It's still Christmas at my house!

I'm sitting here feeling very blessed.  For many reasons but one big one is that I'm part of a wonderful community on the Wet Canvas Glass Forum - I've mentioned them before but they have to be the most giving, wonderful bunch of friends I have ever come across online.  I'm almost embarrased to share everything I've received but want everyone to know much I appreciate their kindness.

I went to the Post Office this afternoon to see if my copy of The Flow had arrived - YES!!  Woohooo!  The Women In Glass Edition - crammed with incredible pictures and tutorials!  But alongside that was a 'come and pick your package up' ticket.  I wasn't expecting anything so imagine my surprise when the clerk brought out a box -

[caption id="attachment_1342" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="My box!"][/caption]

One of my WC friends had sent me something!  I couldn't wait to get home to see what was in there!

[caption id="attachment_1343" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Oooh! it looks EXCITING!"][/caption]

Wonder what could be hiding under the tissue paper??

[caption id="attachment_1344" align="alignnone" width="318" caption="SOCK MONKEY SLIPPERS!!!"][/caption]

OH WOW!!!  It doesn't get much better than this!  Thank you SO much Deborah for finding these and thinking of me!  The funny thing is, I had put slippers on my family Christmas list and even mentioned I'd seen some cute monkey ones, but they were not forthcoming - so these put an extra big grin on my face, and my feet!  My old slippers are just about in pieces.

[caption id="attachment_1345" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Warm tootsies!"][/caption]

I wonder what Raff is going to think when I chase him wearing these?? Hehehe!

Since I had the camera handy, and since I'd been so remiss about posting most of the other wonderful things I received over the last while I decided to get some more pictures while I was at it -

[caption id="attachment_1346" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Monkey Socks!"][/caption]

Rita of Rita'z R-tistic Ramblez gifted me these colourful socks!  I wore them for the first time on Christmas Day and got lots of great comments!  Thank you Rita!  --anyone would think I liked monkeys?! ;o)

[caption id="attachment_1347" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Karen Leonardo Book"][/caption]

I was speechless when I opened a package to find this book that Deb sent me - It is full of tutorials for different beads followed by a section on how to turn them all into different pieces of jewellery.  I made my first brooch following instructions in this book and was thrilled with how well it turned out!  Thank YOU Deb!

A while back Paula had surprised me and sent me two crochet books -

[caption id="attachment_1348" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Books from Paula"][/caption]

The Bead Crochet book answers so many of the questions I had about how to do, and what to use, and I'm looking forward to trying some of the 'recipes' in the wire book too!

As if this wasn't MORE than enough, I also received Pipyr's eye cane tutorial from Maggie - I'm working on this one, I've got a cane made, but trying to perfect setting it into beads.

I know I posted this before but will show it again, Maxine sent me one of her presses!!



If you aren't a beadmaker and wonder what this contraption does it helps to create beads of a certain size and shape when the molten glass is pressed between the brass blocks.  I'm still working on this, it doesn't come naturally to me and is going to take some practise.  There is a definite skill to getting just the right amount of glass melted to fill the press and no more!  When I get some decent beads made with it I'll post them here.  Thank you GirlFriday!

And to top it all off Rhonda sent me the Lichen glass I wrote about a few posts back - I don't have a picture of it as I made it into -



(except the bottom one which is my interpretation of Pipyr's eye cane tutorial)

I'm now feeling very indebted to everyone!

Here's The Flow



It's very exciting to see beads by so many people I know all in one place!  I'm now going to go and have a proper look at it, the gallery of glass in there is breathtaking.

Just when I thought Today couldn't get any better...

It did!!!  I was Secret Santa'd on the Wet Canvas forum!  Oh my,  I am so excited - I have received from my very generous Santa one of Pipyr's tutorials - the one for eye cane!  WoooHOOOO!  I can't wait to try it, there are instructions for using silver glass, regular glass and borosilicate, each eye is lensed so they really pop with all the colours that are inside the iris.

Take a peek right here .  Pipyr is an extremely talented artist, I've been watching her for a couple of years now, her boro 'creatures' are full of wonderful colours and other materials - horse hair and electroformed copper for a start!  But these eyes!!  Oooooooh!  All I can say is thank you very much Santa!

WC Calendar is DONE!

I volunteered myself for a project this year - creating a calendar for the Glass Arts section of Wet Canvas - an online community of Artist's of all medias.

[caption id="attachment_986" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="WC calendar cover"][/caption]

I hang out in the Glass Arts area a LOT, so it seemed like a natural thing to do.  I had good ideas and great input.

[caption id="attachment_987" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="WC calendar - down by the sea"][/caption]

I had a schedule planned of when I'd call for pictures and when I'd have certain months finished by.  Well, of course what is it that they always say 'the best laid plans...'

[caption id="attachment_988" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="WC calendar - celebrating Beads of Courage"][/caption]

Finally, finally, I have it finished.  It's uploaded to Cafepress and hopefully will print alright for everyone who orders it.  It's a nervous thing!! I just hope I have everything right and that it prints as it should and that people are happy with what they get.

[caption id="attachment_989" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="WC calendar - Black Tie and White Hat!"][/caption]

If you click on the images you should get to the larger versions of them.  All I can say is there is an awful lot of talent in our glassy section of the forums, and this calendar showcases just the tip of it!

The calendar is available at Cafepress - here's the link - no-one is making any money from the sales except Cafepress so don't feel obliged to purchase one, but if you are interested in seeing the other months, they are all up there!  ---I hope they are!!  Or I am in real trouble!

A Challenge

One of my favourite places to hang out on the internet is the 'Newbie Thread' on the Wet Canvas forum, its morphed from the original idea of a place to post worksheets for a group of lampwork newbies to work on, to a wonderful little community within the Wet Canvas forum.  So many of the participants are doing incredible work, and yet I think total beginners could feel comfortable there as well.  We all post our triumphs and our failures, share whats going on in our lives and generally support each other in our glass endeavours and things beyond.

So, what's the challenge you might ask?  One of our members was telling how she'd made a bead with almost 100 dots on it - or maybe it was just over 100 dots, anyway, she threw out a challenge to see who could make a bead with 100 dots or more on it.

I don't consider myself particularly competitive, but I have to say, when I stood behind the torch and started counting dots I didn't want to stop!  The challenge is running until October 1st and I jokingly commented that by that time we should be up to 7 or 8 hundred dots per bead!!  Come and join the fun!  The more the merrier!

This bead is my homage to one of my favourite beadmakers - Larry Brickman  and gives me even more appreciation of his perfectly sized and placed dots.

I counted 212 dots on my bead!



Of course SOME people are just too smart for their own good....



..sorry Maxine... I couldn't resist stealing it! ;o)