The Journey Continues

Summers end

2010-10-02T12:18:00.000-05:00

Summer has finally ended in the south. It's so beautiful here this time of year, dry and cool with just a hint of warmth on the skin. I'm always sad when all the leaves have finally fallen off the trees because I know winter is just around the corner. I think I'm also sad about looking the leaves because they are my privacy. My den, dining room and deck are on the second floor and look out into the green lushness of the leaves, when they are gone I can see other houses and the starkness of winter.

I've been making beads in fall and winter colors and doing a bit more etching of beads. I love the feel of the etched beads, the shininess is gone and they feel soft and smooth. If you don't want to make jewelry out of these you can always carry them in your pocket so that you have something soft there to touch when you need to. Kind of like a worry stone.

I've been retired eight months now and I still feel like I'm on vacation and it's about to end. I wonder how long that will last. I love just being home and am starting to enjoy cooking again. Just the other night I decided that I would try a different breading on some pork chops that hubby brought home from the store. They really don't have a lot of flavor unless you do something with them. I put some tortilla chips in the blender and chopped them up and added all kinds of spices and used it as a breading for the port chops and they were wonderful.
The secret to keeping the breading on your meats is to first coat the meat in flour, then the egg and milk mixture and finally the breading you have created. I have four different dry breading mixes in the frig for meats so we don't get bored with what we eat. Me thinks I've been watching too many cooking shows...LOL

Heat affects the journey

2010-07-09T07:54:00.000-05:00

It's been an unusually hot early summer here in the south, the average temp. here is 80 this time of year and we have had above 90 for fifteen days now. My torch is in the basement which stays fairly cool at 75F but I have to open windows to create a draft for ventilation and in comes the heat. I can only torch in the mornings and I'm a slow starter. I get up early, like 6am every morning but never get around to being ready to torch until at least 9am. All this to say that it's just been hot. Brutally hot. It slows my brain and hands and the creative juices just don't flow.
I haven't torched in five days, which is a record for me. We aren't even into the hottest part of the summer yet so I'm afraid of what the next two months will be like. I find myself doing smaller beads in sets, the bigger ones take a lot more time up close to the torch and it's just too hot for that.

So, if you are seeing more sets from me right now, that's why. Just too hot to make the big focal beads that I like to play with. I made the set above on the 4th of July. LOL, It never occurred to me to make some a month before the holiday to sell. What a noob.

If you don't hear from me for awhile it's because I'm sleeping away the heat of the day. The air conditioner in our house is undersized. Don't even get me started on that subject, suffice to say that when it gets over 90 outside it's 80 in the house. We have a stand alone air conditioner in the house (loud, loud, loud) that helps to keep it at 80 but at that temp. all we can do is sit under the ceiling fans on high and stay still. Sleeping seems to work well...LOL

Hope it's cooler where you are. If not, I feel for you.
Stay Cool...

Etsy Bloggers, my first deadline was missed

2010-06-24T15:59:00.000-05:00

I joined the Etsy Bloggers team hoping that I would blog more. Well, as you can see that didn't happen. Now I know what writers feel like when they get writers block. I can't think of a thing to say, which is not normal for me...LOL The first subject was suppose to be a milestone or accomplishment that we recently had. I couldn't think of a thing. The other subject was my goals...LOL Seriously when I retired the major goal of my life was hit and I went on vacation mode.
I did recently hit 500 sales in my Etsy shop, considering that at the first of the year when I retired I had had 50 sales I would say that was a major milestone for me. I guess my next goal will be to hit 1,000 beads sold by the end of the year. Hopefully I can make it.

I've been retired for roughly six months now and I am beginning to see sales patterns in my shop. Hopefully I will be able to adapt to that and be prepared for the peaks and work hard in the valleys to get ready for the peaks.
So my goal will be to blog at least once a week. Clearly once a day is way to much for me to manage. I hope someone is listening.

Finding my bead style - the journey

2010-05-31T05:28:00.000-05:00

I've been making lampwork beads now for about three years. As of yet I haven't found a bead that is ME. Something that when jewelry makers see beads, know that I made them. There are lots of lampworkers out there that I can identify by their beads. They have a specific look or style. My style can best be described as simply organic. I love the stone look and am finding that my customers seem to like them too. The do take a few more steps to create but the look is certainly unique if not generic.

I tend to sit down at the torch with little idea of what I'm going to make. I just start grabbing glass rods and start with a base and go from there. This doesn't lend itself to finding a style. I'm not sure if I absolutely have to have a style but so many lampworkers do have them that I kind of feel like I haven't grow if I don't.

If you get a chance, take a look at my Etsy shop and tell me if you see a style emerging. I would really appreciate any feedback you can give me. Until then I shall keep doing what I do and enjoying every minute of the journey.

Roses and rain

2010-05-17T11:31:00.003-05:00

I love roses, my favorite are the Chrysler, Peace, Double Delight and Tropicana. I have one of each of these bushes, all except for the Double Delight. I lost that bush last year. I've found that roses don't do as well in the south. The humidity is just too much for them and the leave get yellow and have mildew dots on them. The roses are fine but the bushes look horrible.

We had a bit of rain last night and I brought these two roses in the house so I could enjoy them and noticed how beautiful the remains of the rain were on the petals.

You can't fake the look of rain drops on roses. Hey, isn't there a song with that line in it..."My Favorite Things". Anyway, just had to share the photos with you. I really do love the look and wish I could freeze it forever.

The Tropicana rose has such a wonderful scent, it has a soft sweet scent that just can't be replicated in perfume.

Hope you all have a great day. We are expecting more rain. Hopefully I will have a few more roses tomorrow to bring in and enjoy.

Journey of a custom order

2010-05-13T06:07:00.004-05:00

I'm really excited to get down to the torch today, I got a custom order yesterday and can't wait to get started. I enjoy just letting the bead get made as I sit there and pull colors and create designs but getting custom order is just as much fun. For one, I don't have to try and come up with something new or make more of the same.
I can hone my craft on something I've made before. It's a chance to practice and make something that I've made before and do it better. Usually the custom orders I get are for some beads to go with a focal that I've made or make one like something they have seen in my shop only in a different color. Making beads to go with a focal can be fun and great practice. Recreating something that I've already done in a different color can be just as much fun, I get to try and make it just a tad bit better.

Hope you all have a great day, as for me, I'll be melting glass and focusing on making a recreation better.
tootles,

Whining-not really a Journey

2010-05-12T17:58:00.004-05:00

This is just going to be a whining post. I've read all kinds of articles about how to get people to look at your blog and your products. I get it, but what I don't get is how to go about finding them. I tried continuing to hit the "next" button at the top of the blogs but all I get are family blogs and mothers and painters(artist). One would think that there would be someplace to enter your interests so that you get blogs relevant to what your interested in.

I guess I'll just go try Stumble for awhile and see where that takes me. Even on stumble there is a list of things for you to check off if your interested and the list is quite general. Oh well, as I said, this is pretty much just me whining today.

If anyone has any suggestions about how to go about marketing, getting people to be interested in your blog or just general sales suggestions I would sure appreciate it.

As for the photo, this is my favorite bead today. It's called Royal Rake and is in my Etsy Shop.

tootles,

The Journey of the name

2010-05-11T12:18:00.005-05:00

I've been processing bead photos today. After they are all process through the photo editing software to lighten them and crop them I have to name them. I'm not sure why I do this but while I'm making them names come to me. By the time I get to the actual naming of them I can't remember what the name was and have to sit and think about the bead.

I had four beads today that reminded me of wind, maybe because it's been windy here not really sure why. I Googled "God of wind" and got a link to a Wiki listing of all the different gods of wind, who knew there were so many.
This first bead is called "Aeolus", the mythological god of wind.

This one is called "Vayu", which is the Hindu god of wind.

This one is called "Venti", the Roman god of wind.

I had no idea there were so many wind gods, but the names just felt right.

Sometimes I make up names that just kind of sound right. Other times I give the bead the name of a feeling that it invokes. I was the the home improvement store the other day and started grabbing up paint chips in all colors. They have lots of little books with paint chips in them too. I have all kinds of books and chips now to help me name beads when I'm stumped for a name.

I'd love to hear ideas about how you decide what name to give your beads, or quilts or whatever your craft is.

tootles

The lack of Journey

2010-05-10T13:55:00.003-05:00

Today is one of those days that started out a bit cool but sunny, now it's overcast and windy. I find that now that I'm retired I look for any reason to take a day off from torching. Today is one of those days. I did photograph 21 beads but haven't processed them yet.

I decided to take the day off, I'm laying on the couch watching TV. For some reason my DVR didn't record The Celebrity Apprentice so I had to go online and watch it. That wasn't such a bad experience. It didn't glich or anything. Hubby was sitting over at the dining room table in front of his laptop, where he usually is, watching something there. Boy, that personifies the couch potato doesn't it.

Anyway, no journey today. I cleaned beads this morning. Did a load of wash and photographed beads, so it's not like I took the day off. But I'm pampering myself this afternoon. I remember all those cloudy days at work when all I wanted to do was lie down. So, the journey is to the couch to contemplate my next beads. (I knew I could find a photo of me on the couch...LOL)

How to take a "Journey on the Internet"

2010-05-08T11:53:00.006-05:00

Or should it be Journey through the internet? Anyway I've been "flow surfing" the internet today. You know, you start with on spot that you read every day, for me it's the email I get from Handmade Spark (if you haven't checked out Handmade Spark you really should, there are all kinds of wonderful articles on how to make your Etsy shop work), while I was reading it one of the articles sparked my interest so I clicked on it and found a beautiful Etsy shop called Catie's Blue, her shop is so colorful and I love her eye for making jewelry. Ok, so that led me to her blog, Brandi girl , I spent a lot of time here getting to know what made her tick. Then while I was there I saw an icon on the side bar in her blog that said Save the Internet dot com. Hmmm, Net neutrality??? OK, I admit that that one is over my head. I should probably know what it's all about but I don't.
So, I have to back up to Brandi's blog to see if it leads me anywhere else. So, she has a link to a free download called Pugley Pixel tape, what in the world is that. So, off I go. Seems that masking tape and Washi tape are all the rage. What is Washi tape? So I did a Google search which led me to another Etsy site, Pretty Tapes. How interesting, tapes for decorating, scrap-booking and gift wrapping. Ho knew. The internet is truly an interesting place.

While I was surfing I got an email so I jumped over to see what it was...another great blog by Desert Stone she has some wonderfully unique jewelry. I sat and scrolled for quite awhile looking at so many things that I wanted I had to stop. Anyway, you get the idea about flow surfing.

When I stopped I realized that all I was doing was putting of my "once every ten years" gardening...LOL The last time I planted anything in flower beds was about seven years ago when I got my Westie, she would rip up anything that I planted so I stopped.

My dear friend Lynsey, who lives in Ipswich UK sent me some HollyHock seeds from her garden. I've put them in a pot and now have these cute little plants. So, I have this flowerbed along the front walk that hasn't been touched for at least seven years. You can only imagine the bermuda grass that has establised itself in there. We are going to have to use a pick to get it all out. Off I go to plant my Holly Hocks and some pink and purple petunias to go with them. IF, and that's a big if, they grow I'll post a picture in a month or so...LOL

tootles

The Journey of Blogging and the Bookmark

2010-05-06T14:23:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I lied, I'm not going to make it posting every day. What was I thinking??? But I am going to do better. I was a victim of Facebook games. Oh man are they addicting. I can't explain it either. But yesterday and today I've made a concerted effort to not play first thing in the morning. I sit down and before I know it, it's like time has evaporated and four hours is gone. I think it happened because of winter. I torch in the late afternoon in the winter because it's the warmest time of the day. Then spring comes and I start about 1pm. Now that it's getting warmer I have to go down earlier in the morning.

I didn't torch at all today. I had a laundry list of things that needed to get done for the business and the first was to organize what was IN my Etsy shop with what was ON the spreadsheet and the picture files. They were all different numbers. That took two hours. I did reward myself with a little game time after that was done but then it was time to get up and get to work.

I got a lot more done today. Cleaned some beads and got some more bookmarks started. Bookmarks you ask...well I give each of my customers a bookmark with some of my beads on it when they make a purchase. If they come back a second time they get a different bookmark. I have a whole series of them made up for customers as they come back and buy from me again. Kind of like collecting baseball cards. Who can't use a bookmark, right?

Here are a couple of the designs so you can see what I've been up to. The first one that a customer gets matches the banner in my shop and after that they may be closeups of one bead or a composite of many. It's been fun making them.

If your a jewelry maker and like bookmarks, you know where to shop...

tootles

Journey through a rainy day...

2010-04-24T17:41:00.003-05:00

It's rained all day today. I knew it was coming but didn't prepare for it. By prepare I mean, have something to do to keep busy since I can't torch. I mean, I could but if there was any wind at all it would come in the windows of the basement and make a mess. And there was, a lot of wind. This was a particularly bad day in the south weather wise. So...what to do. I have tons of lampwork beads that just weren't quite good enough to make it into my Etsy shop. Lets face it some of them are down right ugly. So I was trying to think of something to do with them, like wind chimes or something.
I did a search on Etsy for wind chimes and was absolutely amazed at the pretty and unusual wind chimes for sale. I love wind chimes, I love the sound of them. I don't really have anywhere to hang them but I still love them. I guess I could hang them in the trees. But I digress. I left my fusing days behind when I started lampworking but I could do some fusing to make some parts for the wind chimes if I really wanted to. Or do I just want to bag them up into bags of say 15 or so and sell them on eBay?

Anyway, I ran across the most beautiful Etsy shop full of wonderful fused glass pieces and wind chimes. The shop is called Mystic Prism and some of the wind chimes were absolutely stunning. Stop by and check them out.

When I did a Google search for wind chimes I was amazed at what there was out there. I guess that anything I could think of a million other people would. So, most likely I will bag them up and sell them at the bay. Any other ideas about what to do with them???

Tomorrow the sun will be out again and I will torch, and make more ugly beads...LOL

tootles

Striking color results

2010-04-21T09:05:00.002-05:00

These are some of the beads that I did a couple of days ago with the striking color glass. I was more pleased with the test glass. The glass above was Terra2, the one in the center was a mix of Terra2 and Ekho. It's a bit transparent and I learned from the Double Helix website that the test batch that I love is a test batch for Ekho that was a bit more opaque and had a bit more cobalt blue in it. So, what I'm going to try today is Ekho on a base of white covered in cobalt blue. Maybe it will give me a color closer to the test batch. That will take a bit more doing so the beads are going to take a bit more time to make. But if it works it will be worth it, since the test batch glass is almost gone and when gone will be gone forever. (sob, sob, sob).

Stay tuned for the new results. I have high hopes for my test...LOL More desperate than anything else....LOL

Planets along the journey

2010-04-19T13:59:00.003-05:00

I've been playing with striking glass lately. First of all for those of you who don't know what that is, striking glass is a highly silvered glass that is of odd bland colors in rod form, when super heated the glass goes clear and then as it cools it darkens to a very dark brown. Sometimes it cools clear and as it is "lightly" reheated it goes to the dark brown. Then it is encased and the magic happens. The colors underneath the encasement range from purple to yellow with every color of the rainbow in between. The colors can be amazing if you know what your doing. There are three companies in the US that make this special designer glass, Trautman Art Glass, Double Helix and Striking Color, the last being a very new company here in Georgia, his glass sells out almost as fast as he posts it in Etsy. I've been lucky enough to get a few pounds of it and I treat it like gold. Double Helix sells test batches while they are working on new colors and I have a little bit of a test batch that I am in love with. I can only hope that they decide to make it a permanent line. The test batch that I have is named OK-326. The beads above were made with it. You can see why I'm in love with it. It's so consistent.

Today I tried two named glasses from Double Helix, Terra Nova 2.1 and Ekho. I had a horrible time with both of them after having such good luck with the OK-326. It was so easy to strike that I though I had it all figured out. Not even close. I'll try and remember to post the beads I made today, maybe tomorrow if I get them cleaned.

So, just in case your curious about how I did the beads above. I lay down a very small clear glass bead, I then roll it out to give me my foot print. Then I superheat the silvered glass as I lay it down on the footprint, when I done adding the silvered glass I give it even more heat until it's completely clear. I let the bead cool just a bit until it stops moving and then roll it in a brass former to flatten to the same barrel shape as the footprint (the color should be pretty much clear when it's cooled). Ensuring that the bead is cooled I then lightly and I mean just barley pass it through the back of the flame until you see it start to turn very dark. Take it out of the flame and start encasing it with a good clear glass. Nice and thick so that when it's heated you don't overstrike it. I then slightly shape it in the flame, take it out to cool and put in the kiln. Magic...I don't have a clue how they make the stuff but I'm addicted!

Inspiration of the day

2010-04-14T07:55:00.003-05:00

Instead of a bead today I have some inspiration in the form of an oil painting by Delabarra. He is a member of Total Art Soul Forum, a wonderful arts forum that I'm a member of. I love the colors and I just know that there is a bead in her hair somewhere I'm going to go down to the torch today and try to incorporate the waves of her hair into a bead.
Wish me luck.

Bead of the day

2010-04-13T16:00:00.003-05:00

The bead for today is Golden Poppy. This is a Coral Poppy Orange with a silvered ivory stringer trailed around the bead. Simple yet classic look. I think the best way to use a barrel bead like this is to simply hang it from a silver chain with some silver bobbles around it. But then I'm not a jewelry maker. I tried it and just never was good at it. I leave that to the jewelry makers out there.

Here are some of my favorites right now on Etsy:
Uniqueartpendants, I love this butterfly pendant

ERiaDesigns Loved this little nest pendant, I see that it's sold now.

And finally PeaceBirdStudios, her wire wrapped gemstones are to die for.

Hope you enjoy seeing some of the jewelry I love. Until tomorrow, enjoy the journey.

Glee Starts tonight!!!

2010-04-13T12:42:00.001-05:00

Yes friends I'm a true Gleek!!! I love Glee. I think the music is
fantastic and the story lines fun. I thought I would just throw that out
there before I do my bead of the day. Just in case there were some Gleeks
out there that didn't know that it started tonight on Fox. I can't imagine
that any of them don't know but maybe some of you that have never seen it
will try it. You'll love it.

Come join us Gleeks!

Bead of the day

2010-04-12T12:11:00.005-05:00

I'm going to try to start post a bead a day. One that I've made and am selling in my Etsy shop. You can click on it at the right.

Here is today's bead, its called Ivory Rainbow. Simple dark ivory with raku dots that have been raked. They kind of remind me of hearts. I love the range of colors that I got with this one. I'm going to try the same thing on plain ivory and see what happens.

Blogging journey

2010-04-12T07:58:00.002-05:00

I'm wondering if there really are people that follow my blog. I wonder why anyone would want to for that matter. Thus far I've only used it as a place to vent and maybe talk out problems I'm having with my Lampworking. I am having the age old problem of finding the perfect clear but that isn't anything new for us bead makers. I'll go into that more tomorrow so if your
interested stay tuned.

How about a cute dog story today for something different. We have two terriers, a westie named Piper who is the sweetest West Highland White terrier there ever was, she is seven now and very mellow. Very much the alpha and my dog. We decided, when Piper was about one that she needed a friend to play with. That was our first mistake...we decided we wanted a
Scottish terrier so we went in search. We found a woman who had a whole litter of them for sale and drove out to see them and talk to her. Her Scotties were beautiful larger than you would think but very regal. She only had to left that weren't spoken for so I choose the runt. All the time I was inside talking to the woman about the puppy and filling out some papers my hubby, who is much more dog savvy than I, was outside watching the litter. We couldn't take the puppy home for another two weeks so we headed home. Hubby was explaining to me that the puppy that we had choosen was going to be a handful. He said that after the whole litter had eaten all
the puppies had huddled together to sleep there was our Sadie, yes we had already named her, poking around still eating. After she was done eating she grabbed one of the puppies by the tail an drug it out so that she could get into the middle of the huddle for some warmth. He said that she was going to be a handful and that she would probably challenge Piper for the Alpha spot every chance she had. I didn't listen, first of all the other puppy was a male and I wanted a female. Second, it's kind of like bonding, I had all ready picked Sadie up and held her and she was mine.

During the following two weeks while we waited for it to be time to go pick Sadie up the woman called with a concern. She had lost track of the mother one night and when they found her she was with a big male long haired Dauschund. She didn't know if they had mated was as the puppies were getting a bit older she thought that four of them were showing signs of
being mixed. Sadie being one of them. I was only slightly disappointed, at this point Sadie was mine and I was going to take her no matter what. The breeder of course couldn't give us paper, which again didn't matter since we weren't going to breed her and she did offer us a much reduced price since she wasn't sure about the lineage. So the day came and we went out to get
her. We had prepared for the drive home with a large box, the 30 minute ride home with Piper had been a nightmare, but that's another story.

It soon became apparent that Sadie was a mix of Scottie and Doxy, The only real apparent thing was that her ears never came up as Scottie's ears do. When we had to cut we had her cut as a Scottie. But she had all of the tenacious traits of both breeds. She is an extreme hunter and very Very vocal when she wants something. Where Piper just sits and stares at you when she wants something Sadie tells you at the top of her lungs that she wants it. All this to tell you a cute little story.

This morning the girls got me up early, they wanted to go out or their walk. It wasn't really their fault that I stay up until 2AM, they hadn't, they went to sleep in their usual places on the floor near the couch until I was ready to go to bed. They both sleep in crates at night,they consider them their little caves. Anyway, we went on our walk and when we got home I planned on laying back down on the couch for a bit more sleep. I do that sometimes...retirement is wonderful. My hubby's large chair is closer to the front door and up in the corner of the chair is the prime preferred spot for both girls. Piper got there first, Sadie was still eating her treats. So I laid down on the couch and Sadie sat there and stared at me, she wanted to get up in the corner of the couch, the second spot used by both girls. I didn't want her up there, I new for a fact that she would stay up there for about ten minutes and then want down at which time she would have to climb over my head to get down. I was having none of it, I closed my eyes to try and not see her staring at me. I could still feel her eyes on me, I opened my eyes and she had moved out to the middle of the den where she could get a better view of my eyes. I finally asked her what she wanted and she came around, stood up on the couch with her front paws and looked from my face to the corner of the couch and back to my face. This went on or about a minute
before I finally gave up and sat up so that she could get up in her spot. She knows I'm weak and will break down if she stares long enough.

She is a very different dog. When we are getting ready to take them out or are preparing their food she talks to us. Not with barking but what I can only describe as a popping sound with her mouth. It opens and closes and no sound comes out but this strange popping or snapping sound. I've never seen another dog do this and it is the strangest sound I've ever heard. She also
bumps us a lot. She doesn't lick to kiss as many dogs do but kind of bumps you with her nose. When we are preparing her food or getting them a treat she kind of reminds you that she is there by running her wet nose up your leg. The strange thing is that Piper now does it too. Who says you can't teach an old dog a new trick. They have both picked up the others habits
and Piper even barks now when she wants something bad enough. They are our furry children and their personalities are as different as day and night. What we would do without them I don't know. Every day Sadie does something weird that proves she is as unique as her mix.

Ok, I promise to talk about the perfect clear glass tomorrow. Stay tuned. Until then, enjoy the journey and remember to stop along the way and enjoy the view.

The Journey is reving up to start again

2010-03-31T08:15:00.004-05:00

The kiln is fixed....yeaaaaaaah. Not without a lot of grunting and groaning, most of which came after we were done. What a job to take that kiln apart, remove the elements and thread the new ones back in. Threading them in was the hardest part. All of it was very tiring, standing on that hard concrete floor in the basement. Luckily hubby had a really nice work table at a perfect height to work on something. Anyway, the kiln is working again. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when I fired it back up. I flipped the switch and ran back to stand with hubby about 10' away. He wasn't stupid...LOL He's not stupid. Watched the temp climb and then click off and click back on at the appropriate place. I was so excited I almost wanted to start up the torch and work right then. I was way too tired to do that but I wanted to.

While I was sitting there waiting for hubby to get all the screw out of the kiln I was playing with all the pretty colorful glass rods. Pulling rods I wanted to work with the following day. I love gradations of a color, I had inadvertently pulled out all the opaque blues that I had and put them in shade order from light to dark. Oh how I wish I could make a bead that seamlessly shaded that way but glass just isn't like water, it has a thickness and the two colors don't really mix, well not at the temperature I'm working anyway. I have an idea of how to get past this but it will take some more thinking so I will leave it until I get it all thought out in my head.

As for what I'll do today, my first day back at the torch in over a week. Not sure, it's Spring and I feel like using all kinds of pretty colors. Maybe some pretty frit beads. Or maybe I'll go back and play with the silver glass again or wait maybe the shards are calling me....see...it's so hard to go down with a plan. Probably why I'm an organic bead maker, because I love all colors and can't ever decide what I want to do next. Stay tuned to see what I come up with. Until then, here are a few I made before the kiln went south:

The Journey into Internet language

2010-03-29T12:06:00.004-05:00

Yeah, I didn't know what else to call this post. I was trying to figure out how to change the design of my blog, I'm tired of this bland celery green background, it doesn't reflect me. So how in the world??? Anyone have any suggestions??? I went into help and read about the designer, it sounds great but I can't figure out how to get to it from my blog. Or do I have to start a completely new one? That would be very bad.

I'm trying to update my presence on the web, not an easy task. Now that I'm retied I have more time to play with things like this. Or so I thought, it takes forever to figure each one of these different sites out, I'm always surprised when I sit down around 8am and before long it's 2pm. How does that happen? The time never went this fast at work. Don't worry, I'm not sitting there that whole time. I have two furry babies that require an extensive walk every three hours or so, thank goodness for them or I would be so stiff I couldn't walk...LOL

See, as an example, I tried to post a photo of the two of my furry babies. Uploaded the same photo twice, hit the "DONE" button and nothing. No photo. I give up, you will just have to believe me.

Ok, back to the blog design search. Enjoy your day.

The home of a artist- Reminders of The Journey

2010-03-28T16:03:00.014-05:00

I was in the thinking room earlier today and got to thinking about all the artsy stuff I have hanging in my house. There is literally something in every room. Now that I torch there isn't much to show of it around but my fiber arts are everywhere.

This is "Fairy Fern" in the entry way. There are tiny fairies peaking out from under the ferns and little orange lady bugs crawling up the leaves.

I don't even remember when I did this one but it was from a period when I was using all kinds of fabrics in my work from velvet to silk. That period didn't last long thank goodness, not fun to work with to say the least.

This one is from my "colorwash" period. It was very popular for awhile and I still have boxes of little tiny squares of fabric.

The designing of the pieces were the most fun. Sewing all the little one inch pieces together was not the fun part. I started machine quilting this piece before I really had learned how to do it and then never finished it. It was rolled up with the rest of the UFO's (unfinished objects) and I ran across it one day and decided to rip out some of the machine quilting and redo it. I really like how it turned out.

I have sense decided that if I ever did another one there would be a very large piece of "iron on" fabric underneath as the base so that I could iron all the little pieces down before I had to start sewing it all together. Long after I gave up on this type of art quilt they did come up with a really cool gridded iron on fabric for this purpose...figures.

This one was done by D eborah Lacativa a fiber artist friend of mine. We were both members of a small fiber arts group here in the Atlanta area and decided to do a little secret quilt swap. We each gathered up fabrics and such that we thought would be fun or hard or impossible for someone else to work with, they were to make us a small wall size quilt with everything in the bag. I didn't know that Deborah had drawn my bag, I had gotten these fabrics as a set from a fabric club thing I was in and couldn't imagine what to do with them. I think she did a wonderful job.

It is at the end of my hall and I see it every time I come down the hall. The colors are bright and fun and really brighten up an otherwise dark hallway.

The next two are both in my front bathroom.
This first one has three framed pressed flower pieces.
The one in the center my mom did for me and sent to me for
my birthday the first year we live in this house. I decided to make two more to go with it. The pansy's were the first that grew in the front of the house so I went out and picked a hand full and pressed them between the pages of the HUGE Atlanta phone book...LOL

The second one is on the opposite wall across from the toilet, it's in a place where I can study it and every time I sit and look at it I see something different in it. I did it in my fiber arts phase when I was working with more surface design. I have quite a few rounds, there is a wooden ring that the fabric is stretched over and then different fabrics are tacked down, beaded and decorated.

I really enjoy the rounds, I can sit and do them in the evening in front of the tv. Just adding beads and buttons and branches and whatever I can find that seems right at the time. This one looks much like the hand done rounds but it isn't. It was the first one I tried with the sewing machine.

The trunk and roots of the tree are a piece of jute that was untwisted and wrapped with rayon thread using the sewing machine. I laid it on the fabric and continued out with the branches and the rest of the roots to tack it down. I then added little snippets of pink silk organza for the flowers. It was kind of fun trying the thread wrapping. Only did it a few times but there are some other rounds where I used it as seaweed.

The last one is the largest at 4x4', it hangs in the living room on a very large wall that comes to a point in the center of the piece. I had to cover a large wall and couldn't think of any other way to do it.

This was done from a pattern that I got at a quilt store while I was visiting my home town of Clovis, CA. I saw it and knew that it would be perfect for over the couch. The dark raisin petals of the flower in the upper right corner are the same color as my couch and you can see that color through out the mottled fabric.

I used a curtain rod to hang it and I can see in this photo that I might need to find something else to hang it with because it is a bit heavy.

Well, that's the tour of an artists house. There are more pieces but I thought that this was enough to give you an idea of the journey I've taken to get where I am. It's been a twenty year journey and I loved every minute of it.

Remember to stop and enjoy where you are along your journey, you won't ever be back this way again and you want to remember it, good or bad.

The jourey into SoopSee

2010-03-27T13:46:00.001-05:00

During my downtime I've been trying to understand and learn about marketing online. There are so many sites and opportunities out there, where to start.

One of the neet sites that Etsy suggested was Soopsee, for a free account you get this cool little website to show off your work: http://www.soopsee.com/profile/afiberjourney
I really like the interface and it create a really slick, quick look at all I have for sale in my Etsy shop. Now I'm going to try and figure out how to get a widget on my blog. You will either see one, in which case you will know that I succeeded or you won't...LOL Stay tuned.......

Still broke down on the journey

2010-03-27T13:13:00.005-05:00

Well, the end of week on without a kiln and I contact the maker. He say, and I quote, "oh I'm such a ditz, I put the part out and didn't mail it" Seriously!!! This is my livelihood, he is trying to make a joke of it and here I sit. Now what???

It's so hard to depend on someone else to do something, especially when it's important to you. I have a hard time with people who say they are going to do something and then don't. I usually give them a couple of chances and then I'm done with them. Unfortunately in this case I have no choice. I am stuck, sitting here waiting for someone else, very far away, to do what they said they were going to do a week ago. So frustrating.

I have promised people things and even if I am sorry after that fact I still follow through. I just think it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately there are people out there that procrastinate to the bitter end, put things off that would take maybe five minutes and they spend more time thinking about the fact that they haven't done it than it would take to do it.

Ok, I think I have it out of my system for the moment, I'm still stuck sitting here waiting but I have no choice. Do I offer to pay to have it quick shipped??? Luckily he offered to ship it overnight. I was so happy that I offered to pay half of the shipping so with any luck at all I will be back at the torch by Wednesday...stay tuned to see if it happens.

Break-down along the Journey

2010-03-22T20:07:00.004-05:00

Geeze, there I am happily torching away on Saturday, singing along with the iPod, Hubby was working down stairs too so we were both using all the power plugs available in the basement. I go to put bead number 10 in the kiln and I notice that the temp is down to 830 and dropping. The kiln is suppose to hold at 960 while I work so I immediately started yelling at poor hubby thinking he had tripped something. Needless to say I wasn't thinking if that had been the case I wouldn't be able to see the temp display on the kiln.
So, I turned the kiln off and back on again, I could hear it clicking which meant that the relays were working fine. I was panicked at that point. The beads made in the last hour were most likely a loss as they wouldn't be properly annealed. I was beside myself, here I finally get retired, finally get good weather and the kiln decides to stop me in my tracks. What next??? Dare I even ask that question.
I went upstairs and called my kiln guy...Mike at The Glass Hive his kilns are wonderful and he didn't even hesitate, said he would send me another element so that we could replace the one that quit. Unfortunately he's on the west coast so it will be a week before I torch again. The thought scared me. What would I do with my time. I have two days worth of beads to photograph, measure and log but after that what???

I might just have to go back to the polymer clay or fiber arts for the rest of the week while I wait patiently at the mailbox for my part. We shall see. It's been two days since it happened and I'm just getting around to the beads that needed to be photographed. It's been cold and rainy for the last two days so I probably wouldn't have torched anyway but still...whaaaaaaa.

By the way, I lost the last four beads I made on Saturday, they broke in half as I tried to take them off the mandrels. No surprise there. It's just as well, I sure wouldn't want someone to get them and then have them break. I have a friend in the UK who can use them in her mosaics so they will be used for something.

Well, four or five days to go, lets see what I can find to get into trouble with.
tootles,
Jan

The Journey into Spring 2010 - my first "retired" Spring

2010-03-20T10:22:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone, been absent haven't I. Spring is finally here, when I retired
it was cold and dark and I spent a lot of time just trolling the Internet.
It was too cold to torch, my set up is in the unfinished basement and it's
like a tomb in the winter. Not to mention that I have to open the windows
for ventilation. Anyway, the first month I was retired I bet I torched four
days. I was getting consistent sales but no torch time. It was really
frustrating and I felt like I was just on vacation and eventually had to go
back to work. It's been almost two months now and I'm really starting to
feel retired. The feeling is wonderful, by the way. The weather is getting
warmer and I've been torching everyday. This brings me to today discussion,
working out a schedule or routine. I can't torch every day, there have to
be some days where I do the grunt work of photographing, logging and
measuring the work. I figure every three days I need to do this. So far I
ve been using the weather to determine what days I take off from torching.
If it's going to rain or storm those are my days off.

Hubby isn't too happy with this schedule because he doesn't want to take his
precious cars out in the rain...good grief. Like he has so much to do.
There was one warm day late in February when he got out and washed the cars
and then didn't want to take them out on a rainy day and get them dirty
again. I tried to tell him that it would be warmer every day now and he
could wash them again but he's not having that, yet. Life's decisions
should be so tough...LOL But I digress, as usual.

Yesterday I decided to use five colors that I had not used either ever or in
a long time. I wanted to start testing colors to see which ones fumed when
I put thin wraps of silver glass on them. Needless to say I picked the
wrong ones, they all look like crap and I was so disappointed with the
results. Now I have five very long tube beads that probably won't sell
because they are fumed to an ugly yellow color. How sad is that. Lessons
leaned. I guess I need to learn to make wind chimes so I can use up all the
fuglies...LOL

Well, better get to the torch. It's going to storm tomorrow so I will be
photographing. I'll try to remember to post a few of the fuglies so you can
see or yourself what I'm talking about. Until then. Be sure to enjoy the
journey and remember to stop along the way and enjoy the day.

Total Art Soul a new stop on the journey

2010-02-15T11:49:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile, yet again. I found a new play to play, "Total Art Soul",
it's a wonderful forum of artists of all kinds that share ideas and life as
it comes. Check it out, you might just find a new stop in your journey.

As for me, I finally retired! No more hour commutes through the worst
traffic in the nation. I still feel like I'm on vacation, I wonder how long
that will last. My furry kids are kind of confused but happy that I'm home.
It's been so darn cold I haven't been able to torch for days. We even had
snow here in the south! Four inches of snow, it was beautiful but I'm ready
or spring. I know that summer will be here soon enough and I will be
complaining about the heat. Until then I wish for signs of spring.

In the meantime I'm cleaning out the upstairs studio, getting rid of a lot
of my hand dyed fabric on eBay. I can be found under the the seller name
jquiltie". I will be putting about five pieces up a week, can't handle any
more than that at a time. If your interested in some really pretty hand
dyed fabric go to ebay and check it out.

Blogging

2009-10-18T07:29:00.001-05:00

GeeZe, I haven't been here since February! I'm shocked and ashamed that I
have ignored my little blog for so long. Why, you ask...hmmm...New job,
Facebook, Twitter, Etsy and Lampwork all keep me so busy that I had totally
forgotten to post here. I will admit that I got sucked up in the Facebook
games for awhile but I've finally honed it down to just a few that I enjoy
visiting every day to do a few clicks and then I'm done.

I've discovered that both Facebook and Twitter are fantastic marketing tools
I can't imagine anyone that would care what I was doing in my personal
life, ALL DAY LONG. But, do a search for jewelry makers and follow those
folks, they will follow you because they are curios. When you post a new
item to Etsy, copy the URL of your new post, go to "Tiny URL"
http://tinyurl.Com/ and make a tiny link to your new item and post it to
Twitter with a little note as to what it is. BAM...you will get some views
on your Etsy item. I have upped my sales to at least 5 a week with was
unheard of for me. I have customers who come back and buy again so I must
be doing something right. I love making glass beads and this allows me to
share what I make with others. What more is there???

As for the new job, I retired after 33 years with the government and went to
work as a contractor with a large company as a forecaster for a multi site
contact center. Customer Service baby, that's what it's all about these
days. It pays the bills and I don't hate it. I wish I could torch every
day but that will have to wait for awhile. In the meantime I torch on the
weekends. Which reminds me, it's time to torch. Light em' if you got em'

tootles...

Coming up for air

2009-02-01T20:02:00.000-05:00

Well, the day is almost here. I will retire from the govt. job after 33
years of service on Tuesday. I get five days off then back to the same
place as a contractor. It will be a transition but I've been looking
forward to it for eight months. I qualified to retire last June and had to
wait for things to happen before I could officially retire. It will be a
strange day but exciting just the same.

And you wonder why I haven't posted in awhile. I did have a breakthrough
with the silvered glass Triton. I finally figure out how to get the wildly
beautiful bright blue and turquoise colors out of it. When it is reduced in
the flame all you get are the shiny metallic colors and I just didn't get it
ok, so they all look pretty much the same but how to folks get the pretty
colors to show. Well, I decided to reduce the glass and then cover with
dots of a light transparent, in this case a very light blue. It worked, I
was so excited I couldn't stand it. On the black one the metallic ring
around the bright colors is the silvered glass that didn't get covered by
the transparent, I put it back into a reduction flame to bring the metallic
shine back up before putting it into the kiln. On the middle one, the blue,
the black areas around the bright colors are the Triton that wasn't covered
by the clear, I didn't reintroduce it into the reduction flame and it just
remained black. I love the look of the bright blues shimmering through the
transparent. Not easy to photograph for sure, there is a shimmer that
reminds me of fish scales that sparkle in the light. AND I can reproduce
the look, something that doesn't always happen when I discover a new look.
Try it, you will love the look.

tootles,
enjoy the journey

Still winter

2008-12-18T21:34:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's still winter. However, we are having some above normal temperatures here in the south and it's been in the high 60's. The basement is actually is the 60's also. I'm heading down to the torch tomorrow, I just hope I haven't forgotten anything, hopefully it's just like riding a bike, but you know I think that's a misnomer also. We shall see.

I've been selling my beads on eBay lately and doing fairly well. I think eBay just has a much larger volume of people that frequent it as compared to Etsy. Etsy is a great place to find anything handmade, it just isn't as well known and the search capabilities are limited to the short list of tags we are allowed to use as compared to eBay. I'm still learning all there is to learn about eBay, as a matter of fact one of my new customers had to walk me through creating an invoice for multiple purchases.

I've been considering buying a DVD on all there is to know about eBay. You know the one, the guy that sells all kinds of computer how-to DVDs and offers the first one for only the price of the shipping, I think his tag line is "Buy my product". I'm just afraid that if I call to order it they will talk me into something else. I wonder if he has a website. I guess next time I see the commercial I'll actually pay attention...LOL

Speaking of commercials have you noticed lately that the commercials are about 100 decibels louder than the show you were watching? Tonight I headed to the kitchen to get something while a commercial was on and it was so loud that when I came back into the room poor hubby had his hand over his ears. It never occurred to him to just reach over, grab the remote, and turn the stupid thing down. Some channels are worse than others, Spike has a really bad habit of absolutely screaming at you when it thinks you have walked into the other room during a commercial. Thank goodness for DVR's, fast forward through those puppies, I'll show them.

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and are able to spend it with friends and family.

Talk to you all soon.......................

tootles,

glass lover

Winter journey

2008-11-20T12:29:00.001-05:00

I hate the winter, and the holidays for that matter. And now, if the cold weather isn’t bad enough I have a new reason to hate the winter months…..I can’t torch. My setup is in the basement and I have to open the windows to torch. Way too cold down there to do that. My friend has a big heater blower, you know, the kind they use in car repair shops, anyway he is going to loan it to me to see if that will help. My only problem now is finding enough power. We haven’t finished our basement and I am using almost all of the available plugs now so I’m not sure I can even run the thing. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. It’s either this or I find some electric socks and a hot water bottle to sit on. One would think that the torch would keep you warm but the radiant heat just isn’t that warm as most of it goes up.

As for the other reasons I hate the winter, the obvious the cold but the holidays always make me blue. Family is all spread out, they all want you to be where they are and you can’t, memories of wonderful childhood Christmas’ don’t help. You can’t go back can you. Usually when January 1^st gets here it’s spring for me. There is still plenty of cold weather to deal with, even down here in the south, but for me it’s all sunny and bright and I’m ready to get on with it.

Here’s hoping you all have a great Thanksgiving and a super holiday. I’ll post beads if I’m able to torch. If you don’t see the beads you will know that it was a no go……….

Blogger Sucks!

2008-11-15T09:31:00.002-05:00

This thing rarely works like it should. I can't add any more things to my blog, haven't been able to for a long time. Guess I'll just add my Facebook link in here and see if it works.

Journey through the tornado

2008-10-29T20:58:00.003-05:00

For all the different lampwork beads I do I have found one that I love and am driven by. It's a simple technique that I found a tutorial for some time ago online. It's called the tornado bead. I have put my little twist on them and each time that I torch I have to do at least two of them. No matter what else I do I have to do a few of them. At some point I have to get good at something and it might as well be these. Here are some examples of my take on the tornado bead......yes, these are all in the same color way. I do tend to like the blues\greens\purples. I have made six that were in the warm tones and only one of them hasn't cracked on me. Not sure if it's a compatability issue or I'm mashing them too flat. I'll keep trying. Just thought I would share. I'm starting to make beads to match them, making necklaces out of them and selling them on Etsy, if your interested, you can click on the Etsy Mini link at the left.

The journey back

2008-10-26T10:29:00.002-05:00

I'm back, not such a journey. The second drive as bad, when they took it out the laptop booted right up. No data loss, they just had to replace the second drive and transfer all the photos, my business photos. I felt like my life was on hold for that week. I lost my momentum waiting for it to be fixed and now I'm finding it hard to get back to the pace I was keeping.
I really do want to back all the important stuff up and them reinstall the whole thing. It does need it. But, I think I'll wait for a cold winter weekend when I can't go down to the basement to torch. I don't want to waste a nice warm fall day sitting in here fighting with all of that. I know it will eat up a whole weekend messing with it. So, for now I pray that it behaves itself and I can just go on like nothing happened.
I did torch yesterday, those beads are in soaking now. When I get the holes cleaned out I'll take a few photos and share. For now, I'm just happy to have my laptop back.

Journey to now where

2008-10-19T19:59:00.003-05:00

Well, it finally happened to me! My laptop quit on me and I lost everything and I mean everything. All of my business files. All the photos I use to post things to Etsy and Boundless Gallery. The file that keeps track of all of my beads, jewelry and sales. All my links, family photos and on and on and on. I was in denial about it for about a week and finally took it in to see if they could at least retrieve the files on it yesterday. In the end it will depend on how much they want to do that and if they even an. I have the original disks so if all else fails I will just reinstall it and it will be just like the day I bought it. If it weren't for the loss of the files I wouldn't feel so bad about just starting over. Computers get so full of junk and start getting slower and slower so it would be a good time to just start over, however, I really do need some of those files.

Just in case your interest, or if it ever happens to you, here is what happened.....My laptop has two drives the second of which I never really used. The main drive where all the programs are was getting full so I moved the whole "my pictures" folder over to the other drive. Within a week I started getting messages that there were problems with that drive and that I needed to do a "chkdsk" So, I scheduled it to do the chkdsk, you can do it on the fly as it needs to lock down some of the files, so you tell it to do it the next time the computer is rebooted. I got done with what I was doing and rebooted the laptop. That was it, when it got to the place where it was to do the chkdsk it errored out, turned itself off and started over, and over and over and over. Needless to say I tried everything but it didn't work. That was a week ago. I was so sick about it that I didn't do anything for a week. So, here we are, waiting to hear whether the data is salvageable or not. I have my fingers crossed that they can get the files off of there and it won't be too expensive to do that.

I'm using hubby's laptop for now, I have recreated our bill paying file and discovered that only a week before I had emailed my main business file to work to touch up so I had a slightly old copy of it that I could use. Soooooooo all is not a total loss. I do have email and Facebook (which is keeping me amused for now).

Until I'm back up and running. I offer you this bit of advice....it's not really "if" it will happen to you too but "when". Back up those files. NOW!

Journey in search of gas

2008-09-27T06:30:00.002-05:00

It's the craziest thing here in the Atlanta metro area, we can't get gas.
There is no real reason for it except that we are such a large metro area
and once there was a threat of running out everyone panicked and now they
can't keep up with keeping the stations supplied with gas. I had to get
hubby up at 5am today to go find some gas so I could go to work next week.
I actually worked from home yesterday because we couldn't find any gas. I
just lucky that I could do that.

Luckily I'm one of those people that is more than happy to stay home on the
weekends and play instead of heading to the mall or just wandering around.

We have been living out of ice chests for two weeks because a small part in
our frig went bad. If I learned anything from this it's to put a
thermometer in our frig to keep a close eye on the temp. It doesn't take
much of a temp. change for things to start going bad. Both of the dogs and
I got food poisoning before we realized that the frig wasn't cooling enough.
And the vet bill was more than what it cost to fix the frig! It was
finally fixed yesterday so hubby is at the store now buying food to restock
the empty frig. Not the greatest way to get your frig cleaned for sure but
it's clean and empty now.

As for the beads, the first two were inspired by things I saw while surfing
the web. The rainbow bead is one that was inspired by a glass artist that
paints on layers of clear window glass and stacks theme and slightly slumps
them. Her name is Carol Cohen, you can see her wonderful stuff here
http://www.carolcohen.com/pages/coglass1.html

Ok, so the second one, I don't even remember what I wanted that to be, I
think ghosts flying around the outside.....hmmmmmm maybe not. The third one
was just another test bead trying out some new fire red shards I got. I
like them. They are interesting in that they are white shards that strike
to red in the flame. Cool stuff.

Ok, off to torch today. I need to make more sets for e-bay.

tootles,
Jan

Inspiration along the Journey

2008-09-23T07:47:00.001-05:00

Good morning, I haven’t been by in awhile. I do forget. I was introduced to Facebook last Monday and have had my head stuck in there ever since. It is nothing like MySpace in that it has all of these little interactive games that you check up on through out the day and click on, and you depend on strangers to help to get along in these games thus the need to network. Anyway, no excuse for not checking in, just why and where I’ve been and why there are no new photos to share.

I was doing my daily surfing and ran across some amazing things on the internet. Its funny how looking at other media can give you ideas and inspiration when you think that you don’t have a creative bone in your body, sometimes I amaze myself. I had ideas for two different beads that I can’t wait to get home and try. Where and how I got the ideas are so obscure that I won’t tell you what I was looking at for fear that you will think my mind has gone…J Check back here in a few days for a glimpse of my feeble attempts at creating something from scratch based on pure creativity. Even the thought scares me but here’s hoping it works. Most of the time my ideas are just too complex for molten glass but I try them anyway. Hmmmmm, maybe I’ll try them in Polymer Clay if the glass doesn’t work, just a tad bit list volatile substances to say the least. Let’s see…..nope it won’t work, my ideas deal with clear glass and reflections therein and I just can’t get those looks in PC, hence the reason I went over to the dark side to being with. I have a whole room full of polymer clay and tools that are just sitting there and have been since December. That is just truly shameful. Boy, when I die someone is going to have a mess on their hands. The sad thing is that no one in my family will appreciate the stuff and it will probably end up in a yard sale or second hand store. All I can say is that someone will find a gold mine in with what’s in my studio.

Have you ever thought about that? Where is all that stuff going to go if you were to be gone tomorrow? Have you made arrangements for the stuff? A list of who gets what? I have hundreds of craft books, lets see, there is beading, ribbon embroidery, needle work, quilting, fiber arts, altered books, polymer clay, lampwork, fusing…I’m sure I’ve left some out and that’s just the books. Then there are hundreds of yards of fabric, much of it hand dyed, the beads, thread, oh my gosh do I have thread. Ok, I need to stop. It’s making me sick to my stomach. I need to seriously gather the stuff up and start selling it on eBay now!. Wow, how did this become about all my stuff. It was suppose to be about inspiration. Oh well, we do get sidetracked by the stuff in life don’t we.

Have a great day. Enjoy the journey.

My first complete set

2008-09-01T08:07:00.001-05:00

I forced myself to do a full set of beads on Saturday. Boy did I hate that. Took me almost the whole torching session. I have decided that I'm just not a set kind of bead maker. I'm more of an organic bead maker. A little of this and a little of that, if it doesn't work out I make a tornado bead out of it. Here is the set. AND a tornado bead that I ended the session with. I have to make at least one of these every session. I love making the necklaces out of them. I have them up on my "Janzart" glass site and Etsy.

Revisiting Boro

2008-09-01T07:53:00.001-05:00

I had to try the boro glass just one more time. This little tree was the result. The blue ball in the tree was originally something else that went south so I tried to make a marble. Didn't turn out too bad actually. But back to the tree, I love the luster of the boro glass, it has so much more of a shimmer. The blue ball is actually there to even out the balance and allow the tree to stand, is that sad or what. I could pretend like it was there for a reason but that would be fibbing. I'll come up with a really deep name for the tree and ball, something that makes it sound like they were meant to go together. Help me name it would you?

A new place to sell

2008-08-31T22:22:00.002-05:00

I found a wonderful new gallery website to sell my glass beads and jewelry.
Its called Boundless Gallery, see the link in the banner at the bottom right
of my blog. They even provide a fully functioning website, all you have to
do is choose the style you like. My website is
www.janzart.boundlessgallery.com check it out.

The jewelry in my previous blog post is for sale at boundless gallery. I'm
real excited about this place, they have a really easy to use gallery style
format and three programs to choose from. Let me know what you think of it.

thanks

Jan

Journey down the Jewelry trail......AGAIN!

2008-08-23T20:16:00.000-05:00

I'm having a terrible time with the camera. I do better with the beads just laying on a white background but had to photograph these things on the manaquin and that's where the problems started I guess. Some of them came out yellow even thought I used the "tungsten" filter. Anyway, the first one is already up on Etsy, hoping someone will absolutely love it.

Here is the really pretty one, the wavy tubes are silver. There is a sprinkling of Dichroic glass floating suspended in the bead. The turquoise things between the tubes are wire thingies. See the color difference between these two. I have no idea why that happened. Anyway, the second one has silver spacer beads between the tube beads. I like the tornado bead, its so easy to make and when I screw something up all I have to do is wrap it in a clear stringer and smash it and I get the tornado bead.

These next two are just some other ones I did. The last one was suppose to have Psyce reactive glass on it but turned baby poop brown and didn't do anything so I swiped some other reactive blue stuff on it and it shined right up. You get the idea.......LOL

tootles,

back to the torch for more fun.

Journey to the doctor

2008-08-08T15:40:00.000-05:00

What a week, I've had a bit of a health issue lately. My mouth was burning so bad and my tongue in particular that I could hardly eat. My lips, inside and out felt swollen and the corners of my mouth were splitting out. Weirdest thing. I finally couldn't take it any more so I went to the doctor. Her immediate response was that it was probably a vitamin deficiency. I couldn't imagine that but then I don't eat very well. They took blood test and low and behold my B12 was almost nonexistent.

So then I started doing some research to see just what B12 was and what it was needed for. In the meantime I started taking vitamins. However, what I learned was that the vitamins aren't going to do any good. I take Prilosec for acid reflux and apparently that's what has caused me to get this way. B12 needs hydrocloric acid to break down so it can be absorbed and Prilosec slows or reduces the production of the acid AND as we get older we produce less. Who knew there was so much magic chemestry involved. So, I stop the Prilosec and hope for the best. In the meantime the doctor gave me this wonderful mouthwash that they call "magic mouthwash" (I kid you not) Its peach colored, syrupy sweet and numbs the mouth completely from the burning and pain. What a miracle. Apparently it has steroids in it and really is helping with the swelling and all.

Its been so hot here I haven't dared go down to the torch in the hot basement. I miss it but it really just isn't the place to be in the heat. I took the time to make labels for all of my glass rods. Somewhere around the third trip upstairs hubby says "are those all different colors of glass"....ahhhha ammmm yes, they are. Opps, guess he haddn't noticed them coming into the house a little at a time. My bad. Kind of like all of the fabric, and threads, and beads and polymer clay and on and on. And I wonder why I'm still working a day job. Sheesh!

Journey in the Heat

2008-08-03T06:33:00.000-05:00

Man, it has been so hot here in the south lately. I know that historically August is the hottest but dang. Too hot to go down and even torch. Yesterday I tried going down early in the morning but somewhere around 11 it was just too hot to go on. I don't think I'll even go down today. It's bad enough being in a house that has an air conditioner that is too small for it, we have a big room air conditioner in here and it can't even keep up. Yesterday was horrible. Anyway, time to organize the studio anyway.

I've been playing with a few new things lately. A lampwork technique called the "tornado bead". I love them. There are so many different variations you can get. If you get a chance pop on over to my Etsy shop and check them out. Last night I sat in here and perused YouTube for some new videos. I found one on how to make wire rings, I think this will be perfect for all of my orphan beads. I can make rings out of them. Here are a few of the ones I made. I tried using a button for one of them and actually like the look of it, not all buttons are meant for this technique but I have a ton of them so some of them will work.

Hope you are all keeping cool one way or another. From the looks of it the whole country is going bake today.

Three Years of Blogging

2008-07-18T09:34:00.001-05:00

I was just looking back my blog archive and was shocked to see that I have been blogging three years now. When I first started I couldn’t imagine that I would have much to say. As I have gotten into it I realize that it can be a place to go and just clear your mind of clutter or things that you are thinking about. I look back over some of the entries and photos and am amazed and where my journey has taken me. From fiber arts, to polymer clay, to fusing glass and finally lampwork. I still love my fabric, I do, some days yearn to get out my log cabin stuff and just make some blocks. I have a drawer full of 1 ½” strips, every fabric that comes through my studio gets at least one strip cut off of it for the drawer. I have been making the log cabin blocks by the strip piece method for quite some time, I have over 100 9” blocks made, eventually it will make a great king size quilt for my bed and it will have all the wonderful fabrics of my life. I will be able to look at some of them and have fond memories of where I got it or how I got it. I did lots of internet fat quarter swaps in the early days so I have tons of stuff that I just cut up into strips to get rid of. It may be time to just sit down and make eight blocks for the fun it.

Then there is the polymer clay, it took over my fiber studio and the huge cutting table so I don’t have room for anything else in there. I had to move to the basement when I started working with glass. I still use the studio for staging and creating jewelry but rarely just go in there and play. As we get into the dog days of summer and the basement is too hot to torch I may just have to step back in history a bit and just sew.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you may be into.

Working for a living

2008-07-17T08:01:00.001-05:00

I just hate working, but it pays for the art so I just do it. I can sit here all day and day dream about what I want to do when I get home. What I want to make when I sit down at the torch. I have a notebook that I keep with me at work and keep notes about what I want to do, things that I’ve seen online that I want to try and just generally ideas that come to me. Do I use the notebook when I get down there…..NO! I never do. I usually have one or two things that I want to try and never get to anything else. The time just flies by when I’m sitting at the torch. Before I know it, four hours has passed and I need to stop.

I have all of these great ideas during the day at work and then when I get home, get the girls walked and fed I’m too tired to go down there. I guess I should go down anyway, at least one or two days during the week. I’m just afraid that I’ll get stupid when I’m tired and “Really” burn myself. I do enough of that on the weekend when I’m not tired.

Last Saturday I had the mandrel in my left hand with a bead on it and I turned to the right to get something out of a drawer and forgot where my left hand was. I was trying to keep the bead warm at the same time and stuck my whole hand in the flame. I was so made at myself for that one, I jammed my hand into a large glass of soda with ice near by to keep it from burning and kept torching. When it started burning again I would stick it back in the ice. Not the first stupid mistake and certainly not the last but one would think that I would learn from my mistakes. I guess I do, I just keep making different ones.

Well anyway, just random thought, back to work……ta ta

Journey down the bead road

2008-07-15T16:24:00.000-05:00

I've been playing with a new technique that I read about out in Internet land someplace. Its called the tornado bead. Really cool effect if one can get it right. The blue green one was made using a couple of the silver reactive glasses which was reduced and then encased. I love the colors but I'm still having trouble with the affect. The yellow one is getting closer. On the other side of the yellow bead I tried to put a flower on the outside and it is really nasty. I used another reactive glass that just didn't quite react. Well, not yet anyway. I think that when it comes out of the kiln it may lighten up a bit. Until then, the flower remains hidden....LOL Use your imagination

Nessie Ice-Effetre Cool Color

2008-07-06T08:26:00.000-05:00

I've been trying out a new glass from Effetre lately. I got it from Frantz Art Glass, http://frantzartglass.Com/ as a gift. Apparently they didn't get the full shipment of it so they couldn't sell it, decided to give it as a gift. It is one of the new Effetre Cool Colors, I sure hope they get more, this is a great glass It is a striking glass, which means that you have to cool it and then reintroduce it into the flame for the colors to develop. Beautiful shades of blue in crystalline shapes. The only problem is that I used the old Luanscha clear and it yellowed when I swiped it on. I'm going to try a different clear today. For now, here are yesterday's results.

A new way to blog

2008-07-05T06:50:00.000-05:00

I'm testing a new way to blog, by email. According to blogger I can send an
email with photos by email to my blog. If this works I'm going to be
blogging a lot more.

And to test the photo, I add the girls. Aren't they cutties. Piper is a
wonderful Westie and Sadie is a tenacious Scottschund.

The lampwork journey continued

2008-07-04T22:49:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted any new beads in quite awhile. I've been so busy with my Etsy site and promoting it that I completely forgot. I can't decide whether I want to sell my beads as supplies or go ahead and make pendants out of them and sell them as jewelry. I'm not so great with wire but I can do it. Guess I just need to practice. Like everything else practice, practice, practice.

I've been playing around with the highly silvered glass from Double Helix, I just can't get enough of it. However, I've been having trouble with with black wisps of soot in my clear glass. I think I'm trying to get too much out of my torch or the oxy concentrator to be exact. I can keep turning up the propane but at some point there just isn't enough oxygen to burn off all the propane and it causes soot in the beads. So, at some point I either have to get another oxygen concentrator or live with the lower heat ranges that I get. Guess I'm just thinking out loud here. I need a bead annealer first. I use a fiber blanket to cool my beads and then batch anneal them right now, not the optimum way but it works and I rarely loose a bead from cracking.

Anyway, here are some my latest beads, I've put the silver glass away so that I can focus on getting good shapes. Occasionally I use a bit of it but for the most part I need to really learn the basics first.

The glass journey continues

2008-05-31T19:22:00.004-05:00

I haven't posted in awhile. The glass has me in a trance. I just got some new silvered glass and it is so beautiful when done right. I finally had an ahhaa moment yesterday with something someone else said about how they reduce their silver glass. Couldn't wait to get down there today and try it. It worked!!! I made my first reduced encased silver bead. The new Double Helix glass Triton with a little Psyche thrown in just for fun on the surface. Truly amazing. (it's the blue one) The second one is a Vetrofond Odd glass called Lichen that I added some Triton dots to. Interesting how different Triton can look depending on what glass it is placed on top of. The third photo is a drippy heart with Triton in the center. I have included two photos of it because the sides of the heart are completely metallic. The sheen is amazing, I tried to capture it, not sure that I did a very good job. You will just have to try it yourself.

Lavendar Skies - where the journey takes me

2008-05-07T07:25:00.001-05:00

Lavendar Skies
Originally uploaded by cserpentDesigns

I was pared up with cserpentdesigns a jewelry artist on Etsy who made this wonderful bracelet with the my beads. We won the challenge and the bracelet is on sale at www.host.etsy.com (the Helping others Street Team). Go check it out along with all the other submissions from the challenge.

Etsy Bead Challenge

2008-05-07T07:17:00.001-05:00

pink desert1
Originally uploaded by fiber-glass-polyclay-thejourney

As a member of the Creative Glass Guild of Etsy we were challenged with creating a set of beads for one of the jewelry artist on Etsy to make into a piece of jewelry. Here was my submission for the challenge.

Journey to pigdome

2008-05-07T07:07:00.002-05:00

Almost forgot about the pigs.....I have a friend that has a thing for pigs (such a long crazy story that I won't bore you). I promised him that I would try to make a pig bead for him. The first try was abysmal. The second not so bad. I am going to do one more eventually so he will have the three little pigs. Here are the first two.

The lampwork journey

2008-05-07T07:02:00.002-05:00

Boy, I've been so busy sitting at the torch that I haven't had time to update my blog. I could post photos forever. What to show you. I spend my freetime over on YouTube watching lampwork videos. Here are some new beads that I've made lately, they are all up at my Etsy shop for sale.

Torch trip

2008-02-09T19:04:00.000-05:00

Lampworking has to be one of the harder things I have tried. So much to learn but the rewards or many. I love the way the different colors of glass melt into one another. I'm still using mapp gas with my HotHead and I get such short amounts of time with all of the canisters that I still have. I'm lucky to get one bead out of each canister. Today I sat them all on the floor and worked my way through them one at a time. As one canister flame would go out I would change to another one. What a pain! Here are some of the results....

New Year, New Journey

2008-01-12T17:32:00.000-05:00

As I start the new year have only six months until I can retire. And, I had to start working five days a week. They needed me in another area to train some folks, have to impart knowledge so I can go. How do people work five days a week? I don't have time to do any playing at all except for the weekend and that makes Jan a very unhappy girl. Not to mention the fact that the two days off go by light lightening. Not enough time for all the things I want to do. This weekend was my first and I felt like I was running all day to get all the things done that I wanted to do.

I got four new beads made. Not photos yet, they are still cooling. For now, I will share a slumped plated that I made for my mom. This will be her Mother's day present. I used a really pretty celery green swirly glass with four strips of lime green dichroic glass on top. After they were all fused together with a clear cap, they went back into the kiln to slump into a mold. I love the colors. I sure hope she does.

For those of you who work five days a week, I really feel for you, up to now I have worked a 4-10 shift with Wednesdays off so that I never worked more than two days in a row. I don't know how you do it really. One foot in front of the other I suppose.

Seasonal Colors along the journey

2007-12-18T07:57:00.000-05:00

Remember the story, I think was an episode of Dick Van Dyke (boy is that aging me) where their son was only painting picture with black paint and the teacher brought the parents in because she was concerned that there was something wrong with a kid who would only paint with black, they discovered they he was so short that black was the only color he could reach. All that to say I feel like that kid, when I got my torch kit it came with a nice assortment of glass rods but I ordered another "special" selection of rods that ended up being yellows, oranges and browns. So, all of my beads are in that color set. Not my colors at all. Its not that I don't like them I just don't go for the warm colors. I love the turquoise, blues, purples and greens. I'm using the "fall" colored rods to learn lampworking. I guess maybe that way when I'm done I can make a bracelet with the beads that I make and they will all be color coordinated. Lucky me. Of course, I won't have anything to wear them with because I don't buy those color clothes either....LOL

More on the glass journey

2007-12-12T13:16:00.000-05:00

I'm beginning to discover that glass is more than what we look through from a warm house out into the cold harsh world. I got myself a small lampwork kit to try making glass beads. I love to watch glass go from its solid or as I am now learning "super-cooled liquid state" to soft molten flowing state. There is just something so mesmerizing about it. I'm made a few "globs" as I call them and am finally starting to make something that almost resembles a bead. One of the pieces I was in the middle of making, all of a sudden, had a heart in the middle of it so I stopped what I was doing, let it cool and called it done. It looks like a little bear holding a heart and is my favorite piece so far.

With glass fusing there is always blood, you can't work with glass, cutting and breaking it without cutting yourself. With lampwork its a bit more serious, yes I've burned myself. My lip and thumb. The lip was an interesting thing, You heat two rods of glass and pull them apart slowly to make what they call "stringers" very thin rods of glass for decorating your beads with find dots. Well was I was pulling the two rods apart, my first try I must mention, one end popped off the rod, swung around and popped me in the lip. Boy, is that stuff hot. No blister but it sure smarted for the rest of the night. Now the thumb was another very interesting lesson, I had created a small bead and was heating another colored rod to add to it, you have to balance keeping the bead warm with one hand while heating the rod evenly with the other. Kind of like playing the piano, which I was never very good at, without the notes of course, anyway, I had the bead too far from the flame and it cooled too fast. When the outside of the molten blob cools faster then the inside it fractures, it popped in three pieces, one of which landed on the unprotected wooden surface of the table. I had to grab it with my thumb and forefinger to put it back on the protected surface. Hence the burn, again no blister but a learned lesson. Fusing glass is a lot easier than working in the flame with molten glass. But it sure is fun. I have no idea what I think I'm going to do with these beads, luckily the little kit wasn't too expensive so I don't have to justify to myself that I need to do anything with them.

Why is it that we always have to justify what we get. I know I can sell the fused glass pendants. Much like the polymer clay, which, by the way hasn't been touched since I got the kiln, but the lampwork beads are less likely to ever see the light of day. I think they are more of a therapy session for me, no thought just concentration on something completely foreign to my every day life. As for the polymer clay, I still love and and as soon as the new Jana RobertsBenzon DVD gets here I can guarantee that I will be back in there playing with it again.

Well, enough for now, the mapp gas tank has probably cooled enough for me to go back down there and give myself another therapy session.....(yeah, right!)

Tootles........

The new Journey

2007-12-04T09:18:00.000-05:00

I finally got a kiln and have been fusing glass every chance I get. Glass has this alluring quality that I just can't explain. I have loved the look and feel of it for years and finally decided to give the fusing a try. The polymer clay has been put aside for awhile until I get the hang of the fusing but I haven't given it up completely. I am also interested in lamp work and hope to try that soon. These are some of the cool pieces I have fused so far. (I have put some of them on my Etsy site for sale).

Fractals for inspiration

2007-09-30T07:44:00.000-05:00

I found these in a folder on my computer while cleaning up today. When I was into fiber arts I found these fractals online and downloaded them. I thought that someday I might try to recreate them in cloth. Now I'm wondering if I could recreate one of them in clay. They are so amazing I just had to share them with you. I don't remember where I got them, nor do I claim to own them in any way. Just wanted to share some amazing photos with you for inspiration.

Bracelet bonanza

2007-09-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

I think I have finally gotten the hang of the bracelets and I have been going to crazy. They are fun to do and a great way to use up old canes. The outside is the fastest to do so I get a ton of those done and then have to do the inside and sides. Here are some that I just finished The little rocks in the lower right corner are some I was just playing with.

Carolyn, that is one there that you should recognize, it came from one of your "junk" cane ends. One of my favorites I might add.

Translucent journey

2007-09-09T08:02:00.000-05:00

I'm slowly figuring out how to slice those really thin translucent slices from the really cool canes. Getting them to go completely clear is the trick. It doesn't work every time but this one really did get where I wanted it. Now, what to do with it next. A pendant most likely.

The base of this oval was stamped, then I mixed two Pearlex powders together to get a nice green base. I had planned on mixing up some green liquid polymer clay to paint in the stamped areas but when I started doing that it just didn't look right so I wiped it off and used sharpie pens to fill in all the stamped areas. They don't like being covered with liquid polymer clay, as I found out the hard way, they tend to run. You have to kind of dab it on and do no brushing, just let it self level and cure. I was unhappy with the painting part so I decided to use the piece to practice slicing the translucent canes I bought from Carolyn, the one with the nine squares is so cool. I need to get a few more of those from her before they are all gone. I need more practice. with the slicing.

Junk Clay Play

2007-09-06T11:42:00.000-05:00

At our last guild meeting we had three demos on what to do with junk clay. This method was my favorite. Everything above was made with the one slab.

1)Chop up some junk clay.

2) Wad it up into a good size log and roll to ensure it is all packed well.

3)Twist the log and continue to roll until it look like vertical lines in the clay.

4) Flatten log to run through pasta machine on largest setting.

5)Run through pasta machine.

6)You should now have a slab that has lines running vertically down through the clay.

7)Lay out slab and make 1/8" cut horizontally through the lines

8)Turn each slice on its side. Each slice turning the opposite way.

9)Continue until you have a new slab of clay that looks like woven fabric.

By the way, I just found a cool site, SmartFlix.com How-To DVDs where you can rent How To DVDs. They have a huge Polymer Clay section to choose from. I rented one from Gwen Gibson and can't wait for it to get here.

Bracelet play

2007-09-03T08:57:00.000-05:00

I've been making bracelets for my Etsy Shop and am having a ball. I get the cardboard blanks from Houston Arts and brass cuff blanks from The Clay Store and they work like a charm. I use the tutorial put up by Melanie and its so quick and easy. I have modified it a bit by doing each step and curing in between to keep each piece nice and smooth. Just a quick slather of Sobo glue to give the cardboard or brass some "tooth" for the clay to grab onto and your good to go. Any cane or veneer can be applied for a really cool look. Here are my newest pieces.

Now for the bad news. I had just posted a nice write up on my little AMACO oven and how constant the heat is with it. I use two ceramic tiles in the bottom of the oven and never have to use a thermometer in it. I also use Kato clay which is very forgiving and doesn't burn. So last night I had put the finishing touches on the brown kaleidoscope bracelet and put it in the oven for the last 15 minute cure, turned off the light and left the studio. I went back in an hour later to get something and realized that the oven was still baking away. The timer had gotten stuck on the 15 minute setting and had never turned off. The brown bracelet was ruined. It was a cane that I had gotten from someone else and had been made from other types of clay that are less forgiving of temperature. Many lessons learned here. 1)never use any other clay but Kato, 2)never trust the oven when you have anything but Kato in there, and 3)never leave the oven unattended. The third lesson being the most important for many reasons.

I was so distraught about the brown bracelet. It was so pretty as you can see in the photo. Now it is all brown and black. The yellows, reds and oranges are gone. Kato is the only clay that doesn't change colors when you bake it. All of the others shift when you bake them it the first place and when you over bake them they really go south. Sad, very sad. I am trying to decide now what I want to do with it. I can either trash it, put some white and translucent canes on it and try to make it look like it was suppose to be that way or try to chip off the stuff and start over. Stay tuned to see what I end up doing.

As for the black and white one, I have now added some red and translucent swirls to it and it really is looking nice. Today I will finish them up and try to get a photo posted so you can see how they all ended up. I do have quite a few for sale on my Etsy site if your interested.

Polymer Clay and alcohol inks

2007-08-26T09:17:00.000-05:00

I've been playing with alcohol inks lately. Using them on cured polymer clay is addicting. They are so unpredictable and fun.

I had stamped some ovals that I wanted to use with tinted liquid clay and forgot a step so after they were cured they were useless for what I was planning, in comes the alcohol ink to the rescue. I started playing and just couldn't stop.

After I get the inks the way I wanted them and dry I plan on layering them with liquid clay to bring out the dimension of the inks and stamping. Try it, you'll love it.

Barbara McGuire's "Creative Canes" book

2007-08-16T16:55:00.000-05:00

I just love Barbara's book, it freed me from trying so hard to do perfect Skinner blend right triangles. Just lay some slabs of clay down and do it. I had to literally put the book down, run in there, pull out the junk clay tub and play. I made two different blends and love them both. Am I going to be dangerous now. Ok back to the book......................

Rocks, Rocks, and more Rocks!

2007-08-16T10:25:00.001-05:00

Remember the rocks I was commissioned to make for someone at work, see my July 23rd post. I got another commission, for 34 rocks this time. I had to head to the home improvement store for a big bag of pond rocks this time. I have been scrubbing, washing, painting with glue and covering the little darlings with clay for a week now. I still have 12 to go. Not to mention the fact that the saying they wanted across the top of the rock is so long that it almost doesn't fit on some of them. I had to be creative in the way I put the waterslide transfers on. I do love the inkjet waterslide paper though. It is so easy to use and you can print virtually anything out on it and transfer to clay that you want. Boy does that open up a lot of possibilities. Every day when I walk the dogs down around the back of the house I stoop down and pick out a few more rocks to bring up to the house to use.

In the mean time, its still hotter than it should be here in Hotlanta. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak, the heat wave should just about be over. I can start to see fall coming and am so glad it is finally here. I can heat the studio with the two little toaster ovens and make things in the process. Right now I'm having to plan when I use them since they really heat the room up. Create in the evenings, bake the next morning. And so it goes in the south, the dog days of summer are upon us.

Hotlanta and musings in the heat.

2007-08-11T18:37:00.000-05:00

No photos today. Didn't get much claying done. Just too darn hot in the studio. We aren't use to these 100+ degree days down here in Hotlanta and when you add in the humidity, man. I start to think about the people that lived down here 100 years ago. How or better yet, why would anyone want to live in this heat and humidity without air.

Ten or so years ago, while living in Fresno, CA ,we had a state wide power failure in August. It was 114 outside, I had just had foot surgery so I couldn't even get in the pool, we laid on the ceramic tile entry way and just waited for the power to come back on. That night around 10pm it came back on, we were laying outside on the loungers to try and keep cool and all of a sudden we could hear air conditioners come on. We rushed in the house, stupidly expecting the house to immediately be cool. Ha, it took another three hours to cool down the house.

Luckily these days we have air conditioning or at least some place to go where there is air where we can get relief. The air conditioner put in with this house is undersized and can't keep up with anything over 95 so we have a standing room air conditioner in the den. We pretty much have to hang out in this room to keep cool and at that its still 80 in here. No energy to do anything.

I just got order for 28 more polymer clay covered rocks. See my July 23rd entry below for a photo of previous rocks. I'm planning on making these a different color combination just for fun. JanZrocks! Who knows, maybe it will be my claim to fame. I went to the local Home Depot and got two bags of pond rocks which will give me enough good size rocks for a very long time. Last time I bought the river rocks from Joann's and because they were polished they were three times as much AND only half of them were large enough. Lessons learned. Boy is that becoming my mantra in the journey down this path.

Stay cool where ever you are.........................

Weird happenings

2007-08-08T12:57:00.000-05:00

So, I have this nice piece that I had painted three or four layers of liquid clay over the top of to create some depth, then I dipped it in Future and cured it at 200 for 15 minutes. When I was getting ready to make a necklace out of it I noticed that there were a few bubbles around the bottom edge of the front of the piece. Of course I had to pick at it a bit and the whole top peeled off. I can't imagine why or what happened. All of it is Kato clay, I painted the layers on one at a time and cured them like I have all the others. For it to peel off like that really worries me.

Extruder woes

2007-08-05T09:19:00.001-05:00

I tried some of the smaller disks with my PCE extruder and made the mistake of putting in a smaller bead corer. I couldn't get even the thinner stretch cord through the hole. So, I had to cut the extruded clay up into beads so I could drill out the holes a bit. I was so frustrated.

I learned something else while making the extruded bracelets, I thought that you had to cut the curved extrusion in half when it came out of the oven and when I did this it was like rubber and cracked as I cut it. Later when I cut the backed cooled bracelet into pieces it cut so nicely. A bit hard to cut but such a smooth cut. So, I guess there are some things that are cut immediately after taken out of the oven but a curved piece, forget it.

AND the Kato clay that I cut looked very spongy inside. Those did plaque and moon quite a bit, obviously filled with air bubbles but really, I had to run the clay through the pasta machine so many times to mix that color that one would have thought that the clay was conditioned enough. Very strange. The second batch I mixed didn't do that and it was mixed at least that many times if not more.

I've put them both up at my Etsy shop for sale if anyone is interested.

Extrusions

2007-07-28T16:44:00.000-05:00

I tried the Polymer Clay Express extruder today after watching one of their DVD's. I have been trying to figure out how to do the little bangle stretch bracelets and the DVD made it look so easy I ran in there to try it. They used Premo clay and I was using Kato, so when you take the circle out of the oven and have to slice it in half the problems begin. Kato is almost like rubber hose after it is cured. They made it look so easy to slice the cooled clay and I know better. When I sliced it the stuff almost crumbled. Not sure if that is a characteristic of translucent clay or something else but I will have to overcome it. Next time, (tomorrow) I will let it cool first. It can't be that bad to slice. Well, I hope not. Can't be worse that when it is warm. It didn't slice cleanly that's for sure.

Lots of Rocks

2007-07-23T07:11:00.000-05:00

Unbaked above, names added below.

I got a commission to do some polymer clay rock paperweights for the folks that I work with recently. Ok, so I went to Joann's and got some nice smooth river rocks, painted them with white glue for grip and then covered them with five different colored tsunami canes (I fell in love with the ease of the tsunami cane and went a bit nuts, it has thin layers of silver mica clay for sparkle) . Then came the hard part. Trying to figure out how to get their names and a slogan transferred to the face of each rock. Luckily Jeanne Rhea came to my rescue and sent me all kinds of different transfer paper to try. I ended up using the waterslide method and loved it. The "decal" type transfers lay on any irregular surface and really look nice when they are done. I had a bit of a scare when I started painting them with Future. When I turned them over to paint the bottom one of the transfers came off, luckily it went right back on. I decided that they didn't need any more Future on the bottom after that little scare. I'm pretty sure none of my coworker look at my blog so I can post the photos here. Yep, now you know their names......

The Shaving Cream trip or should I say fall

2007-07-22T07:30:00.000-05:00

My local guild is doing a shaving cream on poly clay beads today and I couldn't go due to scheduling problems so I thought I would try it myself yesterday. The tutorial was in the Summer 2005 issue of Polymer Cafe so I used that. I had the Ranger Inks but I also had Tsuneiko Inks that are heat set so I wanted to try them also. First of all, my husbands shaving cream has a nasty smell, guess I should have gone shaving cream shopping first. Ok, so the first beads I tried (they are all the same size and shape per the tutorial) where covered with a shade of pink, Tsuneiko ink, it came out looking kind of like the ones on the cover, spotty but more color than not. On the seconds ones I used a butterscotch Ranger ink, they came out looking like it had been painted on, no spots just solid color and not very bright. I decided at that point to stay with the Tsuneiko inks for their color, I did another set of yellow ones so that they would all at least be the same value, in case I decide to do something with them. What was so weird is that even the different Tsuneiko inks didn't bake/cure on the same. Not sure if I will use them for anything but, hey, I tried it and know that I'm not missing a whole lot at guild. Well, except for seeing everyone. I will miss that. I added a photo of the Tsuneiko inks just in case you have never heard of them or seen them. I got the cute little holder and the sticks are used to draw on fabric or whatever. There are two for each color, one sharp one blunt. They work well with fabric and all you have to do when your done is heat set with an iron.

Continuing the layerig journey

2007-07-07T13:29:00.000-05:00

More trial and error with the layering. This first piece is probably my favorite so far. I used a lettered stamp and filled in the lettering with colored liquid clay, it looks like an old piece of stone. The second one is my least favorite. I was trying to replicate the look of dichroic glass encased in clear glass. I made a silicone mold and placed the pieces of foil covered clay face down in the mold, then I covered it in liquid clay. Way too many bubbles. Maybe next time I will try a layer or two of liquid clay first. I am a glutton for punishment, I just can't stop with these. I had to bring down the second toaster oven so I could have two going at the same time. Hitting them with the heat gun right out of the oven is the answer to getting the best clarity out of the Kato liquid clay. And its so fun to watch it magically clear up before your eyes.

Layering-the journey continues

2007-07-04T09:13:00.000-05:00

I'm still playing with layering liquid clay with thin canes, pencil and micro pigma pens. I am really liking the results, they just take so long. Here are the most recent pieces. I think the glitter stick went a little crazy and didn't stay where I put it. Next time I will let it dry a bit more.

Journey through the layers

2007-07-02T06:46:00.000-05:00

I wanted to play with layering different things on a base piece of clay. I did the following layers:

Translucent clay base

Pencil layer- squiggles and stuff

Five layers of liquid clay cured after every layer for 10 minutes, (then Donna tells me I need to hit each layer with a heat gun to make it really clear) this will certainly add to that time it takes to do these layers.

Thin strips or pieces of canes that are made up of a color and translucent clay and maybe draw around some of the under layers of pencil with a permanent marker.

Four more layers of liquid clay cured between each layer.

Turquoise strip of clay next to a strip of translucent clay that disappeared.

Three more layers of liquid clay.

I think the layer where I used the pieces of canes, they are too big. The scale is off. The little round stuff is ok but those strips of white were way too big. You slice off a piece of it and lay it on the acrylic work surface and roll it thin, this tends to make it get larger. Guess I should cut it through the center and only use half of it as the scale was way to big. Need to figure out why the tops are so rubbery. They shouldn't be.

Also, today when I use the pencils I am going to make that layer very dark. More color. And maybe a few canes or something on the bottom layer. I don't think I can use the pencils up on one of the translucent layers. The stuff is a bit rubbery. Maybe that's because I didn't hit them with the heat gun after curing. I'll try that today too.

I baked a couple of little pieces of pearl last night to play with today. I noticed upon looking up really closely at a few of them that you have to be really careful and wipe off all of the pencil dust as it floats up to the top of the liquid clay. I love looking down through the layers.

Green the new ???

2007-06-23T07:05:00.001-05:00

I've been playing with foils lately. After a demo at my local guild I got hooked. After you apply even a small piece of foil to clay you end up with a good size piece that goes on forever. So, I now have a new series of jewelry, beads, bracelets, earrings and pendants. I had seen a list on one of the HGTV-Carol Duval shows where Donna Kato was demonstrating some beads, anyway, she gave a list of different shades of green and how to get them with little receipts. I had to give them a try and ended up with seven different beautiful shades of greens from blue greens to yellow greens. Thus the new Green/blue foil series. With all that I have done I still have some foiled clays left. I think I posted the earrings in my last post. Here are a couple of the pendants. I just love the colors.

The new series is no mas and foil, my new best friend.

2007-06-17T12:59:00.000-05:00

Just a note about my new black and white series posted below on June 11. They were all damaged in a oven mishap. Sadly they were cooling and my husband turned on the oven on at 400 degrees to get ready to cook a roast. The rest, as they say, is history. Luckily I have photos of all of them so I can go back and try to make some. They won't be exact but with the same general feel. I did like them. However, there were things about them that I had wished I could have changed. So, now I get to change them.

Today I played with the foil again and made some earrings. I love the look of foil on the different colors of clay. I put the foil on both sides. I am working on a bracelet and pendant to go with them. Hopefully someone will love them at my Etsy shop. I made some beads also but those are still in the ice bath. Now, I feel a nap coming on. Claying is such hard work.......LOL

New Chrysanthemum cane

2007-06-11T06:25:00.000-05:00

I made a new Chrysanthemum cane yesterday. I tried to plan this one out a bit more and really love how it came out. I used a skinner blend. The colors are really soothing and turned out just like I wanted them to. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this cane. The hardest part is making those groves. I had to have hubby come in and put some muscle behind this one. I was in there grunting and groaning and he came in to see what was wrong. Hee, hee, works every time.

The new series

2007-06-11T06:18:00.000-05:00

I've been playing with some pendants that I call my White and Black series. They are little pieces that I just sit and natter with. I like how they are turning out and hope that someone else will like them enough to purchase one at my new Etsy shop. They are very calming to make. By the time I got to the tenth one I finally had a process going where I could do them without any finger prints or gouges. Sometimes my fingers just feel so large.......

Dipping my pieces

2007-06-03T18:59:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to trying dipping my finished clay pieces in Future instead of painting it on. Wow, what a difference. I love the look and feel it gives. I have wire shelves in my studio closet so I just set up a little dipping station in there. that way I can close the doors while it dries and keep the dust off of the pieces. I used paper clips to attach the stuff to the shelves and put a pan underneath. I used a loop of wire around my cuff bracelets and that worked well too. When I got ready to bake them I just hooked them on the rack in the big oven. Check the photos of the bracelet and heart below, those were taken before I dipped them.

Pop can bracelet

2007-06-03T16:21:00.000-05:00

So, after much talk on the clay-polymer Yahoo group about the pop can bracelet I had to try it. It was first done by Sydnee Holt in a segment on Carol Duval, I found it on the DIY site under Polymer Clay. It really is quick fun decorating it. The only work I need to do on it is to sand the edges, they are a bit sharp. After it's sanded I can dip it in Future acrylic floor finish and then it will be done.

Chrysanthemum cane

2007-05-30T09:15:00.000-05:00

I finally got a link for the tutorial on how to make the chrysanthemum cane. I love the look of this cane and apparently there are many ways to make this one. Once you make it you start thinking about all kinds of different effects you can get with it. Here is the link to the cane instructions in case your interested. The translucent clay in the cane really enhances the affect and no cut of the cane is ever the same. Here I made a heart and a pin with the cane ends, I can never just wad them up and throw them in the junk pile. No wonder I have no junk clay to use for bead cores.

Stained glass cane

2007-05-29T19:35:00.000-05:00

I used Lorrene Davis' "Stained Glass cane" technique featured in the Spring 2006 issue of PolymerCafe magazine today. I didn't get the cane to look exactly like Lorrene's but I still love it. I covered a bracelet blank with the cane. I love the way it came out. Also shown, another bracelet blank I covered with the "happy accident" mentioned earlier on my blog, I knew that cane would come in handy eventually.

Photo trials and tribulations

2007-05-26T15:17:00.000-05:00

I am still having trouble getting good photos of my jewelry. Here is a necklace that I just finished. I had made the beads some time ago and wanted to get it photographed so I could put it up on Etsy. Just not happy with the shadows. I have a small photo box with lights but I am still getting the darn shadow. Guess it's back to the drawing board tomorrow.

Photography

2007-05-19T14:48:00.000-05:00

My first try at using the little photo box I got. I have had it for quite awhile and have been in denial about how to set it up and actually use it. For instance, what the heck do I point the two little lights at? The object or behind the object. It was interesting for sure. I can see that I need to find a book and practice. How little I actually know about taking photographs. The necklace is also a first for me. I decided I better try making something out of all of the beads I have. This is the first try at actually making something. Good grief, there are so many findings out there. How does one ever decide what to use and what to put with what and what to string it on and then you have to decide what to use to finish the ends. I just wanted to play with clay and now here I am with the realization that I need to learn how to do something with the stuff and then photograph it. Where is retirement when you need it.

Clay day-what a trip

2007-05-12T15:36:00.000-05:00

Finally got to play with the clay. I had some leftover canes that weren't used in the kaleidoscope class and wanted to try another cane. I got lucky and love what I ended up with. I call it my snowflake cane. The first photo is the finished cane, the second photo is the first set of triangles that I put together, something just didn't look finished so I decided to make it into a triangle again and reduce. The third photo were some end cuts that I played with. As usual, not sure what I will do with them. The fourth photo was the second thing I wanted to try. I made a rainbow skinner blend, when it was done I sliced off about 3/8" and added it to a sheet of pearl clay. The resulting cane is a really nice pastel rainbow blend. The trick is to continue to fold the clay just like you are making a skinner blend, this keeps the blend true across the sheet. I'll be trying this again. As for the kaleidoscope cane, it will be sliced up to make pendants at some point. Whew, I feel myself relaxing already. The fix is kicking in.

Hostage sock and the negotiations

2007-05-11T16:31:00.000-05:00

I have had a week without clay. Not good for the psyche for sure. Until I can play tomorrow I offer you this: We have a wonderful little Westie named Piper. We use to play a little game with her that has now become what can only be described as the hostage sock game. My husband has a bad habit of leaving his socks on top of his shoes in the bedroom. Piper will go in searching for a sock, every day. If she finds one she comes in with it in her mouth, proudly parading around with it just begging for someone to chase her. We know better than to bother, of course, she is much to fast for us. Unless we gang up on her and corner her there isn't a chance of catching her with it. The only way to get it away from her before it leaves a widowed sock behind is to negotiate with her. We go get a treat and call her in to offer it up in exchange for the sock. She happily drops the sock in exchange for the treat. Yes, we are enablers. But what would you do with a face like this?

The flower challenge, a journey in itself

2007-05-05T12:58:00.000-05:00

A photo of some flowers were posted to our polymer clay list. We were challenged with trying to replicate it in clay. Sounded like fun to me. Unfortunately I had no idea how to create the colors in the petals. I used skinner blends sliced and layered, that would have worked except I had to reduce what I created and that's where it went wrong. Well the petals anyway. The center is a mess. Wrong green, way to strong yellow/orange center. I should have reduced it two or three times. And I used so much for the center I have enough of it for two or three more of these flowers. I'll save it and use it for a kaleidoscope cane at some point. I now have enough of this cane to last a long time. Not sure what to do with it. I have plans for the large cane but the smaller ones.....who knows. I didn't have enough translucent so I used white for the outside. All of my other flower canes are translucent so this one can't be used with the other ones. What was I thinking? Anyway, here are the photos of the flower and my results.

Ghost Imaging

2007-04-29T15:52:00.000-05:00

Today I played with mica clay and tried to do Grant Diffendaffer's technique for ghost imaging. I had just finished watching his two part DVD and loved every minute of it. If you haven't seen it go get it. I got it at Polymer Clay Express, its over three hours of mica clay play and watching Grant play with ten pounds of gold mica clay is too much. I couldn't wait to try it. It looked so easy. Ha, not even. The first problem was my cutting blades. Even a brand new tissue blade cause there to be scratches on the face of the clay. I can only hope that they will sand out. We shall see. For now, here is my first attempt at "Ghost Imaging". What's important to remember here is that the image is in the clay. What you see if a flat, nearly smooth piece of clay.

Kaleidoscope take 2

2007-04-24T08:35:00.000-05:00

I had to get up and try Carolyn's kaleidoscope technique again. And it worked. Now, an important point to remember that Carolyn made is this, make sure that ALL of your clay is the same brand or like brands. These were canes that I had made from leftover Sculpy III and Fimo soft with a little Kato thrown in for good measure. BIG MISTAKE! All goes well until you start to reduce the cane. The the soft stuff squeezes out everywhere. Luckily I took it slow and got lucky. I love the results. Like Carolyn says "You are the boss of your clay"!

I even made some Natasha beads with the remaining clay. Didn't want any of this stuff to get mixed in with anything else. I think I have finally gotten rid of all of the soft clay. Whew! The stuff just isn't made for caning. Well, not by me anyway. My hands are way too warm and it just gets to the feel of butter. I have heard tell that there are those that could cane butter but I'm not one of them. I took some Sculpy III and leached it out for two days and it was still so soft that when mixed with Kato I could feel the difference. Too bad too because it was a really pretty color.

My first guild meeting

2007-04-23T06:34:00.000-05:00

I finally got to go to my first guild meeting here in Atlanta, GA. What a fun group of women, so friend and sharing. Carolyn showed us her technique for makeing kaleidoscope canes and the results were stunning. I can't wait to use mine. Carolyn makes and sells the most beautiful canes she even had a tutorial on her site for how to make kaleidoscope canes. She brought some for all of use to see and I came home with a whole collection to play with. Thanks Carolyn, I could never make them like yours.

If there is a local guild in your area be sure and make time to go, it's really true what they say about PC artists they are so wiling to share everything they know with you.

My first flower cane, now I can say "been there done that"

2007-04-18T15:09:00.000-05:00

I found at wonderful flower tutorial done by Cindy that I thought I could manage. So today bright and early I started it. Amazingly it only took three hours start to finish. I had the laptop in there with me each step of the way. I now have enough of this cane to last for the rest of my life. I now know why folks sell canes on E-bay, ya can't take it with you! The smaller canes are the size of a dime and the larger ones are the size of a quarter. Not a great photo but I wanted you to see the container I have them in. I found it at Walmart this morning for $2.88, it is

5 1/2" tall and will hold canes at least that tall. I was in the sporting goods department looking for an ammo case and they pointed me to these as they didn't carry ammo cases. I think these are better because you can see through them. And check out those cutouts in the two dividers. I figured I could use them as a holding area for beads when I have some baking on the bead rack.

Glorious color trip

2007-04-14T16:23:00.000-05:00

Just played with bright colors today. I love the big twisted beads. I call them "bongo beads". And the Kato clay, it's wonderful. Comes out of the oven with a wonderful shine to it with no sanding necessary. I do see some things that need a bit of sanding. This makes me realized that if I can learn to do a better job prebake I would not even need to sand and polish Kato clay beads. They just come out so great. But, that brings up another issue. They are hard to sand, it takes a very low grit sandpaper to sand them. Best to not make mistakes prior to baking. Guess that's the lesson learned today. (I think I already knew that, just forgot.)

Cormier revisited

2007-04-11T17:07:00.000-05:00

Wow! Dan was right, when these veneers were sanded and polished they really did look great. Just had to share them with you. Can't wait to use them for something.

I also discovered that by using the Kato clay the veneers needed very little sanding.

Black and White colorless trip

2007-04-11T16:57:00.000-05:00

I tried a fractured cane out of Judy Belcher's book "Polymer Clay - Creative Traditions" today. All black and white clay. I tend to be drawn to the all black and white beads and wanted a new cane to use on them. This was fun to make, you have to create numerous black and white canes that are then cut and mashed (southern technical term I just learned) together to make he right triangle. The cane uses a right angle triangles, which is always hard for me. I had my husband make me a wooden frame to put the cane it to ensure the correct angle. It worked! I want to use these for pendants and bracelet tiles. Just waiting for the extruder disc to show up and I am in business. (I ordered the one that creates bracelet tiles with two holes in the center.) When I was putting the new cane away I realized that I have way too many canes so this weekend I am going to get a bunch of them out and mash them together...LOL

The Road to a Happy Accident

2007-04-08T15:04:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to make the "Lightening Cane", from the Caning Corner in the Summer 05 issue of PolymerCafe', by McCartney Lade. Not sure what I did wrong mine didn't look remotely like the one in the magazine. Either I'm dyslexic or there is something wrong with the photos in the magazine. There is no way you can get from Step 5 to Step 6. So anyway, I ended up with this huge cane that I really didn't like. So, what to do, well, you reduce it and cut it about five times and put it back together. I ended up loving it. The happy accident. Below is a veneer made from the results and the cane . I can't wait to make some bracelets with this veneer on them and maybe some beads. They will be beautiful.

The Cutting Edge journey

2007-04-04T15:08:00.000-05:00

Today I used Dan Cormier's "Cutting Edge" slicer. I used his tutorial from the Winter 05/06 issue of Polymer Cafe'. What fun, my first attempt (the one with the red clay at the top and bottom) just didn't turn out so well. Dan uses the straight horizontal and vertical cuts as the first design to try in the article, but I found it to be the hardest to do. Making those straight perfect cuts was almost impossible. You are told to use the dull side of the tissue blade and that was trying at best. It realigns the mica particles which creates the uniqueness of this process but cutting down through six slabs of Kato clay run through the pasta Machine on #1 was thought. The results are worth it but that didn't make it any easier.

In the photo with all the different sets is one slice, in the upper right corner, of the first attempt and then three other sets I tried. After the second slice on the first attempt I knew I didn't like it. I much prefer the curved slices, I used a round egg ring to make the cuts (it had never been used for it's original purpose so I figured we would never miss it). If you look closely you can see that I turned one piece of each set over to show the other side. (it's the slice on the right of each set). Both sides of each slice look completely different due to the direction the mica has been shifted. One side actually looks raised and the other indented. It's hard to see here, guess you just have to trust me or try it yourself. I got the slicer from Polymer Clay Express, it comes in a kit with everything you need to try making the slices. The only other thing you need is the article.

The color is wonderful. It's one 3oz package of Kato silver and 1oz of blue. I want to try it with green and purple as the second colors. I bet they would be beautiful too. I baked one slice of each slab and will sand and buff them tonight. According to the article they really look great after they have been sanded and buffed. One of the great things about this process is that if you don't like the results of your first couple of slices you can just roll it all back up and try it again. Nothing lost but a bit of time. The next step is to decide what to do with the slices. A veneer for some beads or maybe a pendant. I still have two of the slabs, I only took four slices off of each and decided to save the rest until I decide what I want to do with them. For now I will dream, I get my best ideas at night in the dark.

Mega-sil molds

2007-04-03T18:22:00.000-05:00

I played with the Mega-sil silicone molding compound today. What fun, I made mostly molds of buttons. Here are the results. These are piece of clay that I pushed into the molds. The flat piece was just a piece of clay that I created texture with by using the same buttons. I baked them first and then put pearlex powders on them, then painted them with Future. What I discovered was that I should have put the powder on before I baked them. The Future washed a lot of the powder off. Lessons learned.

Tomato beads

2007-04-02T21:17:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's what we called them. Ordered by my friend Deb. Tomato colored beads with some black and white graphics for interest. The shine is from using Future floor acrylic finish. Two coats and then a quick bake for 20 minutes at 250. Really adds a nice finish.