Trollbead Release Party!

Last night I attended the world premiere of Trollbeads' new concept, the nation speciffic beads.
500 tickets were available and the event was held at Arken, a danish museum of modern art.



The Trollbead people showed us a fun and lighthearted powerpoint presentation of the Trollbead history, ending with their thoughts on what might best represent the spirit of Denmark.
I'm afraid I'm not much of a reporter, if I were I would have pictures of the new beads here, but alas I didn't think of it. I can tell you however that the 4 new beads are:

1. a glas bead with a green core and alternating white and yellow flowers (lovely!), representing anemonea, the herald of spring in our forrests.
2. a sterling vikingship complete with a dragons head in front (a little on the light side)
3. an amberbead with 'Denmark' in runes around the middle
4. a tribute to the great designers of our country - a tiny Arne Jacobsen chair, the Egg, with a teeny tiny troll climbing it. It's a fun bead, with a very nice weight to it (I like that).

Before and after the presentation there were a couple of live demotables showing a bit of the process of making beads. One was a lampworking table



and much more interesting for me, two tables demoing wax modeling. This is something I have had an interest in for years and years, and I really want to try it one day, so even a little taster like this is fun for me.



Even more fun - I soon realized that I know the guy in the picture! His name is Allan Bayer and he used to be the younger brother of a boy my friends and I used to play with after school. Now he is a skilled jeweller with his own shop, making both lovely classic jewellery and fancyfull modeled pieces. Also - and that is the reason he was there last night, he is a Trollbead designer. I think there used to be a list of each designers beads at the Troll-site, but I can't find any now so maybe they took it down. He did make this fabulous tree though, and here is his website: www.guldsmedbayer.dk so go have a look for yourself.

The new beads were up for sale of course, along with a new necklace, and a lot of shopping followed. Here are a couple more pictures, from the end of the evening when things had calmed down.







I had great night :)
P~

PS: the shrimps in the buffet were great!

Anniversary!!

One year ago today I conquered a fear.
I told myself it would be okay until I believed it, and I jumped in feet first with excitement in my heart.
One year ago today I registered as a proper business, and it was huge for me.

What have I learnt:
It wasn't so scary after all. In fact it has been a fun, exciting and interesting adventure
I rather like doing the bookkeeping (when I'm done and have solved the 'what goes where' puzzle)

What to work on:
I really need get over myself and work on pushing my goods, really!
I must set a fixed date for bookkeeping each month, so as not to let it accumulate (done! now to keep it up ...)
Less TV/websurfing = more time to torch = better glass art! Yay!

To celebrate this happy event I am having a 20% off SALE at my new shop. You can find it HERE at the new danish website for all things handmade: www.amio.dk

The sale will last 'till the end of the month, 5 whole days, and prices have already been reduced by 20%.
I will upload new goodies during these 5 days, so please visit more than once.

Happy New Year everybody!

Mythbuster!

Yesterday, for the first time in 3½ months, I fired up my torch.
I have no good reason for not torching, so I must have just needed a summer break. Well, a break this long will make you loose your routines, and besides making uninspired beads, I also got a burn. I were rolling a bead in frit, reaching under the torch, when I got my highest knuckle turned up into the flame. Very stupid, but my attention were on the other end of the mandrel.

I finished off the bead (quickly!), and then thought I would try out the advice I had read about for burns, a remedy you are pretty sure to always have handy: toothpaste! I smeared on a blob, and what can I say, it really works! The pain subsided right away, and I could go about my business.



So I went about my day with a glob of toothpaste on my hand. A couple of times I had to wash my hands and each time I removed the paste I would feel the burn again. So I reapplied and even kept it on for the night (secured by a piece of bandaid).

Today I have a blister, but no pain, and I didn't have to spend the night with my hand in a cup of water. Excellent! :)

And the bead I made? So not worth a burn ;)

A Lampworkers get-together

Well isn't is about time I let you all know that I am still alive and well and having a good time with my glass? I think it is :)

In particular I'd like to tell you about the lampwork meet-up and market I attended during this weekend.
It was a two-day event on the grounds of Ravstedhus, clear across the country from where I live. I packed up my BFs festival tent and took off to spend the night come rain or come shine. Fortunately we had the best weather ever, you might even say it was a bit on the hot side, especially on sunday, the market day.



I have never visited Ravstedhus before, and I was surprised to see how huge the shoparea was. I don't know what it normally looks like but this weekend there were 3 visiting German sellers of lampwork tools and glass as well as the regular shop. It was a beadmakers heaven :)

Saturday was wall-to-wall demoes. I especially liked to hear about electroforming and marblemaking, which are both techniques I'd like to try one day. I found out that I might not entirely enjoy electroforming the way I'd thought, because of the lumpy edges, but that they can be reduced by turning down the voltage. I'd love to try it sometime :)
I'd absolutely love to make marbles, but not opaque ones as was demoed. I'd like to try the transparant ones with implosions and stuff inside. Yay!



Later in the day a meeting was held in the tent in the yard, and the long awaited Danish Bead Association was formed. I look much forward to having a central place for all our Danish beadmakers to connect and get together and I joined on the spot. It'll be great :)



Then we went out to eat at a nearby restaurant. Lots of chatter all around and good food, and then back to more demoes, this time by Jens Chr. Kondrup. He showed us how he works in tubes, and when the conversation came to torsos I showed him one of my ladies and he made me a man in a matter of minutes. It was fun to see his technique of starting at one end and never going back. I go back and forth and back and forth again. I'll have to try his way as he said it creates less stress in the glass.

Sunday was the day of the market open for the public.




I had been looking much forward to this and had signed up as a seller. I probably should have asked questions before I signed up, but now I know that for next time. I had imagined perhaps 15 sellers and maybe around 150-200 costumers, but aparently that was way off.





I guess everything has a growing periode, and since this was only the second year of this event, well ... I'll be happy to go again next year though, and then I'll know better. I should probably mention that Ravstedhus is in a tiny village out in the countryside, which means people have to really want to be there to attend. You don't stumble upon it accidentally. This is not ideal for a market, actually it is quite counterproductive, but for demoing the place is perfect, with lots of space and workstations and supplies and tools all over, so it's a bit of a dilemma.
I'll be happy to go again next year as the socializing was great. I got to meet a lot of new people and talked about beads all day long for two days. Excellent weekend :)

So yes - in all it was a great initiative. Thank you to the organisers and the participants too.

P~

(PS to the person who nicked one of my Goddess-pendants: Congratulations on your great taste. You picked the nicest one of the ones I had laid out at the time. My paypal is open for payment at any time convenient for you on p@profusionartglass.com (that was 350Dkr. in case you 'forgot' that too). Thank you, and have a nice day.)

Silver cores.

A couple of new beads today, and yay! no cracked tube this time.
It all went as smoothly as it used to. I am happy :)


P~

Bottoms!

New Listings

Today I made beads. I'm not sure they are any good, but I did make some, and that is half the battle sometimes.
I also uploaded a couple more beads to englebasserne.dk. Now there are 7, and I am all out of pics to list. Getting pictures taken has always been a hurdle for me, but I am working on that.
Here is one of the listed beads


P~