looking out my clear-ish window (which needs cleaning!), it seems almost impossible that I spend time wondering about this.

Win This Fish!

2009-01-02T08:06:00.008-06:00

Happy New Year!

This month (January 2009) I am contributing this fish as a prize to the Creative Glass Guild on Etsy. All you have to do to be in the running to win it is to sign up to receive the monthly e-newsletter here: http://cgge.org/emailsub.aspx

Why sign up? To find out what's on special in the CGGE shops, what the team promotions are, and other news. The CGGE is a non-juried group of glass artisans who sell on etsy. You can find lampwork, fused glass, stained glass and glass mosaics in a multitude of styles and colors. Here's a list of the members: http://cgge.org/members.aspx

About the fish you could win- I like to call this fish Ambergris- because it looks amber and the silver in the center looks kind of grey . It's handmade lampwork glass, made with Italian Moretti glass by me in my home studio. It has been well cleaned and properly kiln annealed.

Good Luck and have a great year!

Flying corn, craft sales, etc.

2008-12-13T11:54:00.004-06:00

Last weekend I had the pleasure of having a booth at the Arkansas Craft Guild Christmas Showcase. It's a lovely craft show with folks from all over Arkansas participating. It got me thinking a bit about the attitudes of artisans at shows. And about those special orders we all have from time to time.

First, my special order from that show was from another craftsperson- flying corn. Sounds kind of odd, yes? But when I talked to her and she looked around my table to get an idea of what might work, I got kind of excited. She saw a bead that resembled a conceptual ear of corn. My sculptural beads tend to get a bit too realistic, so that is something I was interested in pursuing. You can see what happened from the picture. The one on the bottom was the conceptual corn, the other two more realistic. I love the one on the bottom, but was not convinced it looked enough like corn to please my customer. So I made a couple of more realistic ones. We'll see what she likes. And what will I do with the leftovers??? Corn chowder for dinner, I guess!

OK, and a couple of things about working these shows. It is a lot of work to get ready- at least for me. I take the opportunity to beef up my whole display, as well as making a lot of new product. Actually, I am lucky enough to have a partner for this- he takes care of revamping the display while I make product. Keeps me from being totally worn out before we even get started. Otherwise, I'd have to start on everything a lot sooner. So, it's new fabric where needed, checking the old stuff and washing it, new signage, re-covering anything that's covered in fabric, etc. Then the house is torn apart to find what will work best for display- I need the board from under my bed, tables that we eat and work on, all available folding chairs, the little table from the kitchen, the clamp that holds my torch in place, the list goes on and on. Obviously, those of you who have a whole extra set of everything for display don't have to worry with that!

Then it's off to the show- a rug on the floor of the booth makes it look more finished, especially in a semi-industrial setting with concrete floors. I am fortunate enough to live quite close to the show site, so I bring extra stuff, even some display choices, just in case. I go to set up as soon as we're allowed, just in case there are problems or emergencies. Again, my partner helps make this all go much quicker and smoother. We try different options until we find the look we want, then figure out how to make it work. As you can see from the photo, it's nothing fancy, just a basic black and white background to, hopefully, make the beads visible.

It's show time! The best advice I can give here is, I think, act like you're working for someone else- a good job that you'd like to keep! Dress neatly, try to be rested when you arrive, be good to the customers, stay within spitting distance of your booth, and be on time. I've worked craft shows for others, and I wouldn't want to give myself less energy than I give them. Ok, I think I'm done for now, unless I think of something else I think is helpful!

Chasing beads!!!

2008-11-12T16:45:00.008-06:00

I thought it was about time I did a quick little something on one of my lovely customers, and what she's done with a couple of my (well they're hers now) fish.

It's Gina of Chasing Beads! She's got two shops on etsy where she sells her handmade jewelry pieces. You've got to check out all her original styles. What an honor that she used some of the beads I've made:

http://chasingbeads.etsy.com/ http://chasingpartii.etsy.com/

Here's a little blurb from her etsy profile:

Hello, Welcome to Chasing Beads! I sell handmade, homemade jewelry. Each item is named with a female's name. I think it lends a more personal touch to each one. So go find your name! If you don't see your name; convo me and I'll make a new necklace with the name you'd like to see! Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasingbeads/

Myspace: http://myspace.com/chasingbeads

2008-10-28T13:28:00.005-05:00

Well, I was chosen as designer of the week on the Artbeadscene blog. Here's the link:
http://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/2008/10/designer-of-week-isinglassdesigns.html
Artbeadscene is a wonderful place to find out about jewelry designs and designers. They have a flickr page where you can enter your own designs, and will send you their new blog entry every day. All you have to do is ask! It's a wonderful resource. Thanks so much to them for choosing this necklace for the "Dark and Stormy Night" theme.
And here are a few of my more recent masks. Have a great Halloween!!!

Making Sculptural Lampwork Beads- tips and tricks

2008-10-15T16:30:00.006-05:00

Ok, it's time for a few sculptural tips. I never thought for a minute, when I first started making lampwork beads, that I would make so many different kinds of animals out of glass, not to mention bottles and masks. Frankly, I thought they were kind of kitschy, and not my thing. It must have been when I made my first cat, or maybe my first fish, that I realized what fun it could be. And how much practice and skill it actually took. These days, I even take special requests, like the rhino and beagles. I'll find some pictures on the internet so I don't forget something useful, and get to work. Here are a few things I've learned over the years:

All of the beadmaking techniques you have learned can be used to make sculptural beads. The biggest challenge to making these beads is keeping your bead evenly heated, as the bead will not be the same thickness throughout. The designing of sculptural beads is limited only by your imagination.

Look at pictures to get a good idea of what you want to make. Pay attention to the details, like basic body shape, poses that are natural for the animal, coloration, etc.
You may want to draw the shape of the bead, analyzing the shape of the sculpture using bead shapes you are familiar with, like round beads, cone, or tubes. This will help you with making your first bead and with repeating the form in the future. I have to admit, I rarely do this, but it was pretty helpful in the beginning to break it down on paper.
Decide what you will do when. You don't want the smaller details to melt into the large bead while you're working on something else. Pay attention to where your heat is at all times! If I'm making a cat, for instance, I start with the body, and get it well formed before moving on to the head. Once I've got a nice round head attached, I move on to the tail and legs, and finally the smaller details like ears and face. The final step is to pull the tail and legs out a bit and into the position I want, then even out the heat before putting it away in the kiln.
Remember to think about the balance of the bead- how will it hang on a cord? The bead will need to have more weight on the bottom if it is to hang upright. If the bead is to be placed on a shelf, it will need to sit evenly.
When you are attaching glass to your bead, spot heat the attachment point. Push the glass you are adding gently onto the bead, pull back slightly, then wait for a slight skin to form before pulling the glass into the desired shape and size and burning it off the rod. If you don’t pause before pulling on the rod, you will probably end up with less glass attached than you wanted. You can always build the glass up a bit at a time, or build using dots of glass on top of one another, but this is slower, and therefore more risky. I rarely end up with the right amount of glass the first time, so I'm always adding a bit here and there!
Sculptural beads are, by nature, time consuming and therefore subject to breaking. Always remember to reheat often, and keep all the small attachments you add hot- without, of course, melting them into the rest of the bead. Remember that these small parts will cool fastest, so concentrate more of the heat there. Bring them to a slight glow from time to time- just below the point where they will begin to melt and distort.
If you are planning on flattening the bead, remember that the glass must be at least as thick on each side as the mandrel you are using.
If you are making a large sculptural bead, you may want to use some pre-made parts that you keep warm in the kiln. Think about what kinds of twisties, murrinis, etc. you may need, and make these in advance.
It is often useful to use a glass rod to manipulate the glass, rather than a tool. Though this may leave a bit of glass on the bead, there is the advantage that there will be no tool mark to melt out.
Heat resistant scissors are a useful tool for sculptural beads. They can be used to pinch, stretch or cut the glass instead of tweezers, which would leave a tool mark. Since all tools pull heat out of the glass, any areas where a tool is used must be reheated.
Remember that you can, as with any bead, adjust your torch flame while you work. If you need to melt out tools marks, or spot heat one area of the bead, you may need to reduce your flame to a point temporarily. Remember to return your flame to normal intensity and mix after only a short time, and reheat the whole bead.
When you have finished sculpting the bead, slow cool it in the flame, keeping the outside hot while heat from the center dissipates, before putting it in your annealer or vermiculite to cool. Due to the nature of these beads, I would recommend placing them in the kiln immediately rather than using vermiculite or batch annealing later.

I hope these tips are helpful!

Hollow Lampwork Glass Beads

2008-09-28T09:55:00.012-05:00

A hollow bead is made on a regular mandrel by joining two disks of glass. The hot air, which gets trapped inside the glass will make the bead expand. Hollow beads take a bit more concentration than some other types of beads; the more careful you are in each step, the easier it will be to keep your bead shaped well in the end. Always remember to read the heat base and reheat often- the glass in hollow beads is very thin and subject to shocking easily.

There are two ways that hollow beads are generally made. You can build two straight disks, or you can build two conical disks. Generally straight disks seem to be preferred, as it is difficult to keep cones from touching the mandrel, and straight disks can be more easily shaped, manipulated and flattened with tools as you go.

Start by making a small spacer bead at what will eventually be each end of your hollow bead. For your first try, you might place these starter beads about 1/2 to 3/4 inch apart on your mandrel. As you make more hollow beads, you will gain a feel for how far apart to place your disks. Be sure the ends of these spacer beads are nice and even where they touch the mandrel. This will make it easier to have a nicely puckered end on the hollow bead when you are done. Making a spacer bead to start will also help to ensure that your hollow bead adheres well to your mandrel.

Be sure each layer of glass you add adheres well to the layer below it. The glass must be wrapped firmly on the previous layer as you spin the bead. When wrapping the glass, your bead should be slightly behind the flame, while the glass rod is in the flame. Make sure the glass rod is heated all the way through, not just on the bottom, so that you don’t pull the bead around and break the bead release. You may be able to wrap and spin as you go, or you may want to pull a bit of glass off the melting rod and attach it to your disk at regular small intervals. Make sure the layers of glass are adhering all the way around, and there are no gaps between the layers. Continue wrapping the first end until you have a disk about ¼ to ½ inch tall. Then move to the second spacer bead and start your disk the same way.

Remember to keep flashing your whole bead in the flame frequently so that it will not cool too much and break apart.

It can be helpful to use your tweezers or another tool such as flatteners to straighten the disks as you go. You can even out globs, and even make the disks somewhat narrower with your tools. Again, be sure your glass stays warm- reheat immediately after using any tools. Move from the second disk back to the first disk, and build it up some more; then go back to the second disk. Continue in this way until your disks are about ½ to ¾ of an inch tall.

Now it is time to start moving the disks together. Use your marver paddle or brass tool to gently push the two disks towards each other. Make sure the disks are hot at the outside, but cooler near the mandrel- i.e. concentrate your heat more towards the outside of the disks. You want to be able to push the disks so that the outer edges meet, or come fairly close, without moving the glass near the mandrel around. There are several ways make the disks meet. You can get the disks close and bridge them using a hot rod, use tweezers to bring them together, or just push the outer edges of the disks until they’re nearly together. To help to stabilize the disks and keep them from collapsing onto the mandrel, bridging in at least four evenly spaced places around the bead is extremely helpful. In any case, you will need to run a bit of hot glass around the seam between the disks. This will help ensure that you don’t have any thin spots that can blow out later.

Slowly heat the whole bead until it’s glowing. Turn the hot bead in all directions to check for holes. You will need to put a glass patch over any holes you see. You are now ready to round the bead up. Use the heat of the torch and gravity to round up the bead, marvering only lightly as needed. The bead may seem to collapse at first, and then the air trapped inside will puff it up a little.

To gain nice puckered ends on your hollow bead, focus the heat on one half of the bead. Allow the glass to cool and droop down on the mandrel. Let the glass harden somewhat before you move on to the other end and repeat the process.

The hollow bead can now be decorated like any other bead- with dots, lines, raking, even plunging. It can also be shaped, keeping in mind that you don’t want the bead to touch the mandrel other than at the ends. Just remember to reheat often.

When these beads are ready to be taken off the mandrel, I prefer not to soak them. Just pull them off of the mandrel dry and blow out the bead release before cleaning. Once the bead release gets wet, it is much harder to get out of the bead. Be careful not to breathe in the sludge dust as you do this- you should wear a mask. If you'd rather get the sludge wet, you can clean out the excess by blocking one end, filling with water, putting your fingers over both holes, shaking and then blowing it out kind of like an easter egg. Take care not to ingest any of the sludge (yuck).

And now, a a quick look at a hollow in the making:

The oh-so-important footprint and building the disks up on each end, a bit at a time. If necessary, use some tweezers or a flattener to even out these disks. Be sure not to leave holes between the wraps.

See how they start out parallel, and then start getting nudged towards the middle. Your paddle or a brass shaper will help with this. Make sure they don't touch the mandrel!

The bridging begins. And what a mess this one is! Check it for holes, or all your work will be for nothing.

Here it is after just a little bit of time with the paddle. The hot air on the inside helps to blow it out into a nice orb. Keep it moving (but not TOO fast) and gravity will also help with the shape. You can decorate it in any way you like, even plunging works (as long as you don't push too hard with your pick). I started the turtle decoration on this bead by rolling it in a bit of white enamel. One side was flattened somewhat- taking care not to flatten too much, so it didn't touch the mandrel. The rest of the decoration was added, a bit of flame annealing was done to even out the temperature, I annealed it in the kiln, and voila:

A finished hollow sea turtle.

Gelato fish

2008-08-28T14:58:00.006-05:00

Well, I just have to show my new style of fish. Not so different than my older fish, after all, but I'm loving my new ultra clear glass. Why gelato? I can't really say- it's just that icy, airy feel that I get when I have the pleasure of eating some really good Italian gelato. And of course the glass is mostly Italian, so it just seems to fit.

Gone Fishin'!!!!!

2008-08-09T12:35:00.017-05:00

I don’t know what it is about glass fish that makes them so appealing. I’ve been making them for years, and they’ve gotten more and more complicated as time has gone by. They are probably the bead I have the most fun making, and are also one of my best sellers. Lucky me!
Why do I enjoy them so much? Hard to say, but the color play is definitely a draw. It’s fun to mess around with the colors and see what happens. It’s also a lot of fun to shape the fins and tail, though it often seems they have little minds of their own! At this point, I make three basic kinds of fish:
Little earring fish, which are the least complicated
Medium fish, which don’t have side fins, and rarely include silver
Large fish which, when I’m thinking, are a bit twisted to give them a real feel of movement, and almost always include some silver foil in the background. I know this make it sound like I have some kind of formula, but the reality is that there are rarely two that are similar, much less alike. And woe be to me if someone wants one like another they’ve seen or have. Because I rarely write down anything I’ve done, it can take me a number of tries to even get close. Recently I wanted to match an earring fish I’d already made- I ended up with another whole pair of earrings, and three others that didn’t quite match, but not the one I wanted. The pair I made sold quickly, so, while I still understood what I would need to do to match the original, I finally made the one I’d started out to make. Now I have a pair of earrings that match a fish I made a couple of weeks ago. Whew!
But the real question for me is why do other people seem to like fish so much? I have one customer who has eight or ten, and another who’s well on her way. They just can’t seem to walk by the table without seeing what’s going on in the fish department. And in my etsy shop, they are far and away my best seller. I talked to another friend, and she said she can’t keep fish in her shop. So what’s that about? Anyway, here are some pictures of a fish being made for your viewing pleasure!

...... .....
Make a cylinder and roll in pre-cut silver foil, Burnish it on, Encase in clear
...........
Add transparent colors, Roll in raku, Shape nicely
At this point, I've changed beads- my gas started running out, so this bit ended up as a silvery pendant. Onward!

.... .
Shape and flatten, Add fins, Tail colors, Side fins too
I add multiple layers of color to the fins and tail, so I kind of go round and round with the colors at this point.

.........
Eyes and mouth added in layers and plunged, Get out those scissors to shape and pull fins and tail, Flame anneal and check everything out. Finito!

Featured on handicrafts blog

2008-07-01T13:04:00.002-05:00

Just a quick note for anyone who's looking, I have been interviewed on this blog. Go take a look, she did a great job!
http://bunnyluver930.blogspot.com/
And what lovely photos Jen takes. Here's a link to her shop on etsy:
http://www.JMcGuinness.etsy.com

Synchronicity and lampwork

2008-06-07T17:56:00.006-05:00

First inspiration and two new wearable bottles

Just a quick post about my new wearable bottles. It's the kind of thing where a number of ideas come together at once and you end up with a new creation on your hands!
First was a request to make a double sided wearable bottle for a friend. I was pretty pleased with it, and it got me thinking I needed to try and make some wearable bottles to sell. But I really wanted them to have a nice, larger empty area to store things in. That was a couple of weeks ago.
Next I went to the library and checked out Contemporary Lampworking books one and two, and started looking at the pictures and reading techniques (again). This was just for general inspiration and further training, not specifically for bottles.
Then there was a discussion about making twisties in the cgge tips and techniques forum on etsy. And I thought- well, I really should practice my twistie again.
And last was the fortuitous delivery of some Moretti ultra clear glass at the local glass shop- Glass Concepts in Sherwood, AR. And I loved it! I haven't been using much clear. I just couldn't find any that was 'perfect'. Now maybe this will fill the bill.
The end result is some new, clear, twistie decorated bottles, built OFF the end of the mandrel rather than ON the end of the mandrel. And they're made to wear- flatter backs, and a nice long pointed end. Hope ya'll like them!

Metamorphosis of a bead

2008-06-01T17:47:00.009-05:00

Thought you might enjoy seeing one of my beads go from inspiration and idea to finished product. I have a bulletin board in my studio area with pictures that I find interesting or inspiring- sometimes it's just a color combination, or a picture that will help me get the shape of sculptural beads right. But sometimes I really want to imitate a pattern. This is the metamorphosis of one of those beads. First I'm showing you the final finished bead next to the picture I started with.:

I began with a picture of a clam mantle that was in National Geographic- here’s part of it:

And these are all of the finished beads. You can see that number one and two are way too yellow. It's a bit hard to see the yellow in the original picture, but it's there. Number three is as close as I came- it looks a bit more like in real life, but anyway here goes! And number four is my bit of fun after I figured out what I wanted to know.

I began with a Vetrofond yellow cylinder as a base, rolled in white enamel, then oxford blue, randomly dotted with intense black.

Next came alabaster blue, a little oxford blue enamel, and two transparents blues over that. Dots were then melted down, distorted a bit. Then the whole bead was shaped and finished in the kiln.

Now, I was not so happy with this- too yellow and not yellow enough at the same time, and the colors just didn’t pop. So here I went again; this time I’ll just show the highlights:

Black base. Roll in yellow enamel, then white, then oxford blue Intense black dots again, dotted with a bit of a solid periwinkle Oxford enamel Transparent blue Shape and finish in the kiln.

And still I wasn’t pleased. I need to get some of that yellow out of there, and the dot color is still not vivid enough. Now normally about now I would move on to a new color combination ‘cause I think I know what I need to do, and I’m getting a bit tired of these being so much the same, but for you I pressed on- one more time, this one without pictures (‘cause my camera ran out of space). Now let’s see if I remember!
Again the black background A smattering of yellow enamel, then a bit of white, and last of all oxford blue (I may have dipped into the white enamel again too)- all of these were very light applications as I wanted some of the colors to show through from below. The some intense black frit before I added the intense black blobs. Then came some solid periwinkle with transparent light aqua over it, and just a little sapphire blue on top of that- this gave me the depth and color brightness I was looking for. Shape, pop in the kiln, and wait. I think I’ve pretty much got it now!
In the meantime, I’m gonna use what I think I’ve learned and bring out some purple- I should have kept a bit of that yellow enamel out for this one, but I didn’t. Maybe next time…..
And remember, if you’re using enamels, make sure your studio is properly vented and that you are using the recommended respirator to keep from breathing in bits of glass.

What's sludge got to do with it?

2008-05-07T16:07:00.005-05:00

Well, here I go again, waxing on about sludge, bead release, whatever you want to call it. I have some strong opinions on the subject, but I still don't have all the answers!

Sludge is that clay-like stuff that a mandrel is dipped in to keep the bead from sticking to the steel. There are a lot of different kinds made, and I have tried quite a few. Here's my run-down:

My favorite sludge so far is KRAG Mudd made by Kittrell-Riffkind Art Glass in Dallas, Texas. It's strong, dries in the flame, is nice and smooth when you dip, and leaves a lower residue than anything else I've tried. But yes, you do still have to ream the beads. And, though I've tried just using a pipe cleaner, it seems that a diamond reamer is still necessary to get ALL of the sludge out.

Right now I'm using Dip n' Go from Arrow Springs. I actually wanted to finally try the Foster Fire, but they were out (again). Dip n' Go is nice- it's strong, and it can be dried in the flame without weakening. It is not, however a really low residue sludge, and that is what I prefer.

Flame dry bead release from Ed Hoy- GARBAGE. That's where mine ended up. Because it's weak and hard to clean.

Air dry bead release from Ed Hoy- Pretty good. Strong, reasonable to clean, and it can actually be flame dried, so why bother with the other?

Alice's bead release- I don't like this. I find it VERY hard to remove the lumps, weak, and hard to clean out of the beads. But it is quite inexpensive, as you get it in powdered form and mix it yourself.

Frantz has decent bead release, though I haven't used it in years, so I can't tell you which I like best.

I'm still waiting to try the Foster Fire. I have heard good things, but can't say until I actually get a chance to try it out myself.

So why get all the sludge out, anyway? Some people don't, so why should you? Well, it's a powdery clay, and you're not really supposed to breathe it, so why make your customers do so? And how would it be if someone wore one of your bead necklaces into the shower, and it started weeping an icky grey slime all over them? I look at it as the last necessary touch to my bead-making, that shows how much I care.

Ten (or so) Things You Shouldn't Do With Glass

2008-04-10T15:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm assuming you've gotten the general rundown on the safety rules of working with hot glass. You know- wear proper eyewear, ventilate properly, and wear a mask when needed. Please get a good book or go to http://www.lampworketc.com/ if you don't know about these things and be safe!

I'm here to tell you about a few things I have done wrong, and a few that my pals who work with glass have told me they've done. Some stuff you may not find in those books:

1) Do not put fiber paper in your kiln after it's hot- it will catch on fire. I think it's the binder in the paper that makes this happen. If it does, turn the kiln off and close it tightly to block air flow, and it should go out. Yes, I did this.

2) Don't put a cold bead directly into the flame. It will explode. You may, if you're much more patient than I am, be able to slowly heat the bead back to working temperature. I don't even recommend trying. Just start over.

3) Don't wear nylon, polyester, or other fabrics that are not natural. They will melt when the hot glass hits them. Then it sticks to your skin, and that hurts.

4) Don't wear false fingernails. Ok, I didn't do this, but a friend did, and it wasn't pretty. Remember, the fire on your torch is hot. VERY hot!

5) Don't use a lighter with fuel in it to light your torch. The fuel is flammable, and if you lay it on your table it can catch fire. Again, a friend did this- I was just lucky. Use a flint .

6) Don't wear flip flops or sandals. Ok I break this one all the time, but I also get pieces of hot sharp glass stuck between my shoe and foot, and have to fling the shoe across the room while I whoop and holler.

7) Don't let your poor dog, or cat, or child, lay at your feet- especially on your dangerous side (the side the glass is most likely to fly). Eventually a piece of glass will get lodged in their fur or hair, and smolder down to their skin. And then you'll be very sad. Ok, it really doesn't matter which side they're on, it's a bad idea. (Yes, I did it- poor pup)

8) Don't try and unscrew your torch right after you've used it. It's still hot- so are the glass rods you've just used. If you are cleaning up your table right after you've finished torching, remember this. It's the real reeason some of us have such messy tables- we've been burned so many times that we've given up on cleaning. Like Pavlov's dog! I can't believe I amost left this one off!

9) Ok, this is kind of three in one. The following rules apply to hotheads. I don't know the specifics when it comes to an oxygen propane system, since that's not what I use, but I know that draining the line is ALWAYS recommended.

a) Don't leave the tank on, especially if it's in the sunlight. There will be some very weird flames if you do. And it will take you a LONG time to get the line drained again. And it might scare you- I know it did me.

b) Drain the line. Again- weird, high, bad scary flames.

c) Don't put a large tank or a small one in a really hot water bath. Same reaction as above. A pretty warm one is good for a little screw on tank. You shouldn't need one at all for a larger tank.

That's it for now. I'll let you know the next time I do something really bad. And I'm sure I will!

Other folks who use my beads

2008-03-28T13:56:00.001-05:00

Here are a few folks who have used my beads in their work.

It's about time I gave them a bit of credit!

First is my partner in a cooperative effort on etsy, Sue at Signature Sterling- I made some beads, and she'll be using them in a piece of jewelry. I can't wait to see what she comes up with.
Here are the beads I made that she'll be using:

They don't look like much in the picture, but I know Sue's going to come up with a great plan to show them off! And they look so much nicer in person- a bit of blue opalescent Italian Moretti glass rolled in goldstone and white enamel, with some sapphire blue scribbled over it all.

The jewelry Sue makes will be sold as a benefit for Creative Minds for Charity , which will benefit an etsian in need through the helping others street team (HOST) on etsy. For information and updates, go to the Creative Minds for Charity link. There is also a Flickr Group set up for the project.
To see the progress on the piece Sue's making with these beads on her blog, go to http://signature-sterling.blogspot.com/

You've got to go to Sue's blog and see what she's been up to- she stays pretty busy, what with the kids and her- shall we say obsessive? (sorry Sue)- love of OSU!

Here's Sue's shop on etsy: http://signaturesterling.etsy.com/
And her flickr address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/signaturesterling/

Next is Paula Berry, who made some lovely earrings out of a pair of fish she purchased. She also encouraged me to make seahorses- which was fun, and I actually did a decent job of it! Here's one swimming past now!

Here is the picture of the fish earrings Paula made. She did a great job with her photo!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20974800@N06/2319651073/in/photostream/

And here's her shop on etsy: http://www.paulaberryjewelry.etsy.com/

And last is Nancy and the kitties who have the frillz shop on etsy:
http://www.frillz.etsy.com/
She took an odd piece that I had fused from bits and pieces of glass I had left over, and made a lovely bracelet out of it. Here's a picture: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10577372

I'm so excited to have others using some of my pieces in their jewelry, and to actually get to see photos of the pieces is great. Thanks to all of these lovely women for their help and support!

Making Disk Beads

2008-03-09T11:17:00.001-05:00

Another in a series of basic techniques, here are some disk-making tips and techniques:

Disk tips:
Be sure each layer of glass you add adheres well to the layer below it. The glass must be wrapped firmly on the previous layer as you spin the bead.
When wrapping the glass, your bead should be slightly behind the flame, while the glass rod is in the flame. Make sure the glass rod is heated all the way through, not just on the bottom, so that you don’t pull the base bead around misshaping it or breaking the bead release.
You may be able to wrap and spin as you go, or you may want to pull a bit of glass off the melting rod and attach it to your disk at regular very small (like 1/8-1/16 inch) intervals. This requires a certain rhythm- melt, pull, attach, melt, pull, attach, etc.
Push the hot glass onto the disk as you add it to make the layers adhere to each other nicely. Make sure the layers of glass are adhering all the way around, and there are no gaps between the layers.

Making a basic disk:
Start by making a pea-sized bead. Shape into a small cylinder. This will be the core of the disk, and should stay pretty much as is during the whole process.
Start winding the glass onto the cylinder (see above for tips). You can add colors as you go if you want, or leave it all one color.
If necessary, the disk can be straightened using the flat part of your tweezers, or a masher. Don’t pull up on the disk; just flatten all the way around.
Remember to look down your mandrel to see how even and round your disk is and add glass or use gravity to correct.
Flash the disk often to keep it warm; otherwise pieces may break off. Cool in the flame for a minute or two before putting away in your kiln. Keeping the disk warm without melting it down and cooling the disk without breaking it are the two hardest parts of this process.

What to do with your disk:

Disks are the basis for a number of different bead styles, including hollow beads, folded beads, 3-dimensional flowers, and fluted disks.

Art glass, or just glass

2008-01-20T15:59:00.001-06:00

Well, thought I'd use this as a topic in my blog. I've been thinking about how I might refer to my lampwork glass beads, and myself. I'm a lampwork glass beadmaker who has been making beads for about eight years. I have always been very uncomfortable when people classify me as an artist because of what I do. I'm more comfortable being classified as an artisan. Until about two years ago, I certainly didn't feel that what I was doing could be even remotely classified as art. Decent beads, but I still had an awful lot to learn. (And still do.) It seemed like something happened at that time. It wasn't sudden, but I got the distinct impression that I knew what I was doing. It was kind of an amazing feeling. Of course the newness of it has worn off now, but I do feel like my beads show a certain something (most of the time) that wasn't there before. So I have to say that I don't feel that working with glass necessarily makes one an artist, or that all lampworked, blown, or fused glass is art glass. And even now, I don't know whether to classify what I do as art glass. Certainly not all of it is, and what I feel might fit in that category might not meet the expectations of others.

I started a forum about this subject at lampwork, etc. and have gotten a lot of different responses. No conclusion, as I'm sure you can guess, but out of it all, I've decided that, for me, artisan is the correct word. And I don't think I am wrong to call it art glass (or perhaps glass art!)Of course, much of this is semantics. The dictionary is fairly loose with its definition of art, and the distinction between an artist and an artisan is a bit blurry. Here's what my Webster's New World Dictionary has to say:

Artisan: A worker in a skilled trade; craftsman

Artist: 1) A person who is works in, or is skilled in the techniques of, any of the fine arts, esp. in painting, drawing, sculpture, etc. 2) a person who does anything very well, with imagination and a feeling for form, effect, etc.

I would quote some of the folks who participated in the forum, but I may misconstrue, so I'll let you go there and decide yourself. I know some of these discussions get a bit heated, but this one has been quite civil, and I have enjoyed reading the varying opinions. You can read it , and add your two cents if you wish! The address is: http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78916

Hot Glass! What is lampwork, and what should you be looking for?

2008-01-11T11:58:00.003-06:00

Thought I'd try and give a short overview of lampwork, and the lampworking process. Lampwork is, simply, melting and working glass over a flame.

Torches of various kinds are in general use to do this. I use the smallest, cheapest type of torch available. It's called a hothead.

There are many different types of glass that can be used, but the main two you will see are:

Soft glass (most of it manufactured in Italy) usually used to make glass beads. It has a low melting point, so you don't need a really big torch.

Hard glass (also known as Pyrex or borosilicate, or just plain boro), which can be used to make anything from pendants and beads to goblets and small bowls.

I make beads out of soft glass, so that is what I'll tell you about. To make a soft glass bead, the glass is generally melted and wrapped around a steel rod, or mandrel, that has been dipped in a claylike bead release to make the hole in the center. Each color of glass is individually applied as dots, lines, squiggles, frit (broken glass), or in the form of previously made elements such as twistie (glass that has been twisted together) or murrini (glass shapes). The tools can vary from scissors, ice tongs and dental picks, to those that are specifically made to work with glass. Almost anything goes as long as it is made of stainless steel, brass or graphite.

So that's it in a nutshell.

Now, what should you be looking for in a bead? Well, much of that is subjective, but there are a few general rules:

1) The beads should have nice finished ends- they should not be sharp as they can crack, chip or cut through the cord they are strung on.

2) They should have clean holes. After the beads are taken off the mandrel they are reamed to clean out all the bead release.

3) They should not be cracked. As glass has liquid qualities, even a small crack can grow over time.

4) There should not be unintentional tool marks or chill marks on the glass. Sometimes tool marks are used as a design tool. Chill marks are concentric circles which are left after a cool tool touches the glass. As a general rule, these marks should be fire polished out.

5) If there are decorative dots on the beads, they should not be undercut. They need to be firmly attached to the base bead so they can't break off.

6) The beads should be kiln annealed. Annealing is a slow cooling process that equalizes the temperature in the glass while it cools.

7) If you are looking at pictures on the internet, the photos should show the bead from all sides. My beads often have quite different looks, depending on how they are viewed.

There are other things to look for- are there unintentional bubbles in the glass? They do not cause any technical problems, but the more strict school of thought is that there should not be. After that, it's mostly a subjective thing. I could sit here all day telling you about the different techniques used, (and I plan on doing some of that later) but when it come right down to it, it all just depends on what strikes a chord with you. And do I follow all these rules? Well, I certainly try, though I admit there are sometimes a few chill marks I didn't notice when the beads come out of the kiln. Ok, that's about enough of that.

Hope this has been informative. And if you're a hot glass worker (or buyer), I hope you'll add your two cents.

Well Hello There!

2008-01-11T10:26:00.000-06:00

Here it is, my little blog in the sky. Don't know what will end up being here yet, but I really needed a place to show off some of my newest beads. I've been making lampwork glass beads for about 8 years now, and it's gone from being a hobby to being a full time job. Winter's the down time, so I'm trying out all kinds of different bead ideas, and starting this blog. Hope you'll let me know what you like, and what you don't!

The beads you see at the top are some of my new large-holed mandalas. I love the way they turn out, but it's a bit of a bear getting the holes to be nice. And to the left- a frog, of course. I make quite a few sculptural beads- fish, frogs, masks, butterflies, hearts, pigs and cats.