Almost Wordless Wednesday & BTW

The crazy quilt that we bought while we were in NL this fall.....

My first crazy quilt bead... Gord took one looka at it and told me I'd forgoten the spiders web....

This one has a web and is on etsy....  Webs are meant to bring good luck

Almost wordelss wednesday and BTW

This is actually the back of a bead... The front is lovely but I just love the texture and colours on this side!

If you want to see the front of this bead it's in my etsy store

Almost wordless wednesday

Georgie is happily living in California now, where there is no snow..... although there is no snow here this year either at the moment... but I'm sure that will change :(

Today the forecast high is -8 C, the forecast low is -6C and the current temp is -14C... someone is rather confused!

Bead Table Wednesday (BTW)

The green background on this is rather bilious!  But it's actually good contrast to work on!

January's sateam blog carnival

The topic for this months blog carnival is "What is your favorite material and why?" If my answer to that isn't glass I'm in trouble... I really do have enough glass to open a store... actually I have more glass than a lot of stores do... I have glass for doing windows, for fusing, for lampworking, for jewellery, ... I have boxes of Crystals, pressed Check Glass, I have glass seed beads (that's my latest lust).



I first met glass in 1969 living in Switzerland.... Jump 15 years to a flat glass class that I took as a favor to a friend. I won't say cutting glass was instant love but once you start taking over the house/ garage/ studio with sheets of glass you have to pretend to love it!



But then I made fusing.... heat ... I'm drawn towards anything that produces heat! I'm always frozen so anything that produces heat is GOOD! Fusing was good but then along came flames and fire... I have a torch... I can now make beads... Oh did I forget to mention that I have a houseful of glass lampworked beads.....And if I wasn't in love with glass as glass just look at the colours! I love colour...

If your wondering where the picture of the sheet glass is.... my dungeon is too dingy and gloomy to take a decent photograph in! But I've just started making rondels on my torch to use in my windows.



Here's everyone elses links

galadryl
O'Refined
beadsire
Familee jewels

New style tree bead

This sort of looks like a green valentine..... was suppose to be the might oak bursting into spring foliage... think it lost something in translation!

The end of another year....

Today is the last day of 2010.... I will remember 2010 as the year that I helped my parents move out of the house that they had lived in for 60 years & that I grew up in! It's also the year of the 11,000 mile (16,000 km) road trip. We drove through parts of 23 states and 7 provinces and I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time!

This was my 11th summer for the gallery... As far as sales go, it was a 22 day summer August 11 - Sept 2, the weather was wonderful all spring and all summer, but the people were non existent! The summer ended on Sept 2 because of a hurricane warning... Once again the hurricane was a non event. However, while I was in Edmonton on Oct 13 there was a storm that was not forecast that did cause damage! Then there was the flooding a couple of weeks ago! The curling rink has power again but all of the plumbing has been condemned.... Nothing to do with the flooding, it wasn't done properly in the first place... no-one noticed until now! Doubt if the ice will be put back in this year, so Gord will curl in Black's or St Andrew's! I'll take the year off. Actually we've had four major storms in the last 4 weeks!

and yes... our house still leaks not very much, but the kitchen wall will not be finished until the last drop is stopped! However if the wall had not leaked I wouldn't have got a new sliding door and a deck off the kitchen as the entire wall would not have been rotten!

DO I have any New Years resolutions... not really, Every year I say that I will improve my online presence There's Etsy, then there's my website , and then there's this blog (guess you don't need the link to this since your already here!) Nothing gets the attention it should.... Part of my problem is I buy things online, but I don't really buy jewellery or glass beads online so I guess I figure since I don't buy beads or jewellery online why would anyone else? ... The reason I don't buy those may be because I don't need them since I make them!

Thommy would like to wish everyone a Happy and Safe New Years!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Double Helix Clio on a clear hollow bead,

ABS Carnival Bloggers... Exploration

Exploration….

“Exploration is the act of searching or traveling a terrain (including space, see space exploration) for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans. In human history, its peak is seen during the Age of Discovery for Europe's contact with the rest of the world, and Major explorations after the Age of Discovery for scientific exploration in the modern era.”

This is an interesting topic for me as my first University degree was in Geology and I spent a number of years working as an Exploration Geologist… OK so none of the above is the type of exploration that relates to art beads… however lets grab the phrase ‘the act of searching’ that is what I have spent the last 17 days doing.. searching through my hords of ‘double helix’, Rocio & TAG silvered glasses … trying to recreate a bead…

I had/have a pendant in the gallery… , a cutomer saw it… She wants a pair of earrings made out of the same bead!



No problem, …. HA HA… base white… swirl of silvered glass … psuedo encased…. Well I have tried almost every rod of different silvered glass that I have… approx 30… I have 3 different whites I’m sure they all do something different and at least 5 clears…. Do you have any idea how many beads I’ve made in the last 17 days… since I had to make at least 2 of every test in case I got it right….

Here's about 20 % of the beads....



The first week they were actually pretty beads… now they are fuggly… totally FUGGLY! This morning after I pulled yesterdays beads out of the kiln I officially gave up! The woman will not get her earrings!

However some of the beads have been lovely! This bracelet (probably Kronos) lasted two days in the gallery... I rescued the fuggly beads by adding coin pearls to them and actually the jewellery is OK....





I HATE to admit this but I still haven't quit trying... I'm thinking that the glass is actually original Olympic Rain... I just need the humidity to match the day that I made that first bead and I'll be all set!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Moonrise on the Tundra

In case you missed this....

This is what Jo did with my bead soup ingredients... Isn't that bail just perfect!

Wordless Wednesday...

Winter Wonderland

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Meet Thomasina... mother of the 3 little Smurfs & my newest Jellyfish bead..... I couldn't decide which picture to post so you get them both!

New Tree Bead....

Marvin the Marvelous Mummy

Marvin has been hounding me ever since he hopped out of the crypt (kiln) yesterday morning to get his picture plastered all over the internet...

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Here's my itty bitty jellyfish beads for earrings! They are just over .5 inches hole to hole and about the same size at their base....

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Low maintenance Chicken Farm!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Your sure this is a FISH???? Does it move?

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?