New Year, New Resolutions

ha, fooled ya with the title, there will be no resolutions this year, unless we count my resolution to not make myself (or others) crazy worrying about stuff I cannot change.  Last year was kind of tough and we all hope this year will be better!


So instead of resolutions, here is a list of lessons learned:

• I am continually surprised by the heart's capacity for love and kindness.
• a child giggling is the best medicine in the world for body and soul
• "be nice, courteous and grateful" is a good daily mantra
• even when family drives you completely batty, you will still go to bat for them
• tough love is really tough no matter which side you're on
• I would be much less than half without my other half, he is the bedrock of my life.

Ok, nuff of that mushy stuff, onward to shiny stuff.  Starting the year off with some bling (yeah I know most it's from last year, but hey cut me a break, I still want to show it off).

and some little critters

 and another attempt at herringbone wrap, it looks a little rough as I didn't realize until the last bead that I was wrapping them in an overly difficult way, Next time I hope it's easier.

Flower Power

Since returning from Glass Stock West, I've been hooked on making these orchids!  The plan is to scale them down a little from lifesize and put a loop on the back so they can hang as necklace pendants.

I still have a long way to go just to get the basic shapes and sizes of the petals correct, not to mention getting them all hot sealed together in a somewhat correct and pleasing pattern.   

Attempt #3 (sadly #2 broke during the final loop attachment phase...dammit)

then comes the super challenging part of creating a hanging loop for the pendant.  It must be big enough to fit a silk ribbon or cord, not stick out too far from the base and at a spot that will allow the blossom to basically hang vertically.  The following loop fails on all three accounts, LOL. It's all good practice and each failure helps me get better the next time.

Attempt #4
this time, instead of frit, I added the spots directly onto the petals one by one.  The spots and lower petal are made from TAG Mai Tai which can turn pink in the kiln and probably still would if I put them back in for another annealing cycle. But, then the lower petal would get darker too and I'm rather fond of the pinkish center lightening to yellow at the tips.  Oh, yeah and just ignore the totally off center lip, still working out the best attachment angle in the flame.

the loop on this one came out better, still needs work, but at least it hangs on a cord nicely.

making these is a lot of work, but oh so much fun!

Ooh, shiny stuff

We have had the grandson living with us since the end of June.  Whew, it's been a roller coaster.  We all have had to make adjustments in attitude, routines and expectations.  We are finally gelling together.  I feel like the grandson and I are forming a real bond, we laugh, hold hands and play games with each other.  And, I think it's deepening the bond between Craig and me, we have come together as a team to make this work out.  It's actually kind of a vulnerable feeling for me to really have to depend on someone else as much as I depend on Craig now.

I had a "summer day" from work and got some primo "me time", a rare luxury lately.

I put together some little, shiny objects

these are a gift for a professional coach I've been working with lately.  She really helped me push my boundaries and tackle something that has always made my stomach twist a little just thinking about my frustration with the situation.    So, for her; "Sunset at Red Rocks"

I picked a few glass colors that seemed to go with bronze wire and forced myself to stick to that palate until all the glass was used up.  The point was 2-fold, first I tend to overbuy glass (it's just all so shiny and pretty colors), and secondly I want to use the beautiful bronze wire I got from WickwireJewelry.

I couldn't resist wrapping these tiger beads this way, "Caged Tiger"

Elementary, my dear Watson

I had some time today to put together a few more little pretties.

"Positron"

close up of the "Positron" earrings

close up of "Positron" pendant

"Gamma" earrings

"Epsilon" earrings

I've also been working on the display case and it is coming along quite nicely.  Maybe I'll get it finished tonight and post a picture tomorrow. 

Misha is recovering very well from her recent brush with death, I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow for a check up just to make sure.

More Bling

In between dealing with Misha and other family crisis, I found some time to get lost in making pretty baubles.

"Bex"

"Kalinda"

"Madame Rose"

"Neria"

I figured out how to add text to my pictures and as you can see I've settled on a name for my little glassy stuff, Amorphous Designs.  I had to get on this as a hair salon owner I met in Ione recently offered to let me show my stuff in her store. I'm sort of besides myself hoping this is good enough for other people to actually lay down cold hard cash.  I plan to start out with a sign indicating that "all the profits from the sale of these items will be donated to the local animal shelter Spay & Neuter program".  Having actually seen too many 50 gallon drums filled to overflowing with euthanized dogs and cats makes this cause close to my heart and I cannot wait to cut my first donation check!  Now I only have to figure out how to make a display case and price these babies.

Post Modern Fossils

Inspired by the awesome concrete designs seen on the Modesto Garden Tour, I am attempting to make an ammonite (fossil mollusk), cuz' I think they are so cool!
 This is not a great attempt, but I'm happy with the proof of concept and believe it will get better with practice. I've still got 2 of the twisties left to practice with.



lessons learned:
1. it may matter which direction the twistie is melted while spiraling onto another surface, it seemed that my twists were getting "untwisted", but this is totally unverified, I need to test this idea next time.

2. it's really tough to make the spiral directly on the bead, make the spiral with the twistie alone first, garage in kiln, then apply to target bead

3. don't freak out if the spiral gets wonky with melting etc, just use a stringer to redo the spiral twist in the center at the end of melt-in.

BLING!!

you might think with all the mad scientist experiments, dental origami and garden touring that I'm not getting much glass and jewelry done.  Well, your probably right, but I did get some stuff finished up recently.

flower-like decoration on enamel "ombre" beads. I'm really loving the enamels right now, I got a sample pack with 42 colors, so yeah, I think I will be playing with these for quite a while.

frit beads with silver spirals

more enamels and some flower looking murrini, this will eventually be a pendant and earring set

completed necklace and earring set, every bit of this was handmade by ME! It's my personal favorite so far.

sweet hearts for a sweetheart of a daughter

and now some fun with aquarium themed murrini & blue GLOW powder, woo hoo

 

  

I just love the goldfish, even if his brother got fat in the smaller earring bead

on a more serious and elegant (I think so anyway) note, I present these little pretties made with bronze wire

The next glassy adventure is making some drawer pulls for Mary's new built-in desk.  After several fails I've got one success sitting on my desk at work and another (success I hope) in the kiln tonight!  Pictures to come when the whole set of 9 is complete.

Frittering the time away

Frit is the name for small crumbles of glass (can in size range from powder all the way up to rock salt size).  It comes in as many colors and combinations as anyone can dream up.  It's a fun and really simple way to add some spots or swirls of color to beads.  I recently purchased 10 small jars from a fellow lampworker trying to "destash".  I tried each one on a base of regular clear effetre (maybe some "superclear" as well).

Passion - round 12mm

 

 

Mystic - round 12mm

Blue Moon - oval 10 x 19mm

Ivory Granite - oval 9 x 14mm

Gypsy Skirt - disk 6 x 12mm

Rose Bouquet - UFO 16 x 18mm

Purple Salmon - cylinder 12 x 12mm

Desert Rose - lentil

Ruby Extra Gold over a pink base - oval 9 x 14mm

Amazing Grace over Effetre Grass Green - oval 10 x 19

these are Aurora shards (super thin sections of glass laid over the bead for a special color or texture effect), overlaid with some melted in pure silver wire and finished off with Moody Blue (metallic "sheeny" color) ends.

and my new personal favorite, simple, straight lines of various lengths overlaid with a sprinkling of enamel powder for a cool "ombre" or gradient effect.

Stay tuned for coming attraction as I will be making most of these into simple earring sets and maybe a necklace or two. If you have a personal favorite let me know and I'll give/send you something (limited time offer for family and friends only, on the off, off, off chance some anonymous stranger actually reads this :).

Sometimes simple is best

I've been practicing making dots on beads and liked this sort of restrained color combo of coral over ivory with little metallic black dots for accent. This shape is called lentil (bean maybe?) about 15mm diameter.  I used some head pins from Michael's with a pewter metallic tone for the earrings and pendant to match the little metallic glass dots on the beads.

These actually surpassed my idea of what they should be, then considering the solar system failure, I'm thinking it's just "win some, lose some". If I keep at it, there are bound to be some successes!

and on the 14th day she made the solar system

This piece has been a blast to conceptualize and make, partly because it afforded me some fun opportunities to make outrageous statements like these in all sincerity:

"well, I guess I should get off the couch now and go make the Earth"

"hey, check this out, I just found Jupiter in my pocket, I thought I lost it")

so even if the final necklace didn't quite match the vision I had in my head, it has been a fun experience of taking an idea from concept (thanks to Craig for the idea) to finished product

and anyway, I can always make another solar system tomorrow, LOL!

Cosmic Crafts

Can you guess what I'm making now?  There are several clues in the picture and I will tell you that  I am going to the California Academy of Sciences next week for NightLife, and hope to see the Planetarium show. 

did you guess??  No? Well, stay tuned and hopefully I'll post the finished item some time this week.

Aren't Magnolia's simply magnificent?  I love that they are one of the first ones to bloom this time of year.