Kristy's Earrings. I wrapped up these pretty little earrings for my little friend Kristy's tenth birthday. I tend to use matching colored crystals and this time I chose a darker shade of pink. I like how they turned out and so did she!

Some of my little 8mm cabs-the tiny ones, some larger ones and some 8mm's still on the dopping sticks. Also a couple pieces of glass I have used liquid stringer mixed with frit I have used to "paint" the glass trying to get a color I don't have in sheet glass.

I just wanted to take a moment and share with you what I am currently working on. You may of read my earlier post about dopping my little cabochons.

Dopping is using a substance to attach a handle to a cabochon or uncut gem so that it may be shaped, polished or faceted. I'm using this method to have a way to hold on to these little suckers while channeling their edges so I may wire wrap them.

I've left a few on the handle for show. After I took the picture I removed them. As I have plenty of room for more I'm hoping to attach another 3 dozen to channel before I put this batch in the kiln to fire polish.

Another one of my lovely pendants. This picture was also taken under the florescent lights in the studio section of the glass shop.

I have managed to take new pictures of most all of my wire wrapped pendants and some of my necklaces. I am still trying to decided if I should re-do the filigree lace and post earrings. That's a lot of work. Off the display cards and then back on.

Tonight I'm going to take a break from taking pictures and concentrate on updating the rest of my listings. I still have my Etsy shop to do.

All this hard work is paying off though. I sold the white dichroic pendant "Moonmist" today courtesy of the blogging system. In order to protect privacy I'm not going to name anyone with out their permission. So "Thanks", you know who you are!

On a more personal note I'm finally getting a new mattress set. I've needed a new set for years and for my birthday I'm getting a new set as a gift from my aunt. And it will be delivered on my birthday. How cool is that?

"Fiery Sunset" One of the gorgeous pendant whose listing has received a photo makeover.

I am still riding on the excitement of getting these awesome pictures. I took pictures for about two hours yesterday until I had to stop due to exhaustion! Then I edited them and went through my listings and gave them a photo makeover. I've had a few that the color didn't photograph correctly, but I learned how to make the go back and re-edit the existing pictures from good to great with some judicious cropping.

Then today I sorted all these pictures, 300+ into their appropriate files on my storage drive, editing and deleting the old pictures I replaced.

And after all that I went and added the word "Dichroic" to all 113 listings in my ArtFire studio for the new search program. Now I have definitely earned a break! BUT, oh no I want to go take MORE pictures tonight!

Well I've FINALLY managed to get some decent pictures of white dichroic fused glass! Just check out the color in this picture! Of course the colors are more intense and vibrant in real life, but this is the first good color picture I've managed of dichroic on white!

I have managed a bunch of really great pictures by breaking the jewelry photography rules. Quite by accident I discovered that by taking my pictures after dark, under florescent lighting is giving me rich, vibrant sparkling, detailed pictures! I set the EV Comp. so my white background looks white, use macro and no flash and voila' some excellant pictures.

I am getting some glare spots, but compared to the overall clarity of detail and color I'm happy. I will work on a way to negate that in the future as I will have to think about it for a while. Of course there are a couple of colors that aren't doing well under the conditions but I will use sunlight for those.

Puppy On A Sugar Rush

A picture of Lacey from camping at Winter Bend. She is "Queen Of The Rock"

Today I experienced a first-watching a puppy having a sugar rush. Unbeknownst to me, my son left a bowl of powdered sugar and strawberry jelly on the floor. Well she cleaned up a good portion of it before we discovered it and took it away. As I am rolling and bagging papers all of sudden she just starts zipping all over the living room! Running in circles, up on the couch, off the couch, and around the chairs. She was super energetic all of a sudden. After a few minutes of this I realized she was on a sugar rush! This lasted about 15-20 minutes and then she crashed and burned. She is not even that hyper when she first gets here in the morning! She was so cute and silly it was rather obvious.

Under The Weather

My son has brought home a lovely little bug and shared it with all. Between this bug and splitting the paper route with my dad so it's easier on both our upset and unhappy bodies I'm not sure when I will be bloggong next. I am so sorry please forgive me.
On another note my Artisan Spolight in ArtFire's Art Daily was published today. Here's the link http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=art_daily (hope I did it right!)

My new earrings, "Champagne Nectar" found a home today along with a pendant. I sold them out of the glass shop. Yay! I'm so happy my new earrings are being well received.

Also I submitted some images of my work to Spectrum Glass today. It would be very exciting if they use them.

Last but not least I am trying to make a new banner for my studio. Sadly I did not get much further than taking pictures. I will have to look at the PC's editing program and the scrapbooking program I have to see if I can manage to do what I want.

Monday

Well another busy weekend is over. I don't think I'm going to plan on blogging much on the weekends. By the time everything is done I'm to tired to think let alone blog! I help my dad deliver the Sunday paper and that starts at 3am and ends about 6am. I did my share today and finished in about an hour and a half. As my dad is coming down with a cold it appears that I will be going out to deliver with him tomorrow morning too.

Received the sterling silver earwires today and they look very nice on my earrings. I look forward to trying out the Terra cast bead caps I ordered. I managed to get all my new sterling silver earrings carded and up on the earring display. Still have to price them though.

I have torn apart all my dangle earrings that were put together with glue-on findings. Now I am in the process of removing the glue. Thankfully I am almost done with that part. Then I can dop them and channel them for wire wrapping.

Just a quick note to let you all know I have company so nothing tonight.

Glass Fusing Part III

Part three of a series on glass fusing.

Now I've shared most of the terms one hears in fusing but there are a few more, full fuse, tac fuse and slumping.

Full fuse is when those two or more layers of glass are heated up and melted completely together into one solid mass. Tac fuse is when the glass is heated up and allowed to melt just enough to "tac" it together. The glass on top is still has a distinct shape and yet the edges have rounded and it has fused to the bottom layer of glass. Slumping is when the glass is heated enough to for it to bend and sag or "slump" into the desired shape.

Now I'm not going to get into temperatures, different holding times and heating/cooling cycles. With all the wonderful modern computer technology out there one does not have to be a rocket scientist to learn to fuse glass. One can acquire kilns set up for fusing that come equipped with a digital controller. This wonderful gadget (to my knowledge) comes all programmed for fusing.
With time one learns more about all this and can tweak the cycles to their personal preferences.

Glass Fusing Part II

First of all I need to explain some of the terms used in glass fusing such as COE, compatibility, annealing, and devitrification.

Compatible, the glass used in fusing must be compatible or having the same COE. If your glass is not compatible the stress of incompatibility may cause the glass to literally pull itself apart. Different manufacturers have different glass formulas. Just because the glass is made by the same manufacturer does not mean it is compatible. Although if you fuse glass together from the same piece or sheet it should be compatible with itself. Compatible glass is made specifically for fusing and is tested and marked as such.

COE, co-eficency of expansion is a fancy way of saying what rate the glass expands and contracts at as it is heated and cooled. In glass fusing there are two main COE's Bullseye's 90 and Spectrum96. Personally I use mostly Spectrum96. Bullseye and Spectrum are both glass manufacturers that are located here in the Pacific Northwest.

Glass that is fused must be annealed. Annealing is the process of letting the glass "soak" at the proper temperature for a while. This allows all the
molecules to settle down into the correct alignment. Then the glass is slowly cooled, keeping the molecules in alignment until it has cooled to the safe point. The times and temperatures for annealing may vary depending on the glass used and the size of the project.

Devitrification simply means that the glass has "burned" in the kiln ( this is not a technical explanation). Devit leaves a matte to cloudy surface on the top of the glass and can be impossible to correct.

Basic Glass Fusing, Part I

It has recently come to my attention that the subject of glass fusing would be a great subject to blog about while informing and educating others about it.

As a glass fusing enthusiast I have decided to explain a little about glass fusing. First of all what is glass fusing? Glass fusing is when one puts two or more pieces of glass in a kiln and melts them together at around 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the "simple" explanation. There are many more factors involved that have to be taken into consideration for glass fusing to be sucessful however. (Learn more about it in Part II, tomorrow!)

I also wish to take a moment and say that beads are usually made by wrapping glass around a mandrel (a metal rod coated with a releasing agent) using a torch to melt the glass. Another thing, fused kiln work tends to have a flat back or bottom to it from the kiln shelf or mold while torch work is shaped around the mandrel with or without the aid of tools.



Handmade Torchwork/Lampwork Beads















A Fused Piece Of Glass

More Little Cabs Earrings

I have spent the last several days making more of these little wire wrapped earrings They are fun to make and I think they have turned out very pretty. I just love the how they have turned out! I also think they show my penchant for bead caps, beads and crystals.

I have even manged to get them all listed on ArtFire tonight so they are now for sale.

I spent most of the day updating my ArtFire Studio due to all the exciting and new upgrades on the listing page. But now I can pat myself on the back because it's done!

AND lastly I am learning to use Mozilla Firefox so I can (hopefully) learn social bookmarking. I definitely found it to run quicker and loved the fact all the listing were automatically checked for spelling. I tend to get spelling errors from my typing. Also found that the autocopy feature works better than on Internet Explorer. Now if I can learn to run different tabs on it I'll be happy!