"Inspire Me Blue" Treasury

A BLUE treasury that featured my cobalt blue stained glass lidded box.

'Inspire me blue' by cheLuna

AMAZING ITEMS!

Dark Blue Trifold l... AwesomeWomen $53.50	BLUE cape Wool Cape... FM908 $108.00	Rectangles, dark bl... SometimesJane $18.00	Ralph Blue, Pale Pi... brownbelle $50.00
Stained Glass Lidde... RoseMarysGlass... $30.00	Blue Chevron Pillow... TheWatsonShop $35.00	Blue & Green Fabric... EbonFlow $8.00	Road bicycle Tshirt... GreenlakeTee $15.00
Bird Earrings in Te... Jugosa $10.00	Navy Blue Polka Dot... SillyBuddy $42.00	Blue Heart Cross St... BRadleyBB $10.00	Nautical Navy Blue ... lovencollectio... $36.50
NO.56 Dark Blue ... JoozieCotton $33.00	Dark blue home slip... BrilliantIdeas $22.00	Back To School Sale... Kinies $55.00	Mens Camera Hoody V... filmmonsters $40.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Lampwork Beads on Keys

Here's a photo of the beads on keys I made this week. Lots more work involved in cleaning, polishing and making chains for them, but I thought they came out great. Remember the two little keys in the post a few days ago that I thought would look sooo cute? I carefully tried to make a bead on one -- the key melted and broke in half. Oh well! Live and learn.

New Lampwork Bead Sets

I just listed these two sets of lampwork beads on RoseMarysGlass.etsy.com It's so exciting to be creative again! Of course the weather is in the high 90s again, so the garage is very hot. I have an air conditioning unit in there, but it seems foolish to run the AC and a kiln at the same time?!! Next week promises to be cooler.

This set of beads is made with ivory glass, then drizzled with lines of two blues. It has always been one of my favorites. I love the outlining around the colors.

This is Nile Green. It has streaks of darker green running through it that make it so special.

"Lustrous" Treasury

A treasury that includes my small stained glass box. Does the post office still have stamps in a roll? This box fits that roll perfectly!

'l u s t r o u s' by daylilyvintage

sale / vintage 1950... PoppycockVinta... $26.25	Iridescent Crystal ... bluembrownlee $15.00	Abstract Painting O... lindadonohue $145.00	90s Iridescent Velv... shopSHEWOLF $65.00
unicorn approved ir... DOTTO $10.00	Hand Dyed Sock 4 pl... cariadfiberart $20.00	Stained Glass Lidde... RoseMarysGlass... $24.00	Czech Glass Button ... ButtonOdyssey $5.99
Fused glass dish wi... Smokeylady54 $58.00	Adjustable vintage ... InmostLight $20.00	vintage 1950s dress... daylilyvintage $325.00	Ms. Grier - Mineral... BadBitchCosmet... $4.00

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Back to Lampworking!

Yesterday and today I took advantage of the cool mornings and set up my lampworking station in the garage. I made glass beads for the first time in months. Here's what my area looks like:

In the front is my torch. The blue box in back is the controller which allows me to program the bead annealing kiln on the right. See the mandrels sticking out of the kiln? Those are finished beads I made yesterday. I keep one of the doors open as I work and when I've filled that side, I close it and open the other side. The great thing about working with this kiln is that when I'm finished with the second side, I can open the first side, stack all the beads on mandrels to one side and make more beads. I just have to be careful not to let a hot bead touch a cooler one. That happened yesterday. I had to heat the two beads in the flame, pull them apart, and reshape one while keeping the second one near the flame. Very tricky business, but I was successful.

Like I said, it's been a while since I've made beads. It's like riding a bike ... you don't forget how, but it takes a while to get it right. I had a couple failures like you see in the following photo. The glass rod is kept in the flame and the mandrel is slightly below. The molten glass is wrapped around the mandrel which you have to keep turning. But when you don't time it correctly and the glass on the mandrel gets too hot, gravity works against you ... the glass layer gets heavier on one side and falls off the mandrel.

Here's a photo looking down into the kiln.

And a photo of the beads together. I'll soak them in water for a while, slide the beads off the mandrels and clean the insides with a diamond file. This removes the bead resist.

These beads are my favorite to make. Two blues on ivory. The ones I made this morning are still cooling in the kiln. They were made with transparent blue and accented with glass that turns metallic in reduction. Dynamite!

My next project will be to make beads onto these keys. The keys are ready with a coating of bead resist. How about those two small ones on the left? They will be sooo cute!

In my post just a couple days ago, I mentioned someone purchased all my keys with beads. Here's a photo of one of them. Can't wait for that kiln to cool so I can get on with the key project! I'll post photos when I finish.