Beads Interrupted

I have no new pictures to share, I spent my torch day in bed. I could post pictures of what happens to a house when Mom is sick, but let's be honest, no one really wants to see that, do they? I know I wish I hadn't.

I was tempted to go make a few beads yesterday because I have a few ideas for more bracelets I want to make floating around in my head, but somehow the combination of sneezing, hacking up a lung, and hot molten glass seemed like a really bad idea.

I think I'm on the mend now. We've had the flu sweep through our house, and I was its last victim. The trick-or-treating will not be canceled tomorrow, and for that my children are grateful. I'm grateful too because I think I can use my weakened state as an excuse to make my husband take them out begging for candy.

Beauty from Chaos

The creative process is different for everyone, I suppose. For me, a little chaos in the beginning often gets the ball rolling when I'm making jewelry. Would you like to see my jewelry creation station?


Actually, I'm not alone. I've seen much worse. Some of the beads on my bead board have been there for years, but when I sit down to create a piece it helps me to have lots of shapes and colors from which to draw. I usually end up running to the bead store downtown to pick up a few beads and spacers that I need to complete my project.

Today I put together a bracelet from the dotty beads I made earlier in the week. This bracelet is for a friend who is fighting a fierce battle right now. I can't be with her to stand by her side in person, but I hope she'll wear this, feel its weight on her wrist and know that she is strong. I hope it will also remind her that God is with her and loves her and so do I.

Dots Dots Dots

As promised, I'm posting the dotty fruits of my labor yesterday. I still need work on the dots so I think I'll do some more on my next torch day.

Oh, and see that swirly bead in the center? That was a dotty bead gone bad. So, no mistakes only a new opportunity, right?

Baby Bracelet

My torch session was short today because I have sick kids, but I made a few dotty beads. I'll show you a picture of them after they come out of the kiln tomorrow. After making beads I came in and put together a baby bracelet. My niece is having a little girl and is due next month, so I wanted to give her baby this bracelet.


It's teeny tiny, which doesn't come across in the enlarged photo. When my youngest was born four years ago someone made a similar bracelet for her, and it was just the sweetest thing on earth. I hope she likes it!

Fancy Photo Setup - Take Two

I found a tub that will work better for taking bead photos. Now the trick will be finding the proper lighting. So far I've discovered the best lighting is natural sunlight, but that can be hard to come by this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday was gorgeous. It was 70 degrees out there and not a cloud in the sky.


I do think I captured this bead at the wrong time of day for the best lighting, a little too late, but I can tweak the highlights and shadows in a photo editing program to correct some of the lighting issues. Some colors of glass are just harder to photograph than others as well. When I first started selling my beads a couple of years ago I didn't realize I would need to become a photographer, web designer, accountant, and business manager, but that's what small business is all about. Lots to learn and do.


My plan for tomorrow at the torch is dots dots dots. I stink at putting dots on beads. They never go just where I want them. That's why I make so many swirly beads, easier to disguise the mistakes that way! It's time to get some dot practice.

Bead Photography

I went out and bought a fancy new photography setup so I can take nice pictures of my beads because I threw out my old photo setup in a decluttering frenzy. The photos are important as I plan at some point to sell my beads online again.

Would you like to see this fancy setup?


It's not going to work, though. Silly me. I bought the wrong kind of bowl and it casts shadows all over the beads when I put it on top of the beads for photographing. The purpose of the bowl is to diffuse the light and cut down on little glare spots on the beads, but this bowl creates more problems than it fixes.

A few beads from yesterday's torch session (again, not cleaned yet.)

Ugh! Shadows AND glare. Back to the drawing board.

Torch Day

Monday and Thursday are the two days I've designated as Torch Day. I marked it on my calendar, and I'll not be making appointments, lunch dates, or any other plans for those days.


I did get on the torch yesterday, but not for hours like I had planned. The wind was howling so badly yesterday that by the time I had finished my first bead making session my garage was filled with leaves. I had to sweep it out!


Here is yesterday's bounty from the torch, not even cleaned yet. I'm really happy about the fact that the beads are pretty uniform in size and shape. That only began to come easily to me after making lots and lots of simple beads. That's one thing bead making has taught me. Practice really is the only way to get good at something and it really does pay off.

Looking for Balance

Finding the time to do something I really love to do amidst daily obligations is a real challenge. I need to make time for all the priorities in my life: God, family, friends, fitness, and then I need to make time for the obligations that I'd love to forget about. I mean, someone's gotta do the laundry and grocery shopping, right?

All I can do is try to balance all of those things, and if I find that the scale tips over, which happens more often than not, I need to readjust. That's what I'm in the process of doing right now. The reality is I can't go spend a few hours on my torch on a daily basis, especially not at this time of year with birthdays, holidays approaching, and the flurry of homeschooling activity that Fall brings.

My solution for now is that I will give myself two days a week to spend as many hours making beads as I want without guilt. The rest of the week I will take care of all those other desires and obligations, without feeling that I'm letting myself down in the bead making area. It means that it will take me longer to establish the business I had envisioned, but even that is not a bad thing. Without the thought of making beads that will sell, I'm free to experiment and have fun. That's ultimately what I'm looking for. Yes, it is gratifying to sell my beads, but the selling does detract somewhat from the peace I get from creating something beautiful. Balance.

And just because a lampworking blog without pictures of beads is a sorry thing indeed, I'm uploading a picture of a couple of beads I made last week.

How Did I Start This?

So, how did I get interested in lampworking, you ask? What's that? You didn't ask? That's okay, I'm happy to tell you anyhow.

Several years ago I saw Deanna Griffin Dove demonstrating her lampworking on the Lynette Jennings show. Until then it had never even occurred to me that people actually made glass beads. I guess I just thought they were made in factories with fancy equipment, or maybe I just really didn't think of it at all. When I saw one being made by Deanna I was intrigued. I really thought I'd like to do that myself but I thought it seemed too complicated, and I wouldn't even begin to know where to start with something like that, so I didn't think much more about it.

Later, a friend of mine, a fellow homeschooling mom, was diagnosed with breast cancer, and at one point during her fight a bunch of us from our circle of friends decided to show our support by creating a big beautiful string of beads for her. Jan was a bead lover, and several of us remembered getting beads from her at one of our weekend gatherings. Each of us contributed a bead or two to string together. I remembered the lampwork bead I'd seen on the show before and wished I could make something beautiful like that for Jan. Instead I made two very amateurishly, yet lovingly, done polymer clay beads, and enjoyed making them so much I was determined that I would find a way to learn to make glass beads. I took a class for beginners, bought some equipment to start, and I was on my way.

Jan lost her fight with breast cancer, but her life still touches mine today, and lampworking is just one of the ways.

So, I'm lampworking because I've been inspired by others. My lampworking changes and grows as a result of still more inspiration from others, and maybe they don't even know how they've inspired me. Everything we do sends ripples out into the lives of others, and here I am sharing a couple of ripples with you. Maybe now you'll be inspired to try something new too.

How to Make a Gold Foil Bead

For those of you who have never seen a glass bead being made I thought I'd post a quick video. A search for "lampwork" over at youtube.com brings up several more.

Success!

The garage cleaning went better than I expected. It turns out I was able to stack stuff in his part of the garage (effectively making his garage cleaning job more difficult, I'm afraid) leaving enough space for me to clean up my workspace. I just have to wheel the lawnmower outside when I decide to work. Small sacrifice.

Anyway, while I was cleaning I found a handful of beads I had made a couple of years ago but never annealed. It gave me the chance to figure out how to program my kiln again. Thankfully, I took good notes the first time I had to learn how to do it.


Besides annealing a batch of beads, I actually managed to turn on my torch for an hour in between appointments today. I made three. whole. beads. My bead making muscles need some retraining, but a lot came right back to me. I can still make 'em round. I'll also have to relearn a lot of things. I kept it simple today, but I'll have more time to experiment tomorrow.

It makes me beyond happy to be back to doing this!

My Corner of the Garage

I'm off to go clean my garage. I'll be working on my workspace this week in between shuttling kids to doctor appointments and art classes, in between birthday celebrations, (We have TWO this week.) and in between other mom duties.

I took a picture of my neglected workspace to give you an idea of what I'll be doing this week. It's kind of sad. That shirt hanging on my workbench has been there for two years, ever since I turned off my torch for the last time. I wear that shirt when it's chilly, and obviously I fully expected to come back and torch another day when I laid it there.


And here's a picture of me at work a couple of years ago.



Okay, that's enough. I'm motivated now.

Two Addictions Combined (Or the Best of Both Worlds)

So, while I've been away from my torch I've been blogging. No, not here, two posts would make me a pretty pathetic blogger, but over at my personal blog I have over 500 posts logged. I retired that blog because I wanted to get back to doing some of the other things I love, not the least of which is melting glass. Now I find that while I've been away from the world of bead making, bead makers have become pretty savvy bloggers!

I've already visited several blogs of bead makers, and it's really helping me firm up ideas about my own art and the "art" of turning that back into a business. It's exciting to dive back into that community and reconnect with some whose work I've always admired and some who I've met at various events and shows. I'm having to resist the temptation to say, "Remember me?" everywhere I go in that community because I feel like I've been away for so long.

I'm also going to have to resist the temptation to spend all my time blogging about beads and get to making them!

Working on the Website

I'm working on getting my bead business going again. Right now I'm working on getting a website up and running. Next on my "to do" list is getting my corner of the garage, "my studio," cleaned out. Then I need to clean up my workspace, clean my torch, purge my gas tank and get it refilled. I'll be ready to start making beads again, FINALLY!

Eventually I want to build a shed in the backyard and use that for a studio, but one step at a time. Right now it's website construction.

Check out my website (which is still a work in progress)!

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