spring skies

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



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

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.

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

better than ever - forsythia

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




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




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.




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



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...

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.

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.




i love these beads.





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




no, they do not look like molars.

ebay bead virgin

while i am certainly no ebay virgin...
it is with great skepitism and low expectations, that i am attempting to auction some of my beads on ebay.





click here to see the auction
it took a lot of time and patience to design the layout and create html for the template.

(no i don't know how to write code)
i write code like pepe le pew speaks french.

for now, a cupcake.

it was a long and blissful session with the torch...

every mandrel i had dipped and dried got used- always the sign of a good go'round with the flame.

all the new forsythia beads are soaking and waiting to be reamed.
they are much more defined than the first set, new tweezers did the trick, sorry no new photos yet.

in the meantime, a snack!



this image come from a favorite blog of mine called
"All Cupcakes All the Time."
if you look in my side bar you will find a link to them in my linky-doos list.

aren't the colors great!
a sweet combo for a set of summer beads.

forsythia beads

"Forsythia is pure joy. There is not an ounce, not a glimmer of sadness or even knowledge in forsythia. Pure, undiluted, untouched joy."

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

the forsythia is bustin' out all over.

my favorite color of glass is bright translucent yellow.
transparent uranium yellow makes me week at the knees.
we have a pantry shelf full of vases this color, no yardsale is safe from my need for acid yellow glass.

i plucked some flowers from the back yard, did some sketching and headed over to 'More Fire' with a plan.

i used:

translucent yellow (morette effetre odd lot #401), pea green (#212) and clear.

starting with a clear oval bead, i then added the petals and finally the stem wrap. simple enough.

i really need to find some tweezers without serated tips - I am losing to much defination when i melt out the ridge marks.

loving the open center/twisted tip hearts.





when i plonked the buds into the can'o'vermiculite every stinkin' one of them was too hot and bent sideways.

i anticipate that the second set of forsythia beads will be much better, but i am still loving these.

first pair of earrings & goldstone stringers

cash will get you sterling silver findings
and then you can make earrings.
these are my first.






2 amber glass seed beads
2 handmade oval tab glass beads
2 gold fresh water pearls
1 lucky roadside smashed bottle cap
& sterling findings.

something that elizabeth of 'More Fire' taught in the intro to flameworking class was how to pull an encased goldstone (aventurine) stringer.

there were pre-made ones in the case, so why bother pulling your own?
but the shopper in my bought a wee bag of goldstone chunks.
besides, the commercial rods were so 'shocky' that it was an adrenaline rush every time you exploded one across the bench.

once i got started, i must have spent 45 minutes pulling multi-colored encased goldstone stringers.

they are gorgeous!





make some - start with bright transparents, especially grass green and anything pink/violet.
they are twice as bright and so much more satisfying than the "ones in the case."

little richard or what i did when i could have been beading...

my dog napoleon and little richard, they're tight like that.

i had the morning off and i could have been beading, but i had fit of photoshop instead.

homemade conversation hearts

go ahead, make your own custom candies at:

http://www.acme.com/heartmaker/

crows

what's on my brain?
mmm.







moretti / effetre dark silver plum #275.
the minute it arrived from "Moretti & More" i knew i was going to make crows.

























very unfussy & fast - just glass sketches of crows.

this glass works sort of gummy, and you want to keep as many of the ridges and whorls as possible to show off the irredescence of the glass.

the extra beads are also wound from dark silver plum and nothing else.
they look like they were finger sculpted from blobs of old road tar on a hot summer day.






i don't know what the 'claw' things are, they just happened.






the sketches from the bead book.

skull cap

now, a skull and crossbones hat from Hello Yarn's free online patterns.

a birthday present for Miss Mango16's boyfriend.

his favorite color is safety orange and he fancies himself a bit of a pirate, that makes this hat perfect.

amigurumi of all sorts

how excited was i to find these at an estate sale last week?
each of these old cotton amigurumi is just about 3" tall.








who wouldn't want to make some of these?
i am making them out of glass.





there were more but the teen girlies got 'em before they were photographed.

inspirational doodle scraps of paper - glued into the bead sketch book.

paillettes a go-go

the scarf around the neck of its' intended - the mysterious e.v.e.
photographed at her barista gig at the public market.





this scarf is so yummy and fuzzy and bright that it is impossible to photograph...







the yarn glows and the vintage paillettes reflect the flash... i wish you could see how riotously pretty and fun it is.







knitting the paillettes in was a gas, just fish a knit loop thru the paillette with a crochet hook and knit on.
i think i will make a black hat that uses aluminum popcan tops instead of paillettes as a blingy accent.






this packette of vintage 20mm silver paillettes came from an estate sale.
i have a few hundred more to use up, but if you want some there is a seller on ebay called 'sequins galore' who has a huge selection.