Merry Christmas!

“Angel in the Woods” by Karen Davis

Sorry I missed this week’s inspirational picture and Tuesday’s torch tips, I’ll pick up with them again after the holidays. Peer has been off work since Monday and we’ve been fairly busy. Tonight we’ll spend a lovely evening with his parents and then tomorrow we’ll head back to his parent’s house to celebrate with the rest of the family :O)

I will keep this short, I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I’d also like to say a special thank you to all my customers and also the many friends that I’ve made over the years as a direct result of lampwork, without you all I have no idea what I’d be doing right now. Thank you, thank you for all your support!

I’ll be back on the January 4th.

Tuesday Torch Tips: Etched Beads

Etching gives a whole different look and feel to a bead, it adds texture and in some cases makes it easier to see the detail and depth in a bead. My enameled beads are a good example of this. When I don’t etch them, the shine makes it really hard to see the subtle play of colors that is happening on the surface. The shine seems to push your eye away and not allow it to sink more deeply into the surface.. Etching tones down that shine making it easier for the eye to sink down into the bead and see the subtle play of colors that I’m trying to show.

Of course etching can also ruin an otherwise gorgeous bead. The question of whether to etch or not can sometimes be a very tough call.

I’ve heard it suggested that putting a bead in the freezer for a short time will give you some idea of what it might look like etched. Or you can make an extra bead especially for test purposes…etch it and see what you think.

I haven’t tried the freezer trick, I’m not that patient, I usually just go for it… I tend to etch nearly everything I make :O)

Of course it’s not necessary to etch the whole bead. It’s possible to mask parts of your bead with water-based latex paint and those parts won’t get etched. I do this with my masks and the necklaces on my goddesses. The image above is a good example, the body is etched, the necklace and tail are not. It can make for a nice contrast. Just pick up a small tin of latex paint from the hardware store and a small fine tip paint brush. It takes about 20 minutes for the paint to dry and it will stay on your bead until you rinse with warm soapy water. I have heard that you can also use nail polish and even Elmer’s Glue, but I hate the smell of nail polish and Elmer’s Glue too so I just use the paint. A small 1-2 oz. tin will last you for years, or until it dries out.

People ask quite often, how long I etch my beads for. First I have to admit that I have no idea what brand of etching solution I am using. All I can tell you is that it is bright pink-violet in color and it gets darker over time. The supplier I buy it from, pours it into smaller bottles for resale and all it says is, “etching solution”along with a warning label. It takes only about 5 minutes to etch my beads. I don’t know what brand it is, but I am happy with the results so I haven’t bothered to ask. Read the label on your bottle, it will probably give a suggested etching time. If not, try etching in 5 minute increments. If after 5 minutes you rinse and dry your bead and it is still shiny or spotty, etch for another  5 minutes, and so on, until you find the right amount of time.

How I etch my beads…

If you have a workshop with sink to do this in that’s great, just make sure it is a well ventilated area. I don’t have a workshop sink so I have to use my kitchen sink. I make sure that all food and drink is put away and that the sink is empty and clean before I begin. I lay down an old newspaper to work on.

All of the supplies that I use for etching, I use ONLY  for etching and nothing else. I use a small plastic bowl a bit bigger than a tuna fish can. I put my beads in and then pour the solution over them. I stir them gently with a plastic Wendy’s spoon to make sure they are coated on all sides and then set the timer for 5 minutes. You need to wear eye protection and rubber gloves and a long sleeve shirt or better yet, a plastic apron when etching. This stuff is acid, not only can it burn you but with chronic exposure it can effect your bones and joints and probably other things as well. Needless to say, you do not want to get it on you. If you do, rinse immediately with soapy water for 5-10  minutes. If you get it in your eyes, rinse immediately with running water for 15 minutes.

(edited to add: It is suggested by some that as part of first aid treatment, you should also mix a few tsp. of baking soda with the water to neutralize the acid. Here is the MSDS sheet for Etch-All Dip N Etch, it doesn’t make this recommendation but using baking soda can’t hurt and might help. I suggest that you read the MSDS sheet so that you know what you are working with and how to properly handle and dispose of it. If you are using a different brand, I recommend looking up the MSDS sheet for the one you are using. Most can be found on the internet.)

When the beads are done etching I fish them out with my plastic spoon and put them in a larger plastic bowl filled with warm soapy water and a tsp. of baking soda (to neutralize ). I swish them around for a minute or so and them change the water and swish them again. Using an old tooth brush I add a few drops of dish soap and then scrub each bead briefly then rinse again in plain warm water. Then I set them aside to dry. I am wearing rubber gloves and glasses the entire time. I use a plastic funnel to get the solution back into the bottle, then I rinse all my bowls and tools really well with warm soapy water (andmore baking soda if you wish) and put them away in my craft cupboard so they won’t be used accidentally for food. Rinse water down your drain really well and clean your sink well.

Next week I’ll talk about how I finish my etched beads.

(Tuesday’s Torch Tips is an ongoing weekly series of articles. If you’ve got any suggestions for future tips, please leave me a comment and I’ll cover them if possible. Torch Tips will cover a wide variety of topics including; basic lampworking techniques, design, photography, marketing and selling, and so on.)

Inspirational Monday: Jackie Harris

“Christmas 2006″

Jackie Harris is a British illustrator whose artistic style and imagery I truly love. Her work has a mythic quality full of the symbolism and imagery common in folklore,fairytale and legend. Her work often portrays children and young women together with animals; the animals filling the role of guardian spirit and protector, or so it seems to me…

Mythic art is something that I really love and I have plenty of it to share with you all over the coming weeks and months so, I hope you like it too :O)

Tuesday’s Torch Tips: Making Round Beads…

I received a question last week from Marcia…

…”I have a BRB mold (zoozi) which I had special made about 7 mos ago. (also a long and lean Kalera)I found it so hard to use and to get all the glass in the mold. Then I saw your BEADS! Now I know it would be worth it to practice some more. Could you please offer tips on a shape for the glass to be in (or something like that) to fit into a BRB mold. I find most other molds easier.” …

First of all, let me start by saying that I’m no pressed-bead expert, I don’t actually make them that often, in addition, I’ve only made a total of 14 round beads using a press so, I’m just offering what I have discovered so far. :O)

Just like you Marcia, I also have the special order Zoozii round bead press, Zoozii’s presses are well made and I enjoy using them. That said, I think for round beads, I personally would prefer one of the simpler handheld designs like the CGBeadroller, or even just a graphite marble mold. Again, don’t get me wrong, Zoozii makes great presses and my round beads turn out really nice, but I personally have found that for round beads, this particular design, (i.e. the traditional bead press design) is kind of a pain in the ass.

Don’t get discouraged if you’re having trouble with a press such as this, it can certainly make nice beads you’ve just got to get a feel for how to use it. Here’s how I use mine.

1. I make a small barrel shape bead which fits nicely into the cavity of the press with maybe a millimeter of extra space on each side.

2. Once I have my length, I begin to build up the bead. I recommend that for your first few beads you don’t worry about decoration, just use a solid color with no frills until you get use to using the press.

3. As I’m building up the glass I aim for a fairly round shape by adding more glass in the middle than I do on the sides.

4. As the bead grows I will occasionally set it into the press cavity and see how much larger it needs to be.

5. When the bead starts fitting more snuggly, instead of twirling the bead inside the cavity to help round it out (which tends to break my bead release), I just set it gently into the cavity (while quite hot of course) quickly lift up, turn the bead a quarter of a turn and set it back down again, lift it out and turn another quarter turn, set back down again. This process happens quickly and will leave  me with a rounded bead with slight indentations on the quarter marks, kind of like a pumpkin but not so deep, they are easily heated away, just like chill marks are. If the bead is fitting nicely into the press and doesn’t seem too big, then I might use the top of the press and go ahead and press the bead in the traditional way, or more often then than not, I just use the bead as it is without ever having used the top of the press.

As I have used this stationary press I can see the advantages to being able to hold the press in my hand while shaping so that I could hold it at an angle if I wanted to, it would just make life simpler I think! Of course you can try using the top part of the zoozii press in this way, I haven’t tried that yet but it might work better than the bottom. I’ll try it this week.

Once I made a set of plain beads with nothing but a bit of enamel for decoration, I was then accustomed to the size and amount of glass that I needed, then it was easier for me to make more complex beads like the ones in the picture above.

Ok, there you have it! You might also want to watch Donna’s videos on how to use her round beadrollers, you might find it more helpful than what I’ve described here. I did try twirling the bead in the cavity to shape it and found that with my press, it didn’t work very well and my bead release tended to break and flake off and get on the bead…ewww. That’s why I do the “Squish & Turn” technique :O)

On Zoozii’s site there is supposed to be a video on how to use her round bead press, but I kept getting a “page not found” error. Maybe it will work for you, here’s the link.

Good luck with those BRB’s!

Thank you for the question Marcia :O)

(Tuesday’s Torch Tips is an ongoing weekly series of articles. If you’ve got any suggestions for future tips, please leave me a comment and I’ll cover them if possible. Torch Tips will cover a wide variety of topics including; basic lampworking techniques, design, photography, marketing and selling, and so on.)

Inspirational Monday: Angela Barrett

“The Snow Queen”

I love children’s books and especially those with large, magnificent illustrations on nearly every page. When done by the right illustrator they are simply magical and can pull you so deeply into the story that you scarcely realize there is anything else in the world but the story. Angela Barrett is one of those gifted illustrators. We visited with my in-laws yesterday, my mother-in-law happens to have an extensive children’s book library which I find very hard to resist! I was thumbing through The Snow Queen, a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, illustrated by Angela Barrett and I thought I would share a few images with you today.

Should you ever find yourself lacking in inspiration, I highly recommend a trip to your local B&N for a cozy afternoon spent exploring the children’s book section and maybe even a nice cup of cocoa :O)

Inspirational Monday: Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

She is one of  my all time favorite artists. I find her work and her life story very inspiring. If you haven’t seen the film about her life, you really should, it’s called “Frida”

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are now fully recovered from all the binging and merry making :O)

As for me, I seem to be coming down with something, I feel icky and achy and want to stay in bed and just read and sleep. It might be a bit quiet around here this week. As soon as I’m feeling better you’ll be the first to know :O)

Wanted to Wish You All…

A very Happy Thanksgiving.

It’s this time of year when I start feeling just a bit homesick. There’s a place inside of me that just starts to feel all warm and fuzzy and sentimental and kind of sappy…some of my very first memories include flashes of Thanksgiving get-togethers and Christmas with the family. The cheesy music, the wonderful food, the sparkling, glowing, colorful lights, the crisp cold air and snow outside and the warm cheery fire burning inside <sigh>…. I’ll be thinking of you all today… have a slice of pumpkin pie for me :O)

Tuesday’s Torch Tips: Photo-Editing

If you want to sell your work online there are many factors to being successful at it, but one of the biggest is the quality of your photos. Your photos will speak to the world about the beauty and quality of your work, one good photo can convey more than a page full of words and people are more likely to be interested in your photo than they are in your page full of words.

There are several factors that have to be present in order to produce great photos these are; a decent camera, a basic knowledge of small object photography, proper lighting, professional display techniques and, good photo-editing skills. Today I’d like to say a few words on photo-editing…

As an online seller, learning the basics and perhaps even a bit beyond the basics of how to use photo-editing software is well worth your while. It does take a bit of time but it is one of your biggest selling tools so you should make the time to learn how to use it. There are probably tons of editing software programs on the market but in my opinion, two of the best are Adobe Photoshop and The Gimp. I have used both and I have a love/ hate relationship with each, they each have their good points and not so good points, but they both are more than capable of getting the job done.

As far as I know, Adobe Photoshop software will cost you some Big Bucks because like all commercial products, it is mainly interested in your money and in controlling what you can and cannot do with their software…e’nuff said . The Gimp however is an Open Source Project…(i.e. not interested in your money), it works on a wider range of operating systems, it comes in a gazillion languages and it is FREE…yes, it’s FREE. Now don’t start thinking that just because it’s free it must somehow be inferior, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have used both systems and as far as performance and quality goes, I was equally happy with both systems and actually tend to prefer the Gimp overall. If you don’t have photo-editing software and would rather not spend money acquiring it, I highly recommend that you download the  Gimp TODAY, right NOW and start learning how to use it. There is a large online help file and tons of online tutorials for practically anything you’d want to do with it.

Some of the basic things you should learn how to do…

• Crop your image
• Scale image
• Brightness and contrast
• Add a border (if you want to)
• Add Text (like your name!)
• Unsharp Mask (to sharpen your image)
• Levels and Curves (adjusts color levels)

Those are the basics, I’ll expand on this probably next Tuesday but this will get you started. Just open some of your unedited images into the Gimp and start playing. Read the help files, search for online tutorials and you shouldn’t have any problem, it will only cost you a bit of time and it’s definitely worth it.

(Tuesday’s Torch Tips is an ongoing weekly series of articles. If you’ve got any suggestions for future tips, please leave me a comment and I’ll cover them if possible. Torch Tips will cover a wide variety of topics including; basic lampworking techniques, design, photography, marketing and selling, and so on.)