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!!!!  

Something bugging me!!!!

Well, not really much to be honest, but I am really wondering about something murrini related......
..... what the hell are people doing with so many ladybird / ladybug murrini.  Once I started stocking these at Affordable Inspiration they seem to be literally flying out the door.  I am struggling a little to keep up with making them!!!  Don't get me wrong I am totally not complaining at all, I think it is really fabulous that people like my murrini enough to go and buy them, but I would dearly love to know how these little fellas are being used!

I learned from Loren Stump how to make these little 3D murrini and they are fabulous for placing on the outside of a bead or of course for use in paperweights.  At the time I was soooooo impressed at being able to learn a 3D pull (one without clear surround and maintains the shape of the glass) that the fact these little beasts were so very cute eluded me.....  Yep I went off and made a cartoon police car to see how far I could take this 3D thing.  I was very pleased with the outcome, but it was a complete poop to cut up... still fun though!

I am now thinking that perhaps something that might really be cute and different would be some little bugs (like the ladybugs) that were made out of metallic glass and with some judicious reduction could come out something like christmas beetles..... I think it might be time to go and have a troll at Flickr to see of some bug enthusiasts have some inspiration pics for me today........ FUN!!!!!!!!!