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 :-)

 

Two kilns heated and life is goooooood!

Yep at the moment I have two kilns.... thats right, my new lovely big girl I have dubbed Penny (Penny Paragon) and my old, but VERY useful Aim kiln that goes on a trip to Canberra to stay forever more with my little Sister Amanda... sort of sad to see her go, but she is well needed down south and I know my sis will give her some love for sure. 

At the moment I have my Aim set up for the fusing (hence all the fusing related postings this last week...he he he) and it is currently full of glassy goodness once again, only this time I have mixed some dichro in there with the murrini, it'll be interesting to see how it comes out for sure.    Here's a pic of the sheet I threw in with just scrappy bits and pieces on it (twistie, murrini and lumps of "other") and it still sort of came out fairly cool..... I still don't know what I am going to do with this one, maybe stick some rubber bumpies on it and use it as a butter dish for visitors or something like that..... LOL

Scrap canes and murrini fused sheet

I had some interesting results from my fusing tests on small bits of sheet glass.  This one using some clear centred cane came out really interesting, although I am finding that I often like the back view (that has less murrini distortion) much better.  I will show both sides of this one, which I am going to glue a bail to and wear as a pendant I am thinking!  I am actually re-fusing a couple of these tester cabs upside down (now with the clear sheet on the top) to see if that clarifies the integrity of the murrini pictures and maybe adds some depth and magnification too.... I will be keen to check the kiln when they finish for sure!

Rear of cab

Front of cab

 On a non-fusing front, I have been madly making up murrini for Affordable (geeze I am a shocking slacker with keeping up the stock, she might need to take a stick to me I think!)  mostly because I have misplaced a whole lot of my stock murrini (some of which I had even bagged up...doh) and therefore I must pay the price of making extras.... I have really annoyed myself I tell you!

I haven't made any complex murrini for a little while now and the bug is starting to bite..... I have some plans afoot as you can see......

Lets hope it comes out as cute as I see it in my brain.  I am yet to make a murrini that I am totally happy with.... maybe that is just the nature of the beast, but at least I do see myself improving.  You might note that the plans for this owl murrini include using the same component as Loren Stump's fish scale.... I am thinking it will make some ultra-cool feathers YEAH!  Now off to buy a can of corn for shaping the bugger (those little cans are the trick to this shape Loren showed us).

Thinking ahead....

Well, people that know me well will know that I am a real bugger for not anticipating "stuff".  I am the girl who goes to the shops at somewhere like Aldi with no bags and is left trying to juggle 20 items in the front of her jumper and get the money out at the same time.  I am the girl who pulls up to the pay parking exit and then realises that the parking card is in her bag, in the boot of the car... and I am the girl who remembers five minutes before visitors come that she has not vacuumed, done the dishwashing or cleaned the toilet......

I am also frequently the girl who is halfway through a bead that requires a particular colour stringer and realises she not pulled any........  you can see where I am going with this I am sure.

With my murrini making on the other hand I do seem to be finally learning from past mistakes, perhaps this is aversion therapy at work....  ie. go to put the next component onto the complex murrini gather and realise that the component in question is resting all lovely and still cold beside the kiln, not in it!

Nowadays I go through the whole thing in my head, like those elite athletes.... each movement, each component, each tool I will require are all selected and put where they will best serve me before I light my torch....

I make sure I line my components up in my kiln to prewarm in the order that I will require them, configured in such a way that they are easy to grab and grab them in such a manner that I do not have to juggle things around before putting them together. 

Here's an example of preheating in my kiln, on the left (closest end to where I work), I have my new christmas beetle body components, the left end one is facing end on so I can pick it up with a boro punty with a blob of 104 on the end easily, but the second part of this one is side on.... why? you might ask, but to get the second component onto the first I use the haemostats to pick it up, thats where the side on comes in handy.  I have found when preheating component canes and reintroducing into the flame it is much better to grab the murrini with haemostats at the sides and so the second slice is sitting sideways to easily grab that one and apply onto the first the right way around. 

The ladybird canes are ready to grab with a punty, put some clear scrap and pull out to bead diameter (3-6mm).  Now the canes have been soaking for about 1hr so its off to the torch for me.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!!  

Oranges and lemons.... no bells ringing, but I like em!

Yep, I am a murrini "happy chappy" today.  I got my lemon and lime canes out of the kiln this morning.... they looked good (stable no sign of a crack) especially for using the yellow colours in there, always a bit of a risk.  My orange pieces look like they are going to come out fairly nicely as well and when I sawed the large diameter cane I had them sitting all together on my saw top and wow they looked good, so I grabbed the camera and took a quickie pic:

At the back is the orange component cane for me to make up today, you will notice that I gradated from a yellow to the darker orange on the outside colour and also made the wedges a bit thinner so I can fit four pieces in like the lime cane.  I think it looked better with the 8 slices.  You might notice too, that I made the pith a little bit thicker on the lemon before popping on the bright yellow rind.  After I finished that one, I decided to keep it a bit thinner on the lime cane and I do think the results come out a little bit nicer as well.  I am thinking I might slice some of these larger diameter canes up and polish off on my friends flat lap next time I go over to visit her (Gail at goglass studio that is).  I am looking forward to finishing off the orange cane too, it think it will look really cool with all three types mixed in together.... very bright!

Oh, and I thought I would try my hand at some wire coiled donut bails..... well, they are not the neatest job in the world, but I do think they look pretty funky myself.  I used some copper because I had a massive commercial roll of the thin stuff I got at a garage sale for $10 - the dude used it to wire wrap some sort of magnet or something.  I will put its previous use down to secret mens business, but at least it is coming in very handy for a real newbie wireworker.  The first one is a rough ivory doughnut with some of my coffee bean murrini .... I am calling it donuts and coffee!

 This second attempt is not an improvement really, but the boro donut looks quite good in real life on this bail and at least then its sellable to a non-jewellery maker!

Help.... the murrini are taking over.... the house!

Ok, now it is absolutely set in stone..... I am back on a murrini-fest again.

Last week I sent a batch of "testers" to Kerry at Affordable Inspiration (http://www.affordableinspiration.com.au/) under my BeadMonki label and not only did she list them, she sent out a note in her fabulous newsletter letting everyone know some new murrini were in..... about half an hour after Kerry's newsletter went out she sold out of a few of them super fast. Sooooooo, today needless to say I have been pulling down murrini cane, cutting, bagging and labelling up so I could send them express down to her this arvo....phew! I am so stoked that people have liked them, but now feel like I should be getting my finger out and making more backup stock during my anal April sorting out. I have a couple orders I really need to finish off and photograph for some lovely peeps and will be onto that tomorrow. Today I tried putting together the start of my first kaleidoscope cane. I don't mind the first pull, but want it much more complicated, so my big plan is to make multiple canes then assemble them together in a repeating pattern which should be fun. This is a project I will do over a week or two rather than just a manic rush (unlike my usual effort). Here is a pic of the end and a quickie slice off it. The first thing I thought of was that it would work really well for citrus murrini....hhhmmmmmmmm!

Crazy@rse idea number 127 - Kaleidoscope murrini

I am beginning to wonder if I am just slightly ADD or is it ADHD or perhaps is it just an inability to stick to the jobs that are a higher priority on my list (orders etc.)

Hmmmmm, in any case I decided to make a few smallish bright triangle canes to see how they would come out. They worked out fine, but when I picked the cooled cane up "WHOOOOMPHA" an idea has struck with a vengeance! After seeing some of the utterly gorgeous polymer clay Kaleidoscope canes recently I thought that it might be loads of fun to try making one out of glass. When I sat the triangles together in a pattern, I could just see the seed of an idea ready to plant. I figure that if I make larger diameter component cane and then sawed and stacked them up nicely..... maybe row upon row upon row it could be REALLY beautiful!! In my usual crazy enthusiastic need to act instantly on an inspiration, tomorrow will be component cane making day..... I will update the blog with how I go..... YAY!!!!!