So Many Great Things!

I've got a bunch of really great things to talk about today, and maybe even some pictures, too!

First, I can't believe I forgot to tell you about this, but a few weeks ago I was notified that I was accepted into the docent training program at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts! I wrote about it on my Facebook page, but I guess I didn't say anything here...I'm SO excited, though! Training will start the second week of September, and run through next year.

Second, I finally went ahead and ordered some postcards with jewelry-care information on the back. I used one of my very favorite photos of my enameled beads, some wire and glass, and the brass plaque I stamped 'creative'.

I got them done with VistaPrint, and they're not bad for the first go-around. I'm thinking of putting that image on my business cards, too. It captures most everything I do with my jewelry these days -- metalwork, wire, glass, enamels, stamping -- so I think it would be a little more 'iconic' for my business.

Does anybody use MOO cards as business cards?

I made beads this week, braving the heat to do so. I'm getting really frustrated with my torch setup these days, because I have so little time to make beads and I want to knock out a big bunch at each torch session. Unfortunately, with the HotHead, it takes a long time to melt the glass, which translates to extra time roasting over the flame and fewer beads made in an hour. Roasting me, as well as the glass, some of which doesn't take kindly to roasting and turns all kinds of funny colors, or just flat out burns. Sigh. Someday, someday I will be able to move on from my HotHead to something that will get me where I want to be, glasswise. I am starting to feel very limited, and that sucks.

All I need is money, though.

Quoth the Raven...."Got to get started on some Halloween ideas!"

Chickens and eggs for the market

Blue beads for a necklace idea I had.

Those grey transparent beads? Those are supposed to be crystal clear glass beads, but thanks to the HotHead, that's what I get. I look forward to the day when I get to work with clear glass again.

Other good news...I was invited to blog at 'Studio Mothers', which is a wonderful community of support and inspiration for creative moms....and not only moms! I've really enjoyed reading it, and now I am thrilled to be a part of it! Check out my intro blog post here.

I added dates to my schedule at the Manakin Market, so I will be there twice a month for August, September and October. The market ends the last Saturday in October. I will also be at the University of Richmond's Arts Around The Lake show on September 25 (oh please don't let it rain like last year!), and Whimsical Wares, in Richmond, which will be sometime in November.

I think that's the update for now. Lots of things going on around here, but it's also August, which means my kids are home all day (no camp/summer school/activities!). I'm trying not to get too stressed about having less time to myself, and instead trying to figure out how I can fit in little pieces of productive time to make jewelry and get stuff done. I'll get there, I'm sure.

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If any of you are local to Richmond, VA, and interested in having your own private A Hot Piece of Glass Trunk Show at your home, please get in touch! I'm starting to book dates for home sales, and I've put together some great hostess benefits that will get you some free and special-sale jewelry and accessories. Whether we want to believe it or not, Christmas shopping season will be upon us soon, and a Trunk Show is a great way to get some shopping done AND hang out with friends! Email me for details.

Muse-ic

From my torch session yesterday morning...

Storm

Sakura

Spring

Gypsy Rose

A good friend reminded me yesterday that sometimes the hardest part is just getting started. It is.

Glass in all its forms

When I was on my odyssey of discovery at Liquidation Warehouse the other week, one of my purchases was a few crackled-glass ornament balls. I love glass in all its forms (no! really!?), and these ornaments just really spoke to me. I've wanted, for a while, a few of the blown-glass witches balls to hang in my kitchen window, but I've never found ones I liked. Since Christmas is almost upon us, I thought these would be beautiful instead.

Some of my very favorite glass colors are blue and red. These are so good-looking in the light of my window that they may just stay there through the winter.


Isn't that red just stunning? I love love love that deep ruby red. Just delicious. (and for the record, I hate the word 'nummy'...)


And the blue....at some angles it is almost cobalt, at another, it appears violet. Straight on, it's one of my current favorite shades of transparent blue Moretti glass -- dark blue tranparent.

(This is the part of this post where I wish I had something better than my little Panasonic Lumix camera to take my blog pictures with....oh Santa, I wish you could bring me a Nikon like Cindy's!)

Ahem.

Next year's large purchase will have to be an oxygen concentrator, to go with the torch I haven't bought yet. Of course, that is after THIS year's large purchase, a Glass Hive kiln, which I also have not finished paying for...

But I digress...

I also wanted to show you all some of the results of my studio time. My glass beadmaking Muse apparently is elsewhere today (maybe playing in the snow at Kerry's place!), but in an effort to not let myself get sucked into the negative that goes with a crappy torch session, I decided to salvage the time and make frit. I've wanted to make frit for some time now, not being able to justify buying crushed glass when there are so many awesome rods to buy. There are a couple of methods to crush and mix your own glass, but the one that seemed to make the most sense, and was the simplest to deal with, is the water-shock method.

Basically, you heat the end of a rod to glowing, flatten it into a paddle at the end of the rod, reheat the paddle til it's hot, then plunge it into a jar of water and let it shatter into tiny bits. You then strain it out of the water and spread it on a plate or something to dry out so you can use it.

I made two small batches today, one a blue-green mix that I am hoping will be sort of an underwater-looking blend:


And the second batch, which is my end-of-the-day mix of all the rods I used while beadmaking this morning:

Let's see...what's in there....CiM Sangre, dark ivory, CiM Ghee (which normally looks terrible for me), Moretti dark trans blue, Moretti electric yellow trans, some CiM Peace, and I think some dark and light topaz. Oh, and some medium brown, I think. I was practicing making chocolate hearts for Valentine's Day.

So, the frits are currently drying, and I hope to get some torch time tomorrow to play with them. If anything comes out interesting, I'll post pictures. The rest of this week will likely be taken up with birthday party prep and sewing costumes for the preschool Christmas pageant.

I think it's time for more tea.

Experiments in the Workshop

This weekend I got some time to fool around in the workshop a little, playing with sheet copper and some discs I got in a few weeks ago. Inspired by an article in Art Jewelry Magazine, I tried out some foldforming and played around with heat patinas.

These will become earrings:

It's really hard to capture how really cool-looking the heat patina is on these....all shades of blue and purple and yellow...really, really cool. I wish I could tell you exactly how I did it, but really, heat patinas are fickle. I'm just happy they are similar enough to become earrings. They will be sealed with lacquer to keep the patina.

I also made this, a pendant. It was made out of a 2" copper disc, and the same foldforming and heat patina. It came out way better than I had imagined!
Again, really hard to capture the patina in a photograph. I haven't decided what the rest of this piece will look like yet.

I did some really outstanding etching on copper, too, but I didn't photograph that yet. Maybe in a few days. I need to make the beads for the necklace the etched piece will be, so I might just make you wait til I get that all done. :)

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend, if you were celebrating, and enjoy your week!

OOH! I almost forgot....I am looking to upgrade to a digital SLR camera....something not too terribly expensive, but that will handle macro photography as well as general-purpose family and landscape photography. Anybody got any opinions on this issue? Email me if you'd rather: ahotpieceofglass AT yahoo DOT com.

COLOR!

Today, I took my little kids to preschool, came home, put on my mp3 player and cranked it up LOUD.

I love to listen to music while I make beads. I totally get lost in what I'm doing, and sometimes, I think I even make better color choices and better designs.

This is the result of today's loud music and torch session:

These are hollow beads:

And these are huge, honkin' big cone-shaped beads, a result of experimenting with opaque and transparent blues...

I just love all the juicy color in these beads! Guess I should listen to music more often when I work, huh? :)

Halloweeny Fun!

In that batch of beads from my last post was a small group of beads I am designating for a Halloweeny necklace. The vision in my head is fabulous, but as usual, I am still working it out in reality. These are the beads:


I haven't decided if I need more or not. I'm also contemplating taking a Halloween charm bracelet I made last year apart to cull some beads from it, but this is what I have so far. I am making the cord and some coiled and spiraled beads for the project, too, and those pieces so far look like this:


I still have more cord to make, and more spiral beads, too, so hopefully I will be able to get this vision done BEFORE Halloween! I've got one last day at the St. Stephen's Market on the 24th, and I want to have it done for then.

Keeping my fingers crossed and my cord-making constant...

Back again and NOW! With Beads!!

Hi there folks!
I have been on a beadmaking frenzy this last week or so, and as such, have managed to make many more beads than I ever have at a sitting. I was pretty astonished, myself. This is a shot of the whole big conglomeration:

There are at least four sets in there, plus random earring pairs, a bunch of hollows, and a few wonky screwups (gotta have some of those!).

Stay tuned for what they will become!

Been awhile....again...

Ok, so here I am again. Sorry for the interruption!

I've got some new work to show off, so here goes....first up, a custom order for a parent of a child at one of the girls' private schools here. Twenty-five daisy beads.


The client also ordered another twenty-five of the same beads, so I have to get those done this week.

I also did a custom order for the director of a local preschool, who wanted beads to incorporate into appreciation gifts for her teachers. Those turned out like this:




I'm doing the Market at St. Stephen's Church this year. It's on Grove Ave, across from St. Catherine's School, if you're local to Richmond. Come and see me!

A month!?

Whew, it's been more than a month since I posted to this blog. I know all of you are waiting with baited breath to see/ hear about the latest fun from me (haHA!), so I won't keep you waiting much longer. I did make some changes to the blog layout and design, though, so it's not like I haven't been here. :)

Let's see....my muse took off until the week before Thanksgiving, so getting ready for my show at ArtWorks gallery the day after T-day was a bit of a rush job. However, I did regain my creative mojo in time to develop these designs:


That's the 'Bar Bangle', a design made with silver and colored copper wire. And also beads, duh! Next up is this:

'Orbit' earrings. I'm a sucker for blue (and red!) glass, as you can probably tell. I do use other colors, though....like in this pendant, for example:

Tiger Stripes pendant, strung on a steel cable neckwire.

They're going up on Etsy today, so if you are interested, grab 'em! As always, if you are in Richmond, VA, let me know and you can avoid paying shipping and I will meet you in town somewhere to give you your goodies!

It's going to be cold today, so let's all pray for snow....especially you, Jen, out in Minnesota, where I am sure you already have snow. We'd like some, too, so share, ok? ;)

I don't have any more shows on the agenda, so there will be plenty of time to make beads and jewelry. My goals for the winter include getting on the Etsy shop and listing more items. I'm applying for at least one show this spring that I know of so far, so once my schedule gets firmed up, I'll let you guys know.

Thanks for all your support in 2008, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in 2009!

Rejected

Ok, so I won't be doing the Handmade Holiday show in Richmond this year. I guess there were 50 applicants for 23 spots, and 28 of the 50 were from jewelry people. Jewelry is tough -- it's competitive, as a lot of people make jewelry, and it's hard to stand out in a crowd. I'm sure my pictures were not that great, either, so that didn't help. It's hard to represent yourself in only three photographs. I'm sad that my lampwork was considered but not desired, but maybe some other opportunity will open up. I still have the South of the James market until at least the beginning of December, so that's something. I also could put a lot more time into the Etsy shop, so I guess that's what I'll do.

At the torch the other night, I made some more Halloween goodies....some dotty earrings, some bones, a cauldron bubbling with potion...and I also made some leaf beads which I may turn into a necklace, or I may just sell individually as pendants. I can't decide.

Barring terrible weather, I will be at the market this upcoming Saturday, so look for me and all my fun stuff this weekend!

Monsters, oh my!

Yep, Halloween is coming. I have seen the candy and costume displays in the stores, and I have avoided buying any of it in the hopes of staving off my addiction to dark chocolate. And mass-produced cheap costumes. I'm trying to get my oldest daughter to tell me what she wants to be for Halloween so I can start making the costume, but she is undecided. My middle daughter will probably wear her older sister's Cinderella gown (with some hemming), and my son might get a teeny Viking (not the football team) costume or a knight's costume. I can already see Cinderella and her knight strapped into the wagon for trick or treating. If we go with a knight's costume, I might have to them outfit the wagon as Cinderella's coach, somehow. Would that be too over the top? Nope. Crazy, yes, but awesome, too. Heh.

I'll probably have to make some Cinderella beads for Wren to wear, and some scary spider necklace or bats or something for Kira. Noah will not get beads.

And now for some quick and dirty pix of my recent torch time. Sorry for the not so fab pictures, I haven't set up the photo studio yet for this week and didn't want to wait.

More monsters....


And FINALLY!! A successful button!


And a question for you all....what do you think of this bead? It's hollow, a transparent glass spiraled with my favorite red. Tell me how you like the color, the size, the shape...should I make more? In what color combinations?


All of these beads will be visiting the kiln later today. Hopefully, most of them will turn up as pendants on Saturday at the market and on Etsy!

Watch Me Create!

Hey there! I have been invited to participate in a great collaborative blog that is all about bead artists and the creative processes we go through to make our work. It's written by a bunch of different folks, myself now included, and it's been really interesting to hear from others about how glass gets turned into beads and jewelry in their workshops. Everyone has a different approach. The site is Watch Me Create, so go and check it out! You can subscribe to it for easier reading, too.

I also just wanted to let everyone know I have a bunch of new Halloween things for next week's market! Ghosts, bats, pumpkins, eyeballs, skulls, bones, and a monster. Earrings *and* pendants. They might get up on Etsy this weekend, and I'll be sure to let you all know when they do!

New things on Etsy!

I have added two new bead sets to my Etsy shop and also a pink rose pendant. Go on over there and check them out! Also, I made a really awesome (well, I think so anyway!) set of beads that I have a terrific jewelry idea in mind for....here's a sneak preview of the beads themselves...


You'll have to wait and see what I turn them into. I'll let you know when it is available on Etsy or at the market!

Coming soon....

Ok, so I just finished a mini-torch session, and I am really excited about some new things! I made a bead with a wee froggie clinging to it, and some pink and purple hearts, and a few odd beads, and a glass pumpkin. I hope they all hold up well cooling overnight.

At this Saturday's market (South of the James!!), I will have wineglass charm sets for sale, and a bunch more pendants. It's almost time to start on some seasonal and holiday beads....why don't you post a comment to this entry and tell me what you'd like to see me make? I'll give just about anything a shot, so let me know!