ooops I forgot my cats, these make cute little beads, but I'm finding with not having a kiln I'm loosing some things like bits of tails. I try to make sure they are well heated when I make the bead, but I think its the stresses that are causing things to pop off before they're annealed.

I have been reminded by a certain friend ;o) that I need to update my posts, so here goes..

We are half way through February and I'm almost ready to get my second batch annealed, I have been working on my faces, some cats and variations on the Warring States beads.

I've registered a domain name -fireseed.ca and hope to have a website up as soon as my hosting company get their act together and fix my account utilities, I feel like we are going round in circles at the minute. I keep getting emails that say 'try to set the account up now, it should work' and I keep replying 'tried to set the account up -- it doesn't work!'. Hopefully things will get sorted today.

I'm getting great responses from people about my beads which is really exciting, I have one lady who wants to buy some as soon as they are annealed and another asked for my website address as soon as it's available. It's very exciting to have something to feel positive and good about.

David and I worked on a logo and we came up with this, my idea was to have a 'flame' pod with seeds inside it, I was experimenting and liked what happened so it stayed.



I've noticed over the last few weeks that my little hothead torch is bothering me. It's partly the fact of using the small cannisters of gas - I did switch to the camping type, but it's still a problem - they run out too quickly and loose pressure too quickly and I find I'm always wondering what type of bead I can make before the gas runs out, and how much gas is left anyway. I feel like it is stifling me a bit because I tend to think 'better not try a big one..'. I've looked into all kinds of angles of switching to bulk propane in the spring. I'll be in our sunporch then so it is do-able, but the more I read the more problems seem to present themselves. What I **really** want is a proper propane/oxy set up, it would mean more heat, which means I could work faster and not feel so inhibited. Of course the big downside is $$$, they are much cheaper in the long run but require a fairly hefty outlay to get going (according to my bank account anyway ;o| )

Enough blabbing, time to post some beadies, I visited Tank Studios site - they're in Toronto http://www.ehmeglass.com/page.php and saw some beautiful beads there, and also discovered Dustin Tabor http://www.dustintabor.com, along with Larry Brickman http://www.brickmanartglass.com/ - what inspiration! Here are my attempts at their styles of beads -









what fun!! I feel like my dots are getting a little more uniform, but still have a long way to go until I'm in control of them.

January has gone by pretty quickly! I had to put away my lampwork over Christmas as my daughter Rebeka and boyfriend James came to visit from Newfoundland for three weeks. So... what have I been up to? I found some very interesting beads called 'warring states' that date back to approx 300bc China, here's one that is in the Museum of Bristol in England.


I want to be able to make these beads, but oh boy! It's hard to control all those dots!! These are my best attempts so far -




Here are a few pictures of my latest stuff, I'm getting a bit more control of the glass sometimes and I'm really having fun with my faces.

My first batch of annealed beads!! I was surprised and pleased with just how many I ended up with.

I had bought some jewellery findings and string to put some of them together for gifts for family and friends for Christmas, so here is my first attempt at jewellery making, I don't have the right tools so my wire bending leaves a lot to be desired, but I was happy to have some finished pieces. I used the black silk thread for some because that way the recipients could pull the beads off quite easily and do what they wanted with them.


Bracelet and earrings


I hung some of my early beads on a bracelet that I had for years, also in this picture is my cat bead and two rats.


Keychains.


Simple Necklaces



And here's the necklace I strung together for my mum using some white glass beads from an older necklace along with the lampwork ones I had made.

A lady at a local bead shop made me feel really good when she saw my spirally worm guys, she went crazy over them and wanted to show them to a co-worker. I've promised I'll go back in the New Year and take some to show her, so now I have a mission, I have to get good at doing the eyes and making tidy tails. A worm with wonky eyes just does not look good!

I got some glass stuff for Christmas (yeeha!), a nice selection of coloured rods and stringers, a pair of glass shears and two marvers for adding more shapes to my beads. Unfortunately it's too cold at the minute to work in the sunporch, once the holidays are over and Rebeka and James have gone back to Newfoundland I'll set up in her old bedroom again and get back to work.

Here's the latest round of pictures and hopefully some helpful words to go with them. This first one is a disc bead, I forget what it's real name is so I'll call it a wonky disc. I used tweezers to grab and twist little kinks around the edge or the bead. I also used my mashers to get a more even disc shape to start with, something I hadn't tried before and it worked quite well - not that you'd know it from the finished bead!


I'm also trying to learn how to control stringer better. This is a very hard thing to do. You have to find just the right spot in the flame, or to the side of the flame so that everything is hot enough and the stringer softens, but not melts in a big blob. I think I need thinner stringer to wrap beads with, that means it will be even harder to control probably!



Bubbles bubbles, I'm managing to get bubbles in beads and keep trying different melted in dot methods. It's hard to place dots equally around the bead, well I find it hard, that affects the way the dots melt - if they are not spaced equally they will melt and move around in ways that you don't necessarily want them to.



I like the way the blue/black bead turned out, it was supposed to be triangles and diamonds but the dots weren't equal so I got a big mishmash, but I like it anyway. Here to is my (tadadada) very first real encased flower bead!!! Don't laugh - its the one with the blue blob with a bubble in the middle. I started with a base bead in green, put some clear on top, then added some pea green stringer, more clear and then tried to make two flowers, one each side, both with three petals. The petals all kind of melted in to one another, so it looks like some kind of trumpet flower if you have a really good imagination ;o)


I learned a good tip to help with spacing of dots. Put a tiny flag of glass on your mandrel, that way you put your first dot parallel with the flag, turn the bead 180 and you can see where to put the next dot because the flag will be at the back of the mandrel, then it's easy to place one or two dots in between each of the first two, making them much more evenly spaced.

Look at the bead on the right, I did this one with a flag on the mandrel and managed much better spacing than the other beads in the row.

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Arrrrgh! I just lost my post when I tried to upload images! Now I forget what I had written. I'll try again.

My glass order arrived very quickly and I was so anxious to get started using it that I forgot to take a picture of all the lovely colours. I figure this batch will keep me going well into the new year. I stuck to the regular, cheaper colours as I feel I've got enough to think about without trying to get special effects from some of the more expensive rods. I haven't tried frit or millifiore yet either.

I made this little guy and had such fun with him that I thought it would be nice to make more and try some 'fireflies' as well.


I learned an important lesson, while the bugs will work on the right size thread, some of the flies will not. It is important to think how the bead is going to work/hang on a finished article!

I've also been working more on my barrels and getting some better shapes -





Then I had been trying to figure out how to do the beads with triangle shapes in them, I wasn't having much luck (below left), until I found a good tutorial at this address (lots of good info here) http://www.sgb-midatlantic.org/how-tos.html - I tried a few more and I'm getting better!



Now I have to try and figure out what I'm going to do with some of these so I can give them as Christmas presents to family. I'm hoping to get my first batch annealed this week, I'm excited and nervous - worried in case they all crack, or explode in the kiln! I know it's unlikely but I'd hate to loose them at this point.

I placed an order for more glass today! It'll be exciting to have lots of different colours to play with, of course the real reason I 'need' it is to make Christmas gifts for family members... -- yes that's the real reason ;o)

Yesterday I spoke to David Paterson, one of the glassblowers in the village and he said he'd be willing to anneal beads for me! Yeeha! Another hurdle overcome, now I will be able to get some finished before the holidays.

We had to have one of our rats, JB, put to sleep on Sunday, I was feeling pretty miserable as I'd been nursing him since he lost the use of his back legs a couple of months ago, it was hard to say goodbye. I am determined to make some rat beads so it seemed like good therapy to light up the torch and try again at some sculpting.

Here are the results, better than the first attempt, hopefully I can keep improving. I made a little pink one too, but was so frustrated - I made a lovely pink stringer and when I came to use it for the tail it had disappeared. The bead got too cold while I was trying to locate the stringer and it cracked, and an eye popped off. I managed to save the bead by heating it up again, but it's a poor one eyed tail-less looking thing.

oh how did Raffi get here? LOL, he's been sleeping in the beginner's kit box - I haven't got the heart to throw it out!