Friday 28 December 2007

My Shop!!

I’ve spent today working on my Shop and I am almost there.  I have to upload some items, but I did a test run and everything seems to work well, I’m so impressed that I have figured out the glitches I was having.  This will mean I can have all sorts for sale with no listing fees!  Yeeha!  Of course it also means I have to find a way to get people to visit that page. . .

Friday 21 December 2007

I think I found a tiny bit of it!

My Christmas spirit that is! I had been looking long and hard and couldn't find it anywhere. I started to think that Raffi had eaten it, but finally I think I found just a little bit of it shining away in the corner - this post is to celebrate that!

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Twas Christmas Eve in Merrickville
And nothing was quiet,
nothing was still...
Except little Otis taking a nap
while Ollie crept up to give him a tap.
Eddie peeked out of his warm wooden house,
Pinky one finished off a pretty snow-mouse.
Finn and Fearghal were busy trimming the tree,
and Furby ate cookies. . one. . two. . three. .
Lilly and Pinky two untangled the lights,
and Little Stuart looked down from a very great height!
Naughty Rupert was stealing candy canes for his haul.
And they All sang Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Christmas IS Coming!

And what a change from this time last year! We were so spoiled with no snow, we are certainly making up for it this winter. Last weekend we had a big storm - that is what buried my gas tank - it's under there somwhere -

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Here's what it's looking like, 'pretty as a Christmas Card!'

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No beads for me

Still no beads for me, my propane tank is buried under 2-3 feet of snow and it's just been too cold.  I had to do something so I've been knitting instead.

Raffi, was a big help!  He checked for dropped stitches...

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And even agreed to model the finished article ...

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Of course after all his hard work he needed a nap ...

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I have ONE bead to post, I made this about a week ago, I was trying a 'wave' bead tutorial.  This was my best effort, sad to say, it cracked!

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Friday 14 December 2007

A Secret Christmas Surprise!

So You Want to Make a Space Monkee??


***I've password protected this post because at some point I might get my act together and write a real tutorial with photos, so for now this information is for my trial batch of guinea pigs ;o) ***

Happy Holidays, newbies and not so newbies!



I haven't been able to do much torching because of the weather, and don't have monkee beads to send out at the minute, so I thought I'd do the next best thing and write a Christmas tut for you ;o)

Sorry it isn't done with photos - same problem!  No torching :o(

I've done a Monkee, use your imagination - it could be a dog, cat, pig, - anything!  And it doesn't have to be a space suit - think about how different colours and shapes will turn your bead from a space suit into other things like - a bear in a frog suit, or a baby wearing a bonnet!

What You Need

Choose your GLASS!  Depending on what you are making.

For the monkey I use -
White
Brown
CIM Ginger - you could use any pinkish colour, opal yellow or even ivory
Stringer in the face mask colour (thicker stringer for this), white, black,  and an accent colour for tube, which could also be a twistie.

Choose your TOOLS!

Use what you are comfortable with!
You'll need a blade of some kind, something to squash dots down with, a rake and some mashers.

Skill Level
Anyone can do it!  The better you can control the heat when working with the small dots the better your end result will be.

Ok, are you ready??  Off we go!

First of all make yourself a bead with white.  Think about the size and shape of the bead when it will be squashed.  You need something big enough to fit all the features into.
3/4" is probably a good length from hole to hole.
Squash the bead, keeping the glass as thick or thicker than the mandrel throughout the length of the hole area.  Remember the higher you build the glass up on your base bead the wider you squashed bead will be.  You don't want your squashed bead to be wider than it is tall ;o)





Now you are going to use your brown - melt a small gather on the end of the rod while you keep your base bead warm, but not to hot in the flame.  The gather should be large enough to make a nice big fat dot on the centre of the bead -


Once you have added this dot to the bead, use your favourite tool to flatten it down.  It doesn't have to be perfect but this will be the shape of your monkees face.

When you are happy with the way it looks, pick up your face mask colour - the pinky one.  I find it easier to use thick stringer to make the two dots for the eye area.  Place two dots where the eyes will go.


They don't need to touch as we'll do that in the next step.

Squash these dots so that they meet in the middle and using your white stringer add two more dots, one on each side.  Flatten these as well



At this point, if you want to be really brave you can outline the brown circle with stringer or twistie - I've left it off for this tut, I didn't want to complicate things too much.

Next melt a good sized gather of your face mask colour for the muzzle of the monkey.  I usually apply this in a downward oval-type shape.



Round it up a little bit in the flame if it looks blobby. The thickest part should be towards the bottom, because you are now going to make a cut into it with your blade.

The cut will go across the muzzle towards the bottom.  You might find you have to reheat the glass a bit to do this if your glass has stiffened up.  This is the start of you Monkees mouth.

Now take your trusty rake - I use a dental pick, I find that a fine point is much nicer for raking.  Yes, that's what we'll do next!

Heat up one side of the monkees mouth (this is where understanding just how much heat you need comes into play), place the rake inside the cut you just made, close to one side of it and pull in an outward and upward motion -



Next you will repeat the process with the other side of the mouth - or not, if you want a lopsided grin.  Your grin should be a bit more exaggerated than the one in my picture.


Here's an example -

#1 - wouldn't have signed up if he knew they were going to make him wear a silly helmet!

Starting to look like a monkee??

Lets give him some eyes to bring him to life!  Two small dots of black placed into the white and flattened.  Where they go and how big they are really affects the expression of your monkee - or other animal/person!



What's he missing? He needs a nose! Using stringer again I add a small dot for a nose -

While the area is still hot I use my rake, or a poking tool, to make two nostrils and then with my blade I'll cut his upper lip line (this line is optional)


Voila! There we have the monkee's face. The rest is all decoration!

Of course most animals have ears!  You can have some fun with this depending on what animal you are doing.


For space monkees I usually add a breathing tube with stringer or a twistie.  Start at the front near the mouth area and wind it around to the back of the bead in a curling pattern.

It's fun to make a bubble on the back for his air supply. To do this you'll need to make a dot, poke a hole in it while it's hot and then add a dot of clear over the hole. This will trap some air in the glass and as you gently heat it up and round it off the bubble will round out too.

He needs to be able to communicate of course...

A black dot takes care of that!
And he should also have some supersonic, space-age lights on his uniform - you can have fun with this as well!


That's pretty much all there is to making a space monkee head.
If you are making any animal for the first time I suggest research!! Look online at clipart of the animal you want to copy and sketch out some basic ideas for how you will assemble it. I've come up with some pretty strange looking creatures when I don't check to see how they actually look before I start! Simple things like ear placement can really affect the type of animal you end up with ;o)

If you make a monkee or anything else, I'd LOVE to see pictures of it!! You can send them to me, or post them where I can see them :oD

Friday 7 December 2007

Raffi and the Rat

Here he is, my little chicken-cat Raffi! He tries to pretend Stuart is not on the couch as he's secretly scared of him. Stuart just wants to be friends, he's tried grooming Raffi a couple of times, that didn't go over too well, and I know he just wants to snuggle up beside him. I wish Raffi was a little more relaxed.

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The D.T's

It stands for deprived torchtime -- it's been over a week since I made a bead and I'm starting to get withdrawal. In desperation today I bought some small propane tanks hoping I can use them over the weekend. I figure they'll be warm when I take them into the sunporch, so maybe I'll get half an hour out of one before it craps out on me if I'm lucky.

I'm so relieved, my first Etsy sale to Maggie of Bead Towne has arrived, we were both convinced it had got lost in the mail somewhere! I've sold a few beads lately, Paula from WC bought a Goddess and so did Nathaly, Nath chose one that she's going to wear at her wedding on Dec 22nd. Many congratulations on your wedding Nath - I'm thrilled you'll be wearing my bead! I've also sold some to a work-mate, so all in all I'm not doing badly!

Wednesday 5 December 2007

One year...

I just realised I've been lampworking for a year! I began last November - here are the very first beads I made!

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I think I've made some progress! I can't say enough about how other online lampworkers have inspired and educated me, if you are thinking of taking up this art form look to the internet! You'll find almost everything you need to know and will receive a wealth of support from people who've all struggled to master control of the medium.

It's too cold to torch at the minute and I'm suffering withdrawal, I have to figure something out so that I can get some beads made if this is going to be a real Canadian winter.

Saturday 1 December 2007

New Tutorials Page

I've added a new page to the site for tutorials.  I've got loads of links bookmarked so I've added a couple as well as putting up two tutorials of my own.  It's a start!

Here's the page Tutorials 

Round the Feeder

Our birdfeeders are turning into better entertainment than anything that's on tv! Yesterday I saw the most blue jays I'd ever seen in one spot. I counted 15 of them and I know there were a few I was missing, so I'm guessing we had 20 at one sitting! It was very pretty, but they scare off anything else that might be around.

This morning David and I were looking out there and who should appear from a hole in the snow, but Mrs Rat. She hopped out of one snow hole and right into another. We watched for her to resurface but she didn't. All we could see from time to time was a little movement under the snow and leaves. I kept watching after David left for work and was amazed to see that she'd started tossing dirt out of the hole she was in. I've no idea what she was up to down there, but it looked like she was digging a trench! I guess when winter comes and it gets cold and windy it is much better to tunnel under snow than run about on top of it!

I've been battling with how I feel about Mr & Mrs being out there, and I've come to the conclusion that they or their fore-rats have probably been around out there since before we moved here, and we haven't been infested with them yet.  If I saw twenty out there I'd be mortified, if I saw more than four I'd probably be concerned, but two I can handle.  They look very clean and what really separates them from a cute chipmunk or a squirrel?  Their reputation as plague carriers and vermin, which is really quite unjustified.  We, the civilised humans are the ones that have taken away so much of nature's habitat and created so much garbage, dirt and free food sites in cities that it's no wonder things get out of control.  For now I'm going to live blindly believing  that Mother Nature knows best and she will not let things get out of control out there.  If she does, well I guess we'll rethink things at that point!

Now we have acrobatic squirrels!  One just came flying out of a tree onto the kitchen roof, I can only imagine he went plummeting down the other side as he disappeared immediately.  He's now been replaced by Red who's sitting like king of the castle on the peak at the end of the roof - surveying his domain!

Thursday 29 November 2007

Monday 26 November 2007

Today's Beads

I made two beads today and am really happy with one of them. I want to try again to see if I can perfect the design and flowers - one flower you will see is good, the other not so good. I do like the way the vine turned out :grin:  This bead was inspired by a documentary I watched last night on Toller Cranston a Canadian Artist.

Vine and Flower bead

Other side of same bead

My second bead is not as nice, but has given me some ideas to work with -

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Sunday 25 November 2007

Aaaaaah Yes! Right There!

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Stuart loves scritches

Getting There!

I feel like I'm making progress! I've now got Wordpress as my main website and slowly getting it configured into what I want. I must have been a geek in a future life as part of me enjoys tinkering with this stuff. To a point...

Let me know what you think, I like that I can have a gallery now, and hopefully this week I'll work at getting the Online Specials worked out.

Thursday 22 November 2007

Done!

I finally figured out the problem myself and got Wordpress installed on the server, then, as if by some warped twist of fate all our sites went down and I had to get in touch with tech support again....  Finally by that evening things were up and running.  It's not quite as easy as they make out, well, the installation is, but figuring out the rest isn't - I spent ages deciding on a template and then changing the graphics in it to match my site only to find out when I went to add widgets that... "computer says.. noooo".  I now have a theme installed, and I just might be able to get a shopping cart working, I've also got a gallery in there, but can't figure out how it actually shows up on a page.

If anyone is desperate enough to see what a mess I'm making you can look here http://www.louiseingram.ca/blog  that should be the link.  It's pretty much a mess at the minute, but I haven't tired of tinkering yet so I'll continue to see if I can get it to work.

No new beads, too cold and I have some dreaded throat bug and feel 'blaaaah'

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Latest word on tech support…

Still haven't heard from anyone.  I did however solve the problem, at least I think I did - I got wordpress installed on the server, opened up the program, downloaded a new theme for it and then everything disappeared.  Now not one of our sites in our hosting package is accessible.  'Did *I* do that???', I don't think so...  I hope it's because they started working on something at their end, but I now have ANOTHER unanswered support ticket sitting there...

Today’s barrels

Here they are!

Barrel beads Nov/07

The top one is the longest one of the day, the bottom one is a 'remake' of this one from last year - not quite the same, but you get the ideaBarrel bead Nov/06
Raffi just wanted a lap to climb into
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He's usually soooo hard done by..


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Still waiting…

Wednesday and I'm still waiting for a reply to the support issue...

I did get out into the sunporch to make some beads, despite the snow that appeared overnight.  The temps about zero out there so it wasn't horrible.  Evelyn inspired me with her beads that over 2" (see ShebaMakeda in my blogroll), she's been working hard and hers are beautiful.  I felt quite proud - I managed one that was just a squeak under 2", but don't like the patterns/colour so I now have a mission to get and make more and make them longer!  I did remake a bead that I had given my daughter Jess for Christmas last year, I made it a little longer than the one she has, and used a deep vetrofond red instead of brown.  It's a stripey dot bead and I like it.  I'll post pictures when I've taken them.

Monday 19 November 2007

Support Tickets…

I found out something else neat about Wordpress, you can download the free software and set it up though your own hosting plan. It sounds like this option gives you more templates to chose from and lots more options. Being a template junkie I decided to give it a try, but of course I can't get the install file to run on my hosts server. I keep getting the same message and I've tried and tried every possible configuration of the info that needs to be submitted - nada, nothing .. baaaaah! Filled out a support ticket yesterday in desperation and so far have heard nothing back. I assume they are either overloaded with support tickets or have taken off for an early Thanksgiving break. I emailed them again this morning and will see what happens.

When we first signed up with this company their service was good, problems were fixed and they took time to explain how they had fixed them. Then it got taken over, and service was outsourced to another company and I'm not a happy camper. Sometimes they reply to tickets, sometimes they dont'. When they do fix something all I get is an email saying that the problem has been fixed, not what caused it and how it was remedied. A lot of the problems seem to be on their end too which makes me more annoyed. When this years hosting is used up I think we're going to be moving on!

That leads me to a whole other gripe about business' in general that feel like they have to reach astronomical proportions to make as much profit as possible, with no regard to the fact that their customer service is terrible or non-existent and that the business they first set out to run is nowhere near as good as it was when it was smaller.

Hmmm... I didn't think I woke up in a bad mood this morning....

Here's a picture of Jane and I at the Women's Fair in Carleton Place! I hope I haven't wrecked Jane's mouth.. she was caught in mid sentence with it wide open so I tried to close it a little for her with Photoshop ;o) ..next I'm going to work on my non existent chin!
Women’s Fair 2007

Posting this picture for Beka to see

Goddess with cubic zircona

This Goddess has a cubic zircona between her hands, I'm posting it for my daughter Beka in NL to see!

Word Press

So, I think I'm liking this new blog setup - it still needs some tinkering with - let me know what you think! Leave a comment, especially if you have any suggestions for ways I can improve what I have here. My only concern is all my old pictures link back to Blogger. I'd like to do something better with the Gallery page and I'm open to ideas!

Sunday 18 November 2007

December Craft Sale

If you notice a difference in the blog I am trying out wordpress, it allows me to have multiple pages and seems to have more options than Blogger - we'll see!

I have registered for a Craft Sale in Smiths Falls on December 1st. It's being held in the Rideau Canal Museum on the main street there and starts at 9am. It's a bake sale too, and hopefully they will get a good turn out!

Snowmen and Santa necklaces for the sale

Tuesday 23 October 2007

Women’s Fair and CL’s Necklace

With the Women's Fair coming up I thought I should make some Christmassy themed beads so here's a preview of some I'll have available that day -



I've wanted to make some Goddess beads as well, but can't bring myself to try the torso type so decided to take another track. There are some beautiful torso's out there, but I don't think I could bring myself to wear a naked body round my neck (it's the prudish side of me coming out I guess!!), so here's what I did instead. I've got some ideas to progress with these which might be fun to try. Don't pay too much attention to the trees, they will require YEARS of practise!



And here at last is CL's necklace, I am really pleased with how this project turned out, there are so many colours in it I think it would go with anything. I took the beads into the local bead store to see how best to string them and got such a positive response from the owner and other lady that works there that I came away on cloud nine.





Wednesday 3 October 2007



Just when I think I've found the most amazing thing about the glass I'm using, I do something else and get blown away by what happens!!

These are the latest, the base beads are wrapped in silver foil, which is then burned off in the flame resulting in that wonderful colour and texture!!
 
I've put dots on top, and also used glass that will reduce in the right kind of flame giving a metallic shine to them.  

The reducing part is a bit tricky, I seem to get the effect but end up with one part of the bead where it burns off again, I guess it's another case of PPP -- I have to make more of these beads....
** A word of caution - silver fumes are toxic, so if you are going to use any glass with silver make sure your ventilation is VERY good!**

Tuesday 2 October 2007



These beads remind me of the colours in butterfly wings

And the blues really pop if you put iris blue over top of opal yellow!! The picture doesn't do the colours justice.