Frankie in Soda Lime Times

If you are a flameworking beadmaker, and haven't subscribed yet to Diane Woodall's Soda Lime Times, you are missing a great deal.

This month has the Halloween issue and I have a tutorial for Frankie, (pictured above) in it.  But within the 52 pages, (yes, that much!)  there is tons of content in her monthly subscribtion e-zine.  It is so worthwhile.  I have been beadmaking for about 12 years, and each issue teaches me something new.

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.

Meet Guppy ~ From Plushie to Focal Bead

Meet Guppy. Guppy is the favorite stuffed animal of one of my customers' little girl. Apparently, Guppy isn't allowed to go everywhere the little girl goes, so her Mom decided to find her a stand in who could.

So she contacted me through my etsy shop and sent me a variety of photos of this beloved pink seal. I was touched. Obviously this is a well loved "friend" and as a fellow Mom, I have my memories of how attached my kids became to certain toys.

So let's talk about the process a little. How did I get from step A to step B?

I looked at the shape, the texture and the face on Guppy, to decide how to form this and where the hole needed to be.

Then I picked my colors, which you fellow glass artists know are limited, when it comes to pinks.
I used the Effetre pink and CIM's Gelly pink for the two shades.

My first two efforts, (not shown) were pretty scary. I had tried to give Guppy some texture, so she'd look more like a plushie, but she looked more like a seal wearing a lion costume, as I added fur around her little face. Needless to say, those two got scrapped, but they were helpful in figuring out the body shape and flippers.

On to a smoother and more refined Guppy. No textured fur. I built the body like a large donut shape at first. I wanted to get my height of the body with that. Then I started adding on to parallel sides. A little bit on the side where I would attach the head and face and a lot of glass onto the back side. It looked a little like an asymmetrical torpedo. I wasn't worried about the exact shape at first on the back flipper end, but wanted to get the mass of glass in place.

I added the head in the Effetre pink and flattened the part where the CIM pink face would go. Two dots where the eyes would be added and then the face. Just a bit of black stringer for the simple eyes and nose. I chose not to make the whiskers, because when they're fine lines, they tend not to look very good...at least when I make them.

I shaped the front flippers with a little bit of detail made with pliers and then heated the back flipper side and slightly pulled it out for the elongated shape. I added to large dots of CIM and gently mashed them for the back flippers. A little more plier work for details (and maybe a touch of razor blade for more definition and we were good to go. Guppy is on her way to be wrapped for Christmas. What a fun gift and an everlasting memory.

You can see more angles of Guppy in the sold section of my shop. Just click here to get to it.

Do you have family favorite items that can be translated into glass memories? Or have you done it already? This was my first custom order like this and I really enjoyed making it. I could easily imagine a little girl loving that pink seal.

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!

New Tutorial in My Etsy Shop

I thought about all my online coaching and how much I enjoy it. And perhaps there are some people who would like to take it a step farther than the bits and pieces that I offer in my blog.

So here is my first tutorial that is listed in my Etsy shop. Meet Santa Claus. I go through step by step each part of making this bead as well as the preparation needed and some alternatives to how and why I'm doing things.

Santa would love to come visit you before Christmas Eve and he would make a great ornament, focal or even package decoration.

Stop by my etsy shop and enjoy.

http://www.StudioMarcy.etsy.com

My, What Big Eyes You Have

Meet Norah and her personal bluebird of happiness, Kenley.

Norah has some pretty big eyes. Not exactly "piercing", but they do stand out on her face.

I wanted to show you another use for commercial murrini. Sometimes we buy murrini and then wonder what we're going to do with it. I like finding non-traditional ways of using it. Eye balls suit my personal style of lampworking.

Instead of sinking the murrini all the way in so it is even with her face, I left it partially raised, to give her a wider eyed look.

The amethyst shading around the edges rocks. I didn't have to add eyebrows, which would have been too much for her face. This keeps it simple so the eyes really stand out.

Kenley was added for fun. For years I have made a series of beads of women with birds sitting on their hats or hair and called them "Bird Brains". I guess they're semi-autobiographical.

Norah and Kenley are currently residing in my etsy shop,
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15569723

Cactus... Inspiration and Free Tutorial

Inspiration always comes from funny places. Sometimes it's as simple as something that is staring you in the face.

When my son came home from college, he brought two cactus with him. One of them was this one pictured. He added the mustache, which is a family joke.

This inspired me to make some of my own cactus in brighter colors that I prefer as you can see. These don't hurt like the original ones when you touch them, and they even require LESS watering. This one is available in my etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15088842

If you'd like to make a cactus of your own, here's a quick tutorial.
104 COE Soft Glass Needed:
Pea green (opaque)
Transparent Grass Green
CIM Gelly Pink
Transparent Pink - any one (not sure which one I used)
1/16th mandrel, pliers, marver and of course, torch and kiln

The main stem is your base bead. Lay on the pea green in a modified barrel shape. Make it as long as you want. I usually keep mine under an inch. I want to keep it a little larger at the base and slightly taper off towards the top. On purpose, I don't want it to be exactly even and sometimes we need to change old habits of perfect symmetry.

To build the "arms", I heat up a gather of of the pea green (better for it to be a little too much than too little). Then I heat up the place on the base cactus where I want to place it. Hot glass to hot glass melds and connects much better than if one side isn't pre-heated. I hold both pieces of glass together for a second for them to connect and place that section in the edge of the flame to make sure that is totally joined. Then I slowly hold the gather rod at a perpendicular position and barely pull out and then change the angle so the arm becomes an "L" shape. I flame cut the end of the glass slightly tapering it at the time. Repeat for the other arms that you choose to add. Remember, this piece needs to be thought of as a pendant, so you need to have at least one side, where it will lay well against the body.

Now to add the needles. As you can see, they are simple dots laid down in vertical lines along the cactus. I like to start with one line on a totally open side, and then work around the cactus.

Finally the flowers are ready to be added. I make base medium sized dots- kind of like a basic flower petal shape in the opaque pink. I like 5 dots, because it's an uneven amount and when you're going around the mandrel, you can make it with that number, as long as they're large enough. On top of the opaque dots, I add bits of the transparent pink to add a little depth. Then I take my pliers and squish them out to petal shapes. Just twist and turn them a bit to make them look the way you want.

Hope you enjoy making this cactus and that you have as much fun with sculptural beads as I do. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. You can post here, or convo me through my etsy shop, http://www.StudioMarcy.etsy.com

I would love to do a follow up on this Cactus How-To. After you make your cactus, please send me a photo of it, so I can post it here to show others.

Marcy