After the Fire

Look! My name in black plastic letters.

Few things are as satisfying as seeing your name on a gallery wall.

The opening is tonight at 6. There will be glass blowing and flame working demonstrations during the festivities.
More Fire Glass
80 Rockwood Place
Rochester, NY
Phone: 585 242 0450

Golden Leaves Bracelet

Golden Leaves Bracelet - flameworked glass leaves & round beads, labradorite beads and a salvaged antique brass chain and clasp.

The beads are made with a base of  Effetre Light Topaz and Pale Transparent pink. They were encased with Double Helix's golden glass called Aurae and heavily reduced.

Oh man, I went to a trade show yesterday and bought a pound of Double Helix glass. I splurged on  the new red color Clio and three 1/4 pound bundles of some odd lots. More about all of that later. The ISGBN (International Society of Glass Bead Makers) is having a convention here in Rochester and I have attended a few of their events.

This bracelet is in a show that is opening tonight at More Fire Glass. There is also a bead show that is traveling with the ISGBN convention opening there too.  There will be flameworking demos with Sally Prasch and blowing in the hot shop. It should be a great party!

Yellow Blossom Necklace

A single link from the yellow blossom necklace - a flameworked glass flower bud, white freshwater cornflake pearls, tiny, serpentine jade beads and blackened steel wire.

The beads are wound from Effetre White, a weird cored, odd-lot yellow, and Double Helix Gaia. Gaia is this amazing, lustrous, iridescent green glass - I am completely addicted to it.

This necklace is in a show that opens tonight at More Fire Glass. Come on over, there will be glass blowing in the hot shop and flameworking demonstrations in the torch room.

Evil Bug

Evil Bug Pendant - lampwork glass bug, gun metal, garnet, laboradite and a fresh water pearl

Lightning Bug

Lightning Bug Pendant - lampwork glass bug bead, sterling silver, laboradite and a yellow freshwater pearl

Poppies, Beautiful Poppies

Poppy petal bracelet - lampwork glass beads, garnets, carnelian and sterling silver

The leaf and the petals were made with lentil shaped beads that were spot heated and shaped with tweezers.

I love twisting the molten glass, this way and that, to make the ruffled edges of petals.

The inspirational poppies.

Winged Seeds

Winged Seed earrings - lampwork glass beads and sterling silver.

The 'wings' were made off mandrel first and then set aside, later they were very carefully, and slowly reheated and applied to the round red beads - a bit tricky to do. It took a few times before I got the annealing and attaching just right. There were a few frustrating failures complete with exploding bits of glass.

The red glass is Cim's Sangre - a semi-transparent red that is one of my all time favorites. The wings are Effetre Kelp and Double Helix Gaia. The little iridescent bumps on the top are Double Helix Psyche.

Here's the original sketch I made before sitting  down at the torch - not exactly what I had planned but pretty close.

You need, need to keep a sketchbook. I will print out a picture of the beads and stick it in the book next to the drawing and notate the colors used so that I can make more later. Otherwise - poof - I will forget it all.

Falling Leaves

Falling leaves earrings.

The glass leaves were made off mandrel out of transparent grass green and light brown glass. The caramel colored beads are antique amber salvaged from a broken necklace that came from a garage sale. The hammered wire work and the ear wires are sterling silver.

Pollen Necklace

Pollen Necklace - lampwork glass beads, garnets & sterling silver.

The beads were made with lots of different colors of glass - Cim's Canyon de Chelly, opalino carnellian, stoneground, dark ivory, tabby, opal yellow, Cim's Crocus, Richenbach multi... all decorated with bands of Double Helix Aurae and heavily reduced.

I have posted this before but here is a little drawn tutorial on how I make this shape of bead.

I have lots, and lots, of new jewelry to share. Last week saw a lot of late night wire wrapping and bead stringing.

Dark blossoms

Finally, I made a pair of earrings from my dark glass thorns. The beads are months old but it was difficult trying to conceive of a way to turn them into some finery for my lobes.

My jewelry will be in a group glass exhibition that is up during the International Society of Bead Makers convention here in my home town and I want to look my best. There is nothing like a looming deadline to get my slacker, creative butt in motion.

After a half a dozen false starts they came together very simply.
 I nestled an iridescent black cornflake pearl on each side of the thorn and secured it with a hand cut, rough garnet and some gunmetal wire.

The glass I used for the roots is dark silver plum. You can see the beads before they were earrings here.

I adore them, they're very Morticia Adams.

Bloomin' Inspiration

Is your garden way out of whack?
It's been so hot that everything is blooming all over the place, with no regard for the calendar.

The daylilies look like fireworks.

And their buds look like beads to me - don't you agree?

Chunky Blue Babies

Believe it or not, this is the first set of spacers I have ever made. Truly I am a focal kind of girl.

Each one is about 18mm roundish - they are hand faceted.

If the picture were just a bit better you could see how iridescent they are - like butterfly wings.
The glass in each bead is plain old Effetre medium transparent blue that has thin bands of Double Helix Gaia melted in and then  heavily reduced.

They're all bundled up and ready to go - to a bead trunk show that I don't think is going to happen, sigh.
Oh well, I will be more than ready for the next one.

Amulets

I found some extraordinary vintage rosaries last week - each one a treasure.

On the left is an old sterling silver one with glass pearls and the one on the right has gorgeous sky blue crystals.

The one  in the center is the fascinating - it is an infants christening rosary.

It's so sweet with the tiny, primary colored glass beads for amusing the baby. The back of the crucifix is stamped Italy.
I am not even a wee bit catholic but, as amulets, they really speak to me.
They're all up on etsy.

Awhile back - Stephanie of Vlad the Bats Attic - recommended this book to me. It is something of an obsession. My copy has become very dog-eared from frequent re-reads and raids for inspiration.

Every paragraph leads your mind off into some thoughtful reverie and a new idea for a necklace. And the artifacts pictured are so gorgeous. So, if you're into this sort of powerful thing - then this book is for you.

51 Big Ones

It's the first of July and that can mean only one thing - a slight hangover.
It's true, I turned 51 yesterday.

Every year is the same thing - the summertime thing I like to do the best - which is to gather up my husband and friends and go to Marge's Lakeside Inn to watch the sunset.

As you can see the sunset over Lake Ontario was appropriately spectacular.

This is Frank. He baked me a red velvet cake. My very, very favorite cake and the same confection that my Mom always made for me when my birthday was still a single digit affair.This was the 4th year in a row that Frank has undertaken the ritualistic task of whipping up a red velvet birthday cake for me. The candied pecan garnish are in an "L" for Lucinda.

What goes best with chocolate cake? Why a Genesee Cream Ale - my favorite local brew.

Marges from the water.

Damn, that was good cake.