Day 30 Of AEDM Challenge-The End!

Today is the last day of November and the last day of the Art Every Day Month challenge. I can't believe it is over already. I've had a lot of fun and gotten a lot accomplished. This has been great for my blogging skills. It has made me blog every night I had access to a computer and the internet. I hope everyone has enjoyed my jewelry as much as I have enjoyed sharing it!

These are the slabs I fused up today. I made some more of that lovely aqua-blue shade and experimented with the same ripple glass on white and turquoise. I knew it would be stunning on the red. The brown & green piece is from the last of my colored glass capping silver dichroic experiments.

The cut out pieces from yesterday have been channeled and are in the kiln for one last fire polishing cycle. I didn't like the extra kiln firing I tried. I won't try that again. But now I know!

Day 29 Of AEDM

Today I spent the afternoon and evening cutting out those cabochons in new shapes. The first pictures shows the glass slabs marked with the new shapes ready to cut out. The second picture shows the Taurus III ring saw I use to cut out my cabs, my safety glasses and a beeswax based goo that helps to keep the marks on the glass.

After I cut them out I use the grinder to clean up the shapes. The third picture shows the cabs all cut and ground and ready for firing. I am trying something a bit different with this batch. I'm going to fire polish this batch then I'm going to channel them. Then I will fire polish them again.

Also I cleaned the stove-YUCK. And I made turkey and noodles from scratch. I make my own noodles using the recipe my mother taught me. I take the turkey carcass and boil it to get the rest of the meat off and make the stock.

Day 28 Of AEDM

I thought I'd share today's creativity. My latest batch of fused glass slabs! The red/silver/blue dichroic is just gorgeous on black. It's the one on the bottom right hand side, that lovely blue-green piece.

As soon as I'm done blogging I'm off to plan how how to cut them up into cabs! Good night!

Day 27 Of AEDM

For today's Art Every Day Month challenge project I did something really different today. I'm tired of doing the same old shapes-the same old circles, squares and triangles. So today I sat down with my pencil, my drafting templates and some pattern paper and drew up a bunch of new shapes in assorted sizes. Some of these shapes I have been wanting to do for a while. I'm really excited about using them tomorrow. I will also make up some more pieces of glass to fuse into slabs for future cabs. I've got some good ideas I want to try out. It's been a while since I've been this excited about glass fusing and it feels really good.

Day 26 Of AEDM

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving dinner turned out quite scrumptious. I fed us all well even if I do say so myself! I did the turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, jello fruit salad, corn, deviled eggs, cranberry-raspberry sauce and black olives. I don't like sweet potatoes/yams and so I don't make them. It is hard to cook something well when you don't like it. I keep telling others if they want them to bring them! My aunt brought a pumkin pie, whipping cream and a cherry cheesecake (pie). Her cherry cheesecake is my favorite. I remembered how to make the whip cream too.

Anyway enough with the food talk and on to my piece for the Art Every Day Month challenge. I made another cabochon trio necklace using chestnut brown dichroic doodle cabs, gold filled wire, beads and chain. I even managed to get it listed in my Artfire studio already. I have decided to call it "Chestnut Trio"

I do hope you will take a moment and check out my studio! I am offering free shipping for the holidays and have many different pretties who are looking for a new home!

Day 25 Of AEDM

My creativity for the day has been making a jello fruit salad for tomorrow and helping my student create a fused glass snowflake. Tomorrow after dinner I will put it on the kiln shelf for firing. I will also fill the left over space with something.

Today has been one of those days where it seemed I hopped out of bed and hit the ground running. I have put in a full twelve hours straight. My longest break may have been 15 minutes. Forty-five minutes if you count driving for fast food a break.

I cleaned the refrigerator out and scrubbed it. I then did dishes, swept and mopped. I then went into the evil cabinet where the plastic food containers are kept. I matched up lids with the bottoms and washed almost all of it. Also cleaned the rest of the cabinet out while I was at it. Then it was clean up the studio for class, gobble some food and teach class.

Until tomorrow night! I Send My Best Wishes for a Wonderful, Tasty and Happy Thanksgiving!

Day 24 Of AEDM

And here is today's goody! A trio of my handmade cabs are sterling silver wire wrapped together with Czch glass beads and suspended from a sterling silver chain. Notice the handmade dichroic design in the cabs. This lovely has yet to be named and listed.

I had hoped to work on stage two of Project A today, but didn't have enough time. :(

Day 23 Of AEDM

For today I am once again fusing glass for cabochons and a student project, the snowflake. I am re-firing the 12mm orange cabs. I like the dichroic color against the orange. So I am turning the bottom into the top. I am also fusing up a lovely piece of blue ripple dichroic and trying another on red opal again.

I am working on an idea that I think is really neat. I'm calling it "Project A". If it works I will be sharing it and if it doesn't I'll share anyway.

I did break down and take a picture of the shelf I'm so disappointed in. I knew the purple piece was going to be pretty. The blue green was a texture experiment. I did a dichroic doodle piece which is also good. The glass looks better in the picture than in real life. That extra piece of thin clear really distorted and flattened the ripple texture of the dichroic. There isn't much fire and what color I do see seems to be dull. I will continue to experiment though.

Day 22 Of The AEDM Challenge

I knew what I wanted to make today, but it took me almost two hours to find the correct combination of beads to do it. For a while I thought I was going to have to go to the bead store to get the right shade of beads. Then I noticed the gold ones over there in the box and the light bulb went on!

I think I will name this one "Purple Passion". The dichroic glass in this piece is the exact shade of purple as the crystal bead I used on the top of the bail. I guarantee that the rich blue-violet hue is absolutely stunning.

I received an order for one of my adjustable rings today. I went to the fairgrounds to check out this "big" three day holiday show. I chuckled to myself as I went past the booth of a couple I know who do embroidered dog collars, harness vest etc; Evidently they had split up yesterday so they could do both the show at the Senior Center and this one. As he was on his phone I didn't want to interrupt and I didn't see his wife either. Right next to this booth was my biggest "competitors". They are also friends and former students. My dad and I taught them the basics of fusing. As we were visiting the wife stopped in. She saw the "Heather" ring and fell in love! She was purchasing a pendant from my friends. She decided she wanted it to match the pendant she was getting. So my friend is going to provide me with the cab and I will make it into a ring.

Days 20 & 21 Of The AEDM Challenge

I finished this lovely pendant necklace yesterday. I do believe I will name it "Parfait" or "Berry Parfait". What do you think of that for a name? I think this pendant turned out quite lovely. I plan to get it listed tomorrow.

Today I had a show. We set up most of it last night. Finished the set up this morning before the doors opened. I did fairly well considering. This picture is of the stained/fused & slumped glass table. The three large butterflies in the middle are the ones I was working on the other day.

I don't think I'm going to do anything other than go to bed tonight. If I change my mind and do create something I will share it tomorrow. I have done really well so far, but I think after working a show I refuse to feel guilty about not creating today. I may make two tomorrow as make up though.

As for that picture I promised you.....That is the fugliest batch of fusing I have ever done. I tried capping the ripple with a third layer of thin clear glass so as to make full use of the dichroic glass. I believe it was just a bit too much. I really lost the ripple effect and the dichroic glass is just "lost" in the base glass.

Day 19 Of The AEDM Challenge Plus New Lesson

Here are the finished cabs from last night, er the wee hours of this morning.

I learned something interesting today and instead of being upset about it, I'm okay with it. About eighteen months ago I came up with the idea of making these colors when I created my "Windows" jewelry series. To make these I used silver dichroic glass. This gives me a wonderful, larger color range. Unknowingly I have stocked up on the Red/Silver/Blue version of the silver dichroic glass. This is not the silver I started with. As a result about eight of twenty one colors I made yesterday did not turn out to well. You can't see the dichroic at all in the red cabs or the orange. The pale pink and peach have no color at all, the lime is almost yellow. The two shades of red-violet you can't hardly see the dichroic in either. The good news is the backside of the orange cabs look really neat with blue-silver dichroic sparkling in the orange. I'm going to re-fire them with their backs up! This red/silver/blue actually gave the rest of the colors (except walnut) more sparkle!

I've decided I'm going to give the rest of the colors a break for now. Later when things are better and I can purchase more dichroic glass I'll think about it. I find this decision strangely enough to be very freeing! For the time being I will only have these "stock" colors in the 12mm cabs: hot pink, coral, yellow, amber, walnut, moss, forest, light & darck aqua, pale & deep blue, neo-lavender and med & dark blue-violet.

Out of the blue I decided to start experimenting with different colors of dichroic ripple glass on opal (solid) colored glass again. I put a shelf load of red, terra-cotta, persimmon and chestnut in to fire tonight. I am so excited to see the results come morning! I will be logging these color combos into my sketch book for future reference. I am playing with glass that I have. It will be nice to be able to go back and re-create my the favorites or to know what I need to order so I can make them!

As I now have lots of red/silver/blue dichroic glass to use up I will definitely start making more of the "dichro doodles" cabochons too!

Day 18 Of The AEDM Challenge

I started my day out by getting these butterflies cut out and ground. (day 18 of the AEDM challenge) I had planned to only make two of these butterflies , but ended up with three color combinations. The one on the far left is in shades of orange, yellow and amber. The middle one is blue and purple and the one on the right is purple and blue.

Then because it was sunny, dry and not to cold I decided to sand my kiln shelves off. I have been putting that dreaded task off for a while now. Three kiln shelves with the kiln wash sanded off of them and two customers later the shelves were clean. Next it was time to give them a fresh coating of kiln wash. I mixed it up and painted it on. Helpful hint-To speed up the drying process between coats I use a heat gun to dry the coats of kiln wash. I suppose a hairdryer would also do the trick, but have never tried it. This also works on molds as well!

For day 18 of the AEDM challenge I finally made up a shelf of 12mm dichroic cabochons. I have been needing to make these for a while. I received the dichroic glass I needed to make these at least two weeks ago. The kiln shelves were were ready to go and I needed to have them done by Friday morning. When I wake up in the morning I will have 184 dichroic fused glass cabochons. That is 268 pieces of glass! All hand cut, cleaned and arranged on that kiln shelf!

p.s. I finished this at one am PST. I have to go to bed and sleep before it is "tomorrow" to me. So expect another post for day 19!

(I'm sorry. I have no idea why the photos disappeared. Just added them...again.)

Day 17 Of The AEDM Challenge

I seem to be in the mood for rings. I made another one today. The pictures just don't give this lovely cabochon justice. It has such deep, rich blue shades in it. This is one of the cabs from my hoard. I set it in sterling silver. This one is my favorite of these wire wrapped rings so far. My ex came up with the name for this one, "Galaxy". It is truly fitting.

Day 16 Of AEDM Challenge

I went through my cabs a few days ago, trying to decide which one to use for my next project. While I was at it I put all my small, single cabs in one spot. Most of these cabs I have been hoarding just for the purpose of making rings!

This triangle one with it's angles was a lot more challenging than working with the round ones. With practice I will get better. I'm so used to working with finer wire than what I am using in these rings.
I will figure out a name tomorrow for this one and then get it listed in my Artfire studio. If you have an idea for a name then please leave me a comment!

Days 13, 14 & 15 Of AEDM Challenge

I had to slow down a bit and take a break. I went out Friday evening with a friend and Saturday I went to a craft show that I didn't get into because the time limit snuck past me and then went to the movies with my boys. But now I need to catch up and share what I have been working on!

I liked my blue "Twinkle Hoops" so much I decided to make a pair in gold with forest green cabs. Then I made some with silver lever-back hoops with moss green cabs. Then I decided I needed to be able to offer handmade hoops in sterling silver and 14K gold filled. So I made my first ever pair of 14K gold filled wire hoops using the mimosa (coral) cabs. They were so much fun I replaced the silver lever backs with a pair of handmade sterling silver hoops! I will be adding these to my Artfire studio in the next couple of days.

I also had to include a picture of the small stained glass panel I just finished.

Day 12 of AEDM Challenge

Here is my newest piece created for the AEDM challenge. I have named this one Aurora. A rich, multi colored dichroic glass cabochon in bright pink, gold and deep blue with traces of green and purple. I feel I'm definitely improving on this style of wire wrapping and am quite pleased with this one.

Day 11 Of AEDM Challenge

I managed to get another pendant put together for the AEDM challenge. I call it "Eclipse". Today is day eleven. I used one of my dichroic fused glass cabochons in black and silver. I wire wrapped it in sterling silver with another woven bail. This wire wrapping variation looks much better to me than the previous two. Now I just need to practice the technique! AEDM challenge is going to give a wonderful chance to do just that!

I also wish to share my newest stained glass project. I have gotten it all cut out and then ground the edges to remove jagged corners and sharp edges. This also helps to fit the pieces together nicely. Tomorrow I will foil it, solder it, clean, patina, clean and wax it. I'm excited to see it all finished and held up to the light!

Day 10 of AEDM Challenge & Poll

RASPBERRY RIPPLE PENDANT

Today I took this lovely pink cabachon and wire wrapped it in gold. This one worked much better than yesterday's. I used a heavier gauge wire. I have one more thing I want to try on this style. I will use a variation on how I have wrapped the fine wire on this piece and the last one.

POLLING
I have a question that I would like you to finish! Just leave your answer as a comment below. This question is about my jewelry. I get many comments about it, but not a lot of buyers. My question is this. " This pendant/ring/earring/necklace/bracelet is just beautiful. I love it! BUT I wouldn't purchase it because__(?)______. I would like to know why it is wonderful to look at but not to buy. All help would be greatly appreciated! I work hard and think about this daily trying to come up with designs that are more attractive and unusual that what is already out there and yet more appealing to the buyer.

Day 9 of AEDM Challenge

Today I wrapped a blue, white and silver dichroic cabochon. I've been thinking about what I could do to make a different, more attractive wire wrapped bail on my dichroic cabochons. I've had a good response on the few pieces that I've made that had a woven bail. So I decided to apply that on a "simple" wire wrapped cab. Instead of a rabbit ear bail finish I tried a woven bail. This one just wasn't as cooperative as the ones I've done in the past. I have a few simple ideas to improve that.

Also here are the pictures of the pieces from the seventh and eight days of the challenge.

Day 8 of AEDM Challenge

Today I managed to get two items made for the challenge. I made a new pendant using a square cabochon in the same colors that I used to make my "Ice Queen" pendant shown in the picture. The other is a pair of earrings. I have these lovely lever-back style hoop earring findings in both gold and silver. I took a pair of my little, 8mm cabochons in deep blue and wire wrapped them in sterling silver making them into a pair of "charms" and hung them off a pair of these silver hoops. These earrings use are the same shade of deep blue as in this pendant and the one I just made!

I made a quick trip with my aunt to Aberdeen, Washington to deliver half a beef to my uncle and his wife. It is a 6 hour drive one way. We drove up yesterday and came back today. We split the driving, but I am totally exhausted or I would go take pictures, list the items and share them. I will be sharing them tomorrow though!

I will be starting on the new pricing upgrades tomorrow. Also I plan to run an unofficial poll!

Day 6 of AEDM Challenge & Artfire Anniversary Sale

HUGE ARTFIRE ANNIVERSARY SALE!

In honor of Artfire's one year anniversary I have decided to have a huge blow-out sale in my studio. This Saturday and Sunday, everything now showing in my Artfire studio has been marked down to 50% off!

Today is day 6 of the AEDM challenge. I had an idea and all the parts ready to go to create a new dichroic glass pendant. By the time I had finished these little angels it was to late and I was to tired to put it together. But here are the finished little angels!

Day 5 of AEDM Challenge & Big Weekend Sale!

Well today is the fifth day in the challenge. One thing I had hoped to accomplish was creating a new piece of jewelry each day besides making suncatchers in the glass studio. Tonight I was just to tired after squabbling with my son. But........today in the glass studio I cut out another six angels. I I ground them and the one left from yesterday. I also managed to foil three of them. Tomorrow I will finish foiling them so I can get them soldered, cleaned and waxed. When I am making small suncatchers like these angels it is very time-saving to make them in batches rather than one at a time.

I have decided to have a HUGE sale this weekend in my Artfire Studio, Willow Walker Designs. I will take 50% off everything in my studio on this Saturday and Sunday except for my $5.00 rings. I will also be offering free shipping on all orders over $15.00!

Day 4 of AEDM Challenge

Today's challenge was much easier than yesterday. I took this pair of pink dichroic cabs and wire wrapped them in 14K gold filled wire and accented with gold toned crystal rondelles and golden rounds. "Pink Ice" is their name. Thanks to ColtPixy for your help!

On another note I cut out four flower angel suncatchers and have three of four of them ground and ready to foil. I also cleaned the grinder, grinder surface, the grid underneath and the backsplash. I don't do little suncatchers one at a time. I do them in batches. I have picked out glass colors for at least three more. I also discovered two suncatchers, a parrot and a rainbow all done and just needing to be patina'd and the little hummingbird shown on the board!

Day 3 of AEDM Challenge

Today's challenge piece for me was a nugget of tumbled, polished turquoise. I friend of a friend commissioned me to wire wrap it so she could wear it as a pendant. I did manage to get it wrapped in sterling silver. I'm not real happy with the bail. As I'm out of time and have wasted over three feet of wire in four attempts to wrap the thing I've decided I'm done. I have learned that I don't like wrapping irregular, lumpy, bumpy objects and will never take on a commission like this again. I don't feel I did justice to the stone.

As I'm not about to take a picture of my failure I decided to share my newly listed Black Cherry Ripple ring! An adjustable wire wrapped dichroic glass cabochon done in sterling silver. I also listed my necklace and pendant from day one and day two.

Day 2 Of Create Art Every Day Challenge

Here is my first piece created for the Art Every Day challenge. I chose this dichroic glass cabochon I made. I wire wrapped it in sterling silver wire adding two rondelle beads. I am really pleased with it.




















And here is the second piece I created today. I wire wrapped another one of my cabs in sterling silver wire and Czech seed beads. I love this one too!












And last but not least is a picture of all those chains I put together yesterday. I used bulk chain and findings.

A New Venture, Create Art Every Day!

I have decided to tr a new marketing tactic. My item of the day will have a special sale price. Today's item of the day was my Winterberry Dichroic Glass Necklace. I marked it down 50%! It is regularly priced at $80.00. That is a steal of a deal of $40.00!

Today I joined the challenge of Art Every Day Month. The goal it to create one new piece of art every day this month. I have decided to give it a try.

Today I spent making chains and cleaning my work counter in the glass studio.


Using bulk chain and findings I put together 16 adjustable chains in two lengths, 16-20 inches and 20-24inches. I used two styles of chain in gold and silver. and I also made 14 more chains in both silver in gold 16 inches and twenty inches.

The majority of the mess on my work counter in the glass studio was left from June/July 2008. I still had stuff right where I'd left it when my daughter was hospitalized the final time. I am so glad to have that mess cleaned up! Slowly. but surely I feel like I am finally putting my life back together again.

I had planned to take pictures this evening but am just too tired. I start my Sundays around three am and with the time change I have decided to put it off one more day.