Countdown!

Actually, there is not much to count, as we will go tonight to set up our stuff, then do the finishing touches tomorrow before the show opens.
Of course as it turns out, I get to spend two days in bed this final week, and one more to recover, from eating some bad meat on monday. Go me! But as I always say, when things are not quite what I had hoped for: It is, as it is, and that is okay.
I have products to sell, though I had wanted more.
I have displays, some looking better than I had hoped, some I made myself, also looking great. I had wanted neckdisplays, but I can live without them.
I have businesscards (thank you a million times Lenette!), and boxes that came out just as I had envisioned.
Also a million times thank you to sister Hanne, for fixing up the furniture thingy that will be my display table.

Pictures will follow of the booth, the setup, the jewelry and foto-art, but here is one of my boxes that I think came out so well. It was all black, but I had a stamp made (by Babyjewels on Etsy), and now they are all personal and pretty.


P~

"I create, therefore I am"

I know. I haven't been around much lately. It's partly because of my show next week, the ArtFreak show, that keeps me busy all evening til I fall asleep. And partly because I have been lurking at Facebook a lot these past 2 weeks, and not so much here.
I have a lot of things to talk about and show you, but my mind is too occupied with offline stuff and I simply don't get it done.

As I said in my last post, I have joined up in a very exciting bead project. Sylvie Lansdowne blogged about it, since it is her project. I have made my first bead, and will make the second sometime during this week, and I will definately blog about it too, as soon as the show is over and I can relax and think straight again :)

In other news - The Creative Scandinavian Etsy Team is no more. It has been closed down as well as the blog we wrote in. I have saved a post I made on february 1'st this year, and I shall post it here below, so I don't loose it forever.

Thanks for reading,
P~

PS: the beadfair mentioned was cancelled this year, but I have new hopes for next year :)

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'I create, therefore I am'

Such was the saying I once made up with a school friend. It was years and years ago, and still it holds true.
I have had periods of life where I did not create, like having a new baby or other major uprooting of daily routines, but the time always comes where I feel the urge and must act on it. If I do not, life is nothing but work, and that is no fun.

Last year I threw my love at glass. I have always loved glass, but being able to work it myself is something very new and glorious. To think that I would be able to finally work in this medium, that I have eyed and envied for a lifetime, yes, it is nothing short of glorious. And there is nothing better than the feeling of 'I did this!' when a bead comes out better than expected, which has happened regularly in this my first year in the field :)

The thing about glass is that it is generally a hard, frozen material, and to see it glow and drip and to handle the ultra hot mass, is an alchemical wonder to me. The fact that you can shape it pretty much any way you want, and it will end up as a solid and deliciously tactile piece is just fascinating. Then there is the colours. I had no idea there would be so many available. And that they range from transparent to opaque only gives ground for further investigation and playtime.

So, last year was for playing. This year is for playing too ;) but this time I have a plan.
First off, I have made an agreement with my boyfriend as to which weeknights he will watch the children, so I will have more free time and be able to create more than I did last year. 4 hours a week by the flame just doesn't do it for me. I also need off-flame time to bend wire and make knots and so forth.
In preparation for the new year, I have bought new and exciting glassrods. To try something new and also to add to my palette. And indeed they are fascinating :) They are not solid coloured rods, but have cores of other colours than the surface. This makes for swirly insides of beads, which is such a lovely sight.

I also plan to branch out into jewelry finally. I am aware that even though Etsy people are a creative bunch, ready-to-wear is something everybody can enjoy, and it will test my abilities as a craftsman on a whole different level. I have invested in nice vermeil findings, sterling chain and also some black leather cord, that I look forward to trying out.
I am determined to try new techniques this year. I have a tendency to get stuck when first I try something and it goes well. Then I never evolve any further, and I cannot let that happen to my glass adventure. I am not sure which 'new techniques' I shall work on first, but I have an ever growing list of things I want to try. Making vessels is high on it though :)

I am also determined to make an actual set this year. I need to learn to plan ahead, not just make one bead and then a different one and so on. So far I have only made 'sets' of 2, for earrings. This year I will make a full necklace.

And very excitingly, I am planning to get a booth at a beadfair in March.
With only a year under my belt, this is a daunting project, but at the same time a very exciting one. I went last year as a buyer, and I saw nothing looking like what I do. I am very hopefull that this will be the case this year too.

Not only is it the only fair I know of around here, but it is also a very nice size for a first timer. Not too big, and not too expensive to join.
Of course everyone there will be beadmakers, so the competition must be fierce, but then again - every customer is looking for beads or jewelry in the first place, which means they are already open to my goods. Time will tell which part will dominate the other :)

PS: Click any picture to get a pop-up for my shop, or the actual listing of the object.

Final Annealing

Monday this week I went for the final annealing I will have time to do before my show, which is in just 3 weeks (Arghh!!!). Unless I make something outstanding that I just have to bring, this is it. And I don't think I will as I have dedicated these last weeks to assembling, some promotion and thoughts of set-up and display. These are a few of the pieces I will be bringing: pendants, earings and fibulas.


Being inspired by Lone from the Webglas group, I have also made some ringbeads. I never did this before, and I find it very difficult to keep them properly warm as I work them. Consequently, two have visible cracks and I am just hoping the others will survive the annealing and trip through the mail. I am wondering if there is a tool for this, as my tweesers does not have the best grip of things.



I will not desert my workshop completely though. Tuesday last week I went for the demo of the Double Helix glass at Bifrost Studio Glass. This was a great idea on their part, since after seeing how to work the glass and the beads that came from it, everyone that came had to bring at least a few rods home. I did too, and have been playing with them all last week. My absolute favourite is Elektra, with Nyx and Triton as seconds. Elektra looks just beautiful with Ivory, it has a wonderful blue tone to begin with, and when reduced leaves a very shiny surface.
I don't like to reduce the Elektra completely, just a touch, so that I can still see through it and look in to the underlaying surface. The Ivory reacts with the silver and produces the wonderful crackled lines that is my favourite effect of Ivory. The Nyx and Triton both reacts with Ivory too, and get extremely shiny when reduced. I am not much into bling and sparkly stuff, but these are really nice and so fun to work with.
I have a picture of the beads I have made, but I left it at home, so I will have to post it later.

I also made a bunch of drops for pendants, which came out quite splendid, but most unfortunately - all but one cracked. They all broke in two, right at the widest part, at the very tip of the mandrel. This is unusual, since mostly other glasses crack at the tapered end from cooling too fast. Only one drop made it, and that one was a bit overcooked, but still pretty, just not as pretty as it could have been.
I have a picture of these too, at home ...

Still, it is a wonderful glass to work with, and ideas keep popping in my head, so I can't not work with it for the next 3 weeks :)

Also, I have joined up in a new and very exciting project that involves beadmaking, which I will write more about in a few days or perhaps even tomorrow if I can't contain myself :)

Oh wait! I almost forgot - here is the bead I mini-demoed the other day. It is one of those beads that just happens, and I am very pleased with it and seriously considering keeping it. Actually I think I will. It has such a lovely organic shape, like a flower ready to bloom :)



P~

Mini sale!

It's my birthday and I am having a minisale at my Etsy shop.
10% off any item, for today only, untill midnight in my own timezone.

And I will be away for the night, going to a Double Helix demo at Bifrost, my local glass vendor. Yay!

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I'm in a treasury :)

It was created by Flamekist whom I don't know, which makes it just a little bit better than a treasury made by a team member (though those are nice too:)

P~

Roadtrip!

I had the best day saturday. All glass, all day :)
I drove around 670 kilometres in all, and enjoyed myself doing it. I were happy to have breaks on the half-way though, as this is the longest I have ever driven, and the hightway is not all relaxation after all.

Months ago I had seen advertized that Anlaglas were having an anniversary open house sale on saturday, and I had marked the calender hoping to get to go. Then the new danish glassgroup webglas were formed a few weeks ago, and people started talking about meeting up there, and it turned into a priority. So I went, and I visited Lenette on the half-way and picked her up so we could take the rest of the trip together.
I had never shopped at Anlaglas before, and didn't know what to expect. I don't know if they are more geared towards fusing or it is just because the sheets of glass and slumping forms take up so much more space than the rods we use for beads, but there were tons of sheets around, and they were so delicious one might be tempted to try fusing at some point :)

Anyway - we located the glass rods, and it was fun to see a whole bunch of people (all ladies) all wearing their own beads and shopping for rods. Except for Lenette and the sellers at Bifrost (my local rod-dealer) I find it very hard to meet beadmakers. We don't have the great shows here, that I read of in the US and UK. It's just me and my torch and the internet, so this was great fun.

Now I am not one to go around chatting up strangers, but luckily others are, and the founder of the Webglas group Lone were spreading the word of the group to anyone wearing their own unique beads, and so we met her.
One of our webglas group members were hired there to do demos of beads all day. It was the lovely Louisa of Moeslund Glas.


So we said hello to her, and while we were all chatting away at the demo table, another member introduced herself, Eva of Streva Beads. This is her and Lenette shopping for rods later on.


We were of course checking out each others beads, and Louisa asked how I made the pendant I was wearing (picture will follow shortly). I told her, and she asked if I would like to do a little demo of it - so I did :) Yay! And it was fun. I didn't even mind having (a few) people looking at me, because I knew what I were doing. I got a little bit nervous when it got a bit crooked to the one side, but in all I really liked it, and I don't think I would have a problem doing demos for real some time. That would be fun! :)
So you see, I am not a complete introvert after all :D

The loot -
I were looking for a larger graphite paddle. The one I have is fine, but I keep rolling over the edge when I make drops and other shapes which is a bit annoying, and I found a nice big one, roughly the size of a hand.
As for rods, they had Moretti, which I have enough of for now, and Bullseye, which I am not ready to branch into, since it is not compatible with what I have. So no rods, but they had some nifty dichro stringers that I had wanted to try so I shared a bunch of those with Lenette.
And in the bargain bin I found those inward pointing tweesers that make holes in off mandrel pieces, and also a small graphite paddle with indentations the shape of lentils and tabs. Yay! Both are things I have been considering buying for a while :)

And I also won the lottery. There was a draft of tools and supplies, with a lot of prizes, and so I got one too :) It's a sample box of sheetglass, frits and stringers. It's in COE 85 though, so I don't really know what to do with it quite yet.
And we got free pancakes :)

So in all it was simply a thoroughly great day, that I am still a wee bit high on, although I were sore all over and very tired all of sunday. A great big 'Thank you!' to all the lovely ladies I met, and I hope we can meet up some other time.

And finally, also a big thank you to my lovely driving companions, Meat Loaf and Queen, who had to put up with my very loud (and often incorrect) singing of their timeless hits.

P~

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~