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.

Two New Ring Listings!

I'm finally back to listing! I've started with the newest "batch" of rings I've made up.

The first one is my Adjustable Gold & Blue Ripple Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Ring in sterling silver. I've used a larger cabochon in this one and so as to make it lay on the finger better I have slumped it so that curved to fit your finger. ;)

The second in my Adjustable White Opalescent Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Ring in 14 gold filled wire. I really wish I could of caught how intense the colors in it are. Their is a whole rainbow of iridescent colors in it, purples, pinks, coppery red-orange, gold, blues greens and more. It truly is prettier in person.

Also I realized I haven't announced that I am offering free shipping on everything in my studio-Willow Walker Designs for the holidays!

The past week and half has been a rough one for me with my new "real job" delivering papers in the wee hours of the morning, fighting a cold and trying (not always successfully) to get enough sleep to function. I do believe that once I get over this cold and have adjusted to a new sleep schedule things will be much easier. I do feel as if a lot of stress has been removed from my shoulders and I have more respect for myself now that I am a "productive" member of society. This will also allow me to have a steady income to get my teeth fixed, not to mention money for more glass and gemmies! :)

Pink Beauty Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Earrings

Here is my newly listed Pink Beauty Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Earrings. A pair of my handmade dichroic art glass cabochons wrapped in enameled copper wire with garnet beads and crystal briolettes. Another addition to the Elegance Collection!

Have you you signed up for my give away yet? Details are in my previous posts.

Blue Roses, Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Earrings

Here is today's lovely new listing for the Elegance Collection-Blue Roses, Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Earrings. A pair of of my handmade dichroic art glass cabochons in rich shades of blue and aqua. Wire wrapped into 14k gold filled frames and embellished with handmade gold wire roses. I've finished them off with matching handmade wire rose earwires.


I forgot to mention that the drawing for the giveaways will take place on November 10, 2010. The winning names will be posted here on my blog no later than November 11, 2010. (I do have jury duty November 2 thru November 15th. If for some odd reason I am tied up due to this I will draw & post the names as soon as I can!)


I'm only listing one new item per day due to the fact I watched to much Netflix and unintentionally used 75% of my monthly allowance in the first ten days of this month. (blush)

New "Incidental" Art Deco Collection!

I had a lot of fun designing these pieces. And a couple of pieces have given me a niggling feeling when I looked at them. You know how the piece/picture invokes a tickle in the brain? Enough to notice, but not strong enough to figure out the "why". I was looking at some books yesterday for design inspiration. One of them was Art Deco designs. Today when listing a pair of pink earrings it finally hit me. The clean, contemporary lines are classic Art Deco styling! So introducing my incidental Art Deco collection is this fun little slideshow! By the way all these pendants and most of these earrings are listed in my Artfire studio and on sale! The rest of the earrings will be listed shortly!

Winning A Place In the Juried Exhibition!

Remember these three beauties? They were my entries for a juried art exibit in a gallery that will be held later this fall. Those that made the show would receive notification by e-mail on September tenth. Well Friday came and went along with Saturday. Disappointment since no e-mail from the gallery means I didn't make it into the show. I was already resigned to the fact I hadn't made it when I checked my e-mail this afternoon and guess what I found? My acceptance e-mail!!!! All three of my entries have been accepted. I will be shipping these off to the gallery this week. I am so excited! After the pieces arrive they will be further juried to see how the pieces compare to their pictures. There will be awards for the winners of this exhibit. At this point, for me just making it in is a large reward! To think my pieces will be exhibited for a month in a gallery.

New Etched Earrings!

I listed these beauties in my Artfire studio today- Golden Autumn Leaves and Rainbow Butterflies. Also listed a couple of new pendants.

I am working on another pair of fancy earrings. They have "mutated" a bit from my original idea, BUT they look even better!!!

Signed up and picked a space for the new Bend Indoor Market starting just down the road from me. I hope this will turn out to be a good venue for me. My son is a bit disappointed as he was hoping I'd take his birthday off. It shouldn't affect his birthday too much-I'll let him take the weekend off from helping me.

Catching Up

I am finally starting to catch up on my listings. Today I finished listing all of the two tone Modern Bold earrings after finishing the pendants. So now I can start listing the etched earrings, like these frolicing Blue Dolphin Dichroic Glass Earrings.

Don't forget that these are on sale in my studio, Willow Walker Designs! If you purchase matching earrings and pendant use the coupon code "SETS" during checkout to receive an additional five dollars off! Take advantage and start your holiday shopping early!

New "Elegance" Collection

I have been working on a new style, I'm calling "Elegance" These are fancy and challenging. I really, really enjoy making these intricate pieces. I love these pieces-this is what I want to do with my dichroic glass cabochons. I have many more designs sketched out and am excited about getting to sit down and make them. Three of these have been submitted for a juried exhibition in a gallery. "Golden Rainbows", "Fire & Ice" and "Flight". I have another week before I know if I made it or not. I sure hope so! So here is a slideshow with all these new pretties for your viewing pleasure!

p.s. This weekend is a two day show at the Central Oregon Saturday Market. I will be there for both days!

Make your own slideshow design

Out With Old!

I managed to get these two pendants listed yesterday, Red Drop Dichroic Glass Wire Wrapped Pendant and White Dichroic Glass Wire Wrapped Pendant-"White Dragonscale". They have bee n listed ten dollars off the regular price for my Fall Clearance Sale.

Today I am listing all those pendants in the picture from my last post. Help me do some fall cleaning by taking these off my hands! I need the space in my booth and my studio for the new designs I am working on.

I have come to the realization that I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to come up with lower price point items to sell-and they just aren't doing well. Whether they are to much like pieces others have done or what I just don't know. I do know that when I try to make things to sell based on current styles, trends or to "fit" some kind of category-when I design something for other reasons than what I like I end up stuck with the pieces. So I have decided to be true to myself and make what I like and not worry about the current styles, colors and whatnot. When I allow myself the freedom to create what I like I get so much more enjoyment in the creation process and I save myself a lot of time, energy and stress!

New Pendant Style!

For the most part I have tried to take it easy today and be lazy. As you can tell my muse had other ideas! Up till now I hadn't found a way to make swirly wire wrapped cabs. I came across a variation of the "traditional" wire wrapped cabs with swirls-but it wasn't quite what I was looking for and I didn't want to buy a bunch of wire for it either.

A week ago Sunday when I was at the Crook County Gem & Mineral show I picked up two new wire wrapping books. I must confess that I have a weakness for books...I always love to see how others do things and I figure the more I learn the more I can expand my creativity. One of the pictures on the cover that caught my eye were swirly wrapped pendants. I had looked through the books and decided I would pursue them more later. Well later was this morning as I was trying to be lazy. . I was so excited when I looked at the swirly wrapped dichroic pendants in the book and realized that they were built around a channeled dichroic cabochons!!! My muse took over and I managed to wrap two today! I found the instructions to be confusing-BUT I was able to figure it out enough to make these. My fingers are sore and my muse is happy!

These are listed in my Artfire studio! Blue Dichroic Glass Swirled Wire Wrapped Pendant and Purple Dichroic Glass Swirly Wire Wrapped Pendant!

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! It has been a very awesome, albeit long Fourth of July for me. I had a great Saturday Market and an even better Fourth of July show. I finished thirty pairs of earrings. Here is one pair of them that I couldn't wait to share. I think they turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. What do you think? They are a gorgeous shade of purple and the way they sparkle...mmmm! I etched butterflies into the surface of the dichoic glass before fusing them. Afterwards I wrapped them in sterling silver and accented them with a lighter shade of Swavorski crystal bicones on sterling silver earwires.

All the hard work I did last week to get ready and make more earrings last week was definitely worth it to me, but now I am exhausted from going to long on too little sleep. So it is off to dreamland for me!

New Pendants & New Cabochons!

I have been so very busy these past few weeks. Weeding, driving my aunty around and working on glass. I've been so busy that I didn't even realize until this evening I haven't blogged in quite a while. (blushes in embarrassment)

So here is my works in progress. A bunch more cabs for earrings, pendants and rings. Also here are some cabochons that I have gotten finished in the past few weeks. I have been listing pieces and now have a bunch of my fancy Modern Bold Collection Pendants listed. I've also started listing some of my newer Image Pendants. And to top this all off I had the pleasant surprise of finding out that I am the featured AJDJSS, Artfire Jewelry Design & Jewelry Supply Shops studio of the week!

I will be at the Central Oregon Saturday Market tomorrow and will be at the Old Fashioned Fourth of July Show in Bend's Drake park on Sunday for the Fourth of July.

Weekend's Work

To stay busy whiling away the long hours of the show this weekend I wire wrapped all these lovely pieces!

Personalize your own free slideshow

Sadly it was another long, slow weekend. I feel the past two shows are probably indicative of the current financial climate in my area. I think that the slow sales I expected last summer have shown up for this one. My area's economy has not improved all that much and there still really isn't any work to be had. To top the whole mess off the unemployment benefits are getting close to running out, so who can afford anything extraneous.

New Image Pendants

Well...It appears I no longer can choose fonts...

Anyway here are some of my newly finished pendants. I got the images fired onto them last week and this is a quick shot I took of the ones I managed to get wrapped for the show. I love how these turned out!

Last weekend's show was very disappointing. We had excellent advertising yet not a lot of people showed up. And most of those weren't buying. I do hope next weekend is better. To top it off it looks like my biggest sale will be my first debit/credit card rip off. When it was phoned in we were instructed to "retain" the card....Still not bad for five years. And this just had to be the one time I forgot to get a phone number. I did check id and verify the signature. I will know more tomorrow.

All Cooked!

Here's the finished, fused pretties! I now have the findings on these and the glue is setting. I still have seven pairs of earrings to finish if the findings get here in time. ;)

I'm back to my "grueling" work pace. Rolling out of bed bright and early and getting right to work. As a result I have already fired a load of pretties to apply 22K gold decals and now have a "low fire" load cooking.

While the these have been/are cooking I have been busy gluing stuff up. Not only did I get the bails glued onto these I have also glued up a bunch of inexpensive adjustable rings and basic post earrings. So I now have those all restocked for this weekend.

My ex has cut one table down to 24 inches wide. Turns out they weren't 36 inches wide but 30 inches. And the legs are about 26 inches at the feet. Argh. Can't a person have some decentm sturdy tables without paying an arm and a leg?

Cooking In The Kiln!

Here's a sneak peek of what is cooking in the kiln tonight! A whole bunch of pendants and earrings. Most of these are for my new "Modern Bold" collection!

I have hit full blown "busy" mode. I have so much to do to get ready for my show season which starts this Saturday & Sunday with the opening weekend of the Central Oregon Saturday Market here in Bend. In the past I have had all my jewelry cleaned, re-priced and ready to go. And the majority of the prep work done. Between getting all that glass and other uncontrollable events I am a lot farther behind than usual! I had hoped to have an updated booth display. At this point I'll just be grateful if they can be trimmed down size-wise before then.

New Etching Adventures!

I have been up to more etching of designs into dichroic glass! The first picture shows two hand drawn, cut and etched designs. They are the pink and gold pieces. The gold is a salvage piece. I didn't leave the etching cream on it long enough the first time. This time I used some clear resist to re-do the pattern. I used clear resist and some dot stickers on the pinkish one! I used stars and dots to create the designs on the blue and silver pieces. I am really beginning to love stickers! I still have to finish cleaning the sticky off some of these before I fuse them.

The second picture is of a piece where I have tried a different technique of resist. My good friend Deronda thought of it. This is the resist technique used for etching metals-copper, brass, silver and I presume gold. Deronda sent me some ready to use resist transfers she printed. Notice the fine details! I think she had a great idea. I look forward to doing more! All these pieces are one inch by one and a half inches. You can find here beautiful beads and gorgeous etched copper pieces in her Artfire and Etsy shops, Deronda designs.

I have also came across something else I find quite interesting. It appears if I invest in the right kind of printer I will also be able to make my on decals for fusing! This will take more research though.

Other news-I'm sorry I haven't blogged for the past two days. I have just been too tired. Had a safe trip home from Hoaquim.

Disappointment Equals More Work

Here are the finished cabs. Upon closer examination I had to re-channel about two thirds of these and treat them as if the had devitrified. I etched them and have applied a boraxo solution to correct them.

Also note to myself-Do not EVER mess with my favorite fire polishing cycle. I may use a digital control box on my kiln, but the temperatures and holding time have been determined by my experience over time.

I etched the "doodles" I had ready. Here are the results. Unfortunately I didn't leave the etching cream on long enough on two of my favorites. I like the hearts, green fern and the swirls best. I definitely think some of my doodles are better off done using some resist paper.

I have more glass fusing into slabs in the kiln too.

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. ;)