The Spacer Queen

First, thank you to everyone who posted in my mopey thread yesterday. It's nice to know I'm not alone in my thinking!


Now, head on over to Watch Me Create to read about my adventures in lampworking! I've got some spacer adventures from the past weeks to read about.

Some of my glass beads

Let me say first -- lampworking is hard. At least, it is for me. It's not one of those things that you become perfect at right away. This is tough for me because I like to master things FAST and this, dear readers, is just not going to happen.

But I'm learning something really interesting -- I need to melt glass for more reasons than just to make beads. Melting glass takes me to a zen state, a calming state that I can't really find while doing anything else. There's not a thing I can think of except the glass when I'm sitting in front of a torch and beside a kiln.

It's very hard for me to share my early efforts, but this IS the year of exploration, so I'm gonna. So here goes.

This one was decent enough that I made it into a pendant with amethyst for myself, a modest reminder that I'm on my way. I used Val Cox frit to make the pretty blue designs.

Lousy photo, but this is more Val Cox frit over a cobalt blue (DEEP cobalt blue) base, all in Moretti glass. It turned out even enough that I felt comfortable making a pendant out of it. Will anyone like it? No idea.

This one is a big friendly lump, kind of like Hagrid of Hogwarts, but it sure is pretty. The back, however, is (for lack of better description) burned. So this is its good side. Everyone has a good side, right?

These are made out of BullsEye glass, a glass with awesome colors but a definitely different feel from Moretti.

And these are all the beads I've made thus far. I have a small batch waiting to be cleaned, and a small batch in the kiln, but as you can see, I've not made many yet. So even though I have mostly lumpy wonky beads going on, I don't have NEARLY the practice time in to say "I can't do this".

Today I worked with a glass called Creation is Messy, and I LOVE that glass - melts like butter and fantastic colors, so I can't wait to show you my wonkies from that batch.

Thanks for looking!

Lori Anderson designs jewelry for www.lorianderson.net and also writes for the blog www.prettythingsblog.com.

I Made Some Beads!

I've been spending the past few days in the studio, making beads and trying to get them to be even. I'm also trying to keep from switching from the left hand to the right hand (which is apparently a big bad no no). I've also been playing with frit, which is tiny crunched-up glass that can make pretty decorations. Ignore the bead release, and you can see:

I tried my hand at encasing these in light amethyst, too, and encasing is a skill all its own, I quickly discovered! I'll put that on the back burner for a while longer.

Today I went out and ooooh, Rick bought me some Moretti Alabaster. Let's try that.

BLAMMO! OK maybe not -- the stuff is either shocky or I was doing it wrong -- a huge chunk exploded off the bottom the minute I wafted it through the flame. That got bundled up and put back on the shelf for later.

(Picture from www.sundanceglass.com)

Bottom line -- I'm getting out in the studio and trying. I don't have huge chunks of time right now but will next month, and I signed up for a class in August at the Philadelphia BeadFest, so that will help. I'm trying to stay positive, and trying to remember that for every spectacular bead artist I see, there was once a newbie.

Thanks for reading!

I made beads today!

A very fast post because I am exhausted -- not nearly enough sleep this weekend as I worked and worked and then worked some more almost all three days of the long weekend.


BUT!


I finally braved it. After my friend Kendra hooked up my propane, I went out today, took a deep breath, and made beads.





They're still cooking in the kiln, and they are just wonky spacers -- nothing to write home about -- but I DID IT. I conquered my fear of blowing up things and just DID IT.



If you know me well, you know that's HUGE. If you don't, stick around long enough, and you'll realize how terrified I am of trying new things. I want to be able to get it right the first time. I hate failure and flub ups -- I get embarrassed easily. But in the quiet and peace of my little studio, I found myself saying to myself,


"You are going to be good at this."


I hope so. I hope so.