Glasperletræf 2014 - Danish Glassbead Society yearly meet-up, Part Il, the Beadmarket

On sunday we welcome the public and set up a small market. This year it had grown to 11 booths with several new people joining in.

The new people included:

Frank Miguletz of FaxArt 
I were very impressed by the amount, the size and the precision of his beads. I had seen pictures online, but nothing beats the touching-holding of the real stuff.

 

Sabine Übelhör of Flammenliebe  
Sabine makes beautiful feminine beads and ringtops. Cute, colourful and full of details.

Dorthe Andersen-høyer
How fun to meet this lampworker, who is practically my neighboor :) And what beautiful flower necklaces she makes. I want the pink one! (or possibly the green or the golden/brown one)

Jane Bundgaard of Bundgaard strik og stearin 
maker of fabulous fun lampwork buttons, button bracelets and much more

 

Britta Christoffersen of Krea-huset  
I especially love her disc necklace. Wow!

Of the repeat sellers I'd like to show you

Martina Schlemminger of die Kleine Verroterie
Her booth is full of cute creatures and always colourfull

Manuela Hagn of BavarianBeads
offering up all her many, many presses and showing amazing beads made with them. Unfortunately all my close-ups had a lot of glare, so I only have Group shots for you.

Jens Kondrup of jckondrup
blower of very large 'chaos'-balls, and tripple connected schnaps glasses

 

 

Birgitte Ekholm Gaardsted of Ekholm Design
odd organic shapes flows from this lampworker

Lisbeth Larsen of Galleri Lisbeth L
Strict shapes in playful colours

Connie Sørensen of Søglas
a tray of colourful fish pendants

Bodil and Otto Zebitz
Many, many ideas spring forth from this lampworking couple

And of course, myself, Lene Piasecki of Profusion Art Glass :)
Pendants and pins galore

Sorry you missed it? Come by next year, or use the links :)

Glasperletræf 2014 - Danish Glassbead Society yearly meet-up, Part l, the Demos

What a great weekend, as always, when we have our annual lampwork meet-up.

I have taken so many pictures so I will split them up in a couple of posts. This first part is for the saturday demos. Do click the pictures for a better view.

Saturday is for members only, and wall to wall demos. A very interesting and fun day.

First up was the lovely Martina Schlemminger, who demoed first a cute spotted duck, then a little Swabish pig (not pictured here).

Martina Schlemminger

Manuela Hagn demoed a sweet old style teddybear. It was brown and without murini, but shaped like this lighter one from her booth.

Manuela Hagn

Then Frank Miguletz stepped in to show us a wigwag

Frank Miguletz

and Christiane Strauss set a ruby zirkonia into a ringtopper

Christiane Strauss

By then we were all very hungry and it was time for lunch.

After lunch Dorry Tierry Niclou showed her technique for hollow ringtops with things inside. Only very small things can go in as they have to pass through the nut in the bottom. She made two, one smooth and one with an impression of an ammonite on the top. Fascinating ...



Dorry Tierry Niclou

Frank Miguletz showed how to make his smiley beads

Frank Miguletz

and then it was time for the annual general assembly of the beadsociety. We went to have dinner at Øster Højst Kro afterwards.

When we returned Jens Kondrup made a nectar cup for butterflies, shaped like a flower, and a tiny goblet.

Jens Christian Kondrup

Tina Moslund showed us how to do enamels with a torch, and gave many tips for ending necklaces securely and putting locks on them. Very usefull information :)

Tina Moslund

By then I was very tired and took off for my B&B while others continued hanging out.
Saturday is always a very long, intensely informative and interesting day. I love it!

On sunday there were demos too, but alas I missed two since I spent the day tending my booth, mingling and doing some shopping :)

The two I missed were Jens Kondrup making his large hollow kaos beads, and Britta Christoffersen showing how to make a tiny beermug.

I did get to see Connie Sørensen making an ancient zigzag pattern

and Jane Bundgaard give tips on how to make buttons.

Oh, there are so many possibilities and not enough time to try it all :)


Coming up: This years get-together of the Danish Glass Beadmakers

Just a short note before I dash off to this years Beadmakers Ball at Ravstedhus in Southern Jutland.
Okay, it's not a Ball, but I liked the alliteration :)

I any case - in just a few hours I'll be off for Jutland and 2 days of all glass and fire. Yay!

This year, in addition to two full days of demos,  we have not one, but two bead competitions, and I can't wait to see what has been sent in. Here below are my submissions.

First, for the single lose flower themed bead, I have sent in a little flower fairy.

Baby flowerfairy hugging her pet Ladybird

And for the new competition, which I will translate to 'Finished Work' I sent in this emerging fairy pendant, hanging from a grass leaf I made from copper.

Emerging butterfly fairy pendant on handmade copper stand

And a close-up of the pendant

Emerging pendant

She has little wings on her back and is not yet fully emerged from her crysalis.

That is all for now. I must pack up the last few things and get my car on the road. I shall return during the next week with a photo report af the weekend.
Have fun till then :)

I have a bead in Soda Lime Times!!!

Woohoo! I have a picture in Soda Lime Times, the online lampwork magazine.
It's on page 3 of the Neutral Issue, June 2014, and it's my first published bead ever! Wee! I'm so excited :)

The issue is full of beads especially in black, white, grey and the lovely ivory. I am happy to see so many people loving ivory as it is a favourite of mine. It sculpts so well and I love the organic reactions to fine silver, even though I rarely use it myself.

This is the picture I sent in, my new black and white yin-yang bead, this time with shoulders.

Please click to see full version details

I am a new subscriber to Soda Lime Times, but I have to say I am very happy with it. It is full of inspirational pictures and tutorials and all kinds of lampwork goodness. If you make beads yourself, like to work with them or simply to wear them, this is a great resourse for you, and it's only $4.95 pr. month. You can even get a free sample issue if you want to look it over first.

If you don't know it, go here and have a look: http://www.sodalimetimes.com/

Miniatures extravaganza!

This saturday I went to see a dollhouse and miniatures show in Farum Kulturhus. It was the 21'st year of this show, but I never heard of it before, so it was my first time there. And it was spectacular! My almost-8-year old and I ended up staying for 5 hours, wandering, looking, sqeeing with delight at each new treasure we discovered. And shopping a bit, of course, how could we not? :)

Before going I had looked over their website to see the vendors, and one in particular caught my interest. A miniature glass maker. So I went, and looked at all the wonderful tiny little bottles and wine glasses and champagne and tea sets and vases, and extra super tiny little christmas baubles and toppers for your doll house christmas tree. All in scale 1:12. He had even brought his torch and tubes and showed a bit of flamework at his booth.

I asked if I could take pictures, and I could, but only for private use. I asked several times to clarify and make sure since there was a bit of a language barrier (my german is ... not very efficient), but no, no pictures for the internet. No free online praise or promotion was wanted, and alas, no glass pictures for you ...

Instead I will show you a different and wonderfully fantastical miniature maker, this one from Holland. They even won a price, 'Most Beautiful Booth of the show', but it was the themes of witchcraft and wizardry that I fell for. Just look at this.

See this cluttered desk of the wizard and the next one of the witch, complete with tiny spell books, magical potions and scrying crystal balls.

 

Look at all the little (glass)bottles full of odd ingredients, the fearsome plantlife that wants your blood and the magical broomsticks ready to do your bidding.

See the little creature in the cage. The whole thing is about 2" high, so the tiny goblin must be about 1".

Sweet!
Go to http://www.wizardsminiaturesworld.com/ to see all of these and many more. It is all in Dutch, but just click everything and enjoy :)

So what did we bring home you may ask?
Well, since we don't have a dolls house, or are building anything ourselves, I thought I'd start a miniature glass collection. And what do you need to hold it? A tiny cabinet of course. With shelves and glass doors to look in through on the miniscule treasures.
I chose this beautiful one, and a set of little candlesticks (no candles I'm afraid, though they do exist), and when I came across the tiny 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', I had to include it too :)

My girl got a bunny in a cage and a very sweet picnic basket, which we filled up with plates, drinking glasses, lemonade and cake and bread. Even tiny cutlery and napkins too. And some grass to sit on of course, or it wouldn't be a picnic.
Now we look forward to building a box for the grass and set up a garden with homemade trees and perhaps a view, but who is invited to eat is still a mystery.

The Yin/Yang or Goddess/God bead

Last year I made a bead for the competition at the annual beadmakers meet-up in Denmark in june. The theme was 'Contrasts' and my bead was a double body of a male and a female in black and white. (I wrote about it here, and I came in second, Wee! :)

Last week I had an urge to take up the design again. I really like the idea of it, but there are a couple of things that could be improved on to make my idea fully bloom.

First of all, last year I got the colours wrong. And it's not because I didn't check and google to see which colour is male and which is female. I did, then went to my workshop and promptly used black for the male and white for the female. 4 times in a row ...
This time I have it right, and I have to say it 'feels' right too, when I look at it. Sweet. 

Please click the photo to see it properly

The first 4 beads I made last year, they kind of have a 'let's stick these two bodies together'-look, and that is not what I am going for. I want the bodies to be connected, united into one piece, though still two distinct parts. I rather like my solution of a swirl on either side of the legs, both in the same direction, tying the colours together.

I will keep working on this design, there are a few more things I'd like to incorporate before it looks like the bead inside my mind, but this one came out great. I am very pleased with both bodies, and seeing this lady in black makes me want to use black more often in my Goddesses.

There's a new Etsy in town! Opening SALE!

Well, new might be a bit of a stretch, but after a 4½ year break it feels new to me.
I've been rewriting  texts, updating postage and prices, writting new item descriptions, shoting new photos of new pieces - yep, it feels new to me :)

Now that I am up to 19 items in my shop, and with more on the way, I am ready to tell it to the world. Woot! Play the fanfares and start celebrating,

Profusion Art Glass is back at Etsy.com!

And why not start with a SALE?
Starting now, and for the rest of February, write the code '20off022014' (that's alphanumeric for: 20% off, february 2014) in the coupon box when checking out and get 20% off any and all items!!

Below are a few pictures of fresh items in my Etsy shop, or you can just go directly to the shop and see everything at once.

Remember, the code goes invalid when March begins, so go have a look now!

Ooff! I'm excited! :)