Marbles of weight loss - a positive way to record the journey

Yep, forgot the password (really did) have moved house, started back at a full time admin job, been thrown out of our house because of asbestos contamination.... you name it, its happened so far this year.

But this is a glass blog, so I wanted to get some ideas down for a start.

I need to get onto murrini making and now that I have moved my lampworking equipment over to my Mum's temporarily I am starting a new project. I know, I know, I have many MANY half done projects, but I have an idea, it will get me back in the swing of glass and murrini making and should be fun and sort of functional.

I have got to take off some weight (the story of many fellow sufferers of those of us who happen to love eating - a LOT). 
I have quite a bit of weight to lose and I am going to make myself a series of marbles with murrini representing different weights and some just with positive messages.  I am going to make enough that I will be able to document my weight loss goal with them.

I am thinking of making them with the following messages/increments:
"1kg" loss marbles - nice ones
"1/2kg" loss marbles - relatively simple but nice ones
"5kg" loss marbles (which will be larger and more complex and probably have scenes with murrini inside)
Some small plain-ish ones that say "good try" or "nearly"
A couple that say "oops"

I want to pop them in a large bowl or vase and then slowly move them over to another bowl representing what I have lost. I am thinking this will provide me with a visual measurement of what I have achieved (ie. getting to see the build up of marbles in the "lost" bowl) and give me the satisfaction of moving them around each week and take a minute or two to think about my goals and achievements.  I am probably sounding completely crazy right now, but once I start I will show how I have gone.

This weekend will hopefully see the start of my Marbles of weightloss collection :-)

 

Its official, I am off unobtainium boro colour!

Yep, I have always loved the "sparkliness" of unobtainium in boro (for the unititiated its a sparkly metallic glass) but the love affair is officially over..... *you can picture here me stamping off in a huff!

I used the knobbly end of my vacstack pull to make a marble last night.... it was big and beautiful and a little bit swirly. It was one of those occasions where I couldn't wait to have a peek into the kiln this morning and because I was using my minor burner (read baby torch for boro working) it took me about an hour and a half to finish off I had visions of absolute beauty and was keen to get some job satisfaction from my glass baby........ NOPE, definitely not happening.

I know there are quite a few boro colours that do not like to be encased and will now add Unobtainium to my list (particularly in big lumps). My lovely mib had gone all "crackylicious" on me, but only where the stripes of unobtainium were, here's a pic so others can learn from my mistakes ;-)

As you can see my baby had a good and a bad photographic side. I had even popped in a little clownfish murrini at the end like a signature because this marble was the biggest I had made so far - nearly 2 inches in fact.

Lifes a learning curve I suppose - clear encased thick unobtainium.... EPIC FAIL!

**Note: if you shut your eyes and hold it in your hand..... still lovely!