Highlights -

of the last couple of days:

Friday: Ooh friday. That was the day that Lydia Muell put up beads for sale. I had kept an eye out during the week after seeing her beads on LE, but I thought I would not be home at the time she would list them. As it happened I had put her in a wrong timezone and the actual listing time were 2 hours later than I had thought, and I were so ready!
I refreshed and refreshed and wondered how many others were doing that too and if her site would take it. I had almost convinced myself that it would be okay if I didn't get it, but as I refreshed once more the beads were up and I clicked and checked out and typed as fast as I could.
And Voilá, this is the latest addition to my bead/glass collection :)


Thank you Lydia for letting me use your picture

I am very excited about this one and have been sketching a bit regarding what I want to do with it. If I can pull it off it will be fit for a queen, but I shall keep it for myself :) Don't know when and with what I can possibly wear it though ... Go visit Lydias blog and website for stunning bead overload!

Also on friday, non bead related: My boyfriend has been looking at cars for a while. The one we have is an unsafe, noisy, smokey rustbucket, but it gets us where we want to go. We don't trust it for longer trips though, and with the holiday/vacation time coming up, he has made a serious effort, and on friday he picked up our new car! It is a whole new experince I tell you. It is silent, runs smooothly and there is more room on the backseat for the litle ones. I feel quite grown up when driving it, it feels like a 'real' car. Yay!

Weekend: There is a dot craze going on over at www.Lampworketc.com for all the wrong reasons, but none the less I have been inspired to do some too. I should probably not show off my own beads right after the glory of Lydias, but here we go anyway :)

The black and silver one was odd. I placed dots as 6-leafed flowers around the bead, melted them in and they were all well placed with a tiny line of black between them. When I reduced to get the silver out they grew right into each other and are just silvered areas now. Hard to see on the black, but very shiny.

The green one was odd too. There are actually 2 very different colours of green dots on that surface, they just look exactly the same. You can see the outlines of the top dots on the lower ones though.

The blue one has a very nice shape and weight. I have not cleaned it out of fear it might crack cause it's kind of big. But I'd like the blue dots closer together, the center dots are too big and not all shiny, and almost all of the tiny black dots are undercut.

Now the purple one came out nicely. The colours go well together (seashell base, some purple on top and iris blue mini dots), the purple dots came close together and the small metallic dots all went metallic and settled in well. It's a nice bead. But the thing is - everybody is doing it, and they all look just like it, so it doesn't feel like it's my creation. It does not make me happy.

These next ones may be simple, but they are all mine and that makes me happy :)

(Sorry about the fussyness that hurts my eyes. I shall replace asap)








Monday: Yesterday I went to have a bag full of beads annealed at my local glass supplier. I should have them back in a few days by mail. While I were there of course I had to get a couple of rods too :) I got black, white and both Ivories of Moretti as I were running out of those.
I also got a goldstone rod, one with the goldstone on the outside. I have tried the one that is incased in clear and find there are too much clear around it so now I will try the other kind. I don't use it much though, I'm not a glittery girl.
I also got 2 short rods of Double Helix glass that I look much forward to trying. I'll have to read up on how to work them first though, as I don't want to waste them. I got Terra and Chaos. This should be fun :)
And I had a good look at their kiln. They sell only that one, and the good thing about it is that apparently it doesn't use too many Amps when running, which is just what I need. It runs high enough for silver clay too, which I want to try later. I'll have too search around for a better price though, as danish prices are over the roof. It's the MF5 from Nabertherm in Germany. I'll go and look what else they have :)

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!)

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~