Wild Thang

Now these beads are really wild! The final entry from my black and white torch session. This time the accent color was turquoise. I really liked these but thought they would look better if they were etched. So into the etching solution they went and, thankfully, I am happy with the results. The beads are quiet large, right about 15mm. I think they would make a very dramatic and eye catching necklace. What one would call "A Statement Piece". I had a hard time parting with them but they are listed on Etsy.

Update on the garden. Green things are beginning to pop out of the ground! That means the seeds I planted are actually turning into plants. The vertical supports are up. The netting is on order, along with a few more plants. (Who can resist when the pictures on the garden websites are so beautiful and I did have a few blank spots left.) Ya know, this garden thing may actually work!

The Continuing Saga Of Black and White

Yesterday I mentioned that I had done a torch session where I used only black and white and then a bright color. This is another set done during that session only this time I decided to try making square or cube shaped beads. I had tried them before but wasn't very successful. However this time I had help from Corina's book "Passing The Flame". She described how she did them and with a little practice I think mine turned out pretty good. She had a set pictured in her book that was the inspiration for this set but I think her donut beads are red. I couldn't seem to make red work in the flame so went for a really bright orange.

Speaking of the square shape, it seems to be a favorite of mine. If given a choice between round or square I will pick square every time. I wonder what that might say about me from a psychological or personality stand point? I'm sure there is some sort of test out there. Seems to today you can take a test and find out all sorts of things. Like, what kind of cheese you are (?), what your eyes say about you and so forth. I think I'll just stay in the dark on this one.

Update on the garden. The vertical frames are up and secure! Hooray. I ordered the netting and couldn't resist ordering some strawberries, a vining peach and a couple of fig trees. I think that makes me officially out of space! Oh yes, I'm seeing a tiny bit of green peeking through the ground in the spaces where I planted the salad mix! Hooray for seeds sprouting. And last but not least, there are blooms on a couple of my tomato plants. Looks like we are on our way to having a garden!

Finally! Some Beads To Show

The Kiln Goddess was actually pretty good to me so I will have some bead sets to show you for a while! I'm not sure today's session went all that well but then, you win some, loose some and some get rained out!

My approach a couple of days ago was to just take two basic colors, black and white, and then two accent colors which were orange and turquoise. I proceeded to make beads using just those four colors. The ones I'm showing today were obviously done using only the black and white. White is such a pain to work with as it is so soft and gets soupy so quickly. I was delighted that these actually came out round!

In the process of stringing these beads up and getting them ready to photograph I spotted some ladybugs I had made a few days ago and promptly decided they added just the right touch of color.

I hope you like these simple blossoms! I think they are going to look just perfect against that wonderful summer tan!

How Does Your Garden Grow

Oh my, it has been ever so long since I updated this blog! I think I have a really good excuse this time. I have been putting in a garden!

I have wanted a garden since we moved to the ranch but we have absolutely no soil in which to grow anything! I thought it was a hopeless cause until my friend Angela, told me about Square Foot Gardening. I already had a space cleared and once I read the info on this website I was off and running. Thank goodness Norm was willing to help with fencing (very important to keep critters and kitties out), building the boxes and toting the endless bags of soil. We did all this while waiting for the book to arrive. Nothing like reading the book last to see what you did wrong or the hard way!

I am happy to say that we didn't mess up anything important. All the squares are planted and I'm just waiting for seeds to sprout. I already had some tomato plants in containers and they were blooming so they stayed in their containers. I did purchase a few seedlings for things like eggplant, cantalope and some yellow peppers along with the tomatoes so you can see some green already! I planted traditional southern things, like okra, yellow squash, cucumber and green beans. Oh, don't forget the jalapenos! There are a lot of vine things so Norm's next project is to build verticle frames for them to climb on. Once that is done we just sit back and wait for it to all grow!

Oh yes, I planted Salad Greens! I have purchased them in plastic bags at the grocer and thought it would be wonderful to just go out to the garden and cut a bowl of salad. A snip of this, a tomato here, a radish there and maybe a green onion! Yum, Yum!! Stay tuned to see how that works out!

At the moment my garden looks a little bare but I'll be posting pictures as it matures and grows.

I did make it back into the studio today and if the Kiln Goddess is good to me there will be beads to show tomorrow.

Beach Dreaming

Some of my friends have taken a spring break vacation and are spending it on the beach. I love the beach and it's the only time I don't mind the wind blowing!

In the long ago, we often spent family vacations camping on the beach. Camping on the beach is a terrible experience as sand gets into everything but, being on the beach was wonderful. The beach we went to way back then wasn't used by the public much as it had zero facilities and was an eight mile trek from the road. You were really alone with nothing but sand, sea, wind, dolphins dancing the the waves and those wonderful walks looking for shells. It was probably one of the best beaches for shells that I have ever been on. Our delight was finding sand dollars in every size from teeny tiny to true silver dollar size.

During the spring my thoughts seem to go back to that beach and I tried to capture the wonderful sand dollar in these beads.

Margaritaville

My son added some Jimmy Buffet and Texas Tornados to my new iPod so I turned that on yesterday and proceeded to make beads! This is what came out of the kiln this morning. I love these colors and had such fun singing along and melting glass.

Making Bead Salad

When the Kiln Goddess goes missing you just have to come up with another plan. So, I decided to make bead salad. That's just making round beads in every color, etching some and then putting them all together. That seemed to work and then I had the idea that they looked like the piles of African beads I had seen at BeadFest in Santa Fe.

I rather like these beads and can see them mixed with brass or copper and perhaps some smaller glass beads and turned into a statement necklace. At the moment I think I'll leave that project to someone else and have listed them in my Etsy store.

The good news is, I have more ideas spinning around in my head and will give those a try come Monday. Perhaps the Kiln Goddess has come back home.