In Praise of Veiled Rubino Oro

I'm so excited! For the first time in years, I've added veiled rubino oro back into my glass repertoire. So what, you ask?! And what the heck does that mean anyway?

Rubino Oro is the Italian name for a lovely dark pink glass; it means 'gold pink' and it is actually made using gold as a colorant.

Veiled glass is kind of like a glass sandwich- in this case that lovely pink between two layers of clear. The clear surrounding the pink ensures that the pink won't react in either a good or bad way with the glass around it. It appears that it still strikes to a darker pink too- makes sense as that is related to the heat applied.


Rubino is one of those colors you want to stretch as much as possible because it's a bit on the expensive side due to the gold content, and the veiled rods help to do just that.

The beads at the top also include a bit of orchid pink enamel, so the bright pink is not all a result of the veiled rubino; it was mostly used as a background. The top half of the wee bottle is veiled rubino all the way- see what a nice color it is!

For more information on using rubino oro glass, you can look at this blog post of mine from years ago.

C Koop Beads Blog Challenge

I was so excited to be a part of this challenge using some book covers from C Koop Beads to make something new and different. And what fun I had! As soon as I saw these little book components, ideas started swirling around in my head. I couldn’t wait for them to arrive in the mail!

 Inside this micro book are two sentences- ‘My life is quite full’ and ‘Your glass seems half empty.’ Each word is on a separate piece of paper, so there are actually a lot of different sentences that can be made. You’ll have to figure those out for yourself. This is definitely a test piece- plenty of  things need improvement, like making sure the words stay lined up, but it was an interesting little experiment.

 

The components used include C Koop’s Book covers, a couple of copper dangles from Kristi Bowman Designs, my own handmade lampwork glass and copper headpin, and some small teardrop and triangular beads from the Beadchicks (yes, that’s what they call themselves) at Argenta Bead Company in North Little Rock, Arkansas. It’s a great little shop with a marvelous selection.

To see what others made with these cool components, take a look at Superior Beads facebook page. Thanks to C Koop, Superior Beads and Lorelei Eurto for the opportunity to participate in this fun challenge!

Ornament Blog Hop- Art Bead Scene

Lampwork glass ornaments- trees, angels, horses, hollow beads, you name it- what fun! This ornament blog hop from Art Bead Scene caught my attention and sent me off to make a bunch of  ornaments from my own glass beads. I had to make this little guy before I even decided that I'd go to the 'hop'! But I was so pleased with it that I have been making more and more. I finally just had to stop! They're also nice sun catchers or window decorations in a safe spot.

The lampwork beads and headpins are all handmade glass, made by me in my home studio. This one is a bit fancy, with silver bead accents.

Now get hopping to see what others have been inspired to make this holiday season!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Here are a couple of the others that were inspired by that first ornament.