Showing posts with label Creation is Messy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creation is Messy. Show all posts

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Thursday's Pretty Palette!

It's time once again to pick a palette at random from the Design Seeds website.  I've picked the palette randomly using a method only known to me.  I used a little bibbity-bobbity, flibberty-gibbety, and an adding machine.  I have to use an adding machine; I'm a bookkeeper and the thing is permanently attached to my right hand.  Maybe that's why I'm having so much trouble getting my lentil beads just so, the damn adding machine keeps getting in the way.

Color Chard by Design Seeds

Why do I always pick the ones that have that raspberry color?!?  Luckily, this time I have some new colors, as I spent WAY too much money at the Gathering on new glass (and THAT is a post for another day).

That green will probably be a nice olive. I'm pretty sure I have a pale, light purple.  I definitely have a red to match.  And maybe I'll bring out one of my rods of CIM's Grape Ape for that darker purple, it is my favorite purple in glass after all!  That would be nice.

Since this is the first week I've been back, I don't have any beads from last week's non-existent palette to show off.  Next week will be MUCH more interesting!



Thursday, June 28, 2012

(Late) Wednesday Lampwork: Tuesday's Pretty Palette Bead Reveal

Sorry for being a day late with my promised Wednesday blog, but this issue is bigger and better for the delay!

If there's one thing Tuesday's palette has taught me, is that I need more colors in my glass stash. But don't tell my husband, who would have to start giving up his sections of the bookshelf where I keep my glass. :)

But seriously, I couldn't accurately match several of the colors in my glass supply, and when I got down to trying to match them at home, on the living room computer monitor, the first color shows up as more of a green and the second color shows up more of a beige.  The next two colors are pretty identical, the brown is chocolaty brown and the fourth is a deep mauve which I don't have except in transparent (so tempted to use my last remaining stringer of a glass color we call EDP - more on that in a future post), and the pink was much lighter, very faint.

So, here are the colors I chose for this palette from Design Seeds:
1) Creation is Messy Celadon
2) Creation is Messy Butter Pecan (sorry, don't remember which unique variety, I think the -5)
3) Vetrofond Brown Dark Special
4) Rubino Oro (this was a gift so I don't know which manufacturer)
5) Creation is Messy Chai Unique -3

This palette is far removed from what I normally come up with on my own, and I really enjoyed challenging myself with it.  Usually I stick to blues, greens and beiges, which can be a VERY limiting palette, but, considering how few beads I've actually made in my life, I do think I still have a lot to say with that palette.  THIS palette on the other hand, was a push for me.  I didn't want to just make flowers, like the orchids that inspired the palette.  I wanted the colors to speak to me, sort of just let myself go, and I started by winding a few rounds of the butter pecan glass onto the mandrel and then winding on some of the brown dark special right next to it.  I melted the two glasses together into a rounded doughnut, and suddenly I saw, please don't laugh, a chocolate covered doughnut sitting on my mandrel.  (My friends would laugh because they know my lifelong obsession with chocolate doughnuts, and it's ironic because I'm REALLY trying to stick to low-carb right now.)  Once I saw that, I had to add more frosting (celadon) and some sprinkles (rubino oro).
Oh, I'm so hungry right now!!!
Then I decided, heck, if you're gonna have doughnuts, you might as well have ice cream!
Don't you just wanna lick it?
Once I made those two beads I made an army of spacers.
The brown looks SO dark in this picture!
That was Tuesday night.  Ten spacers and two fun beads does not make for a very interesting blog post, so I decided to make more beads on Wednesday night, and I came up with a bunch of adorable glassy cuties!
Big-Hole-Bead Worm, with badly applied lipstick. :)
A couple rubino oro encased lentils and a round butter cream bead with chai over celadon over brown layered dots .  Look at the chipped hole on the lower rubino oro encased lentil, that's never happened to me before! So sad! :(
Then I decided that a flower or two wouldn't be so bad, as they're one of my specialties.
Not too partial about the mint chocolate look, but doesn't that
rubino oro stamen dot look like a pink diamond? SOOOO pretty!
 All together now:
Not pictured separately are a couple other big hole beads (upper left and bottom right),
and the chocolate lentil with green scrollwork and some dots (bottom center).

See?  Wasn't it worth the wait?  Since I have a week before the next blog post, I'll get started on the palette and the beads now.  Sometimes, the only way to combat procrastination is to go completely the opposite direction and do something WAY too far in advance.  Next Wednesday is 4th of July, so everyone have yourselves a safe and sane holiday!  (Oooh, maybe I'll just make 4th of July beads instead of randomly picking a palette...)  Either way, I'll announce the next palette on Tuesday!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Put your money where your mouth is!

Don't you hate it when you're so broke you can't afford to buy a product to support either handcrafters like myself or big companies that follow business plans you agree with? You want to give a little something to show you care, or agree, but when it comes down to it, the groceries and electric bill are a little more pressing than that string of delicious looking beads from your favorite beadmaker or the brand new all-electric vehicle that just hit the roads.

One of the things I'm gonna do with this blog is point out which handcrafters, companies, and products I like and why. Yeah, that's sort of self-evident, given this is my blog, but I want to make a special effort to do this because: a) I'm gonna run out of stuff to talk about eventually if all I'm talking about are beads and b) since I can't afford to buy them, maybe giving them a little bloggy love will show my support. And if you, my loyal reader, follow the links and spread the word, you too will be spreading the bloggy love.  And isn't that the best way to make someone happy?

So, the first handcrafter I want to talk about in my Bloggy Love series is Laura Sparling. She's a fabulous beadmaker in England who has the quirkiest sense of humor I could possibly love. Yeah, that sense of humor might be just a standard British quirk but, being the Anglophile that I am, it tickles all sorts of funny bones in me.  And, Laura’s beads are gorgeous! If I had a million dollars, I'd buy her beads.

I discovered Laura and her beads through her YouTube video tutorials on how to do a handful of different lampworking techniques. She has very informative, well explained (and produced) videos on pulling stringer, encasing, applying stringer, adding and encasing silver wire, and striking Creation is Messy's gorgeous candy apple red, Sangre.  So, to date, she only has 5 videos, but they're all lovely, and she has great advice... (except with the Striking Sangre one. Nothing I do will get my Sangre to strike like hers does, but I blame myself 'cause I'm not cool and English like she is. Seriously, I think the glass is reacting almost as much to her voice as it is to the heat of the flame.)

Laura is not only talented as a comedienne and YouTube personality (whether unintentionally or no is irrelevant), she is a marvelous beadmaker. Her gallery will show you that her beads are both technically perfect, with adorable little bead hole puckers, even sizes, and smooth roundness, but also beautifully designed, with rich, varied color combinations and excellent taste in decoration. I envy her stringer control and play her videos while I'm torching to help with my own beadmaking. I could be so lucky to get half as good at lampworking as Laura is.

Oh, look, almost midnight and I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. So, good night, I'll most likely kill you in the morning.


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Coming home...

After neglecting my blog for many weeks I am coming back to stay. Not every post will be pithy and insightful. Not every post will have pictures. Nor will every post be grammatically correct, 'cause, hey, even I'm not perfect.

Most of the posts will be coming from my phone, so hopefully what pictures there are will be half-decent. Someone please complain in the comments if the pictures are crap so I can fix it.

The latest news is the long-awaited, long-anticipated arrival of the kiln.  It is a beaut! And once you decipher the heiroglyphical instructions it is even easy to use. I have run (I think) five batches of beads, all but one being concurrent with making beads.

The one "batch anneal" did result in some etched CIM Peace, which is a disappointment, but I will just havve to experiment with annealing times and temps. I will be a pro at programming the kiln in no time!

Here is the obligatory photo of the day. I made this set of beads for my boss for Christmas. I was her Sectret Santa. How lucky was she?! LOL