Chalcedony

This is a bead made with the new glass Chalcedony. It's like Raku so I thought it would hate me too... :). Actually, I think it kinda likes me. To make this bead I did side by side spacer/donut beads on a mandrel. Then I did a strip of glass right down the middle of all the spacers in the center. Then I melted them in together using heat and gravity. After that I added strips of glass inbetween the lines and down the center of the wider lines. My goal was to get a really stripy bead. I then shaped it with a graphite marver, added a bit more glass down the area I wanted wider and then super heated the surface. I'm pretty happy with the colors I got. I really do like the reds Chalcedony gives. It's much prettier than that muddy red/brown that you get with Raku. This bead is named Mesopotamia and it's currently up on eBay.

Beating the Heat

It's hot here. It's been around 103 degrees for days and days. Baby birds are struggling to stay cool and failing....poor things. The bunny has it down though. He digs a bit in the cool dirt in the shade and relaxes. The bunny is fairing better than I am. I'm getting a little sick of this.

More Bird Babies

We have baby birds all over the place here. These have been identified from a photo of mom as Phoebes, also known as Flycatchers. The nest is on the top of a rolled up bamboo awning propped up against the house. Mom and Dad are both taking care of the babies and the flying back and forth is driving the 'dorables absolutely crazy. Now one of the parents has been landing on the nearby hummingbird feeder and driving the poor hummingbirds crazy as well.

Dots

I've been kind of obsessed with making intricate dot beads lately. Unfortunately it's made me admit that my vision has drastically changed lately. I'm going to give the stick on magnifiers a try first because it seems that I'm only having a problem with close work. It pretty much sucks.

This set Sea Baubles is up on eBay right now. The dots are just Olympia Rain over Triton...no clear topping. I love how Triton heavily fumes dark ivory and then the addition of Olympia Rain even takes it a step further so the ivory dot bases are a deep brown. I'm just not sure how well dot beads are sought after by jewelry artists no matter how cool I think they are.

Turkey Babies

Here's a Wild Turkey mama with her babies. I'm usually able to get some photographs when the babies are younger, but not this year. We didn't have as many turkeys hanging around either. We do seem to have a lot of skunks this year and I think some are living on our property. I've been going on skunk stake out at dusk trying to get a picture but haven't had any luck. They're just so darn cute. I love watching them.