About My Supply Store, The Glass Goddess, Reason #1

The reasoning behind my supply store, The Glass Goddess is twofold, well okay it's threefold.

Here is reason number one-

I've had a lot of people ask me if I sell my dichroic glass cabochons or tell me I that I should.

I have to admit that I have a hard time putting my dichroic cabochons up for sale. I find that when I'm making them I am already creating jewelry with them in my mind! Those that I have definite plans for I put aside for my use. The rest I'm putting up for sale in my supply shop. If I decide I want to use a listed cab I can always drop the listing and use it. Also I have enough cabs to keep me busy for quite a while at the rate I'm (not) using them.

All of my cabochons are made using compatible fusing glass in a digitally controlled kiln. Quite a bit of work goes into the making of these and they are fired a minimum of two times.

I prefer clean, precise shapes in my cabochons. I think growing up in rockhound country has influenced my ideas of what a cabochon should be. Smooth, clean, polished shapes, rounded on the edges.

My cabochons start with me fusing dichroic sheet glass with either a base glass or top it with a clear glass "cap". I call these fused glass pieces "slabs".

I take these slabs and draw the desired cabochon shapes onto the slab. I take my time pondering and agonizing over the best, most efficient use of the glass slab in front of me.

I rough cut the shapes out of the glass slab using a Taurus III ring saw. As these are rough I use a grinder to clean up the shapes. If I think the cabochon is to thick I will use a flat beveling grinder to thin these cabochons. I do this more for earring cabs that pendant cabs to reduce the weight. I also grind a bit of a bevel on the edges to help round them out nicely during the fire polishing cycle. Once I've finished shaping them I switch to a channeling bit on the grinder. It grinds channel or groove that can be used for wire wrapping the cab. After all of this I prep the cabs for another cycle in the kiln. I treat the ground edges with a devitrification solution to ensure a shiny, polished finish. When the solution is dry into the kiln they go for a final fire polishing. When they come out I check them for quality. If I'm not happy another round of grinding, flat grinding and channeling will ensue.

New Jewelry Pieces & A Business Decision

So I fianally had the time and energy to make some new pretties! And I've even managed to get some listed! These are the first pieces I've made ALL year.

The first is the elegant Wire Wrapped White Dichroic Glass Jewelry Set. Three of my handmade dichroic fused glass cabochons all wrapped up into 14k gold filled netted wire bezel settings accented with white crystal beads. I am really impressed with this design style!

The second are these lovely Wire Wrapped Tanzanite & Cobalt Blue Dichroic Glass Glass Dangle Earrings.
Yum!

I have also made up a bunch of rings and am working on getting them listed. Two down and more to go.

Business Decision-With everything going on in my busy life, running two businesses, one brick & mortar and a job delivering papers equals 11 hour work days during the week. My time and energy is rather limited now . Add in this horrible economy that appears as if it's only going to get worse.

I find I have been asking myself several things lately. What can I do to make my life easier and simpler? To reduce my workload and stress? One thing I thought/realized is "Why should I waste my precious time and energy making things I don't truly love and enjoy creating?" So with this in mind I have decided to create only that which I truly love and enjoy. And I love and enjoy the challenge of designing and making intricated wire wrapped dichroic glass jewelry so this is what I will be focusing on from now on!

Also I have noticed that those who ARE buying are not worried about price. They are buying what they really love. A friend of mine who works for a retail clothing outlet store agrees. She says people are buying that which looks expensive and that they are shying away from that which looks cheap.

Minecraft!

IOTD, Pink Ice Gemmies, Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Earrings.

I've had a nice weekend. My fusing class went fairly well I think. Had fun anyway!

Otherwise I had a fairly relaxing weekend. I still have to play plumber with my toilet. It evidently needs to be "snaked" and of course I can't find mine. Either going to ask the plumbers behind me if I can borrow one or I'll have to buy a new one.

I have to admit to something. I am addicted to the game "Minecraft". My boys got me hooked. I love it-except when my laptop overheats causing me to lose my file-grrrr. I like to think of it as that proverbial cardboard box-for adults! You know you give a child a large cardboard box and it becomes the vehicle for their imagination to take off. It could be a race car, rocket or firetruck! Minecraft, to me, is similar. Your imagination is the limit. One can dig, build and explore. I've always wanted to carve out a mountain and make a house, err castle!

Cookin' In The Kiln!

I'm cookin' tonight, glass that is! This shelf of beauties are cooking as we speak. This is the final stage in the process. A trip though the kiln to give them a nice smooth, polished look and feel. The bottom picture turned out blurry, but the color of the white cabs is good.

As of tomorrow morning they will be taken from the kiln, wiped off and all ready for packing! Some will be sent off for others to have fun with while others will go into my supply shop and the rest into "The Hoard". I plan to have the completed orders ready for shipping by Monday.

BUT I'm not done making cabs yet. I have more slabs yet to fuse and more cabs to cut! Still haven't cut into the big piece of rainbow ripple on black! And then there are the confetti cabs I plan to make and some out of that lovely pink and green glass. ;)

Ornament Dichroic Glass Wire Wrapped Earrings

I went to finish the last pendant that has a matching pair of finished earrings. I was almost done with it and then I broke the 20 gauge wire where it meets to make the bail. Evidently I played too much with it while getting it to fit. I have to get more 20 gauge wire before I can try again. So I apaologize for not having any new pretties to show.

OH-I think I can share the earrings! Yes, I do have a picture and here they are, my "ornament" earrings!

Pumpkin Spice Dichroic Earrings & Pendant

Here is the newest finished set! This is the pendant I had hoped to get wrapped yesterday. I had planned to list it and the matching earrings tonight, but had problems uploading the pictures. I'll try again later. I finally found a name for the blue set, Blue Dragon Scales Earrings and Necklace, courtesy of help from my on-line friends. Thank you all for the wonderful suggestions and your help!

My aunt left her eight month old border collie/lab mix for a playdate with our golden girl, Miss Lacy. We try to let them play together at least once a week. With all of our lovely rain my front yard is now a muddy mess. While my aunt and I were out shopping they wrestled and played in that mud. I came home to a "black" muddy golden. So I had to wrestle the poor terrified, 60 odd pound baby into the shower. To say she is scared of the shower is a bit of an understatement. She howled and cried throughout the process! I decided that my belated gift to my ex for his birthday was his bathed puppy.

Custom Ring & Aurora Borealis

Here's today's project, a custom wire wrapped ring that was commissioned. I'll be dropping it off tomorrow. I'm grateful to have managed several good color pictures of it!

I have never done any fusing where I've fused dichroic on top of dichroic or so I thought until I was taking a close look at this cab this morning. Turns out I layered blue-magenta-green clear ripple onto clear and then layered
black cherry clear ripple on top of that. Then because the colors didn't show I set it aside for a couple of years. So it has taken me a couple of years to fuse the slab onto white glass to show off the colors!

I finally came up with a name for this set today and listed them in my Artfire studio. I named them Aurora Borealis Earrings and Aurora Borealis Pendant.

Fuschia Delight Earrings & Pendant

Here is another new set. It is in soft shades of fuschia. I love the soft colors. I listed the earrings and pendant earlier in my Artfire studio I also listed all these sets in my Etsy store.

I also caught up on my photography this evening. Now I can finish listing the rest of my pieces!

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!