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Showing posts from 2015

The soon to be coming winter colours of snow white and clear ice

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Wedding Signing Pen - One of a Kind  - One Available With this pen in your hands, imagine signing a book at the wedding? I've had this "6" ball point blank pen" in brushed aluminum for a bit now and while preparing my wares to display and sell tomorrow, I decided to finish it with my white and clear hand-made lampwork beads. It works wonderfully together for a perfect fit. Just as instantly, I thought wedding, why of course! I must say it feels pretty significant in the hands. It has a really nice weight to it. It has a tiny lacy spacer bead on top of a white stripped bead, a white bead with raised clear dots, a clear bead with three white flowers, another bumpy bead, a large clear and white lacy bead, and a medium sized clear bead with a row of flat white dots for a total of 7 beads. I am packing it away for its' debut tomorrow at the " A Gift of Art " Christmas Show and Sale in the beautiful Newcastle Community Town Hall .  I will also deb

Snowflake Ball Donation

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My donation to the Snowflake Ball in Ottawa ... and hoping it gets listed on their website soon. It was a donation I made earlier this year, and they are now waiting for all the donations to come in first, before they list them... is what I have been told. The necklace is a hollow transparent handmade bead on a 30" sterling silver chain with a larger toggle clasp which I incorporate into the design. The solid sterling silver earrings are made with simple white and clear stripes which I love to make. Stripes are fun to make. Simple elegance with timeless pieces.

Peony Jewellery

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Here is a sneak peak at my latest line. I can't wait to introduce you to my full blooming peony jewellery this weekend at the Peony festival in Oshawa . I think I will call it "forever blooms" but I am not 100% certain as of yet. I will be adding these and all my jewellery on ETSY, or some other venue in the coming months. It is allot of work, but because I won't be doing many shows this summer, I thought I'd at the least get it all online. So, without further ado, may I present to you forever blooms! a more traditional style with a tail of crystals side view to show some more detail modern drop finish. I will have about 5 of these available. view from above, shows how you would see it while wearing it another birds eye view of the three full blooms not peonies, but similar pink flowers with modern ear hooks, all solid sterling silver too made with a tail too, but shorter and works well on a choker chain, only one available

fourth day of peony trials

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Hey, I think I have solved the peony puzzle! Three different canes were pulled, the careful layering of dots, I think 12 in total for each flower, then three flowers per bead, and then covering all the opaque glass with the final encasing. It is not that easy and many techniques are used. Not that I am any kind of a glass master, far from it, but these do take a fair bit of skill to make. These here have a tiny bit of glass scum, but I think they still look pretty good, even from the side view, shown on the far right. Okay, heading to make some more, and hopefully I'll catch the scum before it gets added. This new line will be my "always in full bloom" series. If there is any interest, I will make a PDF. Click on the photo to get a real up close of the detail.

Peonies, Peonies and even some glass Peonies...

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Hello and welcome to summer 2015! Seems we kee p vacillating between spring's cooler weather and a really hot summer day. So when its been cooler outside, I've been working away on some new glass cane and then I made these beads. I had a bit of a "proud feeling" to have found these in the kiln the next day because it seems I had found a solution for the wavy petals. I made another cane for the middle part as well. I love how they turned out. They really do look like peonies. Of course I'll never be as perfect as Blaschka ! His amazing glass plants were used for botany study at Harvard and were commissioned by the Ware family. Leopold and his son worked their entire lives, yes, I'll repeat, their entire lives, 24 -7 making tiny replications of the wonders of nature. It is definitely on my bucket list to see these collections one day, and the links above are great sites of his work for you to see. Here my peonies are made with 3 layers of petals and cl

Just sharing

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Just sharing my love of flowers. One day last week, I made about 7 hearts in a 6 hour day. All the cane was prepared ahead the day earlier. I took breaks, but when you are on a roll and its going well, its going well. You have to pay attention all the time, you need to know your steps of what you are doing and you must be in control of the glass. I had a mini breakthrough and discovered a new trick for the bail and I will use it forever! Just something so simple, but made all the difference in the world, and that is to prepare a bump where it will attach first. I will show you the peonies I did today later on. They are also very labour intensive and the beads are large, well allot larger than what I normally work with. I always think about the end result and how heavy it would be to wear, so they definitely won't be good as earrings, but we'll see. Anyways, I added yet another center cane, a yellow stamen, and it turned out beautiful. So these will have three layers of pe

Expect the Unexpected 2015

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I am delighted to share with you that I will be participating as a guest artist on the  Durham West Studio Tour  held this weekend on April 25th and 26th from 10:00am to 5:00pm. I will be one of three guest artists at The Cultural Expressions Art Gallery at 62 Old Kingston Road, Pickering . This free, self-guided tour of 30 Artists at 14 locations is where you the visitor, will get a unique opportunity to engage with working artists and invited guests in their studio spaces to discuss techniques and processes. Many of the artists will have their presented works available for purchase, all adding to the idea of the event as a virtual treasure hunt where you will certainly expect the unexpected. Here is a peak at some of the preparations. On the left is the glass bead making station where it all  starts. Effetre soft glass rods are heated and wrapped around a stainless steel rod that has been previously dipped in a ceramic medium. This ceramic medium is very simila