Something new!

I finally got into my workshop with my new glass this weekend, and the first thing I wanted to do was one of my 'things I'd like to try'. I used my beloved Effettre Ivory, a dollop of my new Vetrofond odd light amber and a bit of Vetrofond odd lot Cosmic Storm stringer, and I went ahead and tried my hands at my first off-mandrell piece.

Now this is something completely different from making beads on a mandrel. In stead of inventing the wheel all over again, I decided to try a heart. It is quite possible I should have made just a little bit of research, but instead I just jumped in with both feet. I heated a blob of ivory on the end of the rod, added globs of amber and twirled a bit of Cosmic Storm around it.
I squished the whole thing fairly flat, heated the appropriate area and made a cut diagonally across from the rod and halfway through the disc. This makes 2 pointy ends that when heated ends up as the 2 round top parts of a heart. The center and pointy end of my heart were a bit skinny, but it didn't occur to me to add more glass as I were ballancing the hot mass trying to avoid melting the rod too much and losing the whole thing.
I also tried to poke a hole through the upper center so the heart might be hung when finished, but when I poked from one side, the hole from the other side would close up and just show a little point where it had been. So I gave up on that, and now I have a small heart to decorate my home in some fashion.
Not a raging success, but definately fun, and definately something I will try again.


Front and back. Yup, it's tiny :)

I also made a few beads in black and white, much like this one, which I haven't done in a long time, and some more of the jupiter spacers. I think I have enough now for the necklace I am contemplating, my first planned project. Now I need to work on some teeth beads so I can have a bunch available for my shop, they always sell fast :)

P~

Glass Art! Can't live without it :)

Okay, so when I said I were completely off international shopping, that of course does not include Etsy. Etsy is my special friend and I have shopped again.

This time from the long time admired AngelinaBeadalina. Angela makes amazingly large pieces for a lampworker, and though not all of her work appeals to me, I am frequently blown away by her organic flowing shapes. I thought about it and found that the faces she make are too chunky for me, but the long slender women figures are so what I want to see. Then going through her gallery I realized I rather love some of her faces too, like this one, or this. So overall, a most definate thumbs up :)
Now the thing is, she is holding a ridiculous sale of $25 a piece for 25 items in 25 days. I don't know how long is left, it can't be much, but that is not a sale, it's a give-away! And I lucked out and checked her shop at just the right time. I am now the happy owner of 'Essence of a Woman'. I saw this piece posted online before, and imediately loved the strong, happy, free shape of this dancing goddess. How can you not? She is just glorious.


Thank you Angela, for the use of your beautiful picture

Apparently I can't hold on to money when I've got them. However if I don't have any to use for fun and frivolity, then I can. It all works out nicely, and I'd like to propose a toast: To unexpected Tax Returns, Hoopla! :)

I do hope the postal service will cooperate this time, because I can't wait to get my mail !!!

P~
(Glass Art Collector, Yay!)

Postal Rant

Dear Danish Postal Service,

Thank you muchly for taking so good care of my package.
I can tell you love getting packages, as much as I do, by the length of time you like to keep them. I can also tell you like to hug them, and so do I, but please take care when it says 'GLASS' and 'FRAGILE' on the outside.
I also apreciate that you have not forgotten where I live. I may not get much besides bills and adds, and it may be just a small road, but the number of houses here are happy to recieve their mail all the same. And I want to thank you for getting your own 'notice of failed delivery' into my mailbox, to let me know I had had a delivery. Never mind that it took 12 day to get here, since your holding packages for 14 days, leaves me plenty of time for picking it up.
Please also extend my grattitude to your friends the customs office, whose services has now completely put me off international shopping.

All the Best,
P~

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I did get my glass in the end, but I also got to pay the nice people at the customs. My $45 order ended up costing an additional $94 in total for shipping and customs, so I might as well have bought it local. It's a shame because there is so many tempting goods I'd love to shop for, but I'll have to consider if it is worth it a couple of times over from now on, and I'm thinking it is not. This definately includes the kiln I have on my list for the near future ...

P~

I've been shopping!

Not much new has happened regarding beads this last week, though much is on my mind.

I have a glass order laying around in the danish costums. It was sent on april 4'th, arrived at the border on april 9'th and I am still waiting. One might get a little impatient after 12 days!

It was an order I placed with Frantz Art Glass and I were lured into it by an offer of 40% off the Vetrofond Odds, Yay! Not that I need much luring in the first place, but it did make me forget about the customs fee that might be added and completely spoil the deal for me. Sometimes you can get lucky and they miss you goods completely, but with this prolonged wait I am afraid I have been fee'd. My sister holds the family record though, of waiting 21 days for her goods, so aparently I should not complain yet ;)

I also have another thing coming to me, which I imagine will be here much faster. Today I thought it was a long time since I had had a look at the glass items offered at Etsy, so I logged in and started clicking the pages away. This time I didn't choose lampwork beads only, but the whole glass section, which was fun to see. When I clicked page 31, OH! A Treasure! I had no need to look any further, this one was for me. I did try talking myself out of buying it for a while (which is dangerous as someone might buy it while you debate), but no, I had to have it, so I clicked the green button. This is the beauty that stopped me in my tracks:

It is made by Jennifer Geldard who kindly let me use her photo. I don't know what I will do with it yet, but that has never stopped me before :) There is already another one like it in her Etsy Shop, and her website has a gallery with a beautiful and diverse selection of her beads. A few are even electroformed, which is something I would love to try in the future.

Something I have thought a lot about is getting a kiln, but I shall make that a separate post :)

P~

Goddess Galore: the Artful Nude

One of the reasons I began lampworking in the first place, after initially having looked at about a million lampwork beads, was this: The awe-inspirering beads of the incredibly talented Teresa Laliberté of Lavendercreek

(Thank you Teresa , for letting me use your picture :)

When I first saw her work, my jaw dropped. I went through every picture of hers that I could find, particularly here
At first I thought these ladies were little statuettes, and I were amazed to find out all this detail were actually crammed into a much smaller space. They were beads, Ladies and Gentlemen, and so I were firmly bitten by the BeadBug!
Once I had my own setup, of course I had to try my newbie-hands at making goddesses. I did get the likeness of a woman out of it (sort of) and I were so thrilled. Now I see that they were not so hot, and that I have learnt a lot in the year I have been making beads. These are the stages I have gone through



Ah yes, much better now. I can't wait to see where I will be in another years time :)

Other goddess makers well worth a mentioning:
Rachelle, who also makes guys.
J C Herrell, goddesses with glitz
Ellyloo, who makes some real cute tiny ones with wings
Angelinabeadalina, who makes strange and intriguing female sculptures
and Becky Casady, from a recent search, who works in polymer clay, both beads and sculptures.

Go visit all of them, this is beautiful stuff. It is nice to see that there are so many ways to do a Goddess Bead, even if the basic idea is the same.

P~

About me:

As this is a blog about lampworking, I shall leave out most of my unrelated life (which sadly takes up most of my time). I'll just leave you with the facts that I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, with my family (BF and 3 small children), and make a living from being an engineers assistant on a full time basis.
I'd rather be torching though, as creating is one of the greatest joys in my life. I wrote a post about it on the blog of the Etsy Team I am a member of, the Creative Scandinavians. Go here to read it.

This is me, trying not to laugh at my sisters comments, while she tries to make me pose a bit less like a stone. She is by the way incredibly talented in whatever she puts her mind to, and has an Etsy shop here.







As for the lampworking - Glass beads first caught my interest in the summer of 2006. Somebody in the ATC group I used to frequent (the very best one for handpainted/drawn ATCs and friendly chatting: FineArtsATC ) posted a link to Wetcanvas.com I went to check it out, and noticed a glass section. Although I had never worked in glass personally, I have always loved the material and the proces of glass blowing. I took a look around, and was surprised to see it was all beads.
I spend days looking around, following peoples links, checking out ebay and generally enjoying this newfound wealth of treasures. It slowly dawned upon me that these artists were people like me, with families and jobs and other responsibilities, who were making these incredible and often intricate beauties in their own homes!
The thought that one could work in hot glass at home, and not need a million $ workshop + assistants and years and years of training, was a revelation to me. I looked and searched some more, and finally found a weekend course in lampworking, quite close to my home. I had to wait about 6 months, so my newborn baby would be old enough to eat proper food and not starve when I went away for 2 whole days. I think I were very patient, and the grin on my face as I made that first simple spacer bead was worth all the waiting in the world.
We were 8 on the course, and for two days we made beads. Round ones, square ones, dotted ones, they even taught us to make a tiger bead with our own twisties, which I thought was very advanced. In short - I had a blast :)
At the end of the course I ordered the starter kit of tools and equipment, and when it finally arrived, I set up a workbench in our basement. This was february 2007 and I have been torching ever since.
Life is good :)

P~

My latest beads

So, just to get going here I thought I would post a picture of my latest beads. It is just a bunch of spacers, but the colours are beautiful! I am very pleased :)
As I am a new lampworker with only a few hours free for torching every week, I have yet to make a larger piece of jewelry. When I saw this necklace, I thought: 'I can do luxury too!'. Yes, even a sterling girl like me can change and I am growing to love golden and warm tones too. Now I just have to think of what to do as a focal, as I am strictly against being a copycat. I may also just make it a really long chainlink necklace of all spacers. That would be lovely too. Ooh, I love possibilities :)

P~

Hooray!

I've got a blog!
This will be a lampwork bead blog no less, the continous tale of my adventures into the world of lampworking. I expect lots of pictures.
And now - I'm off to fidle with the settings :)

P~

LATER: Ooh I like it :)
I will be adding to links and lists and whatnot in the time to come of course, but for now I am pleased.
During the next week my job is to write an intro post to let you know a bit about me and my lampworking, and to find out what one can do here in terms of joining groups/rings/what-have-you and mingle with other bloggers. Oh, and work some more on my website of course :)
Bye for now