Badly Needed Beady Update

Wow, maybe this is what happens when the "muse" disappears or in reality there is no muse to begin with.  lol !  Fact is, I haven't been able to torch due to weather and health issues.  Jewelry making has just fallen off the "map" all together.  When you don't feel good to begin with, making jewelry is the last thing on your mind.  :( 

All that said I decided I still needed to at least update my blog with a little something.  I went looking through some old photo's and thought why not show some of my favorites. 

The first photo is of some of the very first doll beads I ever made.  The one on the very far right IS the very first doll bead I made following a tutorial by Anne Ricketts.  Then I decided I needed to see how tiny I could make one.  lol !  That one is to the right of the dime with brown hair.  lol !  She sure is tiny  !  I still have all these little dolls and should re-do the photo's.   

 

The brights set below was one of my all time favorite sets.  I love brightly colored etched beads anyway and of course I made many more of these types of beads.  Lots of them sold over the years but I did manage to keep some. 

 

 

 

I use to love to make hollow beads and made lots of them.  These were made long before I ever got into using a puffy mandrel.  These were wound on a regular mandrel.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the color - an ice blue then etched. 

 

The set below was made using silver and frit only.  That's it and then swirled around.  Gorgeous set I think.  Wish I could remember what frit was used cause I'd make more.  lol !  I never took notes on these things.  Oh well......

 

 

I had to add my little mushroom bead !  :)  I love her !  She's still tucked away with some other favorites I need to get out and revisit, rephotograph and display ! 

 

  I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my favorite glass beads made between 2005 and 2007.  I'll do another update with beads made later until I can get back to the torch. :)

Thanks so much for coming by !  Please come back again sometime !

 

 

 

 

 

Old Stuff, New Stuff, Whatever Stuff

It's been one of those weeks where you just don't know what's going to happen next !  Geesh.  To make it easier on myself, I got back to the torch at last !  :))  Happy, Happy Debbie !  lol !  It's been FUN too.  The title pretty much says it all.  I did some "old stuff", things I've done before, "new stuff", something I've been wanting to do for a long time and finally did AND the whatever stuff is pretty much everything else in between.  :) 

The old stuff:  Back to bright colors again.  Yummy, fun, put a smile on my face colors !  lol !  All for BOC kids whom I hope will smile at them as well.  So much fun to do.  Picture of what I've done so far is below.  

They're big, bold and I love 'em.  LOTS more coming as I'm in that mode and I don't think it will go anywhere too soon.  Because they are so big it takes a long time to make just one so I'm only getting a few done at each session.  My torch sessions generally only last a couple hours.  Anyway, I'll make plenty more before I ship them off.  












So now we come to The New Stuff.  Below is a picture of something I've been wanting to do for a while now but just got around to it.  It's another form of a blown hollow bead.  These have been around for a while actually in the form of a vessel or globe.  Done off the end of a hollow tube or mandrel.  The blown hollows I was making previously were done off something called a puffy mandrel that has the hole the bead forms around on the side of the hollow tube.  Anyway, this bead not only has a hollow inside, it's also covered with blue enamel then encased with clear glass.  Encasing a hollow bead in this fashion is usually not the norm however that said,  I'm sure it has been done in the past since there is very little in the glass world that is considered brand new.  There is one bead artist that is doing them beautifully right now and her artistic renditions are fabulous !  I was thrilled to have accomplished this on my own even though I am pretty bad at encasing.  Encasing a hollow is a pretty touchy thing to do as the hollow part can and will collapse easily from the heat of adding more glass.  It all came together the other day and this is my second try.  I won't even show the first one.  lol !  So all in all, it's pretty basic.  If you can make a vessel or globe off the end of your hollow mandrel, you can make one of these beads.  

The Whatever Stuff:  I stepped on my glasses and broke them and my computer is dying a slow and painful (to me) death.  The new computer is already ordered but the glasses, well I gotta get to the eye doctor and get that done.  The cheapies I'm wearing are giving me  horrible headaches.  UGH.

Time to go for now.  Thanks so much for coming by and paying me a visit.  I hope you come back again soon to see what's happening.  :))