Arizona Beads!

I got all of Wednesday at my Aunt Gail's home and much of it was spent in her studio.  H-E-A-V-E-N!  I tried out several new techniques.  She's got two torches set up with great ventilation and good lighting.  We were surrounded by TONS of glass.  I had no orders to make (yay for a little vacation) and fiddled around trying out things that have been in the back of my mind for weeks.

I made this big cube bead with a gorgeous color of transparent blue that is no longer sold (not even found in batches on eBay or the lampworker forums). Sniff.  I loved it!  It is a dot-on-dot technique with multiple layers of clear encasing it.  I smashed it into a square and really like how it turned out.  Will be making more of these, but maybe not as large.

Here is the same technique, but with a cobalt blue and not smashed into a cube.  I had not intended to leave the bead ridged, but the bead release on the mandrel broke and the bead started spinning so I finished in a hurry and stuck it in the kiln.

This bead was playing around with a transparent orange base and then another light transparent dipped in a frit which created some cool reactions and awesome blues.  Unfortunately, I didn't do so hot of a job photographing all of it.  So that's something on the To Do list for when I return home.

How's the cement patio working for you as a background to my beads?  It's all I got out here in AZ. :)

Tomorrow I will be sleeping in my own bed, which will be nice.  But I'm really not ready to leave my in-laws, aunt & uncle, the mountains or the warm temps.

Arizona - February 2009

Ok, a quick post with a few pics from our trip because I know some of you want to see :)

My two favorite guys when we ate lunch at the Farm in Tempe. Great little sandwich shop in the middle of a pecan grove. They also had a great artist's studio & small farm for produce & chickens at the end of the orchard. Fun afternoon!

Who knew midgets from my family would ever be able to jump on their own to reach the monkey bars?! My boy did and he was able to swing his way all the way across!!!

The kids took turns sleeping in our room or on the floor with the Grandparents in their room. Bean insisted on moving the sleeping bag into the closet when she slept with us in our room :)

Owen playing the archeologist at the Southwest Science Museum in Mesa. He had fun brushing aside all the rubber pellets before finding several 'fossils'.

Uncle Mike with my Grandma Eloise

Raising Arizona

We made it out to Phoenix as a family, without eating our children on the plane. Todd was just too exhausted and I worked on blocking out the five screaming bebes in the surrounding rows. The girl child is back to her normal self and the boy child ditched his fever as of this morning. Both make a concerted effort to tell me their strep throat is ALL GONE, so they don't need to take any more medicine. Granted, if I was having to chew up those fowl smelling amoxycillin tablets, I'd be campaigning an end to the meds, too. Todd is still hacking & coughing and my fever disappears for only a few hours before returning. Blech. At least we are with a wonderful set of grandparents to help watch & entertain the kids while we crawl back into bed and sleep.

In spite of remaining under the weather, we have immensely enjoyed the excellent Phoenix weather and spending time with family. Sunday night we went over to my Uncle Mike & Aunt Gail's home for dinner and hung out with the cousins. Yes, that's my Aunt Gail on the very left in the green shirt & specs who taught me how to melt glass back in 2005. She was the instigator of my addiction to playing with fire and making beads....I can't thank her enough for igniting this passion! My cousins and J's girlfriend are on the left. My Grandma Eloise (she doesn't look 90, does she?) and my Mom are front/center with Uncle Mike in the middle looking over Grandma while we're holding up the squirmers on the right.

We got massages tonight which were awesome. If you live in the Mesa area, or even within a 45 minute driving radius....you should make an appointment at Simple Cure Massage Therapy. Their hour long massages were forty five bucks and the massages were really an hour long (ok, both therapists went closer to 70 minutes with both of us). It was a small shop with only two massage rooms, but the therapists delivered phenomenal massages!