More New Marbles

I'm rather fond of this one. It looks like a single coral sending out its egg into the ocean. It's a circle of SIS with inward spikes, on a purple frit background. I'm thinking it should be possible to make a group of spawning corals, though they might well lose their circular shape during implosion.

Two more in pink, a flower and a spiral, both implosions too. They are both quite low in the marble, the spiral most, which makes it hard to see properly, even in person.

I'm afraid I still need to work on my roundness. Apparently I don't pay enough attention to the roundness, while I do remove chillmarks carefully. I probably should punty several more times than I do, in fact, I probably should make myself a very simple marble and punty it over and over just to practice.

I still worry about dropping the marble, and I definately do not master any kind of cold connection yet. I make my hot connections real skinny, so there is only a little bit to melt flush in the end, but of course this makes it very easy to get the punty too hot and droopy while working on the marble.

Well, there is always Practise, Practise, Practise :)

Back from a Beadiful weekend (part II)

Sunday, the second day of the event, is open for the public. From 10am to 5pm there are demos to watch, you can try making your own bead, there is a beadcontest to vote for, both Ravstedhus and Ombos are open for business, and finally, there is the bead fair, full of awesomeness to bring home.

Here is my booth

and here is Martina Schlemminger's, which was next to mine. I could use some more colour, don't you think?

Here is a picture of some lampworkers looking at the contest beads. The theme was 'Eventyr', the danish word for fairytale. It also means adventure, so there is room for interpretation :)

And here are the winning beads!
First place goes to Connie Sørensen for the Sleeping Beauty Castle
Second place goes to my three Tinderbox Dogs (woohoo!!)
and the shared Third place goes to Bente Clausen's Goddess and Matina Schlemminger's Dragonhead.
Hooray, Congratulations all around! :)

You can see all the (13) participating beads at Brittas Blog Pibbs. She has made an extensive account of the weekend, 4 posts long: post 1, post 2, post 3 and post 4. Go have a look, there's a ton of pictures :)

Spending a whole day looking at beads can make you fall in love. This year I brought home this fun and colourful mushroom from Martina and the fabulous glass pen below. And I didn't need a full day, it was love at first sight :)

Glorious, aren't they? And now I just need some ink. Martina had brought some, but it never crossed my mind that I would need that too. I just loved the glass as it was. Yum!

Then I went shopping for materials. I got some glass, light ivory, sea colours and pinks, and also some tubing so I can try the blowing technique we saw saturday night.

And some leather cord necklaces, some copper wire for leaves probably, and 3 magnetic locks with inlays, so I can make either bracelets or necklaces on wire. Can you believe I have never made a beaded bracelet?

I also got 3 large neckdisplays and a hollow mandrel with a blowhole for hollow beads.
Yup, definately a great weekend :)

Lene

Back from a Beadiful weekend (part I)

Hooray! What a wonderful weekend :)

It is such a treat to be able to visit the one and only annual lampwork event of the country. This was the third year I got to visit the lovely south of Jutland and spend a full two days on nothing but lampwork.

Beautiful clouds over the flat land of southern Jutland

The first day, saturday, is for members of 'Foreningen Danske Glasperler' only.

We started out with Thomas Risom, who told us about glass beads from the times of the vikings and the first glass bead maker in Denmark, located in Ribe. He was very entertaining, and I enjoyed hearing him speak even if ancient beads doesn't interest me much.

Later he showed us the bead volcano he had made himself from clay, sand and horse droppings. It does not go as hot as our torches, but it goes up to about 900 C which is enough to round out the beads. You can see more pictures of his process at his vikingblog.

Thomas and Jesper working the bead volcano

Then Jytte Petersen showed us how she makes the decorative pins, known in Denmark as 'nipsenåle'. I was looking forward to this because I have made a few of them myself.
Jytte makes them in the old fashioned style. They are quite adorable, tiny little creatures, all with a very happy body language.

Jytte Petersen making a bird pin



Grooming bird, seahorse, horse, elephant and a happy, happy pig :)
The seahorse and the elephant went home with me,
along with another seahorse and a simple bird


Later Martina Schlemminger showed us her mixed colour beads. The green/yellow combination is very popular in Germany this year.



Martina Schlemminger spinning a bead




Martinas Bead Candy, Yum!

 and Christiane Strauss of Ombos showed the chrysantemum bead.



Christiane Strauss making a chrysantemum bead

In the afternoon Tom Lundsten showed us the process of making a beadstamp. He is working on making a product for Ravstedhus, where you can mail off a drawing and get it made into a brass stamp. Exciting!

After dinner at the local Inn, we went back to hear from Tina Moeslund. She showed her set-up for engraving beads and also a super easy way to center a 1 wire bracelet into a 5mm magnetic clasp. It involves a centering bit which also makes it very easy to get a very secure and tight closure.

Finally to end a wonderful day, Jens Christian Kondrup blew hollow beads from blobs of molten soft glass, and it didn't even crack from cooling off in open air. I got myself a couple of tubes so I can try this at home :)

Phew. You can certainly learn and experience a lot in just one day!
I only got a little bit lost on the way back to my B&B :)

More pics in my next post, including the contest beads ...

No shopping notice!

I'm back, and the shop is open again :)

The shop over here
<------------------
is closed till monday, when I return from the lampworkers get together.

I'll be off in just a few hours, Yay!!


Have a great weekend <3