Colour and Doodles

Both kids off sick, Defi has wallowed in the mud and Iz had a dip in the river, not quite lunch and I am exhausted already! 

I found this fabulous inspirational picture on the internet, absolutely fabulous dont you think?

www.pxlyeyes.com - brilliant colours to make you mouth water.

I do love all thing quirky and colourful.  Just lately all my beads seem to have bums, googly eyes and a toothy grin, nothing like cheering up a dreary January.  Someone else who is quirky, and a member of the Craft Pimp Forum, is Inkydoodlecrafts.  She has an Etsy Shop with some fantastic fun and colourful greetings cards.  This is one of my favourites..Pirates Ahoy  She also has a blog and can be found here   Just click on the links to take you to the shop or blog, or click on the Craft Pimp Forum picture link at the side and join some fabulous crafting people.

I am off to hide in the shed and melt glass, anything to keep away from the bugs loose in our house!

Laney x

Mad or Eccentric?

Last night, my son was talking at me.  I was sitting in front of the telly, doing my usual, reading a beading book, whilst trying to bead with those fiddly seedy beadies, whilst having a glass of wine and trying to stop the daft dog from sitting on me and upsetting the whole precariously balanced lot over me and the floor. 

Anyone with teenage kids, knows that you only really half tune in to what they are saying and over the years I have honed my skills, I listen for the key words, sex, drugs and do you want a cup of tea?.  Sex, because its been that long since you could be bothered its nice to know if its still in fashion.  Drugs, because the last time you were deliriously happy was when tube feed legal drugs during childbirth, and finally, 'cup of tea' because anyone with teenage kids also knows that the rarity of being asked is not worth missing it.  So there I was half listening, nodding occasionally and using the daft dog leaning on me as a screen to carry on with what I was doing. 

My son is 18 now, so we are usually treated to the grumpy mutterings first thing in the morning when he is locating all the kit he needs for college but didn't put away or wash last time, so its now a search and find mission and strop over the stink, being a Sports Ed student it all stinks!  Other than the grumpy mutterings and search and find missions, we usually only communicate when he is drapped, Orangutan style over the fridge door complaining that there is nothing to eat, or I am demanding a date and time for the bedroom to be rediscovered, a search and find mission of epic proportions.  So there we were, he was happy and chatty and I was half listening.  Then I heard new 'key' words, 'mad' and 'eccentric'.  I realized he was talking about me.  The cheeky sod.  I was in the room. 

Ben, thats the boy, works part time in town and has befriended to his advantage, the woman across the road from where he works and whom owns the cafe and feeds him, regularly in exchange for his brawn in moving her fridges for her staff to clean behind.  When he turned 18 on New Years Eve 2010, she gave him a card and he had a drink with her, his first legal one!  I was really disappointed as he didn't want to have a drink out with me, so took to calling her his second mum, as a bit of a joke, and it stuck.  He now refers to her as his second mum, and to be fair her cooking is sooo much better than mine.  He has arranged that we meet.  This second mum and I.  She being a loud Brummy lass with a language to match even the most urban dictionary clued up teen and I am...well....just me, the odd bad word escapes my lips, but on the whole I stick to the safe words of bugger and blimey, a throw back from my Londoner roots on my fathers side East End!  So this coming Saturday I am, with the hubby, having breakfast at the cafe.  Now, Ben was telling me how similar we are as women, unless she is 6ft tall, blonde and a figure to die for, we will have nothing in common...yeah right! ..except the boy, but apparently, according to my son, we are both 'mad' and 'eccentric'.  Which did get me thinking, she is a cook, so arty and creative, I am an artisty person, I don't cook, but am creative.   So.  To be arty and creative do we have to be 'mad' and 'eccentric'? 

I just hope she doesn't have the wacky sticky out dyed bleach blonde just taken the hat off look and washed out faded clothes with the odd hole, because then we would be twins!

Elephant beginings

I love the animal beads, I think I could just make them and nothing else.  I belong to the Craft Pimp Forum Craft Pimp Forum and have got involved with the Beads of Courage programme.  I first saw this programme a while ago, but it was being done in America, and although I did ummm and ahhh over sending some beads over there, it never happened, but I never forgot about it, so...when I heard that the programme had finally come over here to the UK, I was one of the first to get involved..in fact I have it on good authority that I was the first person in the UK to send beads...how fabulous is that!!  I now try to make at least one Beads of Courage bead everytime I am in the studio and save them up into a nice pile of beads and send them off.  

So what is Beads of Courage??

Beads of Courage is an organisation that provides care and support to teens and younger children going through the serious illnesses and treatments like cancer.  The donated beads are given to the children at various stages of their treatment and helps them to take control of their own situation and the beads allow them to keep a record of the really important milestones of their treatment.  All beads are donated.  The artist doesn't receive any money or postage expenses, its all done from the heart to the children.  The best part is that it is now in the UK so all  UK lampwork, and other mediums, artists can donate.  Its a wonderful idea and I am very proud to be a supporter.  

To get more information on Beads of Courage please click the link Beads of Courage  or go to the Craft Pimp Forum where there is some information too.  

Most of my glass beads are whimsy, but most have sticky out bits which are not suitable for children, so I decided to design a range of whimsy beads especially for the Beads of Courage programme.  I am willing to share my design and give a simple tutorial on the understanding that you make LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of these beads, but DON'T SELL any of them.  Donate them ALL to Beads of Courage...please x

So here we go, first tutorial I have ever done, and the first Whimsy Creature Bead Tutorial for Beads of Courage.

How to make an Elephant Bead

I am assuming that everyone who wants to make this bead has some knowledge of lampworking and working with the flame and glass.  Its not a difficult bead to make, but do remember to play safe!

Whimsy creature beads can be any colour, but for this one I have used:

1 Rod of Grey

1 Stringer of Grey

1 Stringer of light ivory

1 Stringer of black

1 Stringer of white

1 Stringer of clear

1 Lentil press by Zooii

Lampworking tools, such as pick, sharpe blade etc.,

Start by winding a nice sized blob of grey onto a prepared mandrel. 

After pressing into the lentil press, no need to be fussy about any over spill...

add a stripe of grey glass to both sides of the lentil, 

Using your tweezers pinch the stripe of glass two or three times, this will be the ear of the elephant,

do both sides...and using your sharpe blade, gently press the 'ear' crease up slightly to give more defination to the face shape.

Now add the eyes, I layer black, white, clear and then a black dot for the iris, but you can use another light transparent instead of clear to give different colour eyes, can you see the elephant yet??

Using the grey stringer, draw a J shape from between the eyes down to the bottom of the 'face'

Using your sharpe blade, put some 'dents' into the 'trunk', then using your pick gently push the end of the trunk in to shape the elephant mouth.

Next, using your stringer of light (or dark) ivory, make two little stripes either side of the trunk,

again, using the grey stringer, put two dots on each top of the ivory stringer and gently press down, we now have tusks on our Elly!

Give your elephant a nice warm bath in the flame and pop into the kiln for annealling.  All Beads of Courage beads have to be annealled and properly cleaned before you can send them in.  Using the lentil shape means you don't have to concentrate too much on good ends, again, pointy and sharpe ends are no good to the children.

Finally....after soaking in a nice hot kiln, and cooling!! take out your Elly, give him a good clean and put him to one side whilst you make lots more.  You could add a bow to the ear for a girlie Elly, or a bow tie under the trunk for a boy Elly, have fun, but make lots!

This is the first tutorial I have written so if you spot any terrible mistakes, please let me know, I am planning on doing some more so all input is welcome.

Laney x

End of the first seven days in Jan...

Its already 7th January 2012, can you just believe it, Christmas has been and gone, the New Year celebrations came and went, my kids turned 16 and 18, we all ate well, laughed lots and enjoyed being lazy, some more than others!! On the first of January, New Years Day, I lost Lithium one of my ex-batt chooks.  Sadly, she had been ill last summer, but never really recovered, still, she had nearly 2 yrs in the sunshine digging up the garden and rooting around in the compost.   

Lithium

On a lighter note, I finally managed to clean the oven, just before Christmas.  It had taken me nearly a whole year of threatening to do it and about four months of having the stuff sitting on the kitchen side waiting to be used and gathering graffiti from the children, who delighted in my anguish at getting round to the one job I loathe with a passion..I don't even like cooking!  Still, I was very proud of my nice shiny clean oven, until this week, when it decided to go bang!!  Still, out with the old and in with the new, the new cooker arrives next Thursday and I have vowed to not clean this one as it was obviously what killed the last one!! 


As much as I tried, I never seemed to get to the torch as much as I would have liked over Christmas, a silly hand injury forced me to endure the rubbish on the telly, with decidely bad grace, even playing with the little seed beads - to which I have found fabulous fun in the evenings making long ropes of seed beads and beaded beads - I couldn't do, so I just sat and sulked in front of the telly.  But, I have been in the shedio a few times this week, so here is a little taste of what has been happening creatively, I have been loving making sculptural beads and decided that I am going to do those much more than the sets, unless I get the urge, as the sets just don't fill my creative spot! 

Orchid

Hibiscus and buds

Hydrangea

All of the sculpted flowers are large focals.  They are truly beautiful little works of art.  As well as flowers I have been making some fun sculptural beads, it is the year of the dragon this year after all...

Baby Dragon

Collie Dog-Rose

 

 

Dendrobatidae or Poison Dart Frogs - I just loved them for their colour!

So the end of the first week of the New Year hasn't been too bad.  Hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season. 

Laney x

Mucky pups and Christmas tree.

Not long now and the C day will be here and gone.  Today is the shortest day of the year and the sun is out and shinning, doesn't even feel like winter, there is even greeny still in the hedgerows, birds still singing and the squirrels still evading capture from De-Fi dog.  The only downside to this time of the year is the muddy dog walks.  I love to watch my dogs jumping in massive puddles and rolling in the mud, but coming home and cleaning up is a monster task.  This week I wrapped towels around the pair of them and attempted to take a picture...

Our Iz in the utility room, waiting for the rub down.  Thats Claude in the background waiting for food!

De-Fi dog and Iz.  De-Fi just cant keep still!!  Thats our Megan taking a drink.  Can you see how black Iz's tum is?

So the washing pile just grows and for once its not just the kids making the most washing.  The Christmas tree finally went up yesterday

Merry Christmas

I love my tree.  Its not real but its a huge 7ft tree, that no longer fits in the living room, but thankfully we have a back to front house and a huge hall, so every year it gets tied to the front door - we always use the back door which is at the front of the house, both front and back doors being on the side...confused yet?  My ornaments are hand painted wooden ones that my hubby brought for me for our first ever Christmas together, nearly 20 yrs ago, a collection of sparkly baubles and some 'books' that represent each day from the 1st to the 25th.  My daughter always likes to hang the number 22 as thats her birthday.  She will be 16 tomorrow!!  Thankfully my son is going to be 18 this year, as it was always an arguement about him not having his birthday book to put on the tree, as his birthday is 31st December, at least this year he wasn't bothered!!  Some of my ornaments have little puppy teeth marks from when Iz was a puppy and used to steal them and run off with them.  They are my favourite ones, and some  have bits missing where long gone cats used to belt them off the tree and chase them around the room.   This is our first Christmas with De-Fi dog and we are all looking forward to a big walk Christmas morning with everyone and all the family dogs...must remember my camera!

Thank you to all my customers that have brought my beads and jewellery over the last year and I hope to see you next year at the fairs I will be doing.  Hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Laney x

Its nearly the weekend...

...and me and the hubby with both Izabel and De-Fi dogs, are going on a narrowboat cruise.  Looking forward to that, I have started to get a few things ready, the bin bag full of dog towels for the inevitable moment when Iz decides the water is just too good too not swim in, and De-Fi finds that fabulous muddy puddle to wallow in, so of course the dogs now know that something is up so are following me around, just incase they miss out and that extra pack of dog treats that is in the bin bag will go missing without them.

De's paw is much better, he still is being careful when he goes to sit down, but the unnaturally quiet dog we had on Tuesday, is gone, thank goodness.  Who would have thought I would miss the constant jumping on Iz to play and charging about knocking everything flying and stealing anything from dirty socks to paper coming out of the printer, just waiting for that Golden Retriever mouth to find and run with.

I did manage to put in the last of the spring bulbs this morning.  Its still so mild and warm, just hoping that the weather holds for the weekend.  De did run off with a bag of bulbs, but he was bribed with a dog toy to give them back, I am now just waiting to see if he remembers where the hole was dug for them, so he can go and 'retrieve' them!!

I have been busy listing more items in my Ebay shop and a few in Etsy too.  I have a table for two weeks at Hart Barns  Craft Centre in Gloucester, which I will be dropping off my wares on the way to collecting the narrowboat tomorrow, I am taking some of my painted recycyled bottle spoon rests and jewellery, bookmarks and anything beady I have been doing over the last few months.  Looks like its going to be a nice venue with lots of crafts being displayed for the two weeks between 3-18 December.

I will go and finish organizing bits and pieces for the weekend, but here is a couple of pics, that I have of some beads and some piggy earrings that have already sold...you just have to love the piggies!!

Pig Sick

Froggy Christmas Bauble

Piggy Earrings

Slumping cider bottles and sheep!

I wrote my first on line glass bead making tutorial this morning and posted it on the fabulous forum that is Craft Pimp.  Its a simple sheep bead.  I called it Ba Ba White Sheep, but it can be any coloured sheep you want. 

Thought I would share...

Right. I have never done a tutorial before, so if it doesn't make sense, let me know. I don't have any pictures of my sheep beads, my lappy crashed this year and all that 'going to back up the pics' thing, never happened, and I haven't made any more, I will make some next time I turn on the torch and then post a pic, but until then...here goes...

I am assuming that everyone has a little basic knowledge.

Tools needed.

Torch, marver (I only use a marble mould as my marver, its a bit chunky but does the job) torch marver - or steady hand with hand held one, mashers.

Glass. This is for a white sheep, but you can do any colour sheepy wool.

White, black, transparent clear (or other very light transparent, I like to use very pale blue) red/coral.

Method.

Pull a thick and thin stringer of white, and a thick and thin (or just thick if you can make tiny dots with the thicker stringer) stringer of black.
Pull a thin(ner) stringer of red/coral - this is for the nose.
Pull a thin stringer of transparent glass. (I will refer to this as clear in the tut but you can use any light colour transparent)

Wind a nice sized bead onto a prepared mandrel. I tend to wind about 1cm across, but you can go bigger, this is the body of the sheep, so whatever width you make will be more or less the finished width of the bead.

Make sure the bead is nice and fat, don't worry too much about the ends being puckered, they will round out in the next stage.

Holding one side of the bead towards the heat, allow the bead to soften and droop. Be careful, white softens fast and drips really quickly. I like to spot heat, remove from the flame, droop a bit, repeat until I have a nice droop.

Your bead should be a small tear drop shape.

Remember to not over droop and keep the glass a good 2mm (ish) either side of the mandrel.

Using the mashers, gently squish the bead so that its still slightly rounded on the the top and flat(ish) on the sides. Make sure you don't over mash and forget to leave enough glass either side of the mandrel, or the bead will just crack during annealing.

You now have the body of the sheep. Easy huh?

Now for his cheeky face.

Using the thin black stringer place two small dots about one third of the way down the body, this is the eyes. Melt flat.

Using the thin white stringer put two dots on top of the black. Melt flat.

Put two dots of clear on top of the white and melt, BUT DON'T MELT COMPLETELY FLAT. Put two tiny dots of black on top of the clear and melt flat. You might find it a bit easier to not melt the clear until you melt the iris' flat, that way they will remain slightly domed.

At this point you can add a dot for the nose using the thin stringer of red/coral. You can do this last if you wish, as it needs to be left raised.

Using the thick stringer of white, dob nice sized dots all over the sheep, you can butt them close together or leave a small gap. I prefer to butt them close together it makes the wool look more real. Remember to keep flashing the bead in and out of the flame to keep it warm and stop any dots from popping off.

Turn up the flame and give sheepy a nice warm bath in the flame. The white wool dots should be raised but secure. I slightly melt mine I think it gives a softer finish, but you can experiment, melt more or leave more raised, its up to you, its your flock

Turn the flame back down, and using the thick black stringer, place two good sized dots at the bottom of the sheep body. Heat each one separately and push down onto the torch marver (or handheld one) until its flat. Repeat with the other foot. I always, with all my creatures, then spend a little bit of time making sure that they are even, so that when cooked and cleaned the little guy will stand up on his own.

Finally, add two black dots to the top of the sheep, to the side (I really do need a pic here), give each one a good heat, DON'T MELT, and using the pick, indent for the ear shape.

On the back of sheepy, add a little dot of black, and press flat, this is his tail. You can leave out the tail if you wish.

Turn up the flame, give sheepy a good bath, you might need a touch up of wool if its got flat in places, add the nose if you already haven't and pop into the kiln. Serve with mint sauce

Method two.

Its the same process as method one, except for the drooping bit. Instead of drooping the bead, make a nice sized doughnut shaped white bead, add another dot of white to one side, this will be the head, add eyes and nose and ears and feet and wool dots the same, BUT, turn the bead so that the mandrel is pointing down and give sheepy four black dots for his legs from the corners (you will have to use your imagination here, circles don't really have corners )

Anneal and serve

Let me know if this makes sense..please...and don't forget to show your pics, I make lots of creatures if anyone wants more tutorials, I am able to share. I love to make the pendant ones, so shout up if you are interested....and I will get some pics too

As well as entering into the world of writting tutorials, small steps and all that, I have been totally hooked on slumping and fusing...slumping just about any bottle I can get my hot and sweaty little hands on.  Here is two I have done this week.  The first one shows a bottle slumped over a bowl mould, it works rather well as a bowl, but I think the design needs tweaking...

 

 

This one is one of a collection of flat ones I am collecting!

As well as bottles I have been fusing and designing some cabochons.  I have ordered some bails and they will soon be available in my Ebay shop and Etsy shop, they will be perfect for those little Christmas gifts!

Hopefully this weekend I will finally get around to experimenting with bowls.