Soooo Proud!!

I'm always proud of my kids but this week, just about bursting! My daughter has officially turned her excellent baking and decorating skills into a business! Exciting!! You can find her scrumptious goodies at Dany's Cakes on facebook .She's doing a special "Cookie of the Week, and is now shipping I believe) I think she'll expand to offer things like her cinnamon buns (decadent, best I've ever tasted) and Pumpkin Whoopie pies and things like that. Hummm...wonder if she'll do her bourbon brownies. Absolutely to die for!
The picture is her  "Cinnamon spice Fall leaf cookies" Yummm! Place an order!   :)

My son Chef Zeph is going to be cooking at the James Beard House in NYC in Feb with his boss, Chef Salmon from the Hartstone Inn in Camden Maine.They have cooking classes at the inn regularly (and the best food...simply divine) and are traveling to Italy in November to give a two week cooking class at a beautiful Villa in Tuscany. Wouldn't I love to be a little birdy sitting on his shoulder for that trip!

 In the picture: His award winning Maine Lobster Salad with Daikon, Crispy Bacon, Ginger and a Warm Ponzu dressing

Pandora Veggies

I'm really pleased with the Harvest Veggies made with large holes so they'll fit on Pandora or similar jewelry, or most chains or cords. I was a little worried they'd be a problem to balance properly so they lie right side up.

My beads were featured in another Etsy artist Lisa Reichert's blog! Such a nice thing to do! Glass Notes
I really need to get up to speed with networking. I let so many things go when I had to deal with the whole cancer thing. Time to get back to business!

Pumpkins!

I took my grandkids to the local orchid on Sunday. I love this time of year when the apples are ready to pick and you begin to see pumpkins stacked in wagons or piled high at the road side veggie stands.
I've been trying my hand at blowing glass pumpkins with a mini blow pipe. It's a natural extension of my experiments with hollow blown beads and shells, but I've found the pumpkins with their ribbed sides quite a bit more of a challenge than the shells and rounds. They're fun to make though and I love to challenge myself when it comes to glass.

Of course I'm making harvest veggie beads like crazy too! Tis the season!
I even tried a set with large holes to fit Pandora (and similar) bracelets and necklaces yesterday. Pictures will follow if they come out ok.

I made mango-banana-lime smoothies for breakfast, with vanilla yogurt and kale (you really don't taste the kale, but it's so good for you and it makes it a pretty green)
I'm on a smoothie kick! I got a knock off version of the VitaMix ....sort of a super blender that emulsifies so you can throw in just about anything and it comes out smooth as silk!  I'd been reading about the health benifits of raw veggies and fruits VS cooked and how good all the peel and pulp is for you. ....Next thing you know I'll be doing something silly like joining the gym again!  DH and I are actually doing a daily walk and I've been making the route a little longer every day. Yesterday we were out walking for 45 minutes! 

My daughter is my inspiration. She did a crazy obstical course race a couple weekends ago and I took two of the kids to see her and cheer her on. Figured they should see their Muma doing exteam sports. They ran up the mountian (it was held at Sunday River Ski resort) through the woods, over logs and through streams, and culverts, up hills that needed a rope to help them pull themselves up, down a slip and slide, over a net bridge (that was the funniest!) through a mud filed that they had to crawl through since there was barbed wire strung low over it! all the while at choice places along the trail the snow making machines were blasting them (comes out water and mist instead of snow in the summer time) 

It was a blast and so inspirational! She went with some of her running group buddies and they were all amazing! Two are cancer surviviors and that really made me think, heck, I can do more...maybe not that kind of race, but I can work up to 5 k walks at least! 

On the beady front It's a rainy day, perfect for torching. I have some more Harvest veggies and gourds to make and some Halloween beads.

I also want to add a link to a brand new (still in progress) Etsy shop that has some wonderful and very affordable jewelry, quite a few pieces use some of my lampwork beads!   I've been dealing with the shop owner for many years and she's a real gem to work with!!  So, with my glowing recommendations: 4SeasonsBeads

Sept 7! Where did the summer go? We had a lovely one here in the North East, especially compared the the last couple summers before when we had so much rain! The local business's really needed a great summer.
We did have a spell of days when the temperature made torching a little too uncomfortable so I took advantage of  the "down time" and worked on honing my skills in silver work, making bead caps and lining a bunch of my big hole beads. I love the results, though I must admit that my favorites are the ones I bought already textured.
Now the kids are back in school I am going to try to be more regular in posting here on the blog and updating my website. I also have a business page on Facebook and have been better at posting pictures of new beads and beads I'm selling on ebay. I even have a couple sets of beads on a Facebook store page but I'll admit I'm not quite sure how that's going to work.

Here's the pictures of the latest beads and I have more Harvest veggie beads ready and some Halloween witches and sets as well (no pictures of them ready yet though)

Bubble Bubble Boil & Trouble

You guessed it! I'm still making witches. Here's the latest one, a large (for me anyway) portrait style witch, just right for a pendant. I love the look she has in her eyes, you can tell she's a witch with a sense of humor and a little mischievous. Her spells are sure to be the kind that are for your own good, though probably not what you may have had in mind.

Summer Witchs and Hollows

That's what I've been up to in a nutshell!
Oh, and making teeny tiny flat cupcakes, now that was a challenge! I love it when someone asks me to try something entirely different, something that I would never have thought of making myself.
Here's a picture of the first witch of the year, holding a poor froggy, ready to drop into her cauldron ...or will she change her mind and keep him as a pet? Still need to make the cauldron, but she's almost ready to put up for sale.

The hollows are made with handmade "twisties", layered with at least three colors of glass, and sometimes more. I love making hollows and they're soooo light and comfortable to wear. I love bigger beads but if I wear a necklace made with large beads that aren't hollow, I know I'm going to be taking it off after a few hours.
 With this style I was going for a textile look, woven glass.

The picture doesn't really give an idea of just how tiny the cupcake flatties are....I should have taken a picture of them on top of a coin before I shipped them out. They went to Julie of Rockerjewlz so she'll probably have some great pictures of what she makes with them.  Her pictures are always so much better than the ones I take, and I love to see what she makes with the beads I send her way!

flowers & mulch...non beady past-times

I've spent the last couple days digging, planting and spreading mulch. I even buried a soaker hose in the perennial flower beads since they are hard to reach with the hose to water, and I'm away for days at a time for chemo and Dr appointments quite regularly. I'd really hate to lose any plants if it's dry when I'm away.I got a timer thingy for the hose so it should take care of itself  Now to see if it will actually work!
Maybe the flowers will inspire some beautiful beads!

Sea Shells

I've been on a sea shell kick. They've evolved from the simple blown hollows and I have a ton of them, I can't stop making them...like eating chips, just one more and then I'll be done....NOT! LOL!
I have played around with colors, shapes, sizes, and how and where to put the holes. I'm thinking of putting some into some of the local shops for the summer season and I think I'll need to supply a chain or cord so they're ready to wear.

It's been a while since I posted , it's been a busy spring and time just flys by!
One thing I have to do is to start selling off some of my bead stash. For some strange reason I've been dreading the time it takes to photograph the beads and get them posted, so I tuck them into trays and boxes and drawers with the intention of getting to the photos ....later......

  Each drawer is filled with layers of trays and boxes so it's even worse than it looks!

And there's more piled up around the torch table too!

I'm still here, though it's been so long since I've posted that a few people have emailed to ask if I'm allright.
It's been a busy spring! We had to have a new roof...to the tune of over 12 grand!!! AKKK!!!
It should never leak even in the worst conditions, one of the problems of living right on the water! The weather can be wild, especially when the wind kicks up.
So there goes my budget. Oh well. More incentive to sell off my out of control bead stash!  I used to rush to get pictures and put beads up for sale as soon as they were out of the kiln, but I've been dreading the time away from the torch that the photography and computer end of the business takes. So now I have overflowing trays and drawers full of finished beads!

I've been making blown beads for the past couple months. They started out round, like big hollow marbles, and evolved into hollow sea shells. Don't ask how that happened, I'm not sure myself. It's one of those magical things that happen when I have plenty of quiet time to torch and "listen" to the glass.
I've also been making beach glass beads since I want to make myself something fun to wear this summer. I picture a bracelet and necklace with lots of  tiny "beach glass" dangles on a base of silver chain, or maybe some of those silver curved tube beads....or I may even try something with copper since it should get a nice patina in the salty air. I've found that my silver is tarnishing at an alarming rate and, after doing some research I think it's the sulpher in the air near the ocean.

Swashbuckling Pirate Bunnies

Swashbuckling Pirate Bunnies! I made a bunch of my mulitcolored baby bunnies with the intent of giving one to each of my grandsons and nephews for Easter. After making them I got thinking....these are cute but don't seem quite right for the boys (ages 4 thru 11)
I tried again and these pirate bunnies came out. Much better match for the boys I think, and something unique as well. Not your traditional Easter Bunnies, but I think they'll like them!

Sculpture Mama and Baby Bunnies

I'm really thrilled with this one! Just put it up for sale on Ebay....though I'm tempted to keep it and give it to my  Mom, or my daughter, since I think of them and how loving they have always been to their babies every time I look at it.

Mouth Blown Hollow Beads! Something new!!

Mouth Blown Hollow Beads! Something new...for me at least! I've been wanting to try it for ages. OK....I'll admit it, I've tried now and then over the years and never quite got it "right". I think I've finally got it down, at least the basic technique. I adapted the techniques that the"real" glassblowers use to work on a smaller scale and with the softer glass that we beadmakers usually use. I did a few in boro but the learning curve on getting the colors to come out in boro is ginormus! 
I love how wonderfully round and light they are! Now to try making some really big ones and playing around with some different patterns. Doing the beads with a blow tube instead of making them on a mandrel opens up some different design possibilities. The beads so far have been coming out about 19 mm round, which is big for me and a great size for jewelry that makes a "statement"!

Dreams!!

I've been having the strangest dreams lately! Last night I was making parrots on a hot head torch (they wear chubby little parrots, really cute) The last one kept getting bigger and bigger and ended up to be life sized.....huge! I was almost finished, just had to add the beak when my tank of gas started running out.
I woke up thinking if I could just put it in the kiln maybe I could still add the beak.
Even stranger, last week I had a dream that I was working in a cancer center, helping to prepare the patients for some special tests....and I was pregnant! EEEKKK! Then my Mom came in and she was pregnant too...and proceeded to give birth to a beautiful little girl...a sister, finally!
I remember a nurse looked at me seriously and asked if it was planned....I said "Planned? She's 77 years old! It's a miracle!" A sort of disturbing horrible miracle.
Then I found myself planing a baby shower for one of my old best friends, Crystal, who was actually pregnant at the same time I was when we were young, She had twins a month after my daughter was born. At the baby shower who should walk in also hugely pregnant but Crystals mother, Geneva! I woke up (thank goodness) and got right up before I could dream up anything even more disturbing !
They say pregnant dreams mean change, something new....and there should be something really big after a dream like that.
I wonder what it might be?????