Beadbijoux

 Now that all the glass is unpacked and my studio is complete I'm back in the groove. That is until the next wave of sub-zero temperatures hit, or summer shows up and I spend all my waking moments outside . Until then I am getting as much torch time in as possible, playing with new techniques and bringing back some tried and true ' signature ' designs. For now I will be listing all my lampwork beads for sale in my Etsy shop . At some point I will hop back over to some of the Facebook selling groups and maybe even have a trunk show one day.  In the meantime, you can follow me on Etsy and/or Instagram to know when I list new beads for sale. Thanks for all your support over the years. I have the absolute best customers in the world!

It has been a long time coming, but my studio is complete. I couldn't ask for a more beautiful space to create and be inspired.  torching station dedicated cutting table so much storage! glass cabinet glorious counter space and a sink Hope you've enjoyed this little tour of my new studio. Now that the building and unpacking is complete, it is time to create.

While the world was thrown into a live action dystopian movie, yours truly needed even more disruption and chaos. If I didn't know better, I would almost think I enjoyed insanity as I tend to rattle my own world on a seemingly regular basis. Let's go crazy and build a house and move in the middle of a pandemic while the world is on fire and supply chain issues abound. Sounds like fun. While we are at it, let's also make sure the kids are ripped from the school district they've known since kindy and introduce them to a whole new lot of kids ... during hybrid learning and mask mandates making it even harder to meet people. And since we are on a roll, let's tear down the one thing that keeps mama sane and pack the studio up first to get it out of the way. MAKES TOTAL SENSE . Fast forward two years and here we are. We survived. The kids survived. The GLASS survived. And we are all happy and thriving and better than we were before. The house is amazing. Our new school d

I have long been a fan of crisp, clean design. I love modern, geometric, squared off things - from the shaker cabinets in my kitchen to the boxy modern sofa in the family room. One feature of fused glass that has always bothered me is the natural tendency of the glass to 'round off' on the edges after a firing. Quite honestly most people don't notice the difference and I am just ridiculously over analytical of it. Nevertheless, I set out on a quest to create a crisp, straight-edged design in my glass. Cue the cold-working. The only way to achieve such a look is through extensive cold-working - which is to manipulate the glass after it has been fired with equipment and hand tools and patience . Coldworking is not for the fair-weather glass artist or faint of heart. It takes a lot of nit picky futzing around. And muscle. My hands and arms are tired from all that buffing. These pieces all went through the saw blade, then the grinder disk, then the bevel disk, then th

#0877 Orchid A gold ruby where less is definitely more. This is a rich, dense ruby pink with warm undertones that looks its best when applied thin and not overworked. My favorite beads were those that used the least amount of frit. When piled densely on top of itself an almost brownish color resulted. The thinner areas gave way to a bright ruby pink, where the darker areas turned more burgundy. Working Notes Opacity : This is an opaque glass. A thick application over clear transmits very little light. A thin application over a darker base color stays solid and does not show the base color through. Spread : This glass behaved itself and stayed put. It didn't really spread or sink and held its shape. If you squint your eyes and look for it, you can see a tiny bit of color pooling on the coffee bead, but for the most part it lays down where you place it and looks the same. Futz Factor : I found this glass to be the least fussy of all the colors I tested. The un-encased st

#0477 Spring Rose More like perfect purple if you ask me - a lovely purple with blue undertones. Most opaque purples have warm reddish undertones, so the blue tones in this purple are refreshing and fill a gap in the 96 glass color palette. Working Notes Opacity : This is an opaque glass. A thick application over clear transmits very little light. A thin application over a darker base color sinks in and allows none of the base color to show. Spread : This glass sinks. When super heated it goes nowhere, but rather sinks into the base color and a color pooling starts to appear in the centers. You can see the darker blue spots pooling in the center on the olive bead. Futz Factor : I didn't notice much devitrification with this glass, but then again I always encase my opaque pinks and purples in clear. And since this glass doesn't spread, it didn't seep out of my clear where it was exposed to multiple heating and cooling cycles. The un-encased stringers I pulled