Profusion Art Glass celebrates 5 years anniversary!

Five years ago this month, I finally worked up my courage and registered my lampwork hobby as a proper business. And now as time has passed, it is time to celebrate!

Fireworks! Pew pew ...

So on saturday 23'rd and sunday 24'th

I open the doors to my lampwork studio,

and you are invited.

I will show you how glass beads are made; goddess beads, other shapes, dotted beads, pins too (nipsenåle) ...

I will serve you a light snack and give you 20% off all beads and jewelry ...

I will even take the challenge of making your dream bead right then and there. You know, the one you have not been able to find anywhere ...

Sounds good?
Then drop by on aug. 23-24 from 10-17 and lets talk.

Until then you can find the info and the address on my facebook event, join/like my facebook page and follow my 10 day photo countdown as it unfolds.

Coming up: the Annual lampwork event of the Danish Bead Society, June 1-2, 2013

It's that time of year again. 
On friday I'll be off for the annual get together of the Danish Bead Society, taking place as always, at the grounds of Ravstedhus in Southern Jutland.
Two days of lampwork fun (June 1-2), demoes, glass and tool shopping, and of course - the bead contest.

This year will be extra specially exciting for me, as I will be doing my very first demo on saturday! I will be showing a basic flower implosion in soft glass. Very usefull for both marble making and bead making too. 

Saturday is for the members only, full of fancy demos. If you are not a member, but want in on the fun, I bet you could become one right then and there by simply showing up and paying the yearly fee (200,- Dkr).

But on to the bead contest. The theme this year is 'Contrasts' and since the deadline for sending in has passed, here is a picture of my bead.



My bead for this years bead contest, themed 'Contrasts'.

It is a sculpted bead, with a man on one side and a woman on the other. One is White, one is Black. One is rounded one is angular. One is curvy, one is fit.
It was my first and only idea, so I just had to make it :)
ETA: here it is from four sides

Since I have never sculpted a man before, I made a couple of beads before I were happy (and out of time) and sent off no.4.



I wasn't paying attention when I snapped this pic, so it's 1, 3, 2 and 4

and here they are from the side

 

It was not an easy bead to make. What troubled me the most (besides the sculpting of the man) was laying on the 2 colours seperately on either side of the mandrel, until I remembered (at bead no.4). I could simply make a transparent base, then 'paint' the two sides with the colours. So much easier! so there is your Tip of the Day.

 

Also, it is surprisingly difficult to make a body without a back. You would think it would be half the work, but no. All kinds of challenges arise from not being able to shape freely around the sides of the bead. It all comes down to practice though, and this is a bead I will continue to explore. It's a challenge :)

 

So - the event is open for the public on sunday the 2'nd, so come on over and try making your own bead, see some demoes, vote for your favourite at the bead contest and find many lovely treasures to bring home at the lampwork market.

Furthermore, the shop at Ravstedhus will be open, and several sellers from Germany will be there too, with all you need for lampworking and jewelry making.



Støt Brysterne! (Support the Boobs!)

Støt min indsamling hos Kræftens Bekæmpelse og vær med i lodtrækningen om en skøn halskæde i 24 karat guld doublé. Vedhænget (ca. 2,5 cm højt) er en af mine egne glasperler og hele herligheden kan ses på billederne herunder i posten. Hvis du ikke er til pink (eller nøgne damer) finder vi ud af et alternativ :)

Indsamlingen løber til d. 16 nov, og du får et lod i hatten for hver 25,- du bidrager med. Husk at kontakte mig med din mailadresse når du har givet et bidrag, sådan at jeg kan få fat i dig hvis du vinder. Læg en besked her i bloggen eller send mig en mail på profusionartglass @ gmail.com







Held og lykke!

'Support the Boobs' is the name of the campaign the Danish breastcancer research is running.
This necklace is the prize I am offering if you donate through my collection at their site.
It is all in Danish, but they take all kinds of cards, so I don't think it should be a problem for foreigners to donate too. Just remember to use the green button in the center of the page, and that 50Dkr equals app. 10US$. Each 25Dkr you donate will get your name into the drawing once.

The necklace is in 24 carat goldfill, sporting one of my glass ladies in pink. This can be exchanged into something else if you win and you really don't like pink (or naked ladies).
The campaign runs until nov. 16'th, and don't forget to let me know your email address, here or by mail to profusionartglass @ gmail.com, so I can contact you if you win.

Good luck!

P~

I have an Event tomorrow!

I really had thoughts of going to bed early today, so I could be nicely refreshed for tomorrow, but no, I had to wait to the last day to pack my beads, jewelry and display-stuffs. Now it is midnight, but at least I am done. I think ...

Tomorrow I will be at the Bazar at La Oficina on Frederiksberg. It is a very nice place, and apparently we'll be 40 artists selling all kinds of crafts, so the 2 hours (7-9pm) we are there for, will run by quickly.
Be there, or be square! (foreigners and people living far away are excused ;)

Pics will follow at my earliest convenience (which may not be until saturday, because friday I will be watching the performance of Blixa Bargeld! Oh yes, we love that man, but hey, that is not the event I wanted to talk about).

Anyway, there will be 2 more Bazars before christmas, and here is the info in Danish:

Goodnight :)
P~

Ahem ...

I might have been a tad overenthusiastic about my new ventilations system.
Yesterday after a few hours at the torch I thought my lungs weren't feeling as perfect as I would like them to, and I had BF come down and smoke on the contraption.
It does infact have a bit of sucktion, but only within the vent hood. Everything that escapes around the hood is free to do it's damage. I do have the hood as close to the flame as I can, it is plastic after all, and I do expect the heat to bear the fumes up and into it, but apparently it is not good enough.
I could feel my lungs misbehaving a few weeks back too, but I thought it was an overdose of the pollen that was around at the time. Now I don't know ...
I think sitting in the basement is not the best idea, but it is the only place we have right now. I will be spending a lot of time down there over the next 3 months, so I need to have this fixed fast.

Tonight I will not be torching. The last two nights have been bad torching sessions with lots of cracked beads and weird reactions and colourcombos. I think I have been too tired and need a bit of rest. There is always tomorrow, and I have a lot of planning to do still that I can think of tonight.

P~
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Hooray! I just got an extractor hood* from off the Copenhagen freecycle group. How perfect is that :)
Yay!

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*Extractor hood, had to look it up in the dictionary. Never heard it before. One of those hoods that lead the steam outside when you cook. What do you call them?

Supplies, Argh!

Whoa! This show of mine had better be brilliant, because buying supplies is cleaning me out completely. I might have to borrow too ...
Maybe I am overdoing it, but how do I know? I try to picture how a certain amount of e.g. necklaces will look, and then shop according to that, but really I have no idea. It is kind of scary how much one can spend in a few minutes. Well a lot of minutes actually, because I think and consider and reconsider and almost bail out. But then I think 'I need this stuff, go to check-out woman!' and I wave goodbye to my meager funds, once not so meager, but now ... gone. Poof!
Scary, I tell you ...
P~

A first step ...

So, for the big upcoming event, I have broken out my fattest mandrels. They are nothing spectacular at 1/8", but they are bigger than what I normally use, and for some reason I can make beads that are bigger than normal too which is very nice.
These beads will fit perfectly on the rubbercords I am planning, with nifty sliding locks for easy change of bead. I do hope people will not object to rubber, because the leather cords I bought and got very excited about last year turned out to leave a fairly pronounced shade of colour on ones neck and any clothing it might rub up against. Very sad, but now I have found a supplier of the nifty locks, and that is all I need :)

I am also working on a detailed plan of all the things I need to make/get/consider/think of or buy, which should be the backbone of this adventure if I do it right. There are soooo many details, and I get lost easily.

I have begun working on beads, and have been making a new shape that I like a lot. I sure hope other people will like it too, cause I will be making a bunch of them. They seem to hold up to my no-kiln situation nicely, even at a substantial size. They look quite a bit like these shapes, only shorter, fatter and in one colour only.



(Thanks for use of your pic Sue)



As for the kiln, I have (almost) decided to use my funds for supplies for now, and wait until next year to get a kiln. It's a very long time though, and it really would come in handy at this time, so I could be making beads up until the very last day before the show. I do need supplies though ... It's a bonafide dilemma, see?

Oh I almost forgot - it has been such a long time since I have gotten any bead books, so I had ordered 2 last week. One is Masters: Glass Beads and the other is 1000 Glass Beads. I didn't realize the books were from the same publisher and contains a number of the same or similar pictures. They are still delicious though, and I am so happy to have them right now as you can't avoid being inspired when paging through them :)
P~

Upcoming Event!

Oh my! I have an upcoming event, how cool is that?!
I have booked booth space for an artshow and I am so excited!!!
I will share the space with my sister, she'll be showing her photography in different techniques and it will be so beautiful! She is very talented and I look forward to us being there together :)

It's a new show called Artfreak.dk and it is not so well known yet. It had it's first event just a few weeks ago, and apparently it went so well they want to do another one right away. We were there to see it, and it was mostly paintings, and a little bit of fused glas, so I might get to be the only lampworker there. There were a few other people selling jewelry though, but nothing like what I will do :)

The show is in 4 months, on oct. 31 - nov. 2, but one of those will be full of vacation, so basicly I have 3 months to get ready. From 0 to 100 in 3 months - is that even possible? o_0

I have made a list of things I need to do/make/get for this event, and even something as basic as business cards or packaging boxes is stuff I don't have. I am going to need so many new supplies too ...

The no kiln - no planning ability combo is dragging me down! But I'm too excited and will work as hard as I can to make this a success. Can you tell it's my first show? :)

Come on Brain, plan!

P~