Beat the Crowds on Black Friday!!! Shop in Your PJ's!

 Is this how you'd like to spend the day after Thanksgiving? Or is this more like it?

You're my kind of girl if you picked #2. *smile!* As luck would have it, I'm running a Post Thanksgiving sale on Facebook for the entire weekend! It starts Friday at 11AM EST and runs thru Sunday at 10PM EST. It will be on my Destash page, so hop on over and check it out. I have over 20 years worth of beads that I'm destashing. The ones I have posted will all be discounted 5-25%, maybe more!

What says summer like fishies??

I'm so bad about designing beads ahead of the seasons for some reason. Probably because I often just make whatever the mood calls for in a particular session. I recently got some peacock stringer from Avenue Beads and decided to see what it would do in a fishie bead. And, boy, am I glad I did! The colorful stripes on the body of the bead comes from the stringer. It has that great webbing thing that it does. The coloring is even more vibrant in person.

I learned this technique from Deb Crowley a couple of years ago at Glass Stock. Sadly I was unable to attend this past year due to health issues and will miss this year as well due to a friend's wedding. Don't anyone invite me to anything next Labor Day! I am going to Glass Stock, come hell or high water! hehe!

I don't usually make them in the winter because my studio is too cold and it's much harder to keep the entire bead heated at all times. I was constantly wafting it in and out of the flame to avoid any cracking and am really pleased with what came out of the kiln today.

This fish is pretty big and took me the better part of an hour to make. It's about 2" in length. I was so excited to share it, I didn't even take it off the mandrel. You get to see it in all it's glory, bead poop and all. ;-)

Can You Smell the Roses?

Cabbage Roses, that is.....

1st of all, is it really a month since I posted?? Part of me often wonders if people are even interested in what I have to say. Plus, quite honestly I've been spending more time on the torch recently. Not being able to torch for about 3-4 months made me miss it terribly & I itch to light up the torch @ any opportunity. And boy, did I have fun making over 50 (I always make extra, just in case) of these sweet little floral beads. Here they sit getting their final bath before heading out the door.

OK, so now that that's out of the way, I recently finished a custom order for someone. Had so much fun making these & when I look at them now in their colorful splendor they just put a smile on my face. OK, so we had a dusting of snow earlier this week, but can spring be far behind?

Etsy Treasury!

I am honored to be included in this beautiful treasury created by Mikki Ferrugiaro of MFDBeadworkOriginals on Etsy. Am honored to be included amongst these super talented beadmakers.

Beads of Courage

Let me just say that I've only been back on the torch recently after a 3 month hiatus following spine surgery. And, living in NY and it being WINTER, we've been hit by lots of snow and cold weather....not the ideal torching weather when your studio is in the garage as mine is.

When temps hit 40 the other day I decided to turn on the space heater and brave the cold. I turned on the kiln, lit the torch, but somehow it just was not my day. The kiln fairies must have been visiting someone else that day because it sure wasn't me. So instead of forcing things I decided to work on some butterflies for Beads of Courage (BOC)

For those unfamiliar with BOC, it's an amazing program for children coping with serious illnesses. If you want to see what it's all about and some of the children it's helping, watch this recent video broadcast on CBS Sunday Morning.

They collect all sorts of beads, but 2 in particular have special meaning. Purple hearts, which indicate the end of treatment and butterfly beads, which are given to parents who have lost a child.

Now back to beads....I have never made butterflies before, but decided it was time to test my creative skills in this area. Nothing else was working that day so I thought it would be a good day to attempt some butterflies. I am fairly pleased with my 1st attempt and will be sending these off to BOC (once they're cleaned of bead poop of course) along with some orphan beads that the kids might like.

Check out my new banners!!!

I am SO challenged when it comes to banners, but thanks to a good friend, Scott Bjorge, an amazing graphic designer and jewelry artist, I finally have banners for my Etsy shop, my ArtFire bead shop and my ArtFire Destash shop. I won't bore you with them all here, but feel free to click on my links to see his work.

Scott was amazing to work with. I gave him a general idea of what I wanted and he was able to hone in on the look that I was going for. Actually his banners give such a professional look to my shops that I'm not sure my beads will live to them. And did I mention that he also designed new business cards for me??

You can contact Scott on Facebook or message me here, on Facebook or any of my shops if you want more info.

Scott, thank you, thank you, thank you! You're an amazing artist and friend!

I Don't know How It Happened!!

I started out making jewelry innocently over 10 years ago. My love of all things sparkly soon took over and before long my "jewelry studio" looked like this.....

This USED to be my desk. 

The dresser is filled with more beads. The bottom drawer, that's now broken, is filled to the brim with pearls. The rest is miscellaneous. Gotta love miscellaneous. hehe!

 

These bins are filled with gemstones, sterling, gold-filled, etc. (LOTS of etc.!)

See, the thinking behind all this "stuff" is that you never know when you might need something. The trouble is that I stopped being able to find anything long ago and so just kept buying MORE! And, these days, though I still love making jewelry, my focus is on making beads. Where to put all the beads???

As much as I'd love nothing more than to open a bead shop, hubby doesn't care for the idea of getting further into debt, so sadly I must part with some of them. I've therefore opened up a 2nd ArtFire shop, LAJewelryDesingsDestash for destashing some of my beads and findings. I'm slowly stocking it so please bookmark it and keep checking back. I'll be uploading new listings to my facebook page so please friend me if you haven't already done so.

Torch Envy

Every lampworker and glass blower out there understands this phenomenon. Well, I got an e-mail today to say that my brand new torch has shipped! A Scorpion! YAY!! This is the newest torch made by GTT. It has the standard 5 inner jets of the Cricket and an additional 8 outer jets and is supposed to work great on concentrators. I can't wait to fire it up!

Here's a photo of the torch I started on, a Nortel Minor. I was so excited (and a wee bit scared) when I got it after taking a lampwork class. I was so afraid to fire it up, but boy how I loved it! Sorry for the stock photo, but I no longer have a photo of it.

 I then advanced to a Knight Bullet Burner, which I bought after taking a boro class. I thoroughly enjoyed the class & seeing all the color variations I can get from the various glass rods, those wonderful hazy, smoky yet bright colors & knew that my minor would take forever trying to melt the glass.

Please excuse the messy workspace, but that's how it normally looks, actually not too bad. ;-) I've loved the heat & power of this "Big Girl Torch", but have been somewhat frustrated at times that I haven't been able to attain the beautiful colors out of boro at times that I feel I should. Mainly because instead of using tanked oxygen I use 2 concentrators. But that's supposed to be the Scorpion's forte. So I will be stalking the mailman till that torch gets here. Stay tuned for (hopefully) some wonderful boro beads from me. :-)