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 :-)

 

Iiiimmmmmm Baaaaaccckkkk

Yep, after a shamefully long period of time I am back and want to try and blog my glassy journey once again.  Its not a good excuse, but I honestly could not remember my password to google - I really am a lazy bugger!

Since my last blog entry, I have been absolutely insanely busy with my glass.  I often struggle to keep up with demand, but to be honest this is often a combination of factors the most common ones being:

1. Genuinely busy with glass work and family stuff
Yep, sometimes I have a hugely long list of things all those lovely people want from me.  I am a devil for saying yes to nearly everything, I really do need to start saying no or putting some sort of caveat on taking the order (eg. it might be 6 months and you will have to remind me again).  I have three girls and a husband and it can get really insane running around for the kids stuff, I often scam off for my glass, but I really do have to participate in my families lives sometimes!

2. Being distracted by other ideas
Very very often I will be working on something and come up with some mad idea that quite frankly, MUST be made or attempted immediately - not next week, not tomorrow, not after I have made the things I should be doing ..... RIGHT NOW!!!!!

3. Lack of inspiration/self discipline
Oh dear, very very often I get asked for a particular glassy item and even though I might really love making that particular thing, suddenly I don't really want to make it any more.  Its not a performance anxiety thing and I haven't really worked out why my brain is being such a massive pain in the butt, but I nearly always need to make the thing that someone asked for immediately or I end up slipping it to the end of the list repeatedly.... usually once I actually make it I enjoy the process and wonder why I was being a pain in my own butt!

The self discipline issue has been a big one.  Particularly whilst I have been off work (admin office work that is) and have ALL DAY to saunter out to my torch and fiddle fart around checking the TV channels and maybe occasionally even do some housework before I finally light my torch.  Many times I have turned the kiln on and then not even lit the torch.... shameful (bad for carbon footprint too).

Now that we have moved house back down to Canberra (a house we actually own) we are shortly building me a brand spanking new studio.  Unfortunately I have to return to the admin work full time to pay for it... but I am hopeful that a reduction in available time will result in me being much more disciplined and encourage me to utilise my time more effectively when I can.  I THINK it is likely that I will be getting more hours at the torchface than I did before and hopefully in a more organised fashion .......  Wish me luck kind people!!! 

I will leave you with a pic of one of my borosilicate glass dongle necklaces.  Glass chain with a short rod holding a small marble at the each end.  This one has a mix of colours and shape murrini, some are commercial and lots are my own home made jobs too.  I am very proud to say that this one won its section and was put into the "standard of excellence" display.  I got a second prize in the bead section too and all together a wonderful prize total from Affordable Inspiration of $250... I had fun ordering a huge glass fest!

2013 Sydney Easter Show dongle necklace

 

Beads... beads and more beads!

Its actually interesting the way my brain works (but scary no doubt LOL).  First I work hard to get beads made, then I flitter off and do some off mandrel work.... then I flitter off again and try out some strange "I had a dream in the middle of the night" sort of torch session.  I really do wish I could exercise some self control and settle down to doing just the one thing each day!!!!

Given my excitement at the fact that Creative Beading Mazagine has just done a profile on yours truly.... not just a wee little mention.... but a whopping three and a half whole pages!!!!  I thought I should actually put some stuff into my etsy store... specifically some beads... just in case anyone wants a Natalie Monkivitch special if you know what I mean!

Well, when I checked the pathetic stash, there was hardly a bead to be found, so off to the torch I have gone... with a mission.... to make a set.  Yep for those that know me well the word set usually sets my knees to knocking and causes a watery feeling the bowels.... Set allergy it might be called (but slack arse lack of self discipline it really is)!!

I am very pleased to say that I did manage not one set.... but two fairly big (for me) sets.  I also got right into the swing of bead making again, not that I had stopped or anything, but I had definitely been distracted.  I have had a real ball with it.  First off here is the first set I made using scrap twisties off my workbench, they are italian soft glass and using the bead press (another thing I am usually averse to).

Green Scrap bead set

After being so pleased at the success of the first set, and with the satisfied feeling that I had actually knuckled down and achieved something, I made some twisties for a second set in different colours.  I hope everyone notices that I EVEN made the spacers to match..... yahoo!!!

Pink, blue and turquoise twistie scrap bead set

Amazingly I have managed to photograph them and list them in my etsy, although I will admit to a fairly lengthy delay in removing them from the mandrels and cleaning them.... I seemed to keep walking past and thinking of something more interesting to do ..... as other glass bead makers will attest... cleaning beads is not the funnest part of the whole process!!!

Of course I went back for a second torch session and made some off mandrel cabochons for some more pocket watches.... I particularly like this dragons eye one.... I don't even know why, but it looked rather cool in real life.  It probably won't sell or anything, but that is part of the problem with making things only to your own tastes... I hardly ever make anything yellow or orange unless it is for a particular person, its time I branched out a bit I reckon!!!

Dragons eye cabochon on pocket watch

 

All Chained up

Well, following on with my theme of work progression I thought I would blog about my boro chain making and its still evolving state :-)

I started making some boro glass chain work after seeing a gorgeous necklace made by a lampworking friend that was a little bit...... organic in shape.  After some serious thought I came to the conclusion that I could make chain and fairly neatly if my idea worked.... off to the torch I went!  Here is the very first boro chain I made.  I made alternating Amber and clear links, partly so I could see where I was on the job and partly because I wanted something a little different than just clear at the time!

First boro chain work - 2009

At first to get my links really neat and round I used a piece of thick walled stainless steel tubing my husband Leo got for me at a garage sale which I clamped onto my workbench.  I could then heat the rod roughly to the length I required to wrap around the tubing then finished off each link using punty's (holding the work with a rod of glass for the unitiated).  If the shape was not quite right a large diameter graphite reamer did wonders.  Then came the tricky bit.... the joining links!   I found out fairly quickly that it was easy to accidentally fuse one link to the other.... accidentally face the flame past the link you were working on and cracking another one.....etc...etc.   I quickly worked out that working up under the flame was the way to go and using a small torch like a minor made the job fairly easy to be honest.

I made the chain...... I liked the chain..... but........ the chain was boring!  Yeah, I know I could have used different colour links, but that was not challenging enough..... enter... the dongle!

Momka sunflower cane murrini dongle necklace

Yep, following a good hot shower that nicely stimulated the grey matter, I decided to insert a section of rod through each link with a small marble at each end....... oh, clearly it worked, but OMG was it a nightmare to heat.  I found at this point that fighting the weight of the glass as the necklace built was very difficult and badly complicated how well sealed the punty should be.  To overcome that I made up a little wooden stand that I could sit the majority of the work onto underneath the torch... yeah it got scorched, but I reckon it saved the work from having a cracker of a time (if you get the pun) LOL   I also found a few problems with keeping the work warm given the large volume of glass on the first marble end when putting on the second one..... yep... many a crack occurred for sure!

I tried different dongle ends as the fancy hit me... bumpy ones, helix twist ones, murrini ones:



Bumpy dongle necklace

helix dongle necklace

Its sad to say, but I went through a real "dongle" phase.... everything got dongles on it, fun and fiddly, but time to move on again.  Thats when I decided I would try making some actual chainmaille in glass.... this is a fairly simple pattern, but it turned out quite well I thought



boro glass chainmaille

At this point I decided to go back and revisit the chain links itself...... coloured chain links made out of helix twist rod came out rather nice, but was a bit busy when put all together.... so I made some work using an alternating clear link!

Blue helix twist alternating Chain links

Then I had a play with the shape of each individual link.... here is my triangle necklace.  It sits rather awkwardly off the neck, but surprisingly looks really great when worn.  Bright and different, but definitely for the person who has some real sense of self and is a little bit out there I reckon!

Triangle chain necklace



I came up with another way to decoration the chain what would satisfy my need for fine stringer work (something I actually enjoy quite a bit) and still use the boro chain.  I made a couple of these necklaces, a gumblossom floral one and this ocean themed surface decoration chain linked necklace.  They were a ton of fun to make, but incredibly fiddly and I don't even want to think about the investment in time they took me, but they came out really beautiful in the end.  I am thinking I might make myself one of these, but flowers and butterfly murrini or something similar.

A glimpse of reef

I can't really say where I am heading with this chain work, but I know I am definitely not there yet.  One of the nicest ones I made was just clear chain, with clear dongles.... it looked like drops of water around your neck.  I am thinking I might make a clear fine chained small dongled clear one next..... that might look quite nice I think!

Seaspray necklace - clear chain, clear dongles

The Honey dipper story :-)

OK, so the local lampworkers here in Australia are fairy well aware of my penchant for making honey dippers.  But..... for everyone else I thought it would be interesting to hear how they came about and where I think they might be going LOL

Honey dippers started as a bit of a mad idea.  My Dad's mate (aka Uncle Geoff) and is a woodturner and I am sure everyone has seen the gorgeous wood turned honey dippers available all over the world, they work wonderfully well and look lovely.... so I thought... hmmmmm, what about the same thing but in glass.  Off to the torch I went and after a couple of failed experiments (if there is such a thing, nothing is a failure that teaches you something in my opinion) I had some sweet success  YAY!

Here is one of my early honey dippers.  It is boro, which I think personally lends itself best to food and perhaps a little dishwasher abuse more so than the soft bright italian glass.  I made a quick and dirty honey bee murrini I could inert into the top handle in a round marble shape and used some colour on the working (dipper) end.  The design for the dipper part was a study in experimentation for me.... make an end, cool it.... drizzle honey with it....DOH...... make another.... cool it.... drizzle (you get it I am sure) until I hit on just the right base shape and distance between stringer wraps.  The real trick was actually to make sure the end where the honey drips off is just right and pokes out a bit... that gives you the ability to write on your toast with the neat pour of honey!

Early honey dipper design

After these first clunky ones I decided that I did not want any glass colour near the food (just to be sure everything was all safe etc.) so they became all clear with just the fancy top.  With the epiphany of approaching the honey dipper top a little like a bead (and on the same scale) it all went smoothly from there.  Justin Rossi, fabulous bloke and brilliant glass artist showed me the helix twist and so I started applying that technique which looked much classier I thought.  I also started making cute but slightly cheesy christmas honey dippers.... ;-)

Helix twist and christmas themed honey dipper tops

After struggling a little bit on the shape and balance of these honey dipper tops I started on the floral themed ones.  I used some Momka commercial cane for the flowers and added some of my murrini bees for good measure, they came out nice and I started to see more of where I was heading with these dippers.   You might see the lump of clear glass on the top of the dippers and that was really firstly because I thought it looked classy.... and secondly because it helped me line everything up nicely...  I got over that fairly quickly when I realised that it was distorting the view of my work underneath LOL

Floral bee honey dippers

As you can see in the above pic, some of them I got a bit heavy handed on.....after all, how many flowers could I fit nicely in a honey dipper.  I resorted to asking for some feedback from my critique group..... my Mum Faye and my hubby, who when really pushed will tell me the truth (no pushing required for my Mum though LOL).  The consensus was that just one bee and just one flower was the classier look.  So I moved along, made some new flower murrini to add some extra colour and made some rather sweet butterfly murini to add in as well...... This is the latest incarnation of my honey dippers:

Latest version honey dipper with butterfly murrini.... and the odd bee!

When I was making some of these honey dipper tops I got a bit over excited on one of them.... hence, honey dipper gone wild Marble.... not so funny at the time, but I liked it when I got it out of the kiln.  I just seemed to keep adding layers of flowers and butterflies and grass etc.  It got out of hand I just decided that I would turn it into a mib.... ha ha ha

Last but not least I made a couple of sets with a matching honey dipper and jam spoon.... Here's adam and eve:

Adam Jam spoon and Eve honey dipper set

These honey dippers have been a real work in progress, they are morphing into something new regularly when I am at the torch and for that I have to be grateful for customers giving me ideas and the people I supply for allowing me the freedom to put what I like on top of the buggers :-)  I sell these at our local honey supplier http://www.bluemountainshoney.com.au/ and at the Canberra Glassworks gallery http://www.canberraglassworks.com/ .  I do sell the odd one on my Etsy store, but to be honest I have a bit of a hard time keeping up the supply, I shall have to get my proverbial finger out I suppose ha ha ha.

I will be supplying some special ones for the Canberra Glassworks gallery Floriade stall, so anyone who is visiting Canberra during floriade, please drop in and see the gorgeous glassy goodness at the glassworks or at least call into thier stall at Floriade and see my honey dippers in real life... say hello to the girls for me, they are lovely :-)

Bad.....er..... slack blogger !

Well, finally I have got my finger out and blogged.  I have spent MONTHS saying that I need to update my blog and yet, as the uncrowned queen of procrastination, I have managed to put it off!

A LOT has been going on in my glassy life since my last blog, so I think I will blog about it in chronological order.... at least then it will make sense to me if no one else  ha ha ha

Gumblossom Dreams boro glass necklace

First off, some of my readers may recall that I was on a bit of a mission to get some of my work into some galleries.   Well, not only do I have work showing at the Barracuda Gallery over in Perth and the Canberra Glassworks gallery I was invited to participate in an "invitation only" flameworking event at the Craft NSW gallery in George Street in Sydney.  The "In Nature In Glass" exhibition was fabulous and at the same time SCARY AS HELL.  I was participating with a raft of big names in glass and felt a little like the tiny little tiddler in a pool of sharks, but I figured as long as I do my best, well that is the best I can do.    It was a really big thrill to see my work displayed beside the likes of Chris Arnold and Laurie Young, Peter Minson, Al Usher, Bernie Stonor, Jo Wu, Justin Rossi, Carol Marando and the lovely Penel Bigg!  I even braved the Sydney Train system (which is scary for a transplant from Canberra who is a little frightened of getting lost on the trains) and went into town for the opening of the exhibition by the gorgeous and talented Marina Hyasat.

Well.... you get the idea, it was crazy fancy and I am a bit of a bogan, but after leaving the crocs and moccies at home, I rubbed shoulders with the big guns and it felt really great!  Here is a pic of one of my entries, Gum Blossom Dreams.  Unfortunately it didn't survive the transport and didn't end up being displayed, but I have since fixed it and donated it as a raffle prize to a lovely Canberra Textile group (ACTTA).



Year of the Dragon bead set 2012 Sydney Royal Easter show Entry

I was also happy to participate in the Sydney Royal Easter show again and W O W was the competition hard this year.  It was so great to see the diversity of styles and the large number of entries.  for a competition that was losing some of its support by the local lampwork bead artists, it has turned right around and now a large number of people enter in support.   I was EXTREMELY lucky to get a third with my dragon set this year and to be honest, there were some sets of beads that utterly deserved a prize and yet missed out.  For local Aussies who want to see what is at the edge of the envelope in glass beads go along to the Easter show and have a squizz (might want to take a notebook to write down the names you might wish to contact afterwards too).

Well, I don't want to just write a novel on this one blog entry, so I shall continue on very soon with more glassy musings :-)

Galleries, glass and all things good!

Orange triangle links necklace with helix twists and murrini in boro

I am in a VERY good mood today.... no strike that..... EXCELLENT mood!  I am still insanely busy and still trying to catch up on everything (still more honey dippers, murrini, pendants, beads, paperweight etc.) but I am starting to feel like I am actually making some headway.

Last weekend I went down to Canberra and saw Jess at the Canberra Glassworks who is in charge of the retail gallery space there.  I have now signed my contract with them and dropped off some work which she seemed quite happy with ......YAY  I can now say that I have work in a gallery and a fabulous glass-centric one at that!   I took one of my honey dippers down to show as well and they are very keen to get some more..... sheesh, now I really need to knuckle down and get some more made.   I suppose now is the wait to see if anyone actually wants to buy anything....I sure hope so!

I am currently working on some pieces for Barracuda Gallery in Fremantle.  It is my first formal participation in an invitation only group exhibition and I was extremely excited to see my name on the flyer.... will have to keep a copy for the brag book!

I have made a necklace that I am hoping the gallery likes and are about to make a sailing themed paperweight using my stumpsucker.  I have decided that I am going to seconde Leo into helping me with the preheating, Grace (my 14yo) would do it, but I would probably want flog her if she managed to bugger it for me.... I know thats totally not fair, but I think I am best of protecting her from any chance of wrath.... even my own!

On a legendary note.... a really good mate put me onto some glass that was being "given away to a good home".  Apparently there was a box of boro that was not being used, was gathering dust and was about to be thrown out because it was in the way....... needless to say i was up for the rescue mission and dragged Leo and my Mum along with her station wagon expecting one or maybe two cases of glass........ OMG there was a massive pile of glass and they wanted it GONE!  The pic below is not ALL of it either, but we have temporarily popped it into my dads lean to shed out of the elements for a couple weeks and then I will have to find the space here in Sydney, I reckon Leo's man shed might have to undergo some shuffling..... ha ha ha!

Rescued boro glass, tubing and stringers

I am already missing my increased stash and a whole lot of new ideas for converting it into something interesting is running through my head at night.... needless to say I am not sleeping particularly well, but I am making sure I have my nocturnal notebook and pencil ready to go which helps somewhat.  There is a heap of small diameter tubing right down to pipette sized stuff and all together about 15 cases of the stuff..... keep in mind that here in Australia a case like this costs around $350 - $500  each, its a lot of moneys worth but more importantly a lot of fun waiting to be had!

On a happy finishing note, the recipient of my glass mojination kit loved it and has already melted glass and had some fun with it...... YAY, that sort of thing makes it all worth while.

The Great Honey Dipper Disaster of 2011

Christmas Honey Dippers

Oh dear, disaster has struck at my house on Melbourne Cup day in Western Sydney.  I came home early from Leo's work Melbourne Cup function to take my new stock of christmas themed Honey Dippers up to the honey lady only to find my Mum (who was up visiting from Canberra) was in tears.... not just tears but sobbing inconsolably sort of tears.  I was understandably concerned, counted my three kids were all here, checked I had the clean undies on (something that would potentially have made her cry with frustration if not), looked around to check there were no flames.... and then asked the fatal question...... "what's wrong?"

Honey Dippers on stand before floor annealing... ie. breaking into bits!

It turns out that poor Mum had been putting a bag on the table and had knocked off my whole box of honey dippers (packed and ready to take) off the table face down into the tiled floor......hmmmmm, only one lonely one survived... wouldn't you know it.... it was the ugliest simple one!!!!!!!!!

As you can see above Leo has made me a super cool display stand for the Blue Mountains Honey peeps and I am positive they will love that bit, but I REALLY want to take along some actual stock too, so the kiln is heating up right now and I will make another dent in the list.

Broken "bits" of honey dippers

I am sure there will be a little tiny bit of angst making more of these and the reality is, being borosilicate glass, they could be repaired, but it would be quite a bit faster for me to just make some new ones.  The added benefit is also that I would know they were lovely and strong - sort of like a new car rather than a refurbished one.  At least this time around I will be a little faster and probably do a better job avoiding the odd pitfall you have with sculptural glass items.

I still feel badly for Mum who has been totally distraught for two days about this..... she's still upset I might add!

I am a bit more prosaic about the whole thing, after all, no-one was hurt and really...its only sand!!!!

Chained up on Maille.... all in glass

I know... I know.... I have ten million other things I should be doing right now.  I should be getting some stock for the local shop, making murrini for Affordable and packing to go to the glass studio for Loren Stumps classes, but nope..... none of the above!

I am feeling guilty and a bit naughty too, but I have had an idea perculating about in my head for quite a long time and decided to try it out..... Glass links Chain Maille.  I aware it has been done before (a lady by the name of Kim Edwards http://www.lonetreestudio.com/chainmail.html does some absolutely bogsmacking work in this style) but I wanted to try out some byzantine chain rather than my usual dongle-y ones.  Here it is... it worked quite well and was made in boro (because I am too much of a lazy slug to try this in gorgeous italian soft glass).  I just used 3mm glass stringers to make the links.... some closed and some open that I close in the flame after putting the pattern together.  It was fun, but fiddly as buggery as you can imagine.  I don't think this will be a common thing for me to work on to be honest, but at least I can know I tried it.... its all about the fun.

 On a slightly dissapointing front, my kiln has been playing up quite a bit over the last few days and after trolling about online and finally downloading the manual for the controller I have discovered the thermocouple thingo is stuffed....... aarrrgh!  I am really hopeful my extremely handy and helpful husband Leo can wave a magic wand and fix it up, or worse case go to the electronic shop and buy a bit of wire or something to sort it out, but we will have to see.  Lucky I have my new kiln to collect in about a month......YAHOO!

I have been playing about a LOT with my bead soup.  It is so gorgeous that I don't want to bugger it up and are probably trying to get a little too fancy rather than think about the form of the thing...... I am going to zen out, watch bridesmaids (the movie) and see what comes of some random beading then.....  Nat :-)

And the "eye's" have it

I have been off line over the last week or so for a number of reasons....
1. General slackness
2. Lost camera and therefore nothing to show off
3. Jaunting over to my friends glass studio to melt glass

The most pleasurable of the three was of course going to Goglass studio (www.goglassart.com.au) and melting a pile of the lovely Gail's glass into "stuff".  The other exciting thing was that Gail has not long ago returned from the GAS (Glass Art Society) conference over in Seattle, USA with loads of info, new toys and tools and even some gorgeous Momka borosilicate glass (odds, 2nds and testers etc.) that she gave me some of...... gotta love that lady!!!!!

When I have got home, first off I resisted the urge to commit some of the interesting odd rods to murrini-i-fication (anything that looks interesting at the rod end is at risk of this around me I will totally admit).  Today I could resist no longer, there were some really cool looking rods that had loads of tiny weeny little inclusions that pretty much just look like heaps of tiny stripes.... I thought.... oh, now that might make a really cool eye iris if I let the centre pull in and just pop on a black dot for a pupil then lensed in some clear..... and indeed it did!!!!

Here is a couple of the efforts from today, I am hoping they are not too strange for someone to wear and I particularly like the larger one with the fine white twisty pattern around the edge.  Sorry about the slightly dodgy pic, it was taken inside and with my daughters cheap and nasty camera!!!

This interesting cane slightly struck to a blue / green tinge and with the lense on top looks rather realistic!!!!  My husband Leo now apparently is in desperate need of a white eyeball marble!!!!!!

I don't really like those eyeball pendants with lids on them - just creep me out a little, but I can see the lure now I have a wide open eye pendant.  I thought they might be good for those who like the Turkish style keep-the-evil-eye-away type pendants.  I told the kids I would make an earring set and hang them backwards on my ears so I can say I have eyes in the back of my head...... ha ha ha ha!  I also threatened to make Leo a brown eye....... with some brown toned stripy cane of course ;-)

One upsetting thing is of course that these canes are real one-offs, they are not production and I don't think will ever be no matter how much fun I am having with them.  Here is where the hoarder in me rears its ugly head telling me to put them away safely for when I really need that special thing..... aarrrrrrrggh!

Glass clasp solution.... and the toggles have it!

I am in a good mood today, I finally completely and utterfly finished my fancy dongle necklace and even made a clasp for it.

I have spent many hours trying to work out a clasp solution for the glass necklaces and last night, thought well .... bugger it, I will try making my own glass toggle clasp.  The added bonus of making a glass clasp is that 1. it will match the necklace and 2. I can genuinely say that the necklace is completely and utterly glass in its ENTIRETY!

I had given making glass toggle clasps a bit of a rip in the past and needless to say had only limited success.  They did work, but looked unwieldy and ugly and I suppose I didn't have the experience I do now and they weren't particularly neat and round so I was loathe to put one of those ugly monstrosities onto my painstakingly made dongle necklaces....... but I have now changed my mind!

Here is a pic of the toggle I made last night for the latest necklace.  I decided to use some of the helix twist cane for the loop rather than just some clear and I think it looks great.  I used a short bit of helix cane with clear blobs at the end for the toggle bit and just measured the whole thing as I made it.  Actually I did stupidly make the toggle stick first and then had to match up the loop...... the second one I made I did the other way around and that was MUCH easier!  I also found that if the loop is more of an oblong shape then the toggle stick is easier to get in lengthways and then sits better at one of the smaller ends.  The other issue I had to sort out was how to get the whole shebang to sit nicely.  I had put a stem on the toggle stick and found that if I bent that stem at nearly right angles it sits beautifully against the neck!

Oh, you might see that I also popped my signature against the loop end too..... had to sneak in somewhere didn't I. 

Below is a pic of where I thought I would try something a bit new.... a bit "dangly-er".  Here is a pic of the start of that next experiment.......... I am obviously having some fun with these, even though they take hours and hours at the torch (the dongle necklace took me more than 12 hours of torch time counting making the chain (which I am getting much faster at) then making the components for the dongles (either murrini or helix twists) and then of course, putting the lot together.  Interestingly it is all worth it when its finished off, definitely some job satisfaction to be had there!

Clasped to the kiln floor!!!!!

Well, its not quite as bad as it sounds, so everybody relax!

I have been on a true marathon of dongle necklace and bracelet making (8hrs torch time yesterday alone) and thought I would try a bit of an experiment.  My glass chain necklaces are a bit of a challenge to work out a perfect clasp (I usually end up making a slightly bodgy toggle clasp out of glass to match the necklace), but the bracelets are extremely difficult indeed.  I personally do not like toggle clasps on a bracelet anyway, but on a glass one..... ppppffft!  The glass chain jewellery does NOT  survive being dropped, my hubby explained in some complicated physics-y way about transfer of energy or somethin'.... well, they almost explode into the original component parts if dropped onto a hard floor... I know, because I did it... twice!  Therein lies the issue with the toggle clasp on a bracelet, let alone a tedious delicate and dare I say it.... bit expensive bracelet for someone! 

After lots of looking about I just happened on some large ornate-ish parrot clasps in a local bead shop.  They are the idea size, but I don't like putting base metal findings on something like this.... still, in the interim I thought I would try out the clasps.  The funny thing is I thought I would be a complete smart-aleck and attach the clasp using a glass ring which would then go through an annealing cycle in the kiln......... hmmmmm!  The great mystery was going to be how would the clasps survive? would they turn black? would they melt?  Well I popped a cheapy clasps on two bracelets and left in the kiln last night (leaving the clasp end right near the door at the bottom front in case that helped at all).  I was overjoyed to see that they did survive, unfortunately the little lever bit did not.... It melted right out and left two little puddles of "metallic stuff" on the bottom of the kiln (luckily just picked off).  Here is the offending articles afterwards!

On another more positive note, I did mostly (I found one link missing a dongle this morning DOH) finish the necklace and then went on to make a rather cute tiger stripe bracelet.  I also came up with the cunning plan to use one of my name murrini to end off the bracelets which was pretty cool.

Oh, I piled up the two bracelets and the necklace which made a fairly cool photo and let me bask in the results of two days of fairly solid torch time....... YEAH!!!!!

Evolution of a glass necklace

I thought I might to steer somewhat clear of the murrini fest over the last few days and have decided (finally) that I would make a couple gallery quality pieces. I have done the boro chain and dongle style before (something I dreamt of then tried and it worked quite well) and the bottom picture is one of my early efforts using some purple handmade murrini in the marbles on the ends of each dongle. This was using some 3mm chain and I kept each dongle quite short. It is really nice to feel and is actually very comfortable to wear but I did move onto larger 5mm diameter links with large dongles which were very flamboyant indeed.

I have decided to try out a slightly new style of this necklace using finer 3mm stringer chain once again, but with much longer dongle-y bits in all different lengths and colour combo's. I also resisted the urge to use murrini in the ends and instead, I am going to use little tiny helix twists (a technique learnt from the lovely Justin at imagine creations) on each end. I have made a start yesterday (well by start I mean about 6hrs of torching to get to this point) and thought I would show off how it is going. I have only done less than half of the dongles so far, but you can see it will be busy, but hopefully interesting as well.

I wanted something that still had the movement (chain and dongles all move around loose) but looked a bit busier than the fine stuff usually did.  After I finish this one off, I am thinking I might make a big chunky one again...... WAY less hours of work to do the big stuff for sure.    I will try to remember to upload a pic of the final result.  The only issue I have now is finding exactly the right clasps for these buggers.  I have made glass ones which don't feel completely safe and did find a fabulous large ornate parrot clasp design that was perfect..... just not precious metal!  I think I might buy a few large parrot clasps in sterling silver at about $20 each, it would be a bit of a waste to spend days upons days making this style to throw some cheap-arse crappy clasp on it..... it seems there is always a challenge some days!

Original dongle chain testing with murrini

Form, colour, technical challenge or all of the above?

Hmmm, yep I am in a weirdo mood from the glass perspective at the moment. I have been seduced back to boro in a big way but have been left feeling a bit like the girl who went to the dance with a date and left with someone else (only the date doesn't realise it and is sitting patiently in the corner). A little bit GUILTY..... probaby the right word to apply to the situation.

I had that "feeling in my waters" last night to go and melt some glass about 9pm and thought I might as well get into it and even though I had neatly lined up my coe 104 italian glass ready for a "dance"... I totally bypassed it and made a couple of boro pendants instead.... naughty girl!!!

On a less lampworky subject, I am off today for a lovely 3 day retreat with a whole gaggle of beading buddies (and a few lovely lampy girls too of course) and are left wondering how I am going to go. I haven't made any beaded jewellery for so long I think I have forgotten how to do it really and are worried that I will find it somewhat boring talking about something other than glass (yep, I am BORING in company unless they find glass interesting). Just in case, I have packed my snorkelling gear and figure that for a number of reasons, not the least of which it would be healthy and I enjoy it, thought I would sneak out the 10min to the beach and take a dip at least one day of the three.

Bring on the weekend everyone....... Lets hope the surf is not up too much!

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!

No longer a market virgin!

Well, I spent my week panicking about the market, torching up as much stock as I could and packing all the things I thought I might need...... To sell two (2) things only for the whole day.

I had to get up very early, drive into the city (which scares me a LOT because Sydney is like a rabbit warren) get set up, wait all day for a sale, repack the car and drive home in a busy traffic period. I don't want to sound like I am whinging, because the absolutely lovely and talented Vanessa Cabrera (http://www.veeanca.com/) showed the way into town, helped me set up, lent me some of the stuff I needed for display and generally lent a convenient shoulder. I was also lucky enough to be paired with Yunita (http://www.artfire.com/users/gubnavnania) who was so good about helping the dodgy-arsed one and provide good company for the day.



I did manage to sell one of my highly experimental necklace pieces for a whopping $250 (biggest sale that I have ever had) to a lady that just loved it and she was saying she only collected unique pieces. Thank goodness I decided to take it to fill some space on my emptyish part of the table. I felt happy about the sale and thank goodness that covered all the stall expenses too, so the day was not a total waste.

Do I want to do a market again in town.......... the answer is quite a resounding "NO"

Hmmmmm, thinking I should sort out my Etsy store to pay for my glass purchasing habits rather than take the market route.

Rocks Market panic stations

Ok, so I am now home and just as I walked in my door last Sunday night I had a bit of an epiphany........... my first Market (ever) at the Rocks here in Sydney was only 6 Days away. Needless to say the thought elicited a great deal of panic, particularly as I have been torchless for a while with the move and health issues and had virtually NO STOCK!!!!

I have launched into a frenzy of pendant making in response to my panic. Why Pendants you may ask, they are easy to sell, require no stringing into something saleable and hopefully will fill my half of the table if I spread them out a bit. I have had some fabulous advice from the ladies who go to markets regularly, but are still having that scary butterfly feeling in the pit of my stomach.......

I have been told that it is a place where many tourist visit and that I should gear my stock towards that........... Sea Turtles was all I could really come up with at short notice (have made quite a few before) and so I have been imploding boro turtle shells left right and centre.

Cross your fingers for me that the touristy types like sea creatures. Maybe the next market might have some koalas or something a bit more Aussie, but ..... out to the torch I go (big poop, I just remembered that I will need cash change too............. sssshhhhiiiiittttttttt)

Glass blowing & Pipe making madness!!!!!

What a fun week I had last week at Gail's Goglass Studio (http://www.goglassart.com.au/). A really fabulous glass pipemaker Dustin Revere (http://www.revereglass.com/) was out visiting Australia and Gail asked if I wanted to jump in for the week and learn some serious skills..... of course I did!! My head was spinning with the stuff Dustin could make - wig wag balls that he blew then opened and applied to blown articles, uplines, inlines and just AMAZING stuff. I definitely have somewhere to aim after having seen it done, but if you look around at the pipe makers stuff you will be shocked at the beautiful artistry mixed with the functionality of what is essentially a highly technical piece of equipment....... fun, fun FUN!!!!

Dustin showed us how to make our own coloured boro tubing using a vacuum stack method which was fun, but a little bit scary on the big Delta torch. Here is the finished cane and the left over end of the vacstack which I think I might heat up and make into a cool marble!

Whilst I was there I was lucky enough to also have some time with Justin Rossi of Imagine Creations (http://www.imaginecreations.com.au/) who specialises in ocean themed glass work with his gorgeous wife Amy who makes the most lovely implosion marbles and florals. Justin is the most precise technician I have seen work and one of the nicest blokes I have met in glass to date. Justin showed me so many of his techniques that my mind was spinning by the end of the week! Here's a pic of him at work.

Once I got home, here is a handfull of some of the stuff I have made this week. I have definitely been seduced back to boro at the moment and having fun with colour etc.

You may well be wondering "did you make a pipe" and well, the answer is yes (just a little spoon style one), which I managed to completely bugger up. aaarrrrrrggggh!