Must-eat-more-chocolate

I love these Ferrero Rocher boxes for displaying my jewellery!!

The compartments are perfect sized and they come with a great lid too. Plus all the fun of emptying them:)

I also love our newly adopted whippet, Angel.

                                  

She has such a dignified personality, compared to wonderfully crazy Paisley 

                                           Here with Paisley in matching whippet pyjamas,

Awwwwwwww!!

Courage

I just put together two whole glass bead necklaces in record time!
These are for an exhibition the NZGBA are putting together in support of the Bead of Courage program. Children dealing with illness are given beads to represent the procedures they undergo. I don't usually do 'exhibitions' due to my dislike for deadlines and the whole submission process. I have donated random beads to BOC before but when I was asked at the last minute to contribute a necklace of a single colour to help represent a childs journey I decided I could manage that and actually did two from scratch in a week, (well it's a record for me!).
Lime green represents Isolation, fever, neutropenia

And purple for Morphine/dopamine/PCA infusion

The NZGBA is working with The Child Cancer Foundation to develop a month-long exhibition of Courage Beads for Child Cancer Month in March 2011 to be held in the foyer of the Vero Tower in Auckland.

For Joe

My best friend has moved to Australia, boohoo!
Before she left I made this ring especially for her, she chose the bead and I like that it is reminescent of the Mountain and surf here in Taranaki NZ, a good remember 'home' bead :)

I actually lost the whole ring while making it though, polishing with the dremel tool (*remember not to hold rings on cloth when rotary polishing*).
The whole thing flung out of my hand and across the workshop and I couldn't find it ANYWHERE! I thought I was going to have to CLEAN the whole place!
This is what my silver corner looks like, rotary tool on the left corner, (note fish tank at the other end of my bench)

I  even looked in there as a last resort after a frustrating half hour and pulling all that crap out from under the bench

It is already 'decorated' with reject beads and random bits, the fish like them. It wasn't until I actually looked over the top of the open tank I found the ring nestling in the back! Little sucker.

At least I found it, and lucky it hadn't smashed the glass tank, that would have really sucked.

progress

These are the rings I've made in the last few weeks. Actually I've really made twice as many as these because they've nearly all been made, pulled apart and reassembled! I had problems with the beads rattling inside the setting when it was closed, even though the fit tightly before closing, grrr.

I think because the beads are tapered on both sides so not a completely flat bottom, anyway the solution for those was a thin piece of suede under the bead - no more rattling :)

 I think they are improving...

No 1



no 3

No 4

No 5

No 6

And No 7



My favourite so far

The healing scar

The name was given by someone on Lampwork etc for this piece of 'accidental' glass, maybe it's the nurse in me, (or the Wilco lyric lover), but it appealed to me as the perfect name and stuck ever since.
The story of how this piece occurred fits with the name well too, initially it started out as an oval shaped dot bead with some heavy silver 'stormy' dots, something like this...

BUT, I forgot to turn my kiln off and the temp kept ramping up until he beads completely melted and started dripping onto the kiln floor!
The result was this beautifully smooth cab and a few other more irregular shaped puddles. 
They had to be dug out of the porous kiln floor but I immediately loved this one and decided to keep it for myself,  Subsequent attempts to recreate this process with kiln paper beneath were less inspiring.

So, now the latest incarnation of the healing scar is as the centre piece of my newest obsession - silver bezel setting. Unfortunately trying to close the bezel I dented the tube bail, but at least it's a central dent:)
Eventualy I'll probably feel the need to remove the glass and fix the dent, probaly resolder a new bail, but for now I quite like the imperfection.

Glass Agate Gemstones

This is a simple mini tutorial I wrote a few months ago on a style of bead I enjoy making and have recently been incorporating into my silver rings. Reposting it here in order to share :)

  

Glass  ‘Agate Gemstones’ 

I’ve been experimenting with tabular focal beads and the variegated quality of agates.

(Bases of - CIM Banana crème,  CIM Ginger, Vetrofond Twilight, CIM Thai Orchid)

First I make a base bead of clear, not only is it cheaper and saves my special colours, but I get it in larger rods so it’s much quicker to wind a base.

The oval cg beadroller makes getting a good initial shape easier but if I want a larger bead than my roller makes I simply make a bicone then marver the middle and round it in the flame.

Next I completely encase the clear in my chosen colour, I’ve been experimenting with some of the CIM and Vetrofond  colours I have lying around , but any opaque/streaky colour  is worth a try.

Now to variegation,  I love using Intense Black and it only takes a teeny-tiny amount, I pull a hair thin stringer as long as my arms can stretch!  Don’t put the stringer  in the flame it will just ball up, heat a circumference of your bead until it’s red hot and press the stringer into the hot glass, if it doesn’t stick it’s not hot enough. Now heat the IB on the bead, a lot, until it does it’s thing and starts to spread out, my favourite bit -  it looks really cool!

On some colours you get a great kind of ghosting, but another option is to lay down a strip of dark ivory first and put the IB over that, it seems to spread better and looks more… intense!

(Trial bead on CIM ginger, L to R = straight Intense Black, IB over Dark Ivory, IB over Silvered Ivory)

I also experimented with pulling ivory stringer with a touch of IB on the gather which gave a much more subtle mix. For some sparkle use Silvered Ivory Stringer either by itself or with a hair of IB over the top and adding dots between stripes will spread out nicely too.

When you’re happy with your decoration heat and squish it.  Use a press or simply squash between  a graphite pad and marver,  just make sure it doesn’t get too thin along the mandrel line as it may crack.

Back into the flame to remove any chill marks and into the kiln J

begin

Ok, I'm finally starting a proper blog!
I've been thinking about it for ages... as a way to keep track of the other glass/jewellery blogs I like to read and also to keep track of my own creative process and other random things I feel the need to record and collect in one place.
I expect it will be mostly glass and jewellery related , I do keep a  visual log on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gracernz/ but I want to elaborate on stuff a bit more than that and I just can't warm to facebook.
So this rainy day of holidays with the new year approaching seems the perfect time to begin.