Class Beads

I wanted to share with you the beads I made in the lampworking class I took from Sara Sally LaGrand on Tuesday.  I gained so much wonderful information from her on silver glasses and color reactions, as well as a different technique for warming up glass rods (much more effective for me!).  So many possibilities and ideas floating in my head to try out now and not enough time.  Boo.  Hiss.

These are new colors (and reactions) for me on the two left beads.  I have used/made similar beads to the big one on the right.

I have made tree beads in the past (maybe 2-3 years ago?), but never on a sunset rainbow background.  My favorite in this batch is the second from the left.  I love how the copper green base turned purple in the kiln as the silver leeched out around it from the bumps.

This one is an awesomely translucent bead that I just love.  It covers up a huge chunk of my palm!

I like the blue on the orange bead on the right the best.  I do like the reactions of the silver glass on the two left beads and how an outline is created where the two colors meet.

Definite possibilities with all of these, as well as this little pod bead below.  I know we were in a class designed for us to replicate the original artist's beads, but I really shied away from copying her beads with the exception of the tree bead and this pod.  I focused more on the color combos, reducing techniques to bring out the best colors and making the beads my own as I know I will make them going forward.  I don't want to make and sell beads that are like someone else's, so this pod bead below will take some thought.  Unfortunately, this one suffered from thermal shock and cracked in several places and is not good for anything other than admiring.  From afar.

This is the back.  The hole does not go all the way through, so the way to attach it to any piece of work will be through the metal hook sticking out.  I like that idea and have wondered what kind of metal to use for years to do this.  Now I know!  :D

Here is a sneak peek of beads coming into the shop after 1pm EST on this Saturday.  I have full sets of all the beads under the eggs, they're just not all clean yet.  :)

I am really loving this grey egg with the purple speckles, orange leaves and hints of blue.  The same glass combo was used on the ivory egg to its left, but the purple just turned brown.  Must.  Use.  More.  Of.  This.

After a week or more of abysmal grey skies and cold temps, the sun graced us today.  The temps only got into the low 50s, but seeing the sun again made up for so much.  I have missed it and didn't realize how much until it came back today :)

Come back tomorrow for pics of all the sets going into the shop on Saturday afternoon.

Getting my feet wet in blogging

I'm slowly learning how to move around in this; waiting on the learning curve to speed up! I'm not quite sure why it wouldn't let Marcy leave a comment....I checked all the options and everything shows people should be able to leave comments if they're so inclined. I even removed the CAPTCHA word verification pita. Please email me at kelleysbeadstudio@mac.com if you try to leave comments and experience problems.

In the meantime, between now and the end of the year, I'm weighing the pros & cons of blogspot. Is it better/easier/faster/more/better than my website hosted by Mac and that sucks in a Ben Franklin at the start of every year? I don't know, but I want to explore my options and determine if less is more. Let me know what you think because I feel the onset of butterflies in my stomach thinking about giving up all my pages of pictures. Not that I feel the need to show off all of my work, but that all of the pics remind me of how far I have come and just how much I have really made over the past few years.


Last night I went to the Southern Flames meeting and because I was late counting (and recounting) my beads to give to Beads of Courage, I missed dinner. But it was so worth not eating. First, Robert Simmons did a demo on making glow-in-the-dark beads that are given to the kids who have completed radiation treatments. And then Brad Shute made a coupla beads from the silver glass he makes in the furnace on his front porch. The colors coming out of the glass were FaNtAsTiC! Brad brought a whole box of different batches of his StrikingColor glass to sell. Wendy and I pooled our backpocket cash and bought a half pound. If only we had known to bring more cash! Wendy made the pretty barrel beads and some incredible purples showed up. And I made all the little nugget beads.

I handed over a bag of 260 of my beads to donate to the Beads of Courage program and then we ran out the door and back to my house to fire up the torches. Wendy made close to a dozen barrel beads and I made almost 30 nugget beads with our new StrikingColor glass. To bring out the colors, we had to strike the glass/beads (pulling the mandrel out of the flame for the bead to cool down & lose the glow before re-introducing to the flame again, then repeating over & over). Wendy did this to the max, as she is prone to do because that's what she's good at. Her beads brought out some beautiful purples and other creamy colors. I struck my beads only once or twice and stopped when I thought I was getting ahead because I was seeing these incredible blues and greens. But this morning when I ran down to my kiln like a kid on Christmas, I found that ALL of my nuggets were brown and amber, with just a smidge of greens & blues around the holes. Now these browns and ambers are very pretty and I can't wait to string them up into a new set of jewelry. But it was a little disappointing not seeing a whole batch of green and blue beads when I lifted the lid to my kiln. Obviously an operator assumption gone bad, so I made a note to self to strike the heck out of future beads and like Wendy, I might find some colors other than brown and amber. Also, her encased beads had more vibrant colors, so encasing is on my mental To Do list for my next night at the torch.

Cas and I have set a date of December 6th to host a jewelry party at her home. She's creating the fliers to put out in her neighborhood the week before. We still need to decide on a date to host another party at my home because we're on different sides of the city and want to try to make more new friends & customers. I'm excited, but I need to make new displays. All of my current displays are wire and take up less than a square foot of space. I want something longer and taller that will allow ALL of my necklaces to hang together and with plenty of space in between. Since I LOVE to build things and work with my hands....I'm debating between building a stand with wood or using pipes from the plumbing section at Home Depot. Leaning towards the plumbing section because the pipes and connectors have always worked well as poles and stands for my birdhouses in the backyard. And plumbing would be a lot less precision work on measuring and cutting. We'll see. I need to scope out the plumbing section and see what they have in stock or go for a couple of cool ballisters with a dowel in between.

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday! I'm ready for the week to be over because I'll be that much closer to having reports done for work, the kitchen mess/mail counter cleaned up and the long Thanksgiving four day weekend is just around the corner. Chloe has her swim lesson Saturday morning and Todd will likely be playing in a tennis match. Cas and I are going to a bead show in Gwinnett in the afternoon (I really need more SS crimp clasps for leather cords!) and then we have a couple of parties to go to in the evening. Sunday is another busy day of beads (Wendy and I are going to a Beads of Courage event where we have a two hour window to sit at a torch and play with free glass to make radiation and other beads for the kids!) and then a belated birthday celebration with my Mom & Grandma.....because last weekend I was in Peachtree City watching Todd play in the USTA state championships. I can't wait because Mom is making me my favorite Mississippi Mud Cake. I LOVE that cake....I look forward to it all year!