And The Winner Is....

Out of the 72 comments left on my Need a Name post here, number 20 is the winner!

Sarah, you are the winner of the naming contest! I will get your dozen free beads out to you on Monday since my postal lady has already driven by today. I believe I already have your address on hand as a previous bead customer :)

Thank you all for your comments and name suggestions. Without the random number generator, it would have been extremely difficult to decide upon my favorite name as there were so many wonderful suggestions! Sarah's name was "Iodine" for these beads which will show up in my Etsy shop this week.

You guys are wonderful and by the outpouring of responses, have helped me decide to host a naming contest for free beads on a monthly basis.

Happy Halloween!

Tide Pools

I have these beads sitting on my desk and I can't stop looking at them. I love the bright pops of blue around the edges of these earthy swirls.

I want to make more of these using various base colors. I'm in love with the blues!

Today is the last day to enter my naming contest for these beads & win a dozen free beads.

Rings of Saturn

These beads are similar to my Glacial Belt beads, but this time I used a dark topaz around the ivory instead of teal.

I like how these turned out. Very earthy.

Pink Ribbons

Here is my latest Pink Ribbon worry stone bead. It is now in my shop here.

More are still available here, here and here.

I don't make any profit on these beads as I donate all proceeds to the Susan G Komen fund.

Glacial Belts

The transparent teal reminds me of glaciers I saw in pics from New Zealand earlier today.

That's some watered down raku wrapped around the teal. I haven't tried this design before, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

If you haven't left a name suggestion yet, go do it now for your chance to earn a dozen free beads!

It Was a 44 Bead Weekend

Forty four beads were definitely alot to clean out, but it didn't seem like that many when I was on the torch on Sunday.

As is typical for time on the torch, it rarely feels like it is enough time for me. But it's all I got and it will have to be enough.

And so, this little preview will have to be enough. For now. :)

Playing Catch Up from Last Week

Last Thursday I disappeared to Orlando for the day. This was the sunrise that welcomed me at the Atlanta airport. Gorgeous, no? I was greeted by 83 degree temps in Orlando at 10am and left shortly before 5pm with 85 degree temps. Oh, how I wish I could have bottled them and brought them home with me!

It was a most excellent day for me meeting the account team that I work with, as well as my customer. All were super nice folks and it was great getting to put faces with voices. I also got to spend the afternoon with my boss, which I really enjoyed. If you met her, she would only say that we work together. Good people all around!

Friday flew by and before I knew it, it was Saturday morning when the kids and I drove up to North Georgia to pick up my friend Tabitha and her two boys. We went to an apple orchard/farm so the kids could have fun picking apples off the dwarf trees and we could be nickel and dimed paying for funnel cakes, hot dogs and little rides.

The kids had fun being pulled on a tractor.

And filling their little bags with apples.

Ok, the pig races were free. Boy were they a hoot to see those little furry, pink bodies hauling tail around the little race track to get back and eat their treats. I had no idea hungry pigs could be so noisy, but they made a racket while locked in the shed waiting to start their race. They had spray paint down their backs so everyone knew which pig was the fastest.

We picked up big lollipops for the kids before we left.

On our departure, the boys took off running and I chased after to get them to stop before getting to the parking lot. In my haste, I tripped and ran nose to knees for a good fifteen feet before I lost complete balance and landed with scraped knees and elbows. The only thought running through my mind during that long fall was "Please don't let my camera break. Please don't let my camera break. Please. Don't. Let. My. Camera. Break." Thankfully, it was ok, although the lens cap knocked loose in the fall. Strangers helped pick up all of the scattered apples, but my dignity was gone and I had a hard time looking anyone in the eye. It was a shame Tabitha had her hands full, otherwise she likely would have got it on video. I'm sure I was a sight to behold. :)

Saturday I drove to the Southern Flames meeting and this is the beautiful sunset that lit my way. Heather Trimlett was in town for weekend classes and gave a demo on one of her gorgeous large holed disks made from a ginormous twisty she made....too cool!

My torch was lit for a good four hours today while Todd watched the kids. I'm really pleased with everything that came out of the kiln tonight. Can't wait to show you all of the new goodies!

Little Earth Eggs

I am just enamored with this color combination. I mixed together Val Cox's Tropical Seas frit with another one of her creamy frits.

They remind me of little planets. Or the zoomed out images from Google Earth.

So blue with deep sea greens swirled in to keep you grounded.

I Need a Name!

I like these beads with swirls of a ruddy red running through them, but I'm at a loss for a name to move them into my Etsy shop.

Please help me out and leave a comment with your suggestion. I'll draw a random # on October 31st to select the winner.

Did I mention I'll send the winner a dozen beads free, including some of my latest egg beads? :)

Please leave only one comment with your name (anonymous comments won't be counted) and bead name suggestion.

Creamy Raku Eggs

Creamy, golden swirls of raku in these eggs. Not much in the way of purples or blues this time because my flame was really hot when I first melted it in with the clear.

I like how they turned out, but I want to make more using a cooler flame to get the darker colors. Maybe next weekend.

This week is busy for me as I'm spending hours outside of the normal 8-5 prepping for a daytrip I'm taking on Thursday for work. I'll be in Orlando for the day....really looking forward to my customer meeting. It will be the first time I get to meet my contacts face-to-face, which is always something I really enjoy.

Maybe Friday night I will get on the torch, but definitely over the weekend I'll be making more beads. Woot!

New Beads from the Weekend

I got a little time on the torch one morning this weekend.

Not quite the equivalent of the 5+ hours that my honeys was off at the tennis courts when I had the kids and had fun mediating disputes and squelching whining. But whatever.

I did get a free massage on Sunday and then spent the afternoon with my Dad to celebrate his 59th birthday with the kids. I enjoy watching him be a grandpa. He has fun with the kids and doesn't take anything too seriously.

Artemis Eggs

I used a discontinued frit named Artemis to make these eggs. Love these colors!

Great creamy vanilla and amber swirls through clear!

Bordello Frit

Aren't these great fall colors?

The beads looked nothing like this when they went in the kiln. No bright yellows. No bright oranges. The bordello frit is a muddy brownish red, but turns bright red or maroon when struck (cooled then re-heated in the flame).

They appeared to be light amber dots to a medium brown. I was thinking these would be named Beach Pebbles, but I was surprised with these beautiful fall colors when I opened the kiln.

These are now in my Etsy shop here.

Ghosting Eggs

I like these beads. They have different appearances, depending on the vantage point.

They can appear light amber or deep brown with a mirrory finish.

It is this mirrory, reflective surface combined with the deep brown and smoky swirls that gives them a bit of a haunting feeling. Like they are more than just little beads. Like they know something or have stories to tell.

Yes, I realize this makes me sound like a nut. My beads don't normally speak to me. Or give me weird feelings. But these do.

Lucite Challenge

My friend Sarah challenged me to make beads like these. I think these turned out pretty well. I'm not sure what the process is for making lucite beads, but with glass I had to build in layers starting with clear.

Then I dippled a rod of clear in my bordello frit and started winding it around the core of clear. Bordello is a striking glass, so I had to first cool the beads and then reheat them in the flame to turn the Bordello from light yellows into the burgundy red before I could add more clear over the top.

What do you think Sarah? Do these pass inspection?

FIFTY EIGHT BEADS!

Does this look like fifty eight beads to you? :)

I can't believe I had enough time to make almost sixty beads on Saturday while the kids were at my Mom's. The time just flew by while I was on the torch. I made two dozen new egg beads (three different sets). I experimented with bordello frit on different colors and made one set on ivory. I also made a little set of clear beads with little swirls of deep red running through after Sarah challenged me to make beads similar to these.

I'll show you close-ups of the sets as we move into the week, but wanted to show you all of the beads since it is Monday :)

My Saturday

My Mom asked to have the kids spend the night and a day with her for spoiling....so we drove them up after work yesterday and dropped them off. Todd and I went out for a quiet dinner by ourselves before coming home to watch the Twins game. We woke up early because he had to be out of the house by 8am to prepare for a tennis match (Todd is the captain and had to make sure the courts were dry/squeegeed and drinks/snacks were set up).

Good morning, my torch! This is where my kiln normally sits, so I have to wheel the filing cabinet into my desk area and bring my chair out to the torch table.

I had absolutely no mandrels ready, so I had to mix up new mud and dip over 60 mandrels.

I love my little wire decorations. They make me happy.

There are more of these available on Etsy here.

I also married a couple dozen rods of clear.

This was the kiln before I left the studio to go watch Todd win his tennis match.

When we left the house at 3:30, the kiln was pushed to the next cycle to soak the beads at a constant 940 degrees for one hour before slowly ramping down in temperature. She was filled with a whopping FIFTY EIGHT beads!

I got to see them all tonight before coming upstairs to go to bed. I'm really happy with how they turned out. I made two dozen new egg beads on 1/16th mandrels. The rest are all rounds on 3/32 mandrels, but new color combinations that I haven't tried before. I'm excited to take pics tomorrow to show you.

Not so excited to clean them all. It will take me 1.5-2 hours to remove all the beads and clean out their holes with my dremel. Anyone want to come over to help? :)

It was a very relaxing day (yes, a nice little nap was inserted in the middle of the afternoon between torch sessions) making beads and watching my honeys play tennis. Twas a much appreciated break from parental responsibilities.

Thanks Mom!!!!

New Egg Beads and Background Tiles

It only took me a week to get the remaining two tiles out of my car that I bought last weekend with the two slate tiles. I don't remember what kind of stone the bottom left tile is, but the upper right is a black granite. I wasn't expecting the reflections, even though it is glossy. But I really like how it reflects the beads in close-ups.

I really like the color of these beads AND on this new tile. But for the egg shaped beads, I think I really prefer to have opaque frit swirling around inside. The transparent frit like this blends together, so there isn't much distinction between the clear and the transparent glass. Still pretty, but I will focus my attention on the opaque frits with the egg beads.

I LOVE this royal blue. Since this is darker than the blue above, there is a little more distinction between it and the clear.

I like the reflection of the beads on the granite.

Especially in this picture! This is a better glimpse into the beads (one of them, anyway!) of how the colors are layered and swirled together throughout the egg.

The tile is reflecting the blue sky, so it doesn't look as black. But the colors in the beads stayed true. Again, I really like the reflection. I wasn't sure how the pictures would turn out of my beads when I bought the black granite. I've had problems with black backgrounds in the past where they reflect too much light and throw off all the colors (very likely due to the fact that I have no idea yet how to adjust the white balance on my cameras).

And here are the same beads on the white background. Previously, you all said you really liked the slate tile as the background. I worried that the slate detracted from the beads and their colors. That it was perhaps a bit too busy and didn't allow the beads to stand out. What do you think? Is the white just too blah and over-used, or still a good complement to be used with the slate and/or granite backgrounds?

It was a bit sunnier when I took the pics on the white background, so in comparison, the beads on the slate look rather dull :(