It's been a very long time!

I have not posted in this blog in like forever. I am still in nursing school and currently studying for a couple of finals. :( I would rather be making beads or sculpting. I started sculpting again and made some glass eyes to use in my sculpture. I will post the sculpture when it is complete and try to keep this blog up to date. I hope to make some bead sets soon too. I miss doing art and school is driving me crazy.

Glow-in-the-Dark

One of my new favorite glasses is borosilicate glow glass. I can't afford the soft glass that is glow in the dark so I had to go with the boro. It is a very nice flowing glass unlike some boro that is so hard to melt. If you like boro sticks texture then you will love this glass. If you put it out in the sun, the beads will glow for hours.

Back to school....

Sorry I have been non-existant in this blog. I have been taking a break from making beads since I started back to college. I have been working on my pre-reqs for nursing school. I have always thought about becoming a nurse and I finally decided to go for it. I decided to go for it because the economy is bad and I often worry about my husband losing his job. I figure if I have a job I enjoy and pays well, I won't have to worry anymore. I tried to make beads into a living but I realized that if I am forced to make beads then it won't be fun anymore. I want to enjoy making art and the part of it making a profit being a fringe benefit not something that is forced and must be relied on. This terrible economy has opened my eyes in many ways. Also, if I work as a nurse, I can work three twelve hour days and then spend my days off making beads. The only thing that troubles me about being a nurse is all the science courses I have to take. Science has never been my strong point but I think I am up for the challenge. I will make more beads eventually. I want to work on some murrini roses since I bought the tutorial the other day.

Iphone Webcam

I thought it would be cool to record me making beads live so I signed up at flixwagon. I don't know how good it will be because I am using my iphone via wifi so try not to expect much. I will post to twitter when I start it up. The link to my webcam site is: My Torch Webcam.
It saves all the streams so if you miss the live recording you can look at the previous ones. I may have to build a holder for my iphone if the angle doesn't work. In the future I hope to get a wifi webcam with better quality maybe when I can afford it. The webcam will probably be after I save up for the deluxe mandrel spinner and the foot pedal. I have started selling stuff from my previous art hobbies to save up money for all this stuff. Glass is an expensive hobby when you want stuff.

It is 3 degrees right now...

And I actually got on the torch for a couple of hours and made some beads. I hope they don't crack in the kiln like one did the other night. It got pretty cold while I was torching and the basement window has ice on it. When I unhooked the propane hose and the ventilation fan was blowing on me, I thought I was gonna freeze to death. On Wednesday it is supposed to be 50 degrees, it will feel like summer. Weeee!

Some beads I did that I like....

I made some beads the other night that I really like. I wish I could torch all day today. When Sebastian goes to preschool I will have so much more time to torch. :)

The sun is actually out today, I almost forgot what the sun looks like. This morning Sebastian said, look the sun is out and the sky is finally blue.

Wishlist and Etsy....

Gosh I would love one of these...

Bead Press

Maybe I will be able to get one when the tax refund comes in. I also want a foot pedal for the Phantom which is $380. :( It never ends. I ordered a "mother marver" from weaverind on ebay. I decided to track it because it should have been here by now. It turns out that it got forwarded to the wrong address, I sure hope it finds it way here because it is kind of expensive to lose and I don't know if weaverind would send me another one if it did get lost by the post office. I am crossing my fingers on this.

I sold my first 4 beads on Etsy yesterday. I am thrilled. It is very encouraging when you sell stuff. :) I have a couple more beads to post but I haven't taken pictures of them yet, maybe later. :)

Finally, a bead I actually like....

I finally made a bead that I like and would wear on a bracelet if I had one. I made a couple others too but they were wonky. One was made on a 1/4 inch mandrel which I think is too big for a Pandora/Troll/Biagi bracelet. The one I made on the big mandrel, I tried to core with copper just for practice but I had to order some more tools because the ones I have are just not making it easy. I made the big mandrels out of metal rods I purchased at Lowes. I don't know why but the big rods get hotter and I have to hold them further back when making a bead. I am hoping I will be able to sell some beads soon since they are looking much nicer now. Hubby keeps telling me that I am spending too much money and I need to make some with what I have got so I guess I will try. :) I wish I was rich and had an unlimited amount of money to spend.


I forgot to mention, I love Fusion bead release. It is my favorite of all of the bead releases that I have tried. It is smooth and strong and never cracks or flakes off like some of the others. I also had to start wearing a respirator while beadmaking because my lungs were feeling sore afterwards even with a 1000 CFM exhaust fan and a lot of makeup air. I even have a blastshield which keeps the fumes away from you but there was still soreness. I wore the respirator for the first time today and once you get used to wearing the thing it isn't so bad. I used to hate it because it made me feel claustrophic and I would hold my breath. I kind of got worried about the sore lungs when reading a thread on lampwork etc about this lady that had bleeding in her lungs so I think I prefer the respirator to bleeding lungs. I made beads today and since I wore the respirator, I don't feel at all sore. It seems as I get older I have become sensitive to more things than I used to be. I don't think everyone needs to wear a respirator, just people that are sensitive to the fumes and people that fume metals a lot, you don't want to turn grey like they say you will. I also bought a creation station and I absolutely love it, no more resting my elbows on my knees. I highly recommend it to everybody and it is worth the $89 I spent on it.

I have been absent.

Sorry I have been absent from here. I have been working on a painting and then we lost electricity on Sunday until Monday because of the wonderful winds from hurricane Ike. I have since moved back to soft glass beads and trying to work with stringers. I tried boro beads but I can't seem to find a bead release that is strong enough to not crack and flake. I love bucket of mud for soft glass. It is the smoothest bead release I have ever seen. You never have to dip it twice because the bead release always goes on perfectly the first time. I found some Fusion bead release which boro people recommend so I ordered some of that but haven't tried it yet.

I have to give kudos to this seller, I don't know how he does it. He lives in Seattle and I live in Ohio, he ships first class mail and it only takes like 1 or 2 days for his stuff to get to you. He also has an Etsy store. I have ordered bails, glass epoxy, and bead release from him and it is always fast. Here is a link to his bead release auction:

Fusion Bead Release

Back to bead a day or a marble a day!

I have been gone for a few days from this poor blog. I was sculpting and I got asked to do a painting commission. :) I originally planned to sculpt and paint throughout the day and then torch at night but that doesn't seem to be happening. I start a clay sculpture during the day and then I just can't seem to put it down until it is done. I know I probably sound like a bad mother saying this, but I can't wait until my 3.5 year old starts school. I can't wait to have time totally to myself where I can do what I want during the day. Right now the only time I have time to myself is to stay up until 3am. I know this sounds selfish but it is just how I feel. I couldn't even imagine having another baby and having to start all over. I feel bad about this but my son is going to have to be an only child just like I was. There are just too many things I want to do with my art so I do not have the time or patience to have another child. I see people in the stores with 2 or more kids and I just don't know how they do it. Also, I still haven't totally lost the weight I gained when I had Sebastian so I couldn't imagine putting even more on. Oh well.

So from here on out I am going to try and post something of glass that I made each day. It may be a bead, marble, or sculpture but I will make sure it will be here. I also want to start making youtube movies for beginning flameworkers. I know I am a severe newbie and still have imperfect and wonky beads but I think I have mastered just the plain bead. They come out absolutely perfect, it isn't till I decorate or encase them that the wonkiness comes in.

The following bead was an attempt of one of Corina's step by step beads out of her Passing the Flame book, a favorite by the way. I highly recommend this book to any beginning lampworker. :) The bead didn't come out like hers which is what usually happens when I try to do her step by steps. I added some rubino oro dots to make it look at least a little cool. :)

I bought Sarah Hornik's tutorial Think Pink and I decided I would try to make one of the beads the other night. I knew it would crack if I didn't put it directly into the kiln after I made it so I preheated the doll kiln since the mandrels are too long for the paragon I have without the bead door. The doll kiln kind of sucks as an annealer because you have to open the top door and lay the mandrel on the kiln shelf. I used some kiln furniture so it wouldn't roll onto the floor bottom. A bead door would be so nice so I could just slide the mandrel right in without having to put on the huge oven mits. I guess that will be next. It's like you always need something new. Well, here is the bead, I think I overheated the rubino oro a little too much but otherwise I am happy with it. It isn't too bad for someone who can't even do swirlies with a stringer yet. I burned my thumb the other night while trying to do swirlies the way Corina describes it on her dvd. :(

If you don't know who Sarah Hornik is then you must check out her blog, after I discovered her beads I had to try lampworking.

Sarah Hornik