Storm Technique Tutorial Coming!

After over a year of debating with myself and going back and forth, I've decided to finally do a tutorial on my storm technique. I have over 30 sample beads to make for it because it's going to include a layering color chart as well. I've only got half the beads made so far so I foresee this being ready in two or three weeks.

More Chalcedony

Here's another focal made with Chalcedony called Byzantium. This time I made a barrel with the glass and heated and shaped it. Then I blobbed on dots and squiggles and lines of more glass, super heated it by sections and gravity swirled the additional glass into the bead. This gave me a more mottled and striated look. I've found that it's pretty easy to get color out of this glass by super heating in sections an inch away from the cones and then marvering. Sometimes it takes a few cycles for the color to come out but the time spent on this glass is well worth the outcome.

Some Customer Appreciation

I feel very fortunate to have such wonderful customers. I get fabulous feedback on Etsy and eBay from my bead customers. I get really nice thank you emails from my rubber stamp customers. I just wanted to take a moment to say "Thank you" myself. I'm usually not able to respond to each and every email but this post is to let all of you know that I truly appreciate your business and your kind words.

Which brings me to the Thank You card I received from Evelyn in Germany. Sometimes customers do a little something extra special. Evelyn sent me this fabulous card with a very nice note inside....thank you Evelyn! I just loved how she combined our stamps in this scene. She used our Bridge Scene 1188R, Ducks 437J, Oak Branch 1279M and the Hanging Lamp 1337K. She stamped everything on glossy card stock and it looks like it was colored in with markers. This also reminds me that I still have to work on the galleries on our website.....ick.

August POTM

The August Project of the Month is up on our website and you can find it here:
Beeswax POTM

On a different note, have you ever run out of coffee? It's not a pretty site...

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.