Christmas Market at Valdemar Castle 2010

As I said a few weeks ago, my friend Lenette had invited me to share her boothspace at Valdemar Castle this passed weekend. The last couple of days before saturday presented us with a lot of snow, and I were worried that perhaps I shouldn't go since there were no time to get the summertires changed to fit the season :/

It all went smoothly though, and I had a great weekend. It was cold, it was snowy, it was beautiful. Lots of people came over the two days, and I had a great time with Lenette and the other sellers.

Here is Lenette demoing a bit of lampwork



here is my table



here the entire booth



and here is a fresh new pendant I sold. I only just made it and I am quite proud of it.
I'll have to see if I can make another :)



Happy Holidays!

P~

Kivanniversary!

Today is my second anniversary as a lender at Kiva, and I'd like to celebrate by sharing the Kiva site with you.

I am very happy to have been introduced to Kiva (Thank you Hanne!) those 2 years ago. On their site they state: 'Kiva's mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty'. Sounds good, doesn't it? They have made it so easy for us to microlend across the globe, and as your entrepreneurs repay their loans you kind of get 'free money' to relend.

It's a fabulous concept I think, and I love that you get to choose who to lend to yourself. I always have much fun looking through the loan requests.

If you'd like to join in or just check it out, go to their site and sign up, or let me send you an invite :)
I'll need you email address to invite you, so don't hesitate to let me know in the comments or at bindweed*@*gmail.com (no * of course).

Happy Lending!
Lene :)

Christmas Market at Valdemar Castle!

Yes! on December 4'th and 5'th I will attend/sell at the Christmas Market at Valdmar Castle.
My lampwork-friend Lenette has kindly offered to share her booth with me, and she has been allowed to set up her torch to be able to do live demos. It will be great!

I've never been there before and I am looking very much forward to the experience, not to mention seeing what the other sellers are bringing. I can see from the event website that there were 72 booths last year, and this year they have doubled the market to last 2 weekends of wich we will attend the second.

Anyway - I really need to have some fresh new work when I go there (just for my own pleasure), so I made these:


They will be pendants on sterling bails, and I am very pleased with the patterns, both the frit'ed ones and the deliberately dotted ones. The purplish frit'ed one ended up with a bit of a pearshape, and I love it! Just a touch more organic than the marvered drops, Brilliant! And the pattern on it looks like a fierce thunderstorm at sunset, so Yup, that is my favourite :)
More of both types will definately follow :)

Merry Christmas! (a bit early perhaps?)
P~

Gail Crosman Moore Class, Day 1

Ooh, I've had a great day :)
It is so nice to be in the company of dedicated beadmakers all day, torching away for hours.

We made 6 beads today, all in Gails lovely style. My first beads, we made 4 in a row on one mandrel, were quite wobbly and unevenly spaced, but after that it went very well, and I can't wait to see my beads again tomorrow.
Gail is a lovely woman, and everybody were very focused, working constantly at their beads all day long.

Here is Gail, working on one of her fabulous pod pendants






As for working in boro - the colours are just wonderful. Nice muted tones, just like I like them. Laying down lines of stringer is much easier than in soft glass, but shaping the base bead can take a while. The boro hardens much quicker and must be reheated a lot. Also, the bead while being shaped, is radiating a lot! of heat. It is not easy to get close to the bead when laying stringers or dots.

I am still undecided as to weather this is something I would like to invest in at this point, but since it will require a new pair of glasses, not just the glassrods, and probably new beadrelease too, I think I will have to wait for later. I'd love to try to make implosion marbles in boro, but I guess I could practice in soft glass first, then upgrade later if I like it.

Tomorrow will be interesting too. We have been asked to bring inspiration (pics, objects what have you), and our own works that we would like to develop on. I am not really sure what to bring, but that I must think about in the morning.

P~

Gail Crosman Moore Class!

I have been looking forward to this weekend since I snatched the last seat in this class back in may.
I love Gails pod- and flowerlike beads, and getting to try boroglass will be exciting, since I have only ever worked in soft glass. I can't show you a pic cause I haven't asked for permission, but here is her website with gallery and blog and many lovely pictures.

Now I will pack a few tools and go to bed so I can get a good nights sleep before we tart tomorrow. 7 hours at the torch will be a bit hard, but the classes at Bifrost are great, and my friend Lenette will be there too, so I know it will be a fun couple of days :)

Yay!

P~

Frontpage!

Yes!Once more I grace the frontpage of Danish handmade shop site Amio.dk
This time with a pair of nifty earrings in black and white, see the top row there?



Also, if you look below the B/W you will see a lovely focal in purple tones on white that I am very pleased with. It is not as big as the one I wear myself, but the colours and organic pattern came out very nicely.

And new at my blog is the scrolling box of my goods at Amio, over at the left. Fellow Amio shop owner Bo Kavlslund made the script for all us sellers at Amio to use. He also makes sterling Jewelry, and this one called 'Fire' is my favorite, me being a lampworker and all :)

So - Danes, check out Amio, lots of good stuff there.
Foreigners, you are welcome too of course, just click around and see what the danish words are hiding. Don't be put off by the prices, just split the amount by 5,5 for US$ and 7.6 for EUROs (todays rates).
Enjoy!

P~

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!