Other Unfinished Objects

Polymer is my primary focus, and even though my stash is overflowing with beads that I have made, that doesn't stop me from buying beads and focals elsewhere.  It is an addiction that Lord Opuson wishes I was cured of. Of course, we all know that once a beader always a beader ... give up Opuson and let me expand into the garage or maybe when we remodel that back bedroom that is just being used as a "junk room" already ...

But I stray ...

My beading buddy Karen and I visited Shipwreck Beads last week.  I just had to pick up some Preciosa Ripple beads. I have been lusting after them since I first saw them on the Shipwreck website. I started  this bracelet while watching Game of Thrones Sunday night.  

    Half way through the episode, one of Lord Opuson's old friends that we haven't seen in almost 9 years showed up on our doorstep.  What a blast it was catching up.  He had been living in Arizona but recently divorced and moved back into the area.  I am so happy for Opuson to reconnect after all this time.  

    As CJ had interrupted the episode, we got to watch it again later.  That gave me a chance to finish it all in one evening. It looked a bit sparse with only the ripple beads, so I added a few floral beads to plump it out.

I have had this ceramic focal for some time, the glaze reminded me of frosted window panes on winter nights in my childhood home. My folks had no central heat in those days and our upstairs bedrooms would get sooooo cold at night.  At the time, I did not appreciate beauty of the winter wonderland right outside my bedroom window (teenage ennui and all that growing up stuff ....).  Now I wish I could look out at night and see a ceiling of stars painted from one side of the sky to the other... too many lights in the city now.
    I finally found beads to pair with it.  The crackles really add the perfect touch.

Winter Frost

I also got some earrings finished, but that will wait till my next posting.  Have to finish the laundry, or there will be nothing to wear to work.

Rustic Reloaded

As I wrote in my last blog, I wanted to attempt using darker colors when making Rustic Beads. This time I tried a dark blue.  

 I found out quickly that dark colors just aren't my thing. At least, this shade of blue it not.

 So, back to the lighter colors I gravitate towards.

Only textured on one side.  Will have to make post earrings
out of them, I suppose

 The yellow/green combo is one that really speaks to me

 Close ups of my favorite beads of the group.

 A little darker this time.  I also tried a bit of a different distressing technique on these pairs.  The finished look is more scratched up and worn that I was able to achieve before.  Kinda like the result and want to play some more with the idea.

 I saw a quick demo on  how to make lava beads at clay camp, but did not win the tool needed to create them.  Found it in my local neighborhood hardware store (this is a great place to wander the aisles, they are an older store with lots of goodies tucked away just waiting to be discovered). These were colored using the same technique as the rustic beads, but I did not distress them.  They have problems enough of their own without my beating on them.

A big thanks to Ginger Allman of The Blue Bottle Tree for her Rustic Bead tut.  I am having so much fun with it.

Beads and more beads

After almost a month away due to illness and major family issues, I finally made it back into the studio.
Before getting sick, I had started a couple of veneers using the Controlled Marbling tutorial by Lynda Mosely.  Sunday, I had the chance to make them into beads, rather than the gorgeous pendants she is known for.
   This time I used a combination of light blue, yellow and ecru, interspersed with white.  I really like the light green color that appeared where the yellow and blue mixed.  I did not add any details to the veneer.

 Had a small strip at the end of this veneer where the colors blended together too much for actual stripes to appear. I added a few inlays from an old swirl cane for a bit of color.

Only had a tiny bit of this color combo.  I really like it.  Two matching beads for an earring set  And one lone bead for who knows what.  I have a box of "who knows what" beads that is set aside for "something" in the future.  Maybe I will use them in Lori Anderson's Bead Hoarders Challenge in July.  We'll see.

 I have found that in this technique, there are sometimes places at the ends of the veneer sheets, where the colors are no longer distinct.  I discovered that sometimes, these over blended areas have the prettiest colors. Add slices of an old bulleyes cane from my tiny cane stash (I really gotta try caning again - maybe I will be more successful now that I understand clay better than I did in 2006).
 

After these beads were made and baking in the oven, I still had urges and fiddly fingers.  An open package of translucent clay was sitting on my table, so I got out the inks and went to town.  Laid down some gold foil on a small sheet of translucent clay, rolled it through successively smaller settings on the PM, turning it 90 degrees each time to crackle the foil.  When it was thin enough, I got out my inks and colored it (used Butterscotch and Plum this time).  After the inks dried (boy, I so had to be patient here - used the drying time to finish my previously made beads with LPC, zap with heat gun and rebaked to a shiny luster), I I used the sheet to veneer white bead cores. The gold foil adds a real sparkle to the beads, and I am very happy with the depth of color.  The pictures just can't show that.

I call these my Fire Lizard eggs (homage to Pern)

This weekend promises to be a nice one here in the Pacific Northwest. Good weekend for visiting the Whole Bead Show in Lynnwood.  I will be able to visit the booths of several artists that I have "meet" on line and see their work in person.  I love how this medium has connected so many people with common interests.  Some live in my area and I may be lucky enough to connect in person with them over the course of time. Some live in other countries, and I will probably never meet face to face, but can get to know a bit through the Internet.  I guess I am feeling my age, as I still marvel at this. The beads I just made would not be possible with the Internet.  Lynda lives in South Carolina ... me, outside Seattle.  We would never have "meet" without the computer.  Maybe younger people, who grew up always having computers, can't relate to how marvelous this really is. ( OMG! ... I have become my parents .... when I was your age  .... walked to school, in the snow, uphill - both ways!!!  he,he)

Studio Time

Finally, a weekend when I did not have to go anywhere or do anything .... I could dedicate myself to my clay and the BSBP.

This picture WILL NOT let me place it where I want
it to go.  

    I can't show you the Bead Soup for a while yet ... not till the last reveal, in April.  I am surprised at how quickly the design popped into my head.  Reading all those beading and stringing mags is paying off.

     I liked some of the beads I sent to my Bead Soup Partner Stepha so much, that I made a few more for myself, then tried a few different color combo's from the scraps of clay left over from other projects.

Green is in this Spring

Can't resist the color purple!

I would love to show more of the beads I made this weekend, but am having a problem with adding photos.  They all want to go to the top of the page, and refuse to move where I want them to go.  Rather than get even more frustrated with Blogger, I will just write another post later.

Faux Raku for You

There is still one more day to enter into my giveaway as detailed in my last blog entry.  So far, there have been only a few people who commented and hence are eligible.  I know that they are hoping that no one else   comments ... greater chance for them.  I will check immediately when I get home from work Halloween evening and let luck choose the winner.

I had a very productive Saturday.  I got a lot of beads made.  Unfortunately, the productivity was paid for the next day with a flare of the carpel in the right wrist and a new pain in my left shoulder.  Every time I complain to the SO about getting older, his response is "Consider the alternative".  Trite but true.

My newest kick is experimenting with a faux raku technique that Lisa Pavelka showed us on the Clayditarod.
She used foils and inks to create the look.

This is the piece I made in Lisa's class.  There was not much faux raku, so I put little tidbits here and there in the pendant.

Believe it or not, the same color ink was used for both of these.

 The piece on the left is the technique on a flat surface. I love the look and wondered what it would look like if I tried it on a rounder form.  The crackle is good, but the color of the ink seeped under the foil resist and colored the clay. I was hoping that when I sanded (yes, I SANDED), that the color would revert to white again...but no such luck.
   Then I wondered what other, non traditional raku colors would look like.

Using my favorite ink color, Stream

Colored with "Plum"

I love the effect and want to get the time to work with more colors and shapes.  I could do without the sanding though.  I watched a whole episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs" on Netflix while sanding 6 beads. I gotta get faster .... I did get them made up into simple earrings pretty quickly though, so at least in that aspect I am improving.

 I do wish I could figure out how to get

 my pictures to line up next to each other on the page. It would look
so much nicer.  Anything good on the llayout that does happen, happens by accident and I can not figure out how to do it again.