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!