Ice Cream In Cold Weather- Here's a Tutorial on How To Make Your Own

To me, it's never the wrong time of the year for ice cream, no matter how cold outside it is.

I thought I'd tell you how to make your own ice cream cone, so when the warm weather hits, you can have plenty on hand.

1. Using dark ivory, make a small cone.  I use my torch mounted marver to roll it out.

2. Using the ice cream color of your choice, start adding glass to the top of the cone shape and once you have the top section full enough, gently melt it so it becomes rounded and smooth.

Hint: be sure to rotate your mandrel so the glass can flow into place,  I often have my mandrel upside down, so the glass flows next to the mandrel and rounds out on the very top.

3. Now you're ready to add your "drips".  At the bottom edge of the "ice cream scoop",  I make "V" shapes with more glass.  I also take the end of my rod and drag it farther down, if I need to.

Melt slightly so it's smooth.

4. With a razor or the sharp edge of your Stump Shaper, carve a circle around the original scoop, so it shows well.  That also pushes glass in each direction and enhances your drips.

5. With your razor,  gently heat one area at a time on the cone and make your diagonal slashes.  I do one direction first and then the other direction afterwards.

6. Using a red of your choice, you can add the cherry on top.

7.  Voila!  A calorie free ice cream cone ready for you.

If you want to purchase a ready made ice cream cone, click here.  And don't forget, I'd be happy to make one in your favorite flavors...just ask me.

And if you haven't joined in yet, check out my One World, One Heart post below.  The details to win Scoot the Valentine Pup are in it.  This goes through February 12th.

See you tomorrow.

How To: Celebrate with a Lampwork Bottle of Champagne

Let's get this party started!  Nothing like a bottle of champagne and all those cute little bubbles tickling your nose, as you sip away.

How about making your own champagne with no grapes, oak barrels or fermentation needed?

This bead is about 1.5" tall.  I used a 1/16th mandrel with Dip 'n Go Blue Sludge bead release.

I always start at the "bottom" of my beads.  I'm left handed and work right to left across my mandrel.

Using Moretti sage green, I made a modified bicone and rounded up the center.  The bottom of the bottle is a truncated shape.  I didn't need that end of the bicone to be long and slim.    You could also build a barrel and let it round up in the middle a bit and marver the top end of it into shape.  As I don't have any champagne at home, the sale section of the Sunday newspaper had a good photo in a liquor store advertisement for reference.

So now we have the green bottle part and it's time to add the white neck.  Pretty simple once you break the bead down into shapes, isn't it?  Now you build the long white neck as a very slim barrel. Either a commercial or hand pulled white stringer will make it easier.  

To add the cork shape on the very end, I just make a small donut shape on the end of the barrel. Then I very gently roll and marver it down into shape.

Towards the end, I use my gold aventurine hand pulled stringer.  It's stiffer than the white glass, so keep that glass just barely warm, so it doesn't mush around on you.  Just make a few wraps and add as needed to get it the right thickness.  This covers your connection between the white and green glass and makes it look more finished.  Then I heat the surrounding area just a bit to marver it into shape.

My last step is to add the label onto the front.  I make three dots with the largest one in the center and two smaller ones on either side.  I gently flatten them to make the "gold" part of the label.  Then I add a white dot to the center over the top, to mimic the label on the original bottle.

These champagne bottles are great to make for gifts for friends.  Whether it's a wedding, baby, new relationship, (end to an old one?!), or even a new pet, there's always something that can be celebrated.

I'd love to see the ones you make.  And please, feel free to sell them too.  It's fun to share some of these shapes and if you make something based on this free tutorial, please send me a photo so I can enjoy it too.  I can see someone specializing in some of the bottle shapes and having a line of them to sell.  Wine bottles, champagne, beer...I bet there are customers out there for all of those.  (If you make them out of recycled glass, it could be a win/win situation too!)  It would be fun to see some of the wine and champagne glasses with this line too.

Meanwhile, if you have a moment, pop by my Etsy shop to see my latest offerings.  I add new ones daily.

Follow Up From Music Video Beadmaking

I wanted to show you my little girl from the Blind Melon video, "No Rain" , which I posted about on October 30th.

She was a little harder to make than I had guessed and this is my second attempt.  

When working in sculptural glass, it's always important to choose the order of sculpting and adding glass to manipulate it.  The most delicate usually goes last, so there's less chance of it cracking.

As you can see, the  bee antennae are pretty delicate and would chill easily.  Then there are the ruffles that will get cool , because they're kind of thin.

But the part that I hadn't thought as clearly about were her glasses, which are so important to the bead.  In the video, the glasses are as much a focus as her costume.

These I premade out of copper wire.  And the ends needed to be tucked under her hair.  So they went on pretty early.  And as my beadmaking readers know, copper melts pretty easily.   On my first bead,  a few flakes of the copper glasses came off on her face and the glasses had a small piece that was melted out of them.  

I had to add her eyeballs after the glasses  and of course her face needed to be warm enough to receive the tiny stringer I was using.  Good lessons learned and now I have my original Bee Girl in my bead box without glasses, with a clean face and so very cute. (A little facial surgery as well as Laskik was performed.)   Still deciding what to do with her next.  I'm rather fond of her.  For more views of this custom order, visit her in my Etsy shop.

ps...and her photo background was one of my experiments gone bad.  Do NOT use white paper towels thinking they'll add a nice "texture" to the photo!

Beaders Showcase, Have You Joined Yet?

Have you checked out Beaders Showcase yet?
http://www.BeadersShowcase.com
(You can click on the photo to enlarge the view.)

I joined last week. It is one of the growing websites that mixes all kinds beads, beadmakers, bead stringers, and everyone else in between.

This type of website to me is very helpful. I like to see what everyone is making. (and admire it) But not just to think it's pretty, but also because it also shows me trends in what jewelry makers are doing and gives me inspiration for some of my beads that I make. This website also has a lot of international members. Seeing what is done in other countries broadens my knowledge base, but also is just plain old fascinating to me too.

And who can resist a website that features video tutorials? Oh my, I'll be in heaven. For as much as I love the written word, to me, I love seeing how something is done. I hope a lot of people add more to the website's library.

Here's a screenshot of half of the home page to give you an idea of what they're about. This global website is not about marketing your work. It's about showcasing what you have and sharing with others. It's run by Jeff Pritchard and his wife, and the members even have an area for voting for planned changes. So you have a say in its direction too. Stop by for a visit and check it out.

Happy weekend to you,
Marcy