Light vs. Dark

Effetre Ivory, my favourite glass to use. The colour is a delicious cream, and the softness is just right for my sculpting.

While I prefer the light version for my ladies, I realise that the dark has its charm too. I have run out of my regular Light (as the load of Light I had bought, is in fact much darker), and I thought I would give the Darker version a go. Here is a pic of one lady in each of the Ivories.

The colour difference is more pronounced in real life, but this clearly shows the curdling effect of the Dark Ivory on the left, and the smoother creamyness of the Light on the right.

It is not just a colour difference though, as the surface of the two are different too. The Light is as smooth as the colour looks, the Dark has a slight texture to it, just as the rods used have a little and more texture.

The Ivories are famous for their reaction with silver, and while I love the rich caramel brown I get from fuming the Light Ivory, I think it is time I start exploring the possibilities of the Dark.

Love,
Lene

I made pendants

And I love them!
It is so great to see a finished product, even if fondeling loose beads is a joy in itself :)
I have to say, gluing in the sterling bails was not as easy as I had thought. Things were either too slippery or too set. I used two-part epoxy, that dries up in 5 minutes, and I had to remix several times to get these done. Any tricks to it that I should know of? (Angela?)

Anyway, they came out great in the end, and I managed to get a couple of pics of them too, in the last rays of sun for the day. Here we go:






These are all I have for now, as I had only bought 10 bails. I need to order more right now. They are brilliant!
Now the rubber cords I have been talking about - that is an entirely different story. I think I may need to order a lot of sterling chains instead :/

P~

Angel in progress

I just made a little post in the 'Creative Scandinavians Blog', about this lovely lady:


Wings are new to me, but I like it :)

P~

Bead Pictures!

Well, here we go :)
First, the shapes that will live after being cooled down in my new Japanese annealing bubbles, even when quite large. The ones on the right are the ones that look like Sue's ATC.


Next - dots.
Love those plunged bubbles.


My newly discovered love - drop beads. I will glue a bail into the hole and they will be quite nifty. Some are based on Ivory,


some on nice swirly odd lots from Vetrofond.


Some of them have been shaped further.


These ladies are all made with just a hole at the top. I look much forward to seeing one finished and on a chain. I have only silver bails, so I suppose I should get some sterling chains, though a black rubber cord would be lovely too.
The 3 ivories in the top row are the angel experiment I did, the 'baby-arm' godesses. I have already made a better one, but I don't think it would hold up to being a pendant, so I'll experiment further on making the wings more solid.


That's all for now.

P~

End of May!

Well, that was May.
It sure blew by fast for such a slow beadmaking month. I did get new glass though, and I am very excited about the silver glasses I ordered. I can see why people love them. The browns with Ivory looks possitively yummy, and the crackle reaction is great. I have made some dotted beads to test how they work and I am very pleased. I love these earthen tones and I am sure I will be making a lot of beads in these colours.
I have also finally tried the good old and very simple technique of closely placed dots with a twist in between. My stringers have always been as thin as a hair, but I have made an effort to make some 'fat' ones of about 1mm's thickness to use as a twisting tool. I have admired many beautiful beads with raised swirls, and now I am practicing the very thing myself. It's a lovely thing :)
Another new thing for me is that I made a reduction. I made a twistie (which is also a new thing) of hades and silver cinnamon and melted it in around a base bead. I turned down the oxygen and up the propane and it turned the silver cinnamon parts completely shiny with silverdeposits. I am not much into shiny, but this was fun and I will try to see if i can make it happen again.
And here they all are :)


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New Glass!

I never thought I were a shopaholic, but now I am beginning to think I could be one.
I don't shop for clothes or shoes, or decorative items for my home though, like females normally might do, but getting a delivery of new glassrods in the morning makes me delirious all day! Ooh the joy! I feel giddy to the point of getting comments.
I didn't have time to open the box that came this morning, it arrived just as we were leaving, so I have been ... distracted all day, and just waiting for the moment that I can turn off this PC and go home to fondle and sort my new treasures :)

And speaking of treasures - I mentioned Vickie Hallmark in my last post. For a week now I have been wearing this beauty:



Thank you Vickie, for trading with me, and for the use of your picture

I love her pods. The shape is so delicious, and the colours are wonderfull. It is nice and heavy in a way that makes me think of precious metals and stones :)
Vickie uses ribbons for her pods, and I definately need to think of something pretty too. I just threaded it onto a meter of sterling chain from my supplybox, because I had to wear it immediately when it arrived :) I suppose it could be okay if I oxidized it, but right now it is too shiny.

Well, only ½ an hour now, till I get to go home. Yay!

P~