Bead Table wednesday (BTW)

A collection of this weeks beads...  Gearing up for summer!

Bead Table Wednesday... almost wordless Wednesday

 Isn't this beer bottle a lovely colour of Blue?  It's Iceberg beer from Newfoundland... The bottles are actually manufactured in China and the glass was quite thick so it wasn't that easy to cut  I think these will make a gorgeous necklace though once I have enough beads!

ABS Carnival Blog... Passion

Passion .. I asked my DH what I was Passionate about, thinking…he’d say something like making beads, jewellery, maybe even knitting… something like that… What did he actually say…” that I was Passionate about my cat Zoom Zoom”… Well he (Zoomies) is awfully cute and very affectionate as long as I’m wearing Polar Fleece….


Since I didn’t get the answer I wanted I tried again… second answer was “your Garden” Ok I’ll buy that … I spend most days in the summer pulling weeds edging gardens… moving plants looking at flowers and wondering what I can buy next year that will do better. For those of you who don’t know me I am stuck here, 7 days a week from mid June to mid Sept as I run a small Gallery featuring work by Canadian Women… and unless I can get my DH look after it for a day… I’m it as far as staff goes! I have a baby monitor in the gallery and receivers all over the house… so I can make beads… and garden… and do chain maille…


My beads… I’m self taught… back in the mid 90’s… there was almost no info then… no pictures of other peoples beads… no nothing! Every couple of years we would drive to Washington state and buy glass from Mike Frantz, (he was still operating out of his garage in those days...) One year he had a floral plunge bead in his display case… I had to know how it was made… He sold me a tungsten pick and I came home and attempted to make them…This is an early one… (That worked!)











I refer to them now as flower garden beads…































My first soft glass instructor was Leah Fairbanks… (I loved her class.. would highly recommend it to anyone who makes beads!) That first class was actually way over my head … but I took a weekend class from her again a couple of years ago and moved my flowers from inside the bead to the surface…












I really do love flowers… I grow Orchids in the house so that I have flowers year round… But when it comes to my beads flowers can be any colour and shape... I have never tried to make an orchid on a bead I probably never will, why muck with perfection!

Bah Humbug

On that note you have 24 shopping days til Christmas that is if you count both today and Christmas Eve....

So get shopping..

I'm in the middle of sorting stock for a gallery in St Andrew's Serendipin' Art as soon as I post this I have to go make beads 2 of the sets I've found for them are missing Pendants! And one set needs a new pair of earrings.... DO NOT PUT RED CORAL IN A TUMBLER!!! Actually it looks OK it's just dull instead of shiny but it doesn't match the bracelet and the Pendant anymore! I suppose I could just put the bracelet and the pendant in the tumbler too.....

Doesn't this look like fun?

And yes those are beads all over the couch and floor!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Low maintenance Chicken Farm!

Almost Wordless Wednesday... a day late

Well I'm back.... the workshop in Ottawa was wonderful.... I actually did sell a few beads in the Starving Artists SSSH sale ... if you missed the sale too bad the beads are all back up to full price...

Here's a bead that I made Monday after I got home from Ana's class... the tree is marginal but I love the background, & the shape needs some work!

Never got the picture uploaded so here it is a day late .... the dramatic 'windblown' one on the left is from the workshop the one on the right I did on Monday...

Fab Friday Find...

Isn't today Friday??? We had 3 days of sun... I don't do computers when I can be outside! and since I don't have any pictures of gallery artists toda's find is Amy from Form Fire Glassworks she's an architect in her 'real' job... these are her beads.... Aren't they neat!

July 1 and July 4

My Canada Day Bead was Party time... Copper Dolphins swimming through the balloons and fireworks... (enamels) We couldn't see the fire works as it was too foggy... but you could hear them


















Today's bead for Independence Day is Starz and Stripes Copper starz wrapped in Double Helix Triton Glass

Fab Friday Finds

Todays' fab finds are from other members of my etsy groups... First is Fire Diva's

This is Frankie the Weiner Dog from May Beads

2nd Sateam (stands for Starving artist team... I know all about being a starving artist since I've been doing glass full time now for over 20 years!)

This is called Flight of Fancy


my 3rd team is the CGGE Team Creative glass guild

this is a glass brooch called Diva Michelle done by Nivenglassoriginals



And last but not least is the ABSteam Artisan Beaders Street Team This is a necklace done by Patty of BrokenTeePeeDesigns... If you feel the need to buy me something this would be entirely acceptable!

it's call Summertime

More on cats

Well I know you've all met EMM before but he wants to show you just what a big cat he is... that railing that he is standing in front of is 30 inches high!

The picture on the right is EMM last week staring out the window at the rain... ( you do have to enlarge that picture to really get the rain effect!) This season of the year here you have a choice of fog or rain... the only nice thing about fog is sometimes the sun comes out for 10 minutes about 3 o:clock.

EMM being an all grey cat doesn't show the dirt.. He comes as a highly recommended cat colour... Zoom zoom on the other hand has had smokers paws all week ... his cute little white paws have been bright yellow.. I have no idea what he has been walking in...

Here's Em's bead pick for the week He thinks these little guys are cute... and he wishes I would pay him half as much attention as I pay them when I'm making them! Bunnies

I won again, well actually I came second...

Yes I'm afraid this blog is once again about me and how wonderful I am! Artistry in Glass has a glass bead competition (same one I won the rods in three months ago) every three months. I got 2nd place in the Advanced category ... (I don't know where I belong...) with my Jellyfish bead.. I was beaten by a sea horse, done by on online friend Laurie Ament, from Little Rock, Arkansas ,Here's a link to her etsy store Isinglass Design The gold Sea horse in the picture is not the one she entered in the competition... (I couldn't find a picture of it to 'borrow' for this blog!) What I find so impressive with her work is she does everything on a hot head... I'm sure you have all heard my opinion on those.. I think I can make a 'smoked' spacer in 30 minutes!)

More on the blowing my own horn theme!

Yes there is another interview ... You can learn even more about me by going to the Story Beaders blog .

Storybeader makes jewelry but you don't just get a piece of jewelry you also get a poem (haiku) writen specifically about the piece to accompany it! Deb also posts interviews of one 'blogger' every Friday. so scroll back through her Friday archives to learn more about other etsy artists who blog!

(And here's your useless piece of info for the day ....for those of you who don't know where the term blog comes from it's a contraction of the term "Web log".) Yep that's what we are all doing we are writing logs on the web for the world to read....

The Guardian of Balckbeard's treasure has been listed and Scurvy McSkull comes complete with a story too...
Will My beads continue to some with stories... doubt it!

Time to blow my own horn!

This necklace was designed for the Art Bead Scene January challenge. The January challenge was to design a piece of jewellery using the painting Irises by Vincent Van Gogh.... The necklace on the left was my entry. I was picked as designer of the week this week! Here's the blog!


I also have just joined a couple more street teams on etsy... One is the Artisan Beaders Group, one of my favorite beads is one of their feature friday picks, and last but certainly not least one of their members featured me in her blog Simply Shiny .

I'm still having fun making jellyfish beads this is my latest... I was trying to make something vaguely heart shaped and ended up with a perfect (in my opinion!) skull. So in keeping with the skull theme ... It's called Guardian of Blackbeard's Treasure. And will show up on etsy in the next couple of days! Can't you see the eyes nose and teeth ....

Where's Waldo?

Who, & what is Waldo in this story? Well Waldo is a bead... Waldo is a bead made out of something that is then wrapped in Double Helix's silver glass triton. Triton is one of their idiot proof glasses anyone can get this to strike! Well I made a bunch of beads last summer and they flew out of the gallery as soon as they were made into bracelets... so I thought I need to start making stock for next summer.. I don't care if it's - 30 and you can't stand up straight because of the ice.. it's time to start thinking summer!


So I grabbed my stand by 'ivory' and made some beads wrapped in triton... they didn't seem to be as yellow as I remembered from last year.. so I pulled out a rod of Opal Yellow and made one bead with an Opal yellow base that bead is Waldo.... I can't find poor Waldo... Can YOU? It might be the one in the middle ... actually in the photograph there is more of a difference (but I think the difference is that that bead is slightly bigger...) than there is to the naked eye. What I'm wondering is can you use any glass as a base and then wrap it in triton and reduce it and have it come out the same?

I tried effretre's fossil which is quite grey.. it comes out a bit darker but still very yellow... does this glass turn all the opaques yellow?

Roller Ball Finger

I think this will be the next computer generated 'ailment'... Actually my husband pointed out that it's actually a scroll wheel... but Roller Ball finger sounds so much classier than scroll wheel...

The top joint on the second finger on my right hand now screams at me every time I reach for my mouse... even clicking hurts.. I'm sure it's all the scrolling while I'm reading posts in the forums.. trying to stay educated... and not playing games that's doing it! But if you get right down to it what it really means is I am spending too much time on the computer and not enough time making beads, windows and jewellery!

The Picture of the heart has absolutely nothing to do with this post... It's new and I like it ... I really like the patina on the copper... while I was playing with chemicals




I managed to also etch the glass... I think this is a much nicer etch than I get using glass etch... but i doubt if I can do it again.. also I think it spent 3 or 4 days living in various chemical baths!
( do I remember what I used ... YES do I remember the order I used them in NO!)
Sounds yummy doesn't it!

Beads

Friday I was suppose to do a demo on making beads at the local high School "Fundy High". But there was freezing rain over night and even though it was in the mid 50's (+13 C) by 9am, they canceled school because of the possibility that the roads were slippery. I think they just wanted a 3 day weekend!

After I was asked I had to learn how to use a hot head…. My first bead took about 30 minutes as I was holding the glass where I would hold it in the flame on my minor… On a hot head the glass needs to be about an inch from the torch… I still have to catch myself as the bead drifts back into the flame. I also offered to give each of the kids a free bead… there was only suppose to be 12 kids… final count was 30, so I spent all my torch time last week making free beads! Now I have 35 unloved handformed disc beads....

Not sure when the demo will be rescheduled as Friday is the last day of school before the Christmas break and hardly any of the high school kids bother to go to school … I made my son go every day that the school was open (evil mother!)… and he was absolutely mortified when he got an attendance award at the grade 12 awards night!

Guess it’s time to move my bead making thoughts onto hearts as Valentines is just around the corner!

Beads & More Beads

I started making beads in 1994 when I tripped over a hot head in my Wholesale flat glass catalogue… In ’94 in the middle of nowhere Canada no-one was making beads… there were no books no Internet no nothing… I credit the fact that my beads even vaguely looked like beads in those days to Kate Fowle… as she did have a video which I bought after about 7 months of wonky window glass beads…. I was a full time stained glass artist then, so had lots of glass available but most ‘art glass’ smoked horribly on a hot head and looked blechy! I can’t say that my beads become wonderful over night, after I got the video… but at least I had a vague idea what a glass bead was suppose to look like! Moving rapidly ahead 6 months I bought a Nortel Minor torch (I am still using this torch 13 years later and it works just fine!)… I had to buy it from a Neon supplier in the US as Nortel wasn’t selling them in Canada other than through Scientific supply houses. My torch arrived got all set up and I broke my left hand…. How do you make beads with a broken hand… stuff the glass rods down inside the cast… I’m sure they were awful but I still work left handed.

Tried to stick an image in here... didn't work....
Much later... not the image I had in mind... but it's progress! That bracelet is circa 2003 that was my first bead press and I called those beads finger paint tabs.....