odd pods

seed pods?

fall pod - dark ivory base with lots of differnt red, orange & yellow (both clear & transparent) stringers & silver foil.

southwestern seed pod - copper green base with red chunks, twisted with dark ivory stringers.

plasma blob

a ruffled edge blob of glass.

medium red, large size raku frit, dark ivory frit & silver foil.

city crows

a nightime snapshot of the downtown flock. just one tree, of the dozens of trees, full of thousands and thousands of crows

a pendant for my sister.
the bead was made with a light grey core wrapped with silver foil, that center was encased in light transparent blue and some fine silver wire added on the outside. the extra baubles are pearls and a small nugget of rock crystal. everything's hung together on a sterling silver chain.

golden berries

plump berry shapes with big leaves.

light topaz berries

the leaves are copper green with bits of raku and dark ivory frit.

the ruffle on top is dark ivory.

first make the leaves and set them aside on a graphite marver while you make the berry.

then, pick up one of the leaves, gently warm it in the flame. heat the spot on the bead where you want to place the leaf and firmly place the leaf onto the berry. heat the leaf and bend it down around the berry.

finally, add a collar of glass at the top of the bead, heat and twist.

blue velvet

what's your all time favorite movie?



the opening scene from the film masterpiece 'blue velvet.'

sketchbook pages

yesterday, while lunching with a gal pal she mentioned how much she loves looking at my bead sketchbooks.

i guess it is kind of like rummaging about in someone else's underware drawer.

since i don't have any new beads to show right now, i scanned some of my favorite pages from the first book.

some of the beads on the page above are by naos. they are credited by the bead. she is amazing, a lesson in elegant & natural simplicity.

i will say it again, everyone should keep a sketchbook. with your book you have a record of your beads, glass discoveries, wayward ideas and inspirations. who could remember all of that without a little help?

mine is a 6" x 6" spiral bound classic sketchbook. it has black board covers and is available at any decent art supply store for around 7 dollars. this size fits nicely into my glass tackle box and with the spiral binding you can fold it so only one page is exposed to flying bits of hot glass while you are torching. get yourself some archival white glue for pasting stuff into it. and, i simply could not get live without nice soft, saturated colored pencils. go ahead and treat yourself to a fancy tin box of prismacolor pencils since you're already at the art store.

and one more, for luck.

if you would like to get a closer look and see larger versions of these pages they can be seen in my 'gallery' at beadartists.org. (just click on the thumbnails)

pirate mittens

before beads, there was knitting...
and yes, i still knit.

i whipped these up for my 17 year old baby girl.

you can get this magnificent pattern free, on-line, from the very generous website: hello yarn.

do you know the knitting acronym 'sable?' it stands for stash amassed beyond life expectancy.

i suppose it could apply to frit too.

party time

it has been ages since i made a 'party dress' focal.

'bossa nova' carrot red ruffle with dark silver plum, black, white, end of the day bits & fine iris blue frit.

click here to see a whole collection of party dresses.

can you sort out the dog from the freshly laundered black t-shirts?

amphitrite

amphitrite was a greek sea goddess and consort of posideon.

'amphitrite' - transparent grass green, transparent teal, pearly white dichroic, clear & ruffles of messy bordello.

i love this bead. it looks like a shell and a fossil and like a tiny sea creature all at once. it also looks like treasure.

spiral dancer

kinda like a party dress bead, but something different.

first i made a handpulled aventurine stringer with three colors.
if you have never pulled your own goldstone stringer you have to try it. it's not difficult and you can encase your custom stringers with colored transparent glass for lots of great shimmer. *

this bead has a clear core with some encased silver foil, then it was wrapped in a teal, clear and bordello encased aventurine stringer.

* to make this tri-color stringer - punty the chunk of aventurine onto the end of a clear rod. then mentally divide the chunk into quarters, coat one quarter of the chunk with transparent teal, the next quarter side with clear, the third quarter (opposite the teal) with bordello and the final quarter with clear. do all this with out putting the aventurine into the flame - once the flame touches it the sparkle burns out. now, making sure the chunk is completely covered in transparent glass place the blob into the flame and heat it and pull your stringer. sooo cool.

half an idea, in pink

this is an interesting idea.



beads made from all sorts of different shades of pink glass.
each with aventurine stringers dividing the various shades of pink.
nice idea for spacer beads, i like the small ones best, they're like little 'saturns.'

ginger pink

a small set, made from powder pink and messy ginger, with a little extra straw yellow in the leaf.

i am loving messy glass.

it can be purchased from, my favorite glass vendor, moretti & more.

caramel plums

this set was made with caramel apple glass from arrow springs kugler (ask) and moretti light silver plum.

some of the beads were left unreduced, some were lightly reduced. the bead in the lower right corner was heavily reduced.

what beautiful glass!

love songs

you think i would have made enough winged hearts by now...

'the jester' - transparent red, opalino carnelian & hand pulled aventurine stringers made with transparent orange glass over goldstone chunks.

&

'darkwing' - light silver plum wings with a heart made of end of the day bits (opalino carnelian, (ask) violet nights and (ask) caramel apple & a bit of silver foil.

soon, some beads made with the new arrow springs kugler (ask) glass called 'caramel apple.'

if you would like to see a whole photo collection of my hearts, click here.

happy new year!

i celebrated the new year with an afternoon of beadmaking and a big pot of white bean soup.
what could be better?

new year's day is always a day to relax and get ready for a whole new year. a day to think about where you're going and forget the insanity of where you have been during the holiday season.
it's a pause - to gather your thoughts.

ready, set, go!
new years eve is 'ready'
new years day is 'set'
and today - go!

i just found this posted on utube. it's a movie of margaret storms (my mango) opening at an 'instore' for pete yorn. the quality is pretty shabby - but hey - that's my girl.