Torch time

I had some time at the torch this week and thought I would share what I have been working on.  Focused on lampwork this time and have some enameled pieces rolling around in my head that I need to get to very soon.  As far as the lampwork goes I have been playing primarily with sculptural shapes rather than standard round beads.  I made some rounds to and practiced and played with dots and frits, but those are not quite as exciting to see.

First up is a batch of raked or feathered hearts.  The hearts evolved after playing with it on a barrel bead and deciding it would be cool for a project I was asked to do and then evolved from there.  The pic of my hand is a sort of heart shaped burn mark that is fading.  I mildly painful reminder to make sure you pick up the glass rod you have been using to rake with by the correct end.  Purely coincidental that the burn was heart shaped when I had been working on hearts!

The largest heart in the collage is my fave!  I have mentioned before that I get all my glass from Devardi, this one has their silvery black metallic glass as the stripes.  Once I mastered getting the metallic to come out I fell in love with this glass, it reminds me of hematite.  You can see that some of the hearts slumped in the mini annealer, it may be that I put them in there a tad too hot.  Still saving up for a Chili Pepper kiln where this shouldn't be an issue. As a side note, the folks at Devardi are a dream to work with, offer affordable pricing,  carry a great assortment of colors, and always promptly answer all my newbie questions when I email them.

Next up were some more turtles and mushrooms.  These seem very fitting for a shop with the name Northwoods Creative Studio.  They seem to fit right in with my birds and owls.  Later this week I hope to tackle and master making some little foxes.

Again the black here is the silvery metallic.  I took liberties with the colors in this batch of shrooms and turtles.  The little turtle on the bottom has eyes that are a wee bit large, making him look very surprised.  The mushrooms are topped with frit also from Devardi.  I don't think it can be seen in this pic but the green shroom has a crack in the cap, I sometimes have this with my transparents, I think as a result of not getting them in the kiln quickly enough.  So, much to her delight the green shroom will be gifted to my oldest daughter.

Did a bit of wire wrapping with my shells last night.  I collected them two summers ago in FL and am getting around to using them.

I always like my work (if I don't I redo it), but I LOVE this piece and am torn as to whether or not I will be putting it up for sale.  This simplicity of this center of a conch shell and the minimal wrapping just speak to me.

While I'm very pleased with how this one turned out, I can't keep them all!  Listed this one tonite on Etsy.



Lilac

Lastly a few parting shots of the flowering shrubs at our place.  Happy spring to you all :)!

Flowering Quince

 

AJE Earring Challenge Second Reveal

Continuing on with the one pair of earrings a week challenge from Art Jewelry Elements.  This time I really only did the one pair a week as I was completing the Lucite and Clay challenge from my previous post.

Here's what I have for you this week.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.  Be sure to go to the AJE site to see the other blogs or the AJE Pinterest board.

This pair is made from a pair of gear hoops by Karen Totten of Starry Road Studio.  Be sure to check her Etsy shop for lots of drool worthy ceramic pieces.  The center hoops are enameled copper by me and the ear wires are hand made by me as well.  Really need to get these listed on Etsy, but I'm having a hard time parting with them.

The second pair for this reveal is all component made by me other than the Swarovski bicones of course.  This week I learned to make hollow lampwork beads and this is one the pairs of them. Pairs of hollow beads are proving to be a little tricky for me in getting the size to match, this pair is pretty close. The nice thing about the hollow beads, besides the look of them, is they are quite a bit lighter so I can use larger beads for earrings.  On my monitor these are appearing almost the size they are in real life.

50th Post Giveaway

I can't believe I'm up to my 50th post!  I know that's not many for some people but it's a milestone for me.  In honor of the occasion I will be giving away one of the pairs of earrings that I made for the AJE Challenge, you can see the close ups of those in that post.  Here is the collage view of them.

You can skip to the bottom of the page to learn how to enter, or keep reading until you get there :).

Here was a quick lampwork headpin experiment I did on Friday.  I'm working on making different types of  headpins and ways to use them in response to the Love My Art Jewelry Challenge.  I was really pleased with how these turned out.

While I was at the torch I made up a batch of ear wires to continue one with the AJE Challenge.

Some with enamel, some with a fun heat patina and some just bright shiny copper.

Ok, here's how you can win!  There are numerous ways to get extra entries, use as many or as few as you like.  Random drawing will take place on Monday January 28th.

1) Leave a comment below for your first entry, and another for each of the ways below that you share.

2) Follow my blog or indicate that you are already a follower.

3) Share the giveaway on your blog.

4) "Like" Northwoods Creative Studio on facebook.

5) Follow Northwoods Creative Studio on Pinterest

Good luck and spread the word, if we have over 50 comments on this 50th post I will give away a second pair to a second winner.  (If there is a second winner the first one will get first choice of earrings.)

The Importance of FAB Packaging

As a former retail and wholesale sales person I am well aware of the importance of branding.  It's still a work in progress for me here at Northwoods Creative Studio, but as I move FORWARD in 2013 I will continue to work it out.  As I said I was in sales, I know just enough about marketing to be potentially dangerous, lol.

Anyway here are two people I have gotten packages from recently that really have it together.  I should have posted long ago about the first one as I was a winner of a giveaway on her blog  LibbyLeu and Glass too .  Libby Leuchtman is a great glassworker and here is what I received from her.

The pod I won came in a lovely little organza bag.  The pics you are seeing are her postcard that helps protect the piece.  Showcases her work before you ever open the package, great branding, no question who it's from.

THIS is what was in the package, wrapped in bubble wrap for protection then in this great dragonfly tissue was this FAB glass pod.  I've been drooling on it for months and still haven't decided onn a design to do it justice.

The second is my recent purchase from Starry Road Studio.  You may remember Karen Totten's work from the Hoops Challenge.  I ordered some more hoops to use from her Etsy shop and here is what I received.

This is what you are greeted by when you first open the envelope, a lovely thank you card and a nice little thank you gift.  My gift was another hoop (YAY) and a little leaf.  A lovely customer service gesture and it makes you feel truly appreciated by the artist.

When you open the lovely kraft paper gift box this is what you see, more great cohesive branding.  A smaller card and lovely bronzey tissue.

And when you lift the tissue you find your product carefully packaged and unharmed.  I like that they are bagged together so I won't loose one of the pair.  One of these just might be finding their way into one of my pairs of earring for the AJE Challenge.

Mondays lampwork

A little later than promised but  here are the pics of the lampwork experimenting I did on Monday.

Top left is the lil bead collection from the torch session.  Got to play with some new colors that came in last week.  Top right is the butterscotch color, with some black dot practice.  Bottom left is Blood Red, loving this color, practiced some hearts for the coming holiday.  Bottom right is a lil mushroom bead in ivory with some pumpkin orange enamel added, looks positively poisonous doesn't it?  Glass from Devardi, enamels from Thompson.

This bead is in Lucious Pink, wish the photo was better because it truly is a lucious color and I'm not a huge fan of pink.