Just call me... "Darkroom Dangerous"

After literally years of experimentation, not to mention hundreds of dollars shelled out for equipment, etc., I am finally moving in a direction that I really like for photographing my beads and jewelry. For me, it has started to come together by using a decent quality tripod, a "frosted" acrylic cutting board, a piece of driftwood, and my camera set on MANUAL.

The pictures below were taken with very little lighting in my basement on a countertop I purchased to use as my jewelry workbench. On the countertop, I put down 4 small wooden blocks, then I put the cutting board on the blocks. That raises the board up and "blurs" the countertop. (I've also seen this done over gradiant paper.) Then I set the drift wood on the acrylic board and placed my beads and jewlery on it using sticky dots if necessary. Finally, I set the I set the camera's aperture manually (although it didn't seem to matter what I set it to) and let the camera do the work. After I imported the images, I did some minor touchup in Photoshop and... Voila! (Thank you Jesus!!)

New Fibula Pins

I've been hard at work preparing for an upcoming show by incorporating my beads with silk ribbons from www.jamnglass.com and they look great! But first, I wanted to show you a couple of new fibula pins. Please contact me if you are interested in these pins, otherwise, they're off to the show!

New Beads on Etsy

Hello friends! Just a quick post to let you know I've posted some new beads on Etsy. I'm particularly fond of these:

Boro Bead Bonanza!

For about two years I've been obtaining the equipment and skills necessary for making boro beads. There's just something magical about borosillicate glass. I particularly like using boro beads in my wire jewelry creations.

Average sized boro beads require a much hotter flame than soft glass. To get a hotter flame, I had to purchase a new torch and two new, powerful (and expensive) oxygen concentrators. Then, I had to build my inventory of boro glass.

I've taken two classes in boro, but there's still a big learning curve when it comes to putting it into practice. This past weekend, I invited an online friend from Ft. Wayne, Karin of IF-Designs, to come and share some of her experience using my personal setup. My buddy, Lisa Atchison of Touch of Glass Designs hosted the mini-class. Of course we had a GREAT time and made dozens of cool experimental beads.

However, I've come to the conclusion that I'm just going to have to roll up my sleeves and devote some concentrated time to adjusting to boro. Sometimes all the coaching in the world is no substitute for experience.

Here are some pictures from the weekend for your enjoyment.

Go Bead or Go Home!

That's my new slogan.

I've been praying for direction in my life. I've been a Technical Writer for over 20 years, and I love doing it, but I haven't had a challenging assignment since 2001. In fact, I've been hired for very high-paying contract jobs only to be bored to tears. I'm either just really adept and fast, or my employers didn't need a full-time writer. I tried not to "look a gift horse in the mouth" but I cannot justify spending the rest of my life sitting in a cubicle feeling guilty and trying to look busy. Admittedly, if the right opportunity comes along I'll go back for the benefits, but for now I'm content to explore this new adventure.

My last contract expired in August. Since then I've been laying low to let my leg fracture heal and trying to torch and bead consistently and I think it has taken that much time to start to find my creative self again. Last week I poking around in my studio and I remembered the sports phrase "Go big or go home!" Since then I've been praying and talking to other beaders and friends about growing my business. I feel like it's in a delicate stage right now, but I'm trusting that I'm heading down the right road. It's a gamble, but I think it's also a challenge I need at this point in my life. Art is so personal, and I need to find my way back to the creative child in me, and I need to connect more with others - two areas I've always wanted to work on.

So much for the "deep" stuff! Here are some new beads listed on Etsy:

Seahorse Beads

Hello again!

I just have to share this little guy. He's the most perfect out of all the seahorses I made yesterday. I gave him a big belly so he can have lots of seahorse babies!

I like making these because each one has its own character and they go pretty quickly. Plus, they open up a great way to use all the different frit mixes that I've been hoarding for some future purpose.

"Frit" is just another name for crushed up glass; however, some people buy furnace glass (which comes in many more colors than the type of glass I use) and blend different colors and sizes together to sell their own particular frit "blends." Check out my friend Robin Koza's website, Glass Diversions, to see some examples of frit. ...And that concludes our lesson for today!

Puppy Love

Well, yesterday was my birthday. Yep. That's right. Another year older and quite a few pounds heavier, I'm afraid. Oh, well. What 'cha gonna do?

As far as beads go, they're getting better every day. The twisties are twistier and the florals are getting cleaner. I'm waiting on a new bead reamer to clean them, so right now they're just soaking in water. Hopefully I'll get some new pics up soon.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share my favorite YouTube video with you. It's the sweetest thing!