Beads and Patina

Here are more beads from last night.  I made rounds this time because I just love these so much.  I'm still so intrigued by this frit because it appears periwinkle and purple, yet turns up this stunning blue.

Here is my supervisor over the photography shoot :)

More Torch Time

This has been a productive week and we're only half way through it!  I spent more time on the torch last night and started in on Nancy's eggs.  There were four of these dark purple eggs with the mirrory, metallic finish that I love.  But one of them gave up the good fight during the dremeling/cleaning process this morning.  Sigh.

And a close up of the yellow egg.  This color wasn't on Nancy's list, but I just had to make one because the glass rods were so scrumptious.  It is a new glass that arrived yesterday and I LOVE it.  It has shades of ochre, cream and purple in it.  More rounds to follow below!

I also made this fun hollow.  Debating on making it a pendant on a necklace for my jewelry shop or as is for my beads shop.

I tried out another jar of frit from Kerry and made these little green gems.

Here are the rounds using the new glass.  LOVE!  Not sure what I would do with these, but I may just pull them back out of the shop and string them up.  They make me happy sitting on my desk.  :)

Todd has more tennis tonight, so I should be back on the torch again.  Making more eggs.  Trying out more new frit.  And new glass.  And sitting in my happy place.  Woot!

Only two more days until a three day weekend.  Yahoo!

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?

Back from vacation & making new beads

I've only been back from vacation for a few days and had to replace a propane tank before firing up my torch again. That has created a separate set of challenges which I won't go into here, so I'll just stick to showing you pics of my latest beads :)

Below are some black base beads with white dots covered in cranberry fuschia swirls. Has been awhile since I've done the white dots on black, but this is the first time I have used frit on clear to swirl over the white dots instead of plain-Jane transparent rods. I like the end result very much!


Some old Spiral Dance frit used in these beads with the same technique as above. I like the glittery, sparklies that came out :)

Some of Val Cox's Gypsy Skirt frit helped make these beads. Instead of clear, I used a pale transparent pink. But I think the pinkness of these beads came more from the frit than the glass.

And lastly a set of cranberry swirls with white cores that Cristi asked me to wrap in silver dots by using fine silver wire (the silver is 99.99999% pure). Lemme know how you think I did, ok?

Home Sweet Home

We were in Arizona for a whole week and loved every minute of it with our family in the warmer/drier temps. The grandparents (Todd's folks) spoiled the kids rotten with love and daily trips to the swimming pool. Todd and I got plenty of time to rest & get our health back from the flu. We shared delicious dinners with my Uncle Mike, Aunt Gail and cousins on several different evenings. And my cousin Jesse schooled Owen in the fine art of winning at Super Mario Kart.

We (all of the girls --> moi, Chloe, Grandma Eloise, Grandma Sharon, Grandma Suzanney and Aunt Gail) went to the Great Fair in Fountain Hills yesterday where there were 400+ vendors/artists. It was a lot of fun and great weather for walking around all afternoon. Chloe picked out tie-dyed hats for Owen & herself, but I didn't find anything to buy other than Dippin Dots, Funnel Cakes and Ginormous Hot Dogs. It was a fun day! I wish I had a pic of the fountain that went off for ten minutes at the top of every hour. I'm betting it shot up a couple hundred feet into the air.

We are home now and the kids are in bed. Glad we have a day to rest & unpack before getting into the daily grind of work & school again. Although it would be nice if we had another week of vacation to spend in Arizona with our fam or just chilling on the homefront. It has been close to 3 weeks since I've been on the torch and I am suffering serious withdrawal. First on the agenda tomorrow is to change out propane tanks when I run up to the grocery store to buy milk & cereal for the kidlets.

I am determined to get a coupla hours on the torch tomorrow making beads with new/different techniques. I have long been wanting to make black beads with white dots covered by transparents. Those have been on the mental To Do list for months (ok, years) and I just haven't gotten around to it. Not a particularly difficult technique, but they look so cool. I want to make some new color combo twisties. And I want to play with more of my frit that I bought a month ago from Val Cox.

I just bought a TON of frit last night from her and I'm so excited because Sabrina said she was shipping it out today. She ships Priority USPS, so it might come Monday if I'm lucky or Tuesday at the latest. I can't wait!

After I get the camera unpacked & pics downloaded, I'll post a new blog with pics of beads made by ASGB (Arizona Society of Glass Beadmakers) artists that inspired me. :)

This Weekend

Here are two sets of beads I have been busy making for Kat.  I love the look of raku on black, especially when it is etched.  I varied my technique a little this time and ended up with more blues :)

Kat also wanted the raku on beige.  What do you think...does this qualify as beige?

I LOVE this purple frit from Val Cox and melted it into clear rods to wrap around the light sky blue beads.  This was a color combination request from Chloe this past week...

More of Val's purple frit, but melted on top of white frit before swirling through clear beads.

And then silver melted on top of a Vetrofond Strawberry glass.  Quite a reaction happened between the silver and the glass, which you can see in the dark lines connecting the dots where the silver wire melted in.  This was a practice round at re-familiarizing myself with melting silver wire in the flame before I make a set for Cristi.  Hoping to get time on the torch to do that this week before we leave for Phoenix on the 14th (can't wait!)

We had temps in the high 60s with sun most of the weekend (cept for when I took pics this afternoon!  grrrr), but I took advantage of the warmer weather to 1. open the windows in the house and 2. take pics of beads to list in Etsy this week.

Look At What I Made!

Here are just a few of the beads I made on Saturday....a few of the 50+ beads I made!!!! My husband was such a love and watched after the kids throughout the day as I was on and off my torch for an hour at a time as I made beads for Lorelei and played with my new Val Cox frit that arrived that afternoon. Can we say ExCiTeD to play with new blends AND have all day to do it?


Frit makes me happy. Particularly this cranberry/hot pink/fuschia blend! I'm not done playing with this yet and can't wait to try it out with silver. These beads below have little white cores and then the cranberry frit is swirled outwards as it is melted and blended with clear. Great little beads that are already drawing beads on the homefront.

Here is more of the same frit, but I melted it and blended it in with the clear in a heavier volume so the beads are much more intense in color. They look like candy to me!


And then we have the cranberry frit at the core of these big beads that are encased in clear and then have beautiful, deep purple frit swirled around them. They remind me a bit of colors used in the Indian culture. They were by far my favorites and they also got the top thumbs up from my husband as his favorites of the day, too. It makes me happy that Todd is interested in looking at what I make and he offers up positive (and sometimes negative) feedback. Nice to have his support and encouragement :)


There were two other frit blends I tried out last night, but the beads still need to be cleaned & photographed, so you'll just have to wait until my next blog post. And another new blend arrived today....woo hoo! I messed up and ordered two jars of one frit blend. When I realized my mistake, I emailed Val's sister Sabrina who manages her frit company and asked if I could exchange the jar of frit and I would pay shipping both ways. Sabrina was AWESOME, replying very quickly that she would be happy to exchange jars and that I only needed to pay shipping for returning the one jar. My new jar arrived today at the same time I was sending back my extra jar to Sabrina. She kept her promise to send out my new color choice ASAP. I thought that was excellent customer service and don't remember the last time I was treated so well....especially when it was my fault. I am still in awe that she didn't wait for my return.

Two thumbs up, three cheers and FIVE STARS for supportive husbands of addicted lampworkers AND for Sabrina at Val Cox Frit!

New techniques

I had ordered Val Cox's book Frit Secrets last weekend and I was so excited when it arrived on Thursday!  I read through it cover-to-cover before I went to bed that night, but still haven't gotten my fill looking at all of pictures and beads Val included.  She has really perfected her photography skills over the years and aspire to attain half her skills and eye for capturing the perfect shot.  Val's beads are beautiful, the book is well written (definitely a labor of love for her!) and impressed that she took EVERY picture in the book!

She uses her rods of glass like paintbrushes, dipping the hot ends into frit & melting it in before beginning to wind each bead.  I tried it out and ended up with these beautiful cranberry beads 

and a similar set in blues.  Very pleased with how they turned out....I can't wait to make more in different colors!  I also made a few test beads where I followed this same technique, but melted in snippets of silver which created some really cool effects.  The pinks turned more golden and that shimmer and sparkle from any angle.  I have used silver plenty over the past few years in making silvered ivory and occasionally on opaque black glass to create a sparkling galaxy effect.  And once I made silvered clear stringers for some beads my friend Kat liked & wanted....but that was put on ivory and achieved a totally different appearance than sandwiching the silver between layers of transparents.  

And then I tried a similar technique shared by Val Cox in her book....I used a little Iris Gold frit in the inner layers of the transparent glass with snips of silver melted in.  You can see the edges of the frit highlighted in mint green squares/spots.  Kinda reminds me of jelly fish or other dangerous, yet beautiful sea creatures.  While I was making these beads, the colors reminded me of Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy book that I purchased and treasured well over a decade ago and probably haven't opened in the last five years (shame on me, I need to pull it out and share it with the kids!).  The colors and depth of these beads made me feel like I was walking into the forest primeval and could very possibly find one of those fairies Lady Cottington trapped between the pages of her journal.  There are little air bubbles in these beads and when the larger ones catch my eye, I involuntarily hold my breath like I am under water.