Strawberry Deathcake vs Christmas In Hell

Hilarious, right?
Deathly Strawberries.

I made the wee glass strawberry headpins using Cim's 'Sange' glass - my favorite red. The texture bumps are just a bit of clear frit.

The skulls are some sort of stone, the rondelles are copper, the cute little bead caps are brass that I scavenged off some broken bit of garage sale jewelry.

They can be yours in a few swift clicks, they are for sale in my Belvedere etsy shop.

above: Christmas In Hell - another pair of skull earrings that are in my etsy shop.

below: Chili Pepper Fleas - a smaller pair with bone skulls - also in my etsy shop.

50 Shades of Purple

For all the purple lovers in da house.

'50 Shades of Purple' necklace
Lampwork glass beads and sterling silver.

The beads are made with many shades of transparent purple glass and Val Cox ' Rio Nights' frit.
The constructions is a simple 'rosary chain' link done with 18g sterling silver round wire.

It will be available at Shop One 2 fine crafts gallery on the RIT campus.

Under the Toadstool

A new bracelet.

It was inspired by a page from "I Am A Bunny" by Richard Scarry.
This sweet book was one of my daughter's favorites, especially this page.
She thought it was hilarious.

A big charm bracelet that has everything:
my glass beads,
sterling silver hammered links,
red and white polka-dot tin spangles cut from a garage sale Christmas cookie tin,
an old bone heart,
antique jet beads,
faceted yellow quartz round beads,
little flower murrini beads,
and one old red Victorian bead scrounged from a broken bit of necklace.

It is available at 'Shop One 2" on the RIT campus.

I am so excited to have my work in this gallery, I delivered my first mess of stuff to them this afternoon. What a beautiful venue. Yep, I am an RIT grad, class of 1982.

Birds + Birds + Birds

New bird paintings in progress.

Inspired by a vintage box of bird flashcards.

Moon Rocks Necklace

A new necklace - 'Moon Rocks.'
Lampwork glass beads and sterling silver.

Here's the bead recipe:
Start with a barrel shaped black glass core and roll it in an equal blend of 'Raku' and 'Pink Lipstick' Val Cox frit. Melt it in and then heavily encase in clear and hand facet the bead.

Not to heavy, not to light, just right.

The Cutest Cloud

Like I said, someday I am going to start painting cloudscapes.

'Grackle' & 'Robin'

'Grackle'
5" x 7" oil on canvas

'Robin'
5" x 7" oil on canvas

That was fun, I think I will make a few more.

Crusty Love Beads

Test beads hot out of the kiln, not even cleaned.

A combination of lots of funky glass in these beads:
First some short rods of old scummy clear I just need to use up.
Also some weird cored canes called 'Whisper' that has a thread of rubino oro running down the middle of some hopelessly scummy clear.
One sad rod of Cim's 'Cirrus' from a batch that just will not strike.
There's also some Double Helix 'Aion' frit and lots of fine silver foil rolled up in there.

My inspiration for these beads is this strand of 1200 year old Indian quartz crystal beads that I saw on Pinterest (below). Mine are unexpectedly a lot more 'golden' but I'm loving them as is.

I think I want to tumble mine to knock some of the shiny off them.

p.s. I keep a Pinterest file of Ancient beads, I find them wildly inspiring.
Take a peek here.

Calling All Monsters

Studio playmates.

Chew with your mouth closed and don't be a chicken.

Hello Poppy

I finished the red poppy painting.

Just sharing some of the details.

Before showing you the whole thing.

Red Poppies
oil on canvas
24" x 24"

Cloudscapes

One day I will paint cloudscapes.
For now, photographing them and hoarding the images is as far as I go.