Hurray!

I got Corina Tettingers book Passing the flame for Christmas.

It a great book!

Little swimmers

I've made two new fishes. They have the "guppy-shape" that I've been sticking to for a while.

This one is made in clear glas with encased dots of Rose garden frit from Beady Sams. The fins are made of light amethyst Effetre.

This one is also made out of clear glass and has encased gold aventurine dots. Light topaz glass for fins with small dots of gold aventurien filigrano stringer on the tips.

Using my lentil press

I'm practising on using my lentil press. It's *#%&&¤/?*^¨ hard to get the holes right, but I keep trying. Here are some results:

Mixed lentils where I also tested my new, lovely frit from Beady Sam.

Eye of the Tiger lentils. I think theese might actaully be something once I get the hang of them. Black glass in the middle, gold aventurine dots and covered in light topaz glass.

Emoticons. Haven't seen them done by other lampworkers, but maybe I just hvaen't been looking hard enough. I like the idea.

Wohoo!

It's such a great felling when people actually want to buy your stuff. Father Christmas and one of the godesses has found new homes.

And I haven't even started to try to sell beads yet! :)

Thankyou, everyone who encourage me to keep on torching!

Winter's here, christmas is coming!

Right now it's hard not to think about winter and such stuff. At least here in Sweden where we've had snow for over a week now. That's early, even for us!

Waiting for this guy...

Frost roses

Christmas petals.
The green glass is leaking on to the white and clear. I think it's a nice effect!

Proof of me using my equipment

Ok, here I go.

An implosionbead that didn't crack is proof of me using my kiln

My very, very first lentil bead with my new earth frit that I had inone of my new frit trays (I burned the frit, but still am quite happy with the result!)

Like a child on Christmas Eve... :)

Okej, I've gotten myself some new toys. Wanna see?
On the left lays some LAuscha rods and som handpulled Effetre (I just have to try the copper green and Opal Yellow before I go crazy!) togheter with a little gift of gold aventurin from my new "drug dealer" Anibeads.

In the middle my brand new and very first beadpress. (The flesh is weak and so was the spirit when it realized Cattwalk had an offer on beadpress and holder that I just couldn't refuse.) This one is a tripple lentil press.

On the right some really greate frits from Beady Sam Glass. She also made the brass tools and provided me with the cute frit trays, AKA tea bag rests.

Okay, haven't got time for you right now! ;-)

Finally

I've got my kiln up and running! I batch annealed once and used it for new made bead once and both seems to work.

This is so greate!

New store

After looking at all the pretty Lauscha beads in the Christmasbead thread at LampworkEtc I had an instoppeble craving for some Lauscha glass. :)

As the glass is manufactured in Germany I figured it would be nice to buy it from there. Googling through the internet I found a store I didn't see before. I've placed an order to test it (and to get me some pretty Lauscha!).

Ventilation!

I finally got the fkitchen fan up in my studio. So now I can work with the door closed without the risk of getting poisoned. :)

If anyone's got an idea of how to test the strenght of the fan without lightening a cigarette under it, please let me know.
I THINK it works, but I'd like to be sure.

Pink petals

My mother in law had her birthday this week, so I went to my studio and made this petal bead:

(My mother in law loves pink, so I wasn't worried about the choice of color.)

The bead is stringed on a headpin togheter with three silverplated 3 mm beads and two firepolished 4 mm.

I caught another cold so I havn't been very active this last week. Som lampworking, though, andtoday I finally got my camera out. Here are some exmaples on what I've been up to:

Blue on blue
Not a serious attmpt to do anything. Just messing around.
But I like the way the colors turned out.

It was a dark, stormy night...
I keep trying on those organics. Most of them are not worth showing, but these I like.

My first godesses.
I go for a "Mother of two-godess"-look as those perky-brested and silicon-godesslike ones don't appeal to me. ;-) The left one in Light Ivory and the right one in Dark Ivory (Effetre)

A little Cristmas collection.
Now the preparation starts...

My first delivery!

Here they are!

Nine "Mantra OM" necklaces. As you see, there were different requests of color
Sorry for the lousy pic - I was in a hurry

My first order is signed, sealed and delivered today. I was quite nervous that they wouldn't like them after all, but they did! So much that I already got an order for another one!

New beads

Here are some new beads I've been making (I know I should focus on the OM-beads, but I have to do something else too).

For a while I've been trying to find a manly design, but I'm not wuite there yet. But this little guy might do:

Jolly Roger (though he doesn't look so very "jolly" to me)
He's about 13 mm high and made from Effetre light ivory and Vetro intense black.

After all the manlyhood I just flipped over and started making this:

Flower power.
They're about 10x12 mm and made from several COE 104 glasses from Effetre,
Vetro, CiM and Reishenbach

I'm really working on my photo skills, and getting better, though I've still got a lot of practising to do.

Foster Fire!

I LOVE my new bed release!

Earlier I've used Blue Sludge, simply 'cause that's what came in the beginners pack. To sum it up - Blue Sludge is not good! You really need to be strong to get the beads of the mandrels (I usually have to ask my husband for help) and as you have to put so much energy to it, half of the mandrels become bent in the process. :(

But now I've found Foster Fire. And sometimes I don't even have to use pliers to get the bead of!

Thart Blue Sludge is going down the drain. I'm a Foster Fire believer!

Order placed

I've finally decided to buy myself a kiln. The order is placed and he thought I'd have it within a fourthnight.

I'm so excited!

Finally!

I've made a fish in CiM glass that didn't crack (so far)!

Cirrus with heliotrop frit and som Effetre medium amethyst for the fins.

My first order!

I got my first order on beads this week. Nine people in my yoga class wanted their own mantra OM necklaces:

I'm so happy. Now there's just the cruical question of pricing...

Cravings

I sooooo want one of these:
Trio Lentil press
But with shipping and customs in Sweden it will be expensive.
Why, oh, why doesn't anyone in the EU carry those??

Cracking up

I really love the CiM colors that I bought from Tuffnell:

Leaky Pen, Cirrus , Halong Bay and Peacock Green

But they keep cracking up on me! I try to treat them as gently as possible, but if I do anything but plane spacers, they're gone. :-(

Having a bad bead day

Today I seem to have forgotten everything I've ever learned about lampworking. I can't space the dots, my beads are cracking, my silver is burning and I just can't make a simple doughnutshaped bead.

What happened?

Sooty!!! :-(

I think I'm getting crazy. Almost every bead I try to encase comes out sooty. I changed from Effetr to Vetro, but it didn't help. Wonder if it's the propane that is the problem...

Or me......

Hollows

Making hollow beads fascinate me. It's something about that lumpy glass suddenly turning round and smooth...

Or imploding :-(

Here are two examples, both in Effetre glass:

Fish

Okej, it's time to show some beads. My camera skills leaves a lot to wish for, but I'm slowly learning. And the only way to get better is to practise, they say...

Starting with a few fishes:

A selection of fishes.
The black one's got a vertical hole. All of them are made in Effetre glass.

This one I made just the other day.
It's made of Vetro clear glass and Reichenbach striking red frit. Vertical hole.

Well, here I am!

Some people might think that I've got enough blogs as it is. (I've even heard thatSOME people think that ONE blog is enough, but that must be a malicious rumor.)

Anyway; The problem with myprior blogs is that they are in Swedish. In many ways that's not a problem at all since swedish is my language and I'm pretty good both at expressing myself in that language and spelling the words. Two resons good enough to keep me happy with Status Quo.

But then I took up lampworking. And that isn't such a big hobby in Sweden. So I miss a place where I can share my experinces, feelings and results with people who's both got the same hobby AND can understand what I write. French (wich happens to be my third language, though in a very distant sort of way) is not an option. Hence, english it is.

What I really want to say is:
Welcome to my new blog!
It's about lampwork, beads and other stuff related to that.
I'm quite a newbee to this craft but I can't think of anything else I so much want to be good at as this.