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 Reveal 3

I almost forgot to get my earrings done and photographed for the third reveal of the Art Jewelry Elements Earring Challenge.  The challenge is to create at least one pair of earrings per week using art beads. 

My first pair for this reveal is made from hand cut copper discs that I textured in my Sizzix BigKick.  Then I fumed them with ammonia to get the blue patina and sealed them with Protectaclear to keep the patina.  I hung them from some of my hand forged balled copper ear wires.

 

 

The second pair I created just this morning and were inspired by Kristy Abner's Drops of Rain earrings posted on the Earrings Everyday blog.  Mine are annealed steel wire frames accented with  enameled copper headpins to hold turquoise lampwork beads.  The ear wires are wire wrapped directly to the frames.  Wore these to a Stanley (did you know the Stanley Co was still around?) party today, they were lighter than I expected.  Now I'm not sure I can list these because I like them so much.

 

Be sure to visit the AJE Blog to visit other participants in the challenge!



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.