Jeanetteka - Art and Glass

  The Oshawa Valley Botanical Gardens were simply stunning. The flowers were in full bloom and aroma. The live music and musicians were just delightful to hear and better than the previous year! To hear all that wonderful jazz and even an operatic singer while showing and selling my custom designed or one-of-a-kind jewels was a lovely treat. What a wonderful venue... despite the high heat and humidity on Saturday afternoon of 38 degrees in the shade. I was completely drenched when closing up for the day. We even came back to the gardens after our dinner to check that our tent hadn't blown away before heading back to Port Hope. We decided right then and there to also secure my tent to two nearby heavy metal garbage containers (in addition to our 30 pound water bags at every corner post). The next morning it went down an unbelievable chilly 17-18 degrees while setting up, and later on, the winds gust up to 50 kilometers and hour on Sunday afternoon! The wind is way more trou...

Spring is in the air and upcoming shows are on the horizon I've been busy like a bee, ironically making bee's and flowers for my upcoming garden shows in June. The first show will be June 11th at Oshawa's Botanical Gardens on 155 Arena Street for the Annual Peony festival , so I'm also making my infamous triple peony flower beads. I had a bit of a panic because last year when I came up with the design, I cannot find any of my notes or I didn't have any notes, but I also didn't even have any cane leftover either. Now, my memory isn't as sharp as it was even 10 years ago, but I did manage to jog it in a bit of an oh no panic induced moment. I actually remembered, and all is well because last week I made three or four of them. Thank goodness! It serves me right for not writing down exactly what steps I did. I used to write down everything when I worked for a publishing firm, but now being self-employed where time is even more money, how could I forgot, or a...

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...

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.

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

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.

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...