Jumping Back In

It's been a busy summer for me with long periods of solitude and time to make beads and jewelry.

I am so surprised that it's turned into a full time job for me.

I decided to dig out some of my Thai silver hoard and use a few pieces from time to time.

These were some polymer pieces I made using Blue Bottle Tree's Rustic Beads tutorial.

How wonderful it is to have a stash of your own handmade components at the ready.

    

I picked out some of my own torch fired numi-sticks for this set and dug into what was one of my first ever bead catalog purchases (before online catalogs even!)

Those little jasper heishi beads are from that very first haul.

I've been making some extra large and bulbous "end of the rods scraps of the day"  headpins that I call my "embonpoint " series. I've been selling some of these in my etsy shop from time to time.

 You don't need to add much to call them earrings. I used a couple of my "Spacey Crusters" and some Faerystones earwires here with a few little African brass spacers.

 

I found that Petra's Scorched Earth ceramic pieces were the perfect accompaniment to  these lovely geode slices.

In case you thought I was going too neutral on you I made these "Fruity Coodlers"

They are an offshoot of my "Spacey Crusters"

"Spacey Crusters" of course!

Just Crust if you Must

Or Lustrous and Crustrous

Extree Long Numi-sticks with abbreviated headpins (redo from another set) and some of RaggedRobyn's wonderful stoneware beads

Another set using beads from the beginnings of my bead hoard. Resin Filled stamped Thai silver beads that were brought back to me by a friend before I had ever even visited Thailand. 1995 or so?

It was before I was even lampworking I'm sure.

We took a trip to Lake Michigan to gather up some Leland Glass. What fun!

Leland Slag glass is a by-product of the iron industry  in the late 1800's when they mixed limestone and coal to extract the ore. The waste product was this beautiful glass that they deposited in Lake Michigan and it's still washing up to this day.

 I purchased this Leland slag glass cabochon thought from a  local shop in the town of Leland

OK, still a fan of creepy baby dolls here. Antique store score. 

She's squeezable and she squeaks!

Some of my first murrini ever. Yeah I've been making lampwork beads for almost 20 years and never made murrini. i think part of it was that I thought it was too graphic for my organic style. I've gotten over that now.

Cuz you can crust it up and do this!

Oh man, I just discovered this new "Avorio Lapis" glass too!

I can't seem to make enough of these Numi-Sticks. Who would think people shopping at our farmer's market would be buying them?

I have been on an etch-a-thon lately. Seems to befit the "oobers"

A little view of Bar Harbor and the Porcupine Islands from Cadillac Mountain

Sorry it's blurry - instagram to facebook to here

 An erupting poppy from the yard.

Summer is over already here in Alaska, we've had frost and snow already.

Just a few more months here before we head south for warmer climes. Missed you all!

Kim

New Components

Taking a side trip to explore some new components.

These are crusty lampwork glass bead caps or they could be considered beads in themselves.

They certainly are NOT going to be uniform in any way other than color and being domed.

Cuz you know that's the way I roll...randomnosity

Criffles' little cousins. 

I need to come up with a name for these caps.

randomnosities?

I'm already feeling like high grading them for myself which only means I need to make more.

A studnik sandwich anyone?

I'm taking a bit of a break from the matchsticks as I have been experiencing some vision problems.

Probably has nothing to do with the torch but I thought I'd take a break just the same.

I have an eye doctor appointment on Thursday.

I'll be listing some of these babies soon.

more steampunkture

da undaside

loving each other

Lampwonk shiny feeler gap gauge

So I was doing a little destash and helping out a fellow designer that said she might be running a little low on supplies. We just can't have that. And knowing that she's on a neutrals color spree currently that made it a little easier to pare down the choices.

What I didn't expect is that it would turn into a trade and I got this pile of goodies back!

And she sent me these! 

by Darlicioushouse on Etsy.

She went straight to work with the supplies.

You can already see how she made a moose's tooth into a pin!

or you can check out her blog Darlicious Rejuvenations here

Back to the Alaskan Garaj Mahal Studio

I had some nails waiting for me in my studio when I returned north.

My friend Mountain Heather that makes simply wonderful hats had asked me last year when she was in the Adirondacks whether I thought that I could use some old barn nails that she had found.

This was before I had thought of lampworking onto rusty  nails. I knew that I would be able to use them for something so  how nice it was to return to this stash of antique nails  to use. I had brought a few of my feeler gap gauges back home too.

Then there was a hardware store in our little town that had been closed since the pipeline days in the 70's. The were having a sellout sale at half price 70's prices. They were Alaskan prices mind you  which were quite high in comparison to stateside prices but still quite a good deal. So when I found a case of the cut nails that I was about to buy in a regular hardware store I knew I had clear the shelves of whatever they had. So these are truly vintage nails although they were brand new out of the box.

I got my new ridgy press to play with and definitely experimenting with going outside the press.

This one came out lopsided so I decided to pierce the more bulbous edge and quite liked the effect.

More edgy ridgies....the tootsie roll pop effect

It's a great big crusty whorl

Criffle crazy~ blue ink color

"Cirrus" color from two different lots of the same kind of glass.

You can see that two of the strike opaque and the other three are semi opaque .

Funny glass....and funny scan too

I think this color is called "kryptonite"

"Fremen" with frit and soda technique

New colors! I got a shipment in today. so exciting to try out some new ones.

Back when I first started making beads in the late 90's the palette available was much more limited.

They're coming out with so many new odd colors with a much more organic look that I prefer. 

Clockwise from the top

Blueberry Shake

Mojito

Mint Lozenge

Lichen

I'll have to get back to you on the next one ...I forget

and in the middle the pale ones are Strawberry Shake and 

Orange  Flint.

They change colors in the flame with the addition of the *frit and the baking soda.

The pure colors can come out quite different.

                                                 * Frit is crushed glass and the kind I use is called reduction frit which has metallic oxides in it that can change the way a glass looks.

a couple more ridgy guys

It still may be a bit before I list these, the weather hasn't been cooperating lately with some fierce winds. I need to get my photography setup figured out now at this place. I had finally found the most ideal set-up for good photos down in Arizona so bear with me please.

Feel free to contact me if you care to put anything on reserve before it hits my Etsy shop.

I'm more than happy to oblige.