Elvis Has Entered the Building?

Elvis has entered the building? Well, this Elvis impersonator has entered my Etsy shop at least. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14606866

His real name is Erwin Fescue and he plays the small clubs and lounges, but he's always aspired to be an Elvis impersonator in Vegas.

I demonstrated a similar Elvis Bobblehead for our International Society of Glass Beadmakers recently in California at our annual conference. Elvis is actually two beads connected with a spring, so he can bobble or even be worn on an interchangeable pendant.

And here's the rest of the story.
Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about being filmed making these two beads. I had not only had to make the two beads in under an hour, but I had to make him with expertise and not flub anything. I had prepared pretty carefully, by practicing at home. Well the morning of the taping, I thought about those close ups of my hands being filmed and how dry they looked. I didn't want lizard skin on film, so I used some of the hotel hand lotion in my room. Big mistake! Oh the lotion worked well, but perhaps a little too much. My hands were really slippery.

For those of you who aren't beadmakers reading this blog, we make our beads on steel mandrels which are about the thickness of those bamboo skewers that you use for making fruit shish kabobs. My beads are sculptural and not symmetrical like most beads, so the heavy part always "pulls" a bit as we continuously rotate them in circles to keep the molten glass in place. (your basic centrifugal force). Dang, I wasn't sure what to do about my uber-slippery hands.

So I started washing them... a lot. I would have been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive behavior, if you didn't know me. They were still slippery. After more scrubbing with hot water, I finally knew what to do. I took my nail polish remover and wiped them down to get any remaining lotion off of them. It dried them out. I was prepared to use our bead release, which is really drying if that other option hadn't worked.

Luckily, my hands looked okay after all I put them through, I didn't flub the filming and I learned a lesson, which I'm passing on to you.