Flowers, Flowers and More Flowers

With all that practice/working with encasing, flowers in particular, I got the "urge" to follow another tutorial on roses.  Sculpted roses this time.  It's been a long time I really sculpted anything and hoped I wouldn't revert back to bad habits.  There weren't many but there were a few that kept me from accomplishing things back then when it came to sculpting.  Plus, I really wasn't sure I wanted to go that route again.  That's what I use to LOVE to do - sculpt with melted glass.  So when I sat down to follow along with the tut, alot of my GOOD insticts kicked in and I started feeling better about it again.  Not totally though.  As I was working on the first rose, I was rather shaky.  Just something I do when I'm trying new things.  The longer I worked on the first rose, the better I felt.  Plus, I had done most of this type of sculpting before.  I had made flowers long ago just not roses.  The whole purpose of buying this tut really was to see how the middle was finished and if there were any other good tips and techniques to learn. 

The only thing that really was no surprise to me is that first rose it HUGE !  I don't know what it is but making small beads just escapes me so often.  lol !  I try but 90% of the time it just doesn't work out for me.  

So far, I've made 2 roses, a lovely blue color one and a cream color one.  Both pictured below with another flower I made that's not a rose and on their own.  Notice the sizes !  lol !  The white  rose is smaller than the blue one though !  lol !  At least I tried.  :)  That blue one measures in at a full 2 inches across at the widest point !  Like I said - B-I-G ! 

Make sure you click on the photo's to see the full size. 

I've also included a photo of some sculpted flowers I made long ago.  Geesh, I think it was back in 2006 or 07.  Can't remember.  Not any particular kind of flowers.  Just plain ole' flowers.  I do remember the whole idea then was the petals and working with a new tool at the time.  I still have that tool and that's what was used in the multicolored flower pictured with the roses.  Making the petals is key to any of these sculpted flowers of course.  With these types of flowers, the petals are made in advance and kept warm on a warming plate of some kind.  Makes assembling the flower so much easier.  The picture is pretty bad because I was using a very old digital camera.  I still have all those flowers so maybe I'll redo the photo.  :)    

So I am continuing on my flowers quest with yet another project I'm working on.  More on that to come later.  I will make more roses over time.  Hopefully, I can get to small !  lol !  

Thanks for coming by !  :)  I hope you will come back again soon.  Please leave a comment.  I love reading them.  :) 

        

More Encasing Fun

Yeah, it's been fun for sure.  The flowers are still a work in progress and I will continue to move forward with those but last week, I decided to try something I've wanted to do for a VERY long time - jellyfish beads.  A far cry from an encased flower bead that's for sure.  Still some of the elements/techniques are the same.  Layering, encasing, elements, dots, etc.  Still, ones an underwater scene and the other is a flower(s).  :)  Anyway, I ended up making 3 of them and two were done following a tutorial by Mary Lockwood whom you can find just below in my list of blogs at Something About Mary.  Her jellies tutorial, as all of her tutorials, is just wonderful !  

The first bead took 2 hours to make, the second one 90 minutes and the smallest one about an hour.  The prep time alone took roughly 90 minutes and that includes making all the canes, stringers and tentacles.  These are intensely time consuming beads to make.  Still, worth all the effort.  The pictures do the beads no justice at all simply because you just cannot see the depth in them.  The two biggest beads have no less than 4 or 5 layers of glass.  In each layer is a different element.  One layer is the start of the bead, the second layer is the sand on the sea bed, and so on.  Each layer is then encased in clear.  Depth.  I wish I could figure out how to get that to show in a photo.  sigh.  One of these days.     

The smallest bead was done completely different.  It doesn't have all the layers of encasing in it.  Only two layers total.  That said, you can still see a little depth to it.  I added nearly as many elements as the bigger ones but again because there is only two layers, it looks totally different.  Plus I added the jellies in a totally different way as well and they didnt' turn out as pretty as in the other two.  Still, some jellies are not all that perfect in shape anyway.  lol !  

Nevertheless, I enjoy all my jellies and am thrilled with how they turned out.  Not sure I'll make any more but hey, you never know.  :)  I do know that if I do continue to work on these, I'll have to figure out how to get all those layers in and still make them the size of the smallest one.  Those two on either side of the small one are HUGE !  My husband made the comment, " Those aren't beads - they're paperweights ! "  lol !  They ARE the biggest beads I've EVER made of this type even when I couldn't encase worth a darned  !   lol ! 

Thanks so much for coming by.  I hope you come back again soon.  Please feel free to leave a comment.  I love hearing what you have to say.  :)     

Encasing - Wows and Woes

It's been a hectic week pretty much away from the torch but when I was able to get to it, I did some more experimenting.  So much fun to experiement as always.  :)  That makes life much more interesting.  :) 

So here are my experiments :

All encased of course and each one I tried something different. 

Starting with the top row, left to right:  Pink flowers bead was my second try at doing a layered flower.  Hmm, this type of flower will take ALOT of practice on my part.  It became obvious to me right away that I will have to start the flower by adding one more petal making it a 5 petal flower rather than 4 petals.  Makes it easier to center the second layer of petals.  #2 bead is flowers in light blue and a couple with twistie petals encased in some new to me clear glass I think.  I like how the twistie showed in the petals alot.  And the clear glass I used, is AWESOME !  A tad expensive but it's absolutely PERFECT !  If there are any bubbles in that bead it is something I did, not the glass.  #3 bead - I love this bead !  Again I used that awesome clear glass but first I covered the colbalt blue base with silver foil and encased it leaving it silver and gold.  I wanted to see if the new glass would leave the silver - silver or turn it gold like some clears will do.  It only turned it gold ever so slightly in one spot.  The ends on this bead are PERFECT as is everything else !  Wow !  That's a big accomplishment for me still !  lol !  Bead #4 - A white base with orange flowers.  The experiment part here is the orange flowers.  I used a stringer of enamel to make the petals then encased.  I didn't know if enamels COULD be encased so this was the experiment.  I will be digging deeper into encasing enamels.  :)  The last two beads are encased frit beads.  One I just wanted to practice perfection, which I did and the very last bead is pressed which again I was working on perfection. That one is very lopsided.  More glass on one side of the hole than the other. 

So that's it.  To me, they are all WOWS because I am amazed I can still make them !  lol !  I'll keep working on the imperfections to be sure and try improving.  Just getting this far with them is a huge acomplishment for ME.  It might be this is as far as I can get.  Only time will tell.  

At any rate, the experiments were all worth the effort.  Learning new things is always GREAT !   This go round I learned it's ok to encase enamels, the difference in clear glasses is AMAZING, that it takes time to perfect good ends (for me anyway) and slow is always the best way to go when encasing.  :)  Oh and it helps TREMENDOUSLY if the clear glass one is using to encase with - melts like butta !  lol !  

So the second time I was able to torch, I made canes and stringers.  More on that in the next blog post.  Something I've wanted to do for years is coming - I hope !  lol !  

Thanks so much for coming by !  I hope you come back again soon.  :)  Have a great weekend !               

Where Was That Ah-Ha !

Last Monday morning, as I sat at the torch, trying to get inspired I just couldn’t find my mojo.  Nothing was working for me.  Nothing was coming out like I wanted it to.  I made a couple BOC beads for the kids and some spacers thinking ok, that’s it.  No more torching for the day.  Took a lunch break and thought oh what the heck, let’s give it another try thinking it was all going to go horribly wrong or maybe I’d get lucky and find some sort of inspiration.  Generally, with me, it’s the going horribly wrong !  lol !  So I sat down and thought, ok maybe I just need to do something either brand new or revisit something that for whatever reason I just could NOT get in the past.  I revisited encasing flowers.  Oh brother !  That was always a crick in my side.  I just could NEVER get it right.  The ends were bad, the flowers were smeared, encasing had divets, etc, etc.  No matter how hard I tried or what I did or what tutorial I bought and tried to follow.  Nothing worked, there was always something wrong – until last Monday ! 

At last, it all came together.  How or why I’m not sure.  I’m thinking I just relaxed and figured what the heck !  lol !  Yep, everything worked out just fine.  The first one I just let myself go.  If the ends turned out – great, if not I didn’t care.  My main goal was to keep the “flowers” and everything under the encasing in shape, no smearing.  I did it !  No smearing !  Then the next thing was ok, no divets in the encasing.  I thought surely that was just too much to ask !  I mean there was no smearing afterall.  Wasn’t that enough for the first try ?  Nope.  I had to improve the encasing and I did it !  NO divets !  Two outta three ain’t so bad so let’s see if I can get nice ends.  Done !  J  Needless to say I am very happy !  It was one of those weeks I couldn’t wait to get back to the torch every day just to see if I could make that bead.  There was no “ah-ha” moment when it all came together.  I have no clue WHY it all came together after all these years.  It just did and I don’t think I want to question it.  lol ! 

These are just “beginner” encased flowers, nothing fancy.  The fancy stuff will come later I hope.  Fancy meaning a second layer of petals or putting a crease in the petals or adding a stamen to the center, that sort of stuff.  I did try the layering of petals on one bead – pffft, did’nt work too well so no rushing it.  I did learn something very valuable though that I DID read over and over in every tip or tutuorial out there – take your time encasing.  Slow is better and it’s very true.  

Below is a photo of the flowers from last week. 

Top row, left to right, first two are day one, second two are day two and bottom three are day three.  The very bottom bead isn't encased flowers but I like how the bead turned out so it was included in the photo.  :)  Of course a few did end up in the water can.  It happens.  :(   All in all, I am THRILLED that I can say - I can make encased flowers !  lol !  Wow !  Insert happy dancer here.  :)     

Thanks so much for coming by !  I hope you come back again very soon to see what’s going on in my little corner of the world.  J           

          

Today is Tuesday

ETA: Today is Tuesday, May 22 and this entire post is what I wrote up yesterday and kept having problems posting. Seems Google has a few issues it needs to work out for the new format we are to work with. Anyway, I decided to post it even though it's a day late to keep up with what's going on with me at the torch cause something VERY exciting (for me anyway) happened yesterday. So a new post is coming............................ 

Wow, it's time for an update here.  The last 10 days just sort of flew by even though it felt like it kept dragging on and on.  Having a cold, sinus and/or allergy problems really puts a "kink" in things.  Feeling somewhat better now but it still lingers......................

Not much time spent at the torch but was able to get on it a few times here and there.  Was able to try out some more murrini and make a few more beads for BOC.  The murrini - some ok, some not so ok but it's a learning process.  :)  While it can be fun to do, you most certainly need to be in the right frame of mind as it's a long drawn out process to get to the final result.  The more detail, the longer the process of course.  I've kept it simple so far with the smiling face and star or starfish.  Basically simple, no fuss designs.  The picture below is what I made one day.  The yellow star or starfish and another smiling face with blue and green.  The dark blue with clear around it was my first attempt at a starfish but it looks like a little flower.  So it's usuable.  lol !    

The next time I thought I felt up to torching I made a few beads.  One ended up in the water can.  It happens to us all.  One of the colors I had encased, didn't want to be encased so the bead kept cracking no matter how warm I kept it.  lol !  I ended up making two for BOC, the dino and the one with lots of dots pictured below with two others.  The other two are also for BOC but I made those a bit over a week ago.  I made the dino's tail a bit too long but I'm sending it anyway and hopefully they'll still use it.  :)  

I worked hard over the weekend so today is playday at the torch - I hope.  I'm not sure what I want to do yet but whatever it is, I plan to enjoy and have fun !  Sometimes the glass dictates what IT wants to do rather than me choosing what I want it to do !  lol !  If that sounds strange, it probably is a little bit but it's the truth.  I can have an idea in my head and it goes completely out the window once I begin melting the glass.  lol !  It just happens. 

Thanks for coming by and visiting.  I hope you come back again soon to see what's happening.  :)

   

   

Something New & Fun

I haven't been doing much at the torch this week due to life getting in the way but did manage to try a new technique.  Up until a few days ago, when I came down with this icky cold or whatever it is, I was still making beads for the BOC kids.  I got some feedback from a fellow lampworker that after seeing one bead I had made inspired her to get out her murrini and work with it again.  The bead in question had some fun murrini in it and one piece in particular was a smiling or happy face.  The bead is in one of the photo's from a post a couple weeks ago.  Anyway, I got some more of those murrini from the gal that made the ones I used.  Lori of  http://www.etsy.com/shop/loriandkim Then I got to thinking, why couldn't I try making some myself ?  I had never tried making murrini faces or anything too technical before.  I had made simple murrini with a few colors in them but nothing of this sort.  So I went looking for a tutorial.  Found a great one with about 5 or 6 tuts in it !  Not that I'll be able to make a butterfly murrini or anything but I got what I wanted - at least 2 murrini I CAN make.  :)
  
So, I did just that.  On my very first try at a smiley or happy face - here's my result ! 

I must admit I am very happy how it came out !  I got it perfect and THAT was a total surprise !  lol !  I only cut some of the pull into the chips you see.  I did use a couple in a couple of beads.  Only one turned out.  Melted the other ones into the bead too much.  lol !  Then I remembered why I didn't use murrini much in the past - I was no good at actually using them in a bead !  lol !  So I'll keep working on that part as well.  :)  

I did make 3 more smiling faces murrini but managed to do several things wrong.  In one of them, I forgot a step.  In one the colors were too dark and the last one, I used white for eyes and a mouth and they just sort of disappeared into the other color.  lol !  Oh well, that's what learning and trial and error is all about.  :) 

I can't wait to get back to the torch !  As soon as this cold or whatever it is moves on, I'll be on it !  And I really wanted to see the new movie Dark Shadows this weekend !  Drats.  

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you come back again soon to see what's happenin' !  :)    

Fun With Dino's and More

Yep, still making big, bright and bold beadies for the kiddies.  lol !  Added some more dino beads as shown in the photo below.  Those are fun and pretty easy to make however a bit time consuming.  Still, ALL of these big beads are time consuming and use quite a bit of glass but are so worth it.  I guess I'm on a kick right now with making these types of beads so as long as this kick holds out, I'll keep makin' them.  :)  That said, when I do go back to making "regular" type beads, I'll always make at least one big bead for the kids of Beads Of Courage.

I've been making ALOT of spacer beads during these torch sessions as well.  I figured I better stock up on these little gems while I have the chance 'cause once summer REALLY kicks in, I will be on break from the torch again until it cools off.  We are already hitting in the 90's so I can only imagine what July and August will bring !  UGH !  I'm not a fan of making spacer beads at all.  I don't think many beadmakers are but they are necessary for jewelry makers that use lampwork beads.  I will use them to put together some jewelry while I'm away from the torch.  I've been making between 10 to 30 at each torch session so they are starting to accumulate.  I do have a bunch from years ago that I made and some that I bought but the colors are limited.  There might be only 5 or 6 of one color.  


With the hot weather already here in full swing, it was 90 degrees yesterday, my time at the torch will start becoming much more limited until I can no longer stand the heat.  I'm torching only in the early mornings now for just a couple hours at most.  I don't torch at night when it's a bit cooler simply because I'm nodding out at 10:00 pm as it is !  lol !  I'm an early riser so I take advantage of that.  lol !  Still, I cannot open the window when it's so hot and let out all the cool air.  So I am at the torch as much as I can be every morning taking advantage of what little time I have there.  Soon, I will be on torching hiatus again.  sigh.......that's the way it goes down here in the south !   


Time to get busy.  Thanks so much for stopping by !  I hope you come back again soon to see what's going on.  Enjoy your week !  :)