fire and glass

All of your luscious color suggestions have put me in a cr e a t i v e mood, so to thank you for this renewed inspiration I'm going to extend this giveaway to include a first and second draw ... ~woo-hoo! Keep them coming in! On the last day of the month ~Saturday? I will pull the first name and that person will receive 3 handmade glass beads especially made for them in the color combination that they chose... the second name drawn will receive the pendant bead. You may enter as often as you like with as many color combinations you can dream up (if you have more than one entry I'll contact you for your preferred color combo choice.)

This pendant bead was created like all the others I make..that is, in the flame with a rod of glass and a stainless steel mandrel and so many other fun things ~in this case, some copper foil and some powdered glasses (enamels). The copper reacted with the glass and produced that fabulous robin egg blue color.. But rather than using this one in my jewelry or selling it in the Etsy shop or Ebay , I'm offering it to you all. I have a simple question for you to answer in the comments and then I will put your name in to a draw and Wah-lah ~the winner will get the bead. Please choose your favorite color combination. Is it: a) lime and pink b)black and white c) orange and turquoise d) ivory and other neutrals e) other co m bi n a ti o n. . Do tell!

Found this lovely bit of a wisdom on ' SignatureSterling's ' creative blog this morning. I love quotes and this one is such a great reminder..

'Seventh House' This flame worked focal bead (measures 25 x 18mm) is now available on ebay and I started it at .99 .. so if you're looking for a great neutral organic glass bead to work around this may be for you.

I'm having a "what shall I post about today?" moment and decided to pull out one of my favorite old posts. 'Tiara constructed of Fairy Beads' My mother sewed our clothes when I was growing up. There was little I owned that hadn't been worn by my older sister first (there were 6 of us..so Mom learned frugality). Sometimes I got a special dress or jumper that was custom made just for me...but that's a story for another day. Mom had an old box purse dating back to her youth that she used as a button box . I enjoyed running my hands through the buttons and exploring the colors and shapes and design of each button while Mom worked at the sewing machine. Every so often I would say, 'Look at this one!' and she'd dutifully look and agree that it was very beautiful. I still enjoy buttons..some are like little works of art. I was reminded of Mom's button box the other day as I watched my grand-daughter sort with great pleasure through all the wo...

'Takada' ~ Set of 14 rounds starting at 35.00..click here These little beads were a joy to make..all from rods of an odd lot of glass called 'swamp moss', all but the 4 encased that is. It's always exciting when glass manufacturers announce a new odd lot of glass. As the story goes, odd lot rods are pulled from a batch of glass that was created when the original recipe was deviated from in some small way, sometimes by accident..( maybe someone didn't clean the cruible out properly before the ingredients for the next batch went in) but more than likely there's some marketing intent, since the odd lots are snatched up quite rabidly by most glass workers. Some hang on to the rods and wait patiently until all glass is out of production and then sell to the highest bidder. I only buy what appeals to me and oddly enough it is this strange sage-y ochre that appealed to my senses~ I have heard some glass workers calling this..*gasp* ' babypoo' green! ~ bu...

A Lemonade Award! That's sweet...okay, maybe not *sweet* but definitely a treat! Thank you so much Duni, of ' Lovely Purses ' ♥ I enjoy checking out a few blogs as I drop entrecards and her blog almost always slows me down. She is an amazing seamstress artisan who creates these wonderfully imaginative little make-up bags and purses. One of my favorites from her Dawanda shop: So, I need to pass the award along and nominate up to ten blogs which show great attitude/gratitude. 1. twenty pound tabby 2. angelinabeadalina 3. chicken-scratch.ca 4. articulations 5. knit nicole knit 6. todays creative blog Take a look! Creative amazing blogs worthy of a good read..that puts ME in an attitude of gratitude. :-)

I'm having so much fun with some rods of glass that were gifted to me just before Christmas..she was my Christmas angel I think. Many of the colors I've never used before...the green in this set one of them. Gorgeous color, don't you think? Hard to capture it on the screen but this is very accurate, at least it is on my monitor. I took these out of the kiln yesterday and they are up for auction on E'Bay now. Cli ck on th e i m ag e to t ak e a l oo k!