New Pendant

Just under two years ago my mother was in palliative care, and every day my sister and I would go up to visit with her, sometimes together and sometimes by ourselves.  It was a very sad and depressing time seeing our mother, who had been our rock, slipping quickly and quietly away, and knowing that there was not a thing we could do about it.  During that time I found that my inspiration was sadly lacking, however I was very pleased with one design that I made called  "Sunshine On My Shoulders".  I made two of them and gave one to my sister to remind us that there is still some sunshine in our lives.  It was also somewhat of a tribute to John Denver - who was, and continues to be, one of my favourite singers.

I have recently revisited the design, and have the bead pictured below now available in my Etsy shop as a ready made pendant.  Just slip it on a chain or cord and it is ready to wear.

Sunshine On My Shoulders pendant.

I hope you are having some sunshine on your shoulders!

New Beads

A week or so ago I purchased a tutorial from Gems in Bloom.  It is a great tutorial and yesterday I gave myself a day to play around with it.  I am really pleased with the results, and I will be listing a few of them in my Etsy shop.  They are smallish focal beads of about 25mm in diameter.

Black floral

Blue floral

Green floral

Hope you are having a great day!

Warm Hearts on a Cold Winter Day

A customer recently asked me to make her a heart within a heart or two hearts entwined.  She wanted to give one to a friend who had recently lost her mother - and these are what I came up with.  I wanted to keep them quite simple with the emphasis on the two hearts.  She chose hers and these are the ones that are left.  Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the one she chose - it was similar to the very dark red one second from the left, but longer and more of a "folk art" style shape. 

Warm Heart Pendants

If you are interested in one of them, please let me know.  They are $20.00 each plus shipping.

Have a great week.

Christmas Show

The cup is actually empty - it didn't take long for me to swig that down!

After 4 days of sitting, standing, writing, wrapping, counting change, etc I thought I deserved a treat - my face feels numb from all that smiling.  A Starbuck's Caramel Machiatto was just what I needed!

The show was a great success, and we had more people through our little space than last year, and my sales were up about 30% - yippee!!!

Here are some photos of our set up.

Part of my set up - we took the doors off the hutch top, and I think I will paint it
sometime before next year - maybe an off white.

Part of my set up.

My friend Vicki's Herb Garden Pottery.

My friend Judy's display of vintage cutlery jewellery.

I am so very glad that I don't have any other shows this year, and I think I may just stick to the one Christmas show.  Perhaps do a couple of other shows throughout the year, one in spring and one in the fall.

Bye for now!

New Bead Design -" Graphics"

Although these are just a start, I think I am quite pleased with this new design.  I'm looking forward to seeing where I can go with this new style, when I get some time to play - perhaps after the studio tour/show.

"Graphics"

"Graphics"

Cool Earth glass

When Effetre first came out with the colour "Cool Earth" #688, I was a bit underwhelmed - I thought "eh", I'm not really crazy about it.  Well, that has now changed - I love it!  A few days ago I was still on my organics, and keep it simple kick, and grabbed a rod of Cool Earth. I am really pleased how they turned out.  A lot of people have been asking me for denim, navy, or dark blue beads - I think these will fit the bill perfectly.  I also really like the little bit of green peeking through the blue.

Effetre Cool Earth pendants.

Here's how I did it.   I made a barrel shape with the Cool Earth, wrapped an irregular shaped strip of silver foil around it, burnished it in, outlined the edges of the silver foil in SIS.  Then I melted in the silver and wrapped a line of dark ivory stringer around it - twice, added a tiny bit of Intense Black on top of the ivory (hair fine stringer), and heated the heck out of it.  Then reshaped the barrel and pressed it with my mashers.  I fire polished out the chill marks and gave it a blast of propane to reduce the silver foil - and popped them in the kiln to anneal.  It is hard to see the shine of the silver foil in the photo, but it is quite sparkly in real life.

Have you been pleasantly surprised by any new glasses lately?