Thursday, May 25, 2006

i heart mom

another swanky birthday bracelet & earring set - this time for my mother.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


these beads are made from effetre black, dark ivory, mango coral, a wee bit of avacado green and handpulled aventurine stringers. this time the goldstone is cased in pale topaz. the small beads are ivory freshwater pearls and the findings are sterling silver.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


i love the fancy stick pearls, they are new addition to the stash.


Wednesday, May 24, 2006

raku voodoo

when you do that voodoo that you do so well...

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


can you believe it?

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


i finally got the raku frit to work. turns out i wasn't supposed to be reducing it, just touching it to cold metal (brass) when it cooled to dark cherry red.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


the classic combo - black, dark ivory and raku.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

j'ave maria

this is maria.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


this is her birthday present.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


this is her birthday luncheon at java's market cafe.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


and chocolate cake & strawberries aftermath.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

wisteria

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

double dated the other night with the j's. we walked the gardens at the george eastman house while waiting for a screening of the marx brother's "animal crackers."

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

jackie loves wisteria, i love her spring coat with the wisteria.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

with this snapshot as my inspiration, i selected my colors. now you know how i came up with the color combination of pastel & transparent periwinkle, rubino oro, opalino nile green, opalino white & aventurine (i substituted encased goldstone for the yellow gold of her formidable handbag). they are quite large, the center bicone is just over an inch long.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

spring skies

a nice unplanned flameworking session last night.
usually, everything is all carefully worked out ahead in my bead sketchbook.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

after a flowering tree filled dog walk in highland park i think this wonderful color combination just happened.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

these new beads are made from moretti/effetre copper green, dark ivory and handmade goldstone stringers. the stringers were pulled with transparent grass green (medium) encasing the aventurine chunks. if you neeeeed some, you can get aventurine chunks from island glass' ebay store Moretti & More

i love working with the highly reactive copper green, the little sparks when you're flaming are so fizzy and somehow exciting.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

walking highland park, the week before the lilac festival, is one of the lovliest walks of the year.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Saturday, May 06, 2006

better than ever - forsythia

finally got around to cleaning out the newest batch forsythia beads.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

much, much better with the new non-serrated tweezers.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

the leaf spacers came after watching Mahine (of More Fire) give a demo on shaping flower petals. they are basically pulled flower petals made from a droplet of glass flattened, and pulled with tweezers, off the bottom of a very basic bead.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

the spacer beads are just yellow encased with clear and rolled in apple green frit.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

i don't know what's up with me and the color spring green? yesterday was the annual barn sale for Flax clothing in Ithaca. as i do every year i drove back to my hometown and bought a years worth of clothing - it's all i wear except for black jeans. i did not buy one piece of black - and somehow came home with three pairs, all different shades, of spring green flood pants. the trees along the lake were all budding out and i think i was so in love with that color on the drive down that i just bought everything i saw in that color range. i also bought some thing the color of dirty orange sherbet - that's an all time first, we'll see if i ever wear it...

Monday, May 01, 2006

old odd pod bracelet

"hooray hooray the first of may outdoor fucking begins today" -sam abrams

one of the first bracelets i ever made came back for a visit this morning.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

it's clasp had gotten snagged in the cuff of a black sweater and one of the crimp bead gave out.
i performed a 'while-u-wait' re-stringing and got a quick photograph of it.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

i love these beads.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


they were my very first attempt at beads inspired by seed pods.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

no, they do not look like molars.