Been a while...

It HAS been a while since I last updated, and I apologize for that.  After I finished the SFU's PDP last year, I went into over-drive in trying to find employment in one of the local school districts.  No excuse, I know, for not doing anything creative.  However, my hard work paid off and I was hired on by Langley as a TOC (Teacher On Call) and actually lucked out enough to land a part-time continuing position as a Computer Explorations teacher at one of the nearby schools.  

 

What does any of this have to do with doing glass work?

 

Nothing.

 

It does, however, have a lot to do with NOT doing glass work.  Teaching, please remember, has been a passion of mine LONG before glass was.

 

That being said, it's also SUMMER!  Summer means that I am out of work (though I did get picked up for another contract in September), and chomping at the bit for creativity!

 

Nathan and I have been working on the outside of our place when the weather is good and we are able to sock away some time together to get stuff done around here.  We have already put up a new gate (the old one was falling apart).  We are putting in a garden area just inside the front gate, put up new fencing around the area the llamas and donkey will be most likely to get their lips around something from the garden, new steps to the sliding glass door, planters, planters, planters...you get the picture, right?  I snapped a couple quick pictures of the first two planters I put together.  I'm pretty happy with the results.  I'm a big fan of colour - bright and bold, if possible. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

I've also been able to get some torching done recently.  Are these all the beads that I've done?  Heck no!  I haven't had a chance (or the enthusiasm) to get outside and take a bunch of glamour shots of my glass work since I got back into the swing of things.  No worries, gentle readers, I will be posting more and more pictures as the summer months progress.  For now, please enjoy some eye candy...

See the full gallery on Posterous

I've found a great affection for Double Helix's silvered glass.  It's expensive, but it does the NEATEST things, especially if used sparingly.

Storming and a Beach Scene

Yes!!!  I was able to get a few beads done yesterday!  I recently purchased a tutorial on how to 'storm' silver glass by Amy Kinsch and I was able to get a nice storm out of Double Helix's 'Gaia' glass.  It's lightly stormed and I'm hoping that the colours don't change too much after it's come out of the kiln for annealing.

The two sides of my 'Beach' bead - I made the barnacles myself!

 

These are the 'storm' beads - the first two of many, I'm thinking!

My second 'implosion' bead...the first one didn't turn out very well, so I'm not even going to post it.  Plus it cracked.  Oh well.

Game Pieces

Yessss!  I got the kiln to slump itty bitty pieces of glass so they're all soft edges instead of sharp edges.  Why would I go through two experimental cycles of the kiln with a third cycle that finally worked for game pieces?  Ummm...'cause they're SUPER COOL game pieces!  My next step is going to be to make the game board for them.  I hope to make a few of these boards and bring them with me to the craft fair in October.

You can see how the edges are nicely rounded now - no sharp pieces for tender fingers!

This is the board I want to make...hopefully I can do it with my trusty Dremel tool.

Whoot! Got to melt stuff!

Yes, after a LONG time away from the torch, I finally managed to get some time with it last week.  Not a lot of time, but enough to remember why I love glass work so much and that I have to do more of it to stay sane for the next few months.

It's not that I've been busy doing any torch work (my goodness, I'd have to have time to myself to do THAT...), I;m just uploading some pics of older stuff so this place isn't so bare...

Death of a Website

I have finally had it with my website - I can't update pictures, the formatting doesn't come through...I'm done.  I likely won't be renewing it because it's been SUCH a pain in the ass.  So...I'm going to be posting anything new here instead of there.  I find that the websites Google is gracious enough to supply are good enough for me.  And the price is right.

How Unpleasant...

Sadly, the woman I did ALL those beautiful beads for never got back to me when I called her eons ago to let her know that her bookmarks were ready.  That's just disappointing and disrespectful.  Now I have almost a dozen bookmarks with these lovely beads on them: