Todd and I arrived home late yesterday afternoon after driving 450 miles (we conquered 850 miles on Wednesday after leaving Northern Minnesota!) to a broken AC unit and a car that wouldn't start. Plans that we thought were going into effect this month have been delayed. So in the meantime, I am listening to this song again.
This weekend I hope to upload the 400+ photos I took over the last two weeks (really, that's it?!) so I can share a bit of our vacation with you all. What I can tell you right now is that there was plenty of relaxing, not enough fishing and too many desserts! My belt is really not happy staying at the same notch and thinks it should be loosened one. I'm fighting that and vowing to eat nothing but healthy now that I'm back home. Somebody come flog me tonight if I touch the desserts at my husband's tennis match, ok?
No bead pics today. The beads are all etching and won't be ready for viewing until tomorrow.
In the meantime, I wanted to share with you something that happened last week. Jezzie learned she could climb our willow tree.
I need to climb the tree and start cutting back the larger branches that extend over our fence so she doesn't think she can jump into the neighbor's yard. When she decides she has had enough perching and climbing, she drops out of the tree a good ten feet and lands with a thud. Silly cat.
Come back tomorrow for pics of all the beads going into the shop on Saturday!
My kids had asked Marcy to make Mr. and Mrs. Claus beads for them. My boy child explained it was because Santa Claus gives so much to other people that he wanted to be able to give back something special to Santa this year. His little copycat sister was immediately on board, nodding her head and saying she wanted one, too. Marcy is super talented when it comes to making sculptural glass beads and I am in awe of her abilities (Owen had originally asked me to make the bead, but it was a disaster. I knew we needed to involve a master).
Please check out Marcy's blog and shop. She is great at custom requests and makes THE best puppy dog beads! She also snuck in a surprise of the sweetest little pin that she made just for me. Marcy, you totally ROCK!
I'll be back tomorrow to share pics of beads landing in my shop this weekend. I am halfway through cleaning out the six new bead sets and have two worry stones to clean, too. I can't wait to show you!
Friday, January 21, 2011
TGIF!
Yesterday was a rough day between work and the home front (we found out Little Horse has heartworms). I feel drained and still have yesterday's adrenaline running through me. I'm ready for tomorrow to be here. To run away from my realities, if only for 36 hours. To see one of my best friends and hang out with my girls in New York City. I can't wait!
Please think good thoughts for me as I will be braving the bus and subway system alone on this trip. When I used to fly into NYC on a monthly basis for customer meetings, I always took cabs because work paid for them. But this time, I think I will save my thirty bucks and I'll just spend $2.50 to figure it out on my own. The last time I did this, I wasn't even 20. I had flown up on a buddy pass to see a friend. I was so exhausted, that I fell asleep on the subway and was woken in Harlem by a kind woman telling me "Honey, I think you missed your stop." I didn't know any better that falling asleep on the train was ill-advised. I don't normally drink coffee, but I may be filling up on it tomorrow to stay awake. I'll be leaving the house tomorrow for the airport well before I normally wake up in the mornings and I won't see the sun rise until after I reach my gate.
I can't wait until next week to share all of the photos I'll be taking this weekend. I hope you have a lovely weekend and are staying warm!
And with that, I leave you with this unconventional marriage of sorts :)
This week is flying by. The weekend is a blur. I don't remember Monday night. Wednesday night was the first chance I got on the torch this week. Tonight I will be back on the torch making more eggs. Tomorrow night I'll be watching my honeys play tennis in a playoffs match with his mens seniors team.
Tuesday we went to a tennis tournament and saw some big names play like James Black, Mardy Fish, Taylor Dent and Andy Roddick. They didn't allow SLR cameras, so I took my little Olympus point n shoot and got some decent pics before the sun dropped behind the trees. Wish I had had my camera when I was standing three feet from Andy Roddick and made eye contact. It was so cool being so incredibly close to these talented players and watching them play. Here is a pic of James Blake as he was walking onto the court.
My Grandma is doing much better since her little surgery last week where they put a stent in each kidney artery. They found a 77% blood flow blockage on the right side. No wonder her blood pressure was so out of whack!
Maggie is also doing much better. The vet drilled out two infected roots and drained the nastiness that had swelled her cheek (you don't even wanna know). She is now on heavy duty pain meds (two different kinds twice daily) and strong antibiotics for the next week.
A coworker shared this video with me. For all of you who know softy dads who try to be tough, this is for you. I am especially amused because my husband has always wanted to be a white boy rapper. A church in Oklahoma produced this video. I LOVE the Disney movie scene with the daughter watching her father. Awesomeness!
Counting down the days....
2 days until I bring my chickens home.
It has been almost three weeks since I have smooched their cheeks!
I'm so excited and can't wait until she gets here!!!
We will be going out for a Mexican dinner and bead shopping :D
11 days until school begins.
How did I get to be the mom of a Kindergartner and 2nd grader so soon?
The part about school starting back that makes me happiest is that I can get rid of that mohawk on the boy!
29 days until I go to Philadelphia for BeadFest 2010!
We will be camera nerds on the plane because we are sitting next to each other.
We are sharing a hotel room with Lorelei and Nancy. It will be a FUN girls weekend!
53 days until my Grandma turns 92. Wow!
57 days until the boy child turns 8.
63 days until my honeys and I celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.
I can't believe we started dating 12 years ago.
It doesn't seem that long at all.
65 days until my baby turns 6.
Christmas will be here before I know it and I barely have any of my shopping done. I need to kick it into gear. I also haven't sent out our 2009 Christmas cards yet. I am so far behind.
This has been a busy week and I have gotten so much done.
I have been prepping for an account review presentation for several weeks that I delivered today. I felt like it went well and it is a relief to be done with that.
I have made a TON of new egg beads this week...YAY for nightly torch time!
Today is the last day of school for my kids and then I will be the mom of a Kindergartner and a 2nd Grader. Wow! How did I get here so quickly?
I hope you enjoy my video about dipping mandrels!
There are to be no comments left about knowing where my children get their bizarre tendencies to make faces or other questionable behaviors. It is ALL from their father!
Crossing my fingers it does not rain tomorrow. My friend Tabitha and I are planning on driving the kids up to a college campus in North Georgia so we can play with our cameras and the kids. :)
Lori of Waterstone stopped by to personally deliver the gorgeous wristlet I won on her blog. I roped her into doing a video with me as she melted glass to make her first ever lampwork bead. Not everyone would have agreed to doing something new for the first time, but I think it gives an accurate idea to folks that the first time is not easy to work out the multi-hand coordination needed. If you're new to lampworking, then don't give up. It wasn't easy for me the first time I tried it. Or even the first dozen. It felt so unnatural to me.
Thank you for agreeing and being a good sport, Lori!
I preferred to tell you about the beads I made in a video, rather than rushing to get them cleaned, etched and photographed. Because I didn't want to make you wait any longer. Because I'm just cool like that.
Some of you have asked about how the glass looks in comparison to after it has been melted into beads. Here is a video clip discussing how I use the glass and what it does in the flame. I also show you the glass rods in the video with the beads.
Here are the greenish nugget beads that have that wonderfully ethereal quality with the mother-of-pearl appearance. The inner core of the bead that was unexposed to the reducing flame maintains the original green appearance. The exterior took on a metallic finish until I encased (covered) it in clear. That's when it turned to this lovely mother-of-pearl coloring which I love! These will be added to my shop tonight.
Here is the same green metallic luster glass on ivory. I love how I can see into the depths of the green in some areas (like the bead on the left) and the crackling of the ivory underneath is visible, like the bottom of a creek bed. I love the dark outline that surrounds the green where it meets the ivory. This is a typical reaction with any silver glass on ivory. And then that fun metallic, mirrory finish created from the reducing flame is seen on the bead on the right.
Lastly is the pic of the striking glass on rubino (pink) and teal glass base colors. It changed from the clearish color to yellowish greens and blues. I need to work with this more to see if I can get any purples out of it.
When I opened up my blog to questions about anything, Erin left this comment: I think it is always fascinating to see what goes into making a bead. It makes me appreciate it so much more. I would be interested about the basics of how a bead is made, but also how you choose your color palette. Do you have a preconceived notion of what you want the bead to be like, or is it more organic, growing out of the flame with a mind and direction all its own?
Erin, I LOVE to know how anything and everything is made. I enjoy watching documentaries on companies that make actual products or factory/assembly lines. About six years ago, one of my customers that was a major carpet manufacturer gave me a tour of their factories in North Georgia. I was captivated by the dozens of people it took to operate all the different machines and how different the materials looked at the start of the process before they were turned into carpet. Likewise, with art or jewelry, I love knowing how each piece is made to appreciate all of the work that went into it, as well as have a better understanding of the value set on it in an Etsy shop or on eBay.
I have a tank of chemolene (similar to propane, but it burns hotter/cleaner) hooked up to my torch, as well as an oxygen concentrator. I first turn the red knob on top to the left to let a little of the gas seep out so I can flip my lighter and get a flame out of the torch. Then I roll the silver knob forward that is on the side of the torch to release the oxygen into the flame. The oxygen mixes with the gas on the surface of the torch and turns the orangish-yellow flame to one that is filled with blue. The oxygen jacks up the temperature of the flame to very hot temperatures.
I fiddle with both knobs to get even amounts of gas and oxygen to create a neutral flame. If there is more gas coming out, the flame is more bushy and yellow and called a reducing flame. A reducing flame brings the metals out of the glass to the surface which turn into different colors or turn into a metallic finish. A flame that has less gas and more oxygen is called an oxidizing flame, but I don't remember why a lampworker would want that kind of flame. Obviously I haven't used that much in the last five years! :)
Here is a video my friend Wendy made a few years ago to show you how I make the bead once the torch is fired up. I need to get her to do it again for me so the setting is my pretty bead studio and not the garage with junk piled up all around.
After the flame is set up, I hold a mandrel in my left hand to heat it up (it needs to be hot for the glass to stick) and a rod of glass in my right hand to dance in and out of the flame so it heats up slowly. Then I can start making the bead by melting the glass on the mandrel while constantly turning the mandrel to keep a round bead. If I stop turning, gravity will pull the hot glass downward and then I will have a majorly wonky bead to contend with in getting it back into shape.
As for my color palette of choices, I have a few hundred colors to choose from in my glass cabinet. I had to do inventory of my glass a few weeks ago for my taxes and found I had close to 150 pounds of glass in my cabinet. HOLY SHMOLY! That's alotta glass! Probably a little more than half of the glass is opaque. I'm not good at choosing four plus colors of glass to mix on one bead. I like to keep things simple, so I normally choose two colors or sometimes three if I'm feeling a little crazy (although may have to pull out my color wheel to see what three colors line up in the spinning triangle...I think the art term for those three colors is trident, but I could be mixed up).
Most of the time when I sit down at the torch, I have some orders to make and those are first on my list to get in the kiln. I pull out the necessary colors and get to work on my orders. Sometimes working on those orders will spark new ideas of variations on those same beads in color/shape or completely new beads. A lot of times, I already have ideas floating in my head during the week of what I want to make when I do get to sit down at the torch on weekends. If my mind is blank and no inspiration is in me when I look in my glass cabinet for colors to pull out, I'll ask my kids what colors they would like for me to use in a bead for them. That's enough to get me started and then I easily flow in other directions with new beads.
I do try to have the colors out ahead of time and know what kind of bead I want to make because it is difficult to keep a bead warm enough and in the shape by continuously turning the mandrel while I back away from the torch, open my glass cabinet, turn on the little light inside and lean over to search for the specific color, pull it out, turn off the light, shut the cabinet and go back to the torch. All of my glass is organized by manufacturer on each shelf and then by color, so I've got a good idea ahead of time where to look. But still. I try to avoid those hassles by knowing what I want to do before I even heat the mandrel for the bead.
Wendy filmed this for me in March 2008 when my studio was still out in the garage. Hence the cramped and messy space, but it was functional. I did not have a special filter on my camera (like the didymium glasses I wear to block out the dangerous rays from the flame), so the bead gets a little lost in the flame. If you had the same view as a lampworker wearing the glasses, you would be able to clearly see the glass melting in the flame. I hope you enjoy watching!
This is what I LOVE to do when my kids are sleeping or when I find free, alone time!!!
