Finally! New Beads!

Well, don't fall over in your seats or anything, but I have new beads! I know, I know, it's been a very long time. But I made it out to the messy studio and melted glass and had a blast doing it. And! There are now 8 new beads on Etsy, and few more will come soon once I photograph them.

Here, have a look, handfuls and handfuls of them!

My Precious

I just wanted to share with you the bead I'm selfishly keeping for myself. Isn't it pretty? I think it might be the closest thing to perfect I've ever made. Not counting my kiddo.

Some Hearts

Love. I love melting glass. And I love it that my husband traded places with me yesterday so that I could "go to work" and melt glass. And that he got to experience a full day of "homeschool" which actually means, not a whole lot of time at home, strangely enough. And I'm almost caught up on custom orders now, which also means, I have photos to share.

I'll start with some hearts. Hearts = love, after all.

It's the time of year for hearts, isn't it? Actually, I like hearts all year round, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I enjoy making them too, and especially enjoyed making this first one, which you can see front and back. It's a very special bead with a very special story for a very special woman. I'm happy with the way it turned out, and I know she will treasure it for always and forever. And that makes me feel extra good about it.





And then there are these two, which are made with veiled Gaffer glass - they turn out looking like a watercolor painting, I think. I hope one of these is "just right" for my customer because these are the only two "blue" glasses I could find for them. I love it that they are not traditional pink. But then anything blue makes me happy.

More Teaser Photos!

Things are moving slow today. Three photo shoots. Zero beads listed. Getting there...

UPDATE: All beads are listed now! Thanks for looking :)

More Good Bye 2010

Something happened today that made me think. That sounds funny, doesn't it? Well, it's true. I've been beating the drum of good riddance to 2010, because the past few months have been so difficult... like it's kicked my butt and got the best of me, but really, I think, now that I'm, um, thinking, it was *me* that did the kicking - I'm the one that kicked 2010's butt.

This is what happened:

Today, one of my 2010 goals was realized: I got my work published in a real magazine. Check it out, The Flow, Winter 2010 issue, page 7, number 17: two tiger beads by me, aka The Blue Between.



Goal number whatever, get published - check! Just in the nick of time, but that's ok. What were my other goals, do I even remember? Why yes, I do. There were two others - one I didn't manage (getting into a gallery/shop/show/whatever), and one I did - that was a health goal, I was going to finally figure it out and get my body back. And I did that too, thanks to persistence, a handful of good books, and my awesome doctor, not to mention a gazillion dollars in supplements and such... but still, I feel 10 years younger by the end of this year than I did when the year started. If that was all that I accomplished, I'd be more than happy.

But that wasn't all.

* I also jumped into this homeschool stuff head first and I think we are doing pretty amazing with it, now that we know what we are doing.

* I fell in love with Kalypso glass and made some really amazing beads. If I do say so myself.

* I designed my very own Rawr! Tribe of Tiger Beads - original to me and like no other beads I've seen anywhere else... very proud of that, it's a great feeling!

* I started a new store on ArtFire, with my jewelry designs.

* I learned how to make Almond Brittle, one of the highlights of my Christmas holiday this year.

* And! I! get this! reached 500 bead sales on Etsy! And to make that accomplishment even sweeter, I never even blogged about this one, but at that 500 bead sale mark, $500 was sent to the University of Washington's Alzheimer's Research Center and was matched by Microsoft.

So as you can see, a GOOD year. More good than bad. We won't talk about the bad... that is just recent history and won't stick around, unless I keep thinking about it, right?

Time to set some new goals... hmn...

Happy New Year, friends, I'm wishing you all a happy, healthy, creative focus for the new year as well.

Five New Beads

I just listed five new beads on Etsy! Thanks for looking :)

Tiger, er... Snow Leopard Beads?

Remember a bit ago, before I got hooked on Kalypso glass, when I was all Tiger beads all the time? Yeah, I only have a few of them in the shop left - I should make some more, don't you think? One of these days. In the meantime, I found these three beads. They were my prototypes for my Tiger beads. I was so bummed with them at the time - they were not the vision I had in my head... and I just tossed them aside. But I found them again and now I think, hmn... they are not so bad, in their own way. They are certainly not Tiger beads, but I can see some snow leopard in them. Can't you? They sure don't deserve to sit in a dark box all the time, so I'm going to list them on Etsy.

Boom! Boom! Fire Powah!

Got the new torch hooked up yesterday - once I learned the dunk-the-hoses-in-scalding-hot-water trick, it went pretty smoothly. OH my goodness! Check it out!



That's with both rings burning - it's HOT. I managed to make three new beads with it, but I will admit, I was a little afraid to use the outer ring - as it is, I seem to be loosing some of the magical Kalypso pinks with just the center flame. I may need to crank down my propane a little to get more pressure - or just work a little cooler... not sure. Need more experimenting time!

Here are the new beads - all hearts, though... you might not know that about one of them if I hadn't told you.

A New Week, A New Bead

Or six, as it turns out. It was a very busy week, and no new beads got made, but these were finally photographed and listed on Etsy. Thanks for looking!

Eight

Eight new beads listed on Etsy tonight! Here are a few you have not yet seen:









Thanks for looking!

New Inspiration

The Bash, we love The Bash! In case you don't know, it's Frantz Art Glass's customer appreciation day - free demos, fantastic sales, lunch, glassy friends, the works. This year I got there in time to see Kimberly Affleck's demo for once and it was worth the drive and then some.

Her demo bead can be seen here - it's her seahorse, but done, this time, on a silver glass background bead. HUGE. I had seen her demo the seahorse a while ago, it was the base bead I was into. HUGE. Biggest bead ever! Like 4 inches by 3 inches or so. And gorgeous.

So, that was the best thing about The Bash this year. The next best thing was Double Helix. I spent a LOT of money on their glass. Plus I got the t-shirt. Why not? Kalypso is the glass of the month - if people thought they liked Clio, they are are going to go ga-ga over Kalypso. Mnnnnnnn.

Here are my Kalypso/Kimberly inspired beads. I'm heading to the studio next to make some more!

Just Some Eye Candy

Some beads I made last week.

New Beads on Etsy

Etching Uglies

Luke stayed home sick from school today and he helped me go through my ugly box to see if there were any beads to salvage with etching. We found a few, even some that made me wonder why I put them in the ugly box in the first place. The ugliest one (in my opinion) was certainly made nicer, so much so that Luke asked me if he could keep it. I think he was just enchanted with the transformation. Of course I let him keep it. Etching does sometimes change the personality of a bead, not always for the better, but often enough. So far, I've only ruined a couple of beads that were nicer before etching, and have only had a few that were still too ugly for words after etching.

Here are some of the ones we saved today: