Jolly Rancher Discs and Sparkling Cheerios up on Etsy

So this week, I've really been focusing on the simple beauty of transparent colors. Nothing against pastels and all those beautiful metallic glasses, but when we all think of glass, the first thing that comes to mind is transparents. I replenished my glass supply last week, so I had to reacquaint myself with transparent colors.

This week, I put up disc pairs in my Etsy store. Each of these handmade discs is made with a transparent color and embellished with a stripe of either silvered ivory or Psyche glass. These beads really make me think of jolly ranchers.

Silvered ivory is a lot of fun because of the unique organic look. The longer ivory is worked, the more crackly lo0oking it gets. When fine silver is added to it, it gets some beautiful striations.

Psyche glass is black or dark purple before being hit with a propane rich flame. Once the glass is worked in a propane flame, blues, greens and purples bloom with a metallic sheen. Pretty!



I've also been playing with a lot of pixie dust beads this week. I always have pixie dust spacers available, but I've recently created pixie dust big holed beads for Pandora and Troll bracelets. They're very sparkly and a perfect splash of glimmering color for your bracelet. I've left them uncored to keep them inexpensive. I can't help but think they look like sparkling cheerios though. Lol



These will be available to order as many or as few as you want. Feel free to stop by my Etsy or contact me

Interview with Morning Star Arts

Morning Star Arts is a family business with Amy, making jewelry and fiber articles, John making copper and glass items and occasionally one of their sons listing one of their many creations. Their Etsy store has tons of beautiful necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. My favorite is their kaleidoscopes. But then again, their currency boxes are really awesome! Feel free to check out their shop here.

What do you create?

Currently, as well as the jewelry, I am needle felting and embellishing recycled sweaters; my dh makes our glass "treasure boxes" and other glass and copper items.

How did you first start your craft?

Well, I have been a stay-at-home-mom for 25 years, and a homeschooling mom for the last 17, so it wasn't as if I was looking for something else to do! But, my dh started lampworking about 8 years ago and wanted me to take a jewelry class so I could "do something" with his beads. I did, and I did, and now he doesn't even lampwork any more! But we have saved the equipment and hope to both do more of it when our boys move out and we have a little more space--too many hobbies ate up the house.

Where do you sell? What are the pros and cons about selling in this venue?

In addition to selling on etsy, we attend about eight or nine art shows per year, I consign with a couple of local boutiques, and I (just) joined a gallery where I hope to sell both jewelry and sweaters. I love seeing people enjoying my workmanship, but I am naturally an introvert so the actual selling has taken a lot of effort, and I still wouldn't say I'm particularly good at it.

What is your daily routine?

At the moment, my daily routine is in a seasonal flux; during school I address my boys' schoolwork first, housework second, and business third, but this varies enourmously depending on what needs doing most urgently; each summer is different and I don't really plan a routine, just kind of "fall into" one. The one constant is that I usually work on needle felting for an hour or so before bed; I find it very relaxing, and then I know I accomplished SOMETHING that day. I try to spend an hour doing online/etsy work each day.

What are your goals for the future?

My goals for the future are pretty simple--I'd like to be able to sell all I make. Right now I've had to put the brakes on jewelry-making a little bit because, with the economic situation, jewelry sales have slowed down, whereas the sweaters have been selling very well (though they may slow down during the hot weather months).

Do you have any tips of advice for others in your medium and other crafters?

My advice to others would be to try new venues and don't be disappointed with the ones that don't work out; I have tried one or two new shows each year for several years and about half of them just didn't work for me (I've found that my designs sell better at "art" shows than at "craft" shows, and better at juried than non-juried--this is different than many of my friends). And be organized (not TOTALLY!); don't skip from product to product without giving your ideas a chance to sell--sometimes it takes a while for people to start buying something new. I don't know how or why this is true, but it's been true for some of our biggest sellers.

Ocean Lentils, Aqua Beads and Sparkling Pixiedust Pandora Spacers to Share

Lots of freshly listed goodies up on Etsy and Ebay this week.

I particularly like this set up top. It's made of half blue and half teal with sparkling green aventurine mixed in with the teal. The two colors are divided by waves of silvered ivory. These beads are pressed into lentils which are perfect for bracelets. This one is up on ebay



These ones are a bit similar. I think the warm weather this week was making me think of a soothing sparkling beach. These have been pressed into the nice lentil shape and made with cool aqua glass. They have stripes of metallic glasses that have been raked across the surface. These are always such a fun style. These are listed up on etsy.

Last beads I'll share with you today are these pixiedust spacers for Pandora bracelets.



These are perfect for if you just want a splash of sparkling color for your Pandora or Troll bracelet without breaking the bank. I've been making these in various summer colors with different colored pixie dust sparkles. These are all going up on Etsy and once these first sets sell, can be made to order.

Thanks for looking everyone! Talk to you next Friday.

Lampwork Beauties!

Lampwork Beauties!

Here's a new treasury I just made on etsy of some amazing lampwork beads by various artists.

New Webpage! For real this time!

So there's this massive gap in my postings because I started a new web page. Unfortunately I had a lot of troubles with the hosting provider and canceled my service.  Even more unfortunate, I forgot to back up my site. Ooops! So there's this 3 month gap of no posts. Even without my website troubles I'm horrible with updating my web site sometimes.

Now I do have a hosting provider that I'm a bit happier with, so it all worked out in the end.

Anyways, so welcome to my blog version 3. I'll be posting about what's new for sale in my Etsy store weekly or so, Occasional chatter about what's going on in my life, Some info about lampworking techniques and if there's any suggestions please let me know :) Thanks for stopping by.

Purple Pair with Green Metallic Scrolls

Fresh Beads up on Etsy :)

Propane Problems

Hey there everyone! Sorry there haven't been as many beads listed on Etsy the past few days. I've been having a fun (not really) struggle with my propane. It's been going on for a few days now and I finally just ordered some new parts.

It started on a cold snowy evening of -1 degrees out. I'm all ready to start torching! I get my boots on, my coat and scarf and head out to my backyard through the snow to turn on my propane. I go up and down the icy snowy porch steps, trudge through a foot of snow, get inside, take off my winterwear and head to the studio to get some work done.

I turn on the propane of my torch and I get nothing. Hmmmm...this can't be a good thing. I put my winterwear back on, trudge back through the snow to the propane tank to see that the gauge is on zero. I notice that the little arrow on the gauge is frozen and not moving. I carefully listen for the familiar sound of propane rushing into the hoses as I fiddle with the knobs. Nothing....sigh. My propane must be out. That sucks.

The next day, my husband brings home a fresh tank of propane for me and hooks everything up. Hooray! I'm ready for another night of torching. I go outside into the lovely Rochester winter wonderland (blech) and turn on the propane. It's not as cold today so the knob moves to its normal setting and life is good. I head back inside and to the studio to start torching away.

Everything's good for about an hour. Hmm....why's my flame getting huge and then tiny? I try to turn down the flame to apply some stringer and it turns into a giant bushy candle. I try to turn up the propane to reduce some silver glass and my flame almost dissapears. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!

I've given up on making anything productive at this point. I shut everything off, go outside and take the regulator off the propane tank. Why is the needle on zero? It was on earlier. I've been making beads for an hour. I turn it off and dissconnect the hose and apparently the needle had gone so high that it went back around to zero. Ooops!

So anyways, my regulator is pretty much shot at this point. It has been cleaned out and then accidentally frozen to the tank because I didn't dry out all the water. I've cleaned it and left it on a heat vent for 24 hours and still nothing. My husband even took the entire thing apart and cleaned it up, but still nothing.

So I'm currently not able to torch and I'm waiting for a new regulator in the mail. Yuck!