Bones bracelet

For this weekend, I got an order for a scull and bones bracelet. It's a gift for a friends daughter. I've made similar before, but it was years ago, so it was quite fun to pick up the bone making thing again. 

I hear the daughter loves it.

Fashionable owl

Owls seems to be an important fashion detail this autumn. I see them everyshere: on clothes, in jewellery, on fabrics, as home decor details... So whys not make a few myself?

This one looks like it's been up all night and really could use a cup of coffe:

An angel watching over us

Bad things are happening in Sweden right now. Houses, meant for housing for refugees, are burnt down, a teacher and a student was stabbed to death and two others are severly wounded after a terror dead in a school.

I know this is just glass, just a bead. But if it can help us in any way, wether it protect us or let us see the good things and try our best, or just puts a smile on someones face, it's worth a lot.

Etched dots

I bought a dotted blous this spring. Very unlike me, since I don't really appreciate dots on clothes. But this bluse justhadmy name on it. It's beige with white dots and made in a lofty, material. 

Ofcourse I had to make a necklace for it! The result was an etched bead with a dark beige center and white dots evenely spaced over the surface.

In fact, I've never worn a bead that gets as commented on as that one! Ofcourse I only weare it together with the bluse, wich emphazises both, but I'm still amazed over how much attention something beige can get!

I do love the design. Very calm and exat, but still exciting as the etched surface gives the bead a kind of inner light.

Hard to describe - even harder to catch in a picture.  But here's an exampel of a etched, dotted bead with a teal coloured center:

Calm Sea - for those of us who long for summer

The design for Calm Sea bead came to me after a summer vaccation a few years ago. I love the sea and I love summer. A love I seem to share with a lot of people!

To me, this bead shows the sea and the cliffs of the nothern westcoast of Sweden. To others, it's a sandy beach. I think it's wonderful that the design can represent everyones favourite bathing place.

Here are two recent exampels of the Calm Sea bead:

Amethyst and caramel

One of my favourite colour combiantions is amethyst and brown. The combination works well in many kinds of beads - florals, graphic, dotted or sculptural. I also think it's an amazing colour set for autumn. Makes me think of falling leaves and the last flowers of the season.

Here's a pendant bead featuring these yummy colours:

It's put togheter with sterling silver parts and swarowski chrystals. Ready to hang on a necklase, thanks to the bail.

A fresh start

It's been years and, frankly, this blogg just never took off.

But I'm prepared to give it another try, now that I have far too much spare time.

Let's start with a picture of a recent bead:

This is a "pärlhöna" or "bead hen".

The english word for pärlhöna is in fact "guniea fowl", wich doesn't make any sence at all  when naming this bird.

I say ladybug, you say ladybird!

Today I thought I learned somthing new. I've always called those sweet little bugs, with red shell and black spots, for ladybugs in english. And that's also what I called the BHB i listed yesterday:


But today I looked it up, just to be sure. And was i surprised to find out that they are really called ladybirds!

So I named my new bead Ladybird Meadow:


And now, after som more research, I find out that ladybird is brittish english and ladybug is american english. So now I'm just confused.

In swedish they are called nyckelpiga. But no one outside Sweden would understand that!

(You can find the beads in my Etsy shop.)

A cabochon addicts' confessions

My name is Susanne and I'm a Cab Addict (CA).
(And it has nothing to do with cars.)

Cabochons - strongly addictive!

It all started very slowly when I bought a cabochon mandrel from Tuffnells' some two years ago. (My intention was to make a pair of cufflinks for my husband. Heh!) I tried it out a few times, but didn't get the hang of it and was certainly not bitten by the cab bug.

So the cab mandrel has stood in my mandrel yar for a looong time, looking accusingly at me for spending so much money on something I never use.

The truth is, I've been scared of picking it up. I don't have that much time for torching and not to much money, so the idea of waisting both time and glass on something I obviously (?) wasn't ment for, seemed to be a worse waste than the initial purchase of the mandrel.

But a few weeks ago, something happened. For some reason I got this idea in my head of how the cabochons could be made! Of to the torch to prove my hypothesis. And it proved right!

And now, I just can't stop. It took me two weeks to realize that ONE mandrel is simply not enough. And now I'm just waiting for a decent salary to be able to doule my pair. I'm addicted! I could sit and make only cabs for a hole day, if it wasn't for the shortage of mandrels.

Top view

Split vision

I really find I suffer from some mental kind of split vision. To many things I want (and sometimes need) to do and far to little time to do them. The good thing with split vision is that you can take in a lot of stuff. The world get big, bright and funny! The bad thing is you find it very hard to choose your focus. And when I can't focus, I tend to do.... nothing.

But yesterday I was determined. I just had to torch! And it was a great afternoon. I wish it could have last forever. But all good things must come to an end, and at least Iäve got a bunch of mandrels to show:

Fresh from the kiln

Now it's just the less fun part of cleaning them all left. :)

A new Curated Collection

I love that ArtFire made it possible to create collections of your favourite items and show them of to others.

Today I made a collection of Fire Diva beads that are To Die For! Just look:

Glass! Lampwork f...

Curated By: BabsBeadsandD...

ArtFire.com

Craft Tutorials

I guess summer is over

I've tried to keep on to the summer for as long as possible. But now the kids re back in school, and my daytime job is really taking off, so I guess I'll have to stop pretending. Though it hurts a bit!

Among other stuff that has to be taken care of is my ArtFire shop - and this blog! There's lot of stuff happening in the lampwork/shop world. On is that I finally got to make, photograph and list some beads on ArtFire this week. Yay!!

Go visit my shop to see Galaxies and Autumn bloom, for example. And there is more to come this week.

I also listed Summer sea view, but it is already gone. I really liked i though, so I'll show you a pic of it here. Hope you enjoy!

Summer sea view

New category: Big Hole Beads (BHB)

Yes, I finally caved in and bought some really thick mandrels (5 mm in diameter) to make big hole beads for Pandora, Troll, Biagi and similar jewelry. They are actually quite fun to make and kind of challenging to as I have to think in new dimensions while placing the pattern.

The mandrel in the picture is one of my normal sized ones.

And as these beads differ a bit from my normal production I also decided to open up a new category in my ArtFire studio for them.

I don't believe it - SNOW!!!

Last night snow started to fall over Uppsala. It's not totally for April in Sweden wich is reknowned for it moody weather but the snow was still on the ground when we wole up this morning and it keeps falling. Brrr!

So I thought I'd just cheer me - and you - up with som more floral beads.

Flower and pearls

Have you been invited to a party this spring? You'll feel like a princess in this necklace. It's made of white freshwater pearls and pea green seed beads. As a focal I've use one of my lampwork flowers in pea green and the lightest transaprent pink there is.

Blooming ink

The ink blue glass from CiM - Leaky pen - is very hard to use as it fries easily. Also it has to be laid over a light colour or else it will just look black. But when you overcome those issues it's a beautiful glass! Here I put it over white and added som white flowers randomly placed on the surface. The raised stamens are also made of Leaky pen .

Tangerine lampwork flower necklace

Here I made a pendant from the lampwork flower and let it hang from a wire necklet. An everyday necklace for the happy days of spring.

Meadow

A transparent green bead with surface decoration of frit in greens and yellows and raised flowers in pink and white.

Light turquoise flower earrings

Sterling silver and turquoise says summer to me. These lentil beads have an ivory coloured flower on each side. There's a necklace to go with them too...

Voting has begun - please use your vote!

It's so exciting! 14 lovely entries are competing for fantastic prizes in Fire Divas Jewelry Challenge and voting begins today.
You simply MUST visit the Fire Divas blog and drowl over the lovely pieces and lay your vote on your personal favourite. (Not that I would DREAM of trying to influence your opinion, but one of the entries is featuring a bead of mine...)

Fire Divas is a group of 24 talented lampworkers who strives to promote, help and encourage eachother. You can find us in our blog, on Facebook and in the weekly threads on ArtFire and Etsy.

Lot of flowers going on

I'm making a lot of floral beads right now. Might it be the spring influencing me? ;)

Romantic, lampwork bead

When I look around in the lampwork world I don't see so many florals right now. Maybe they're outmoded. But how can you grow tired of flowers??

They are great fun to make, too. So many possibiliteis in colours and shape. Should the flowers float ove a plain background or should there be a background decoration of frit?

Vulcano flowers

Maybe a winding wine for the flowers to grow from or a scrollwork to add interest.

Blossoms, lampwork necklace

And the flowers. Raised or flush? Encased or surface decoration? And how many petals should there be? How many layers of lovely glass, how small, how big?

Blooming rock

Should the bead just be a flower?

Bud

Or should the flower just be an accent on something else?

Goddess with rose on her hip

I could go on forever. But I wont. I'll just keep making them, hoping you'll love them!

Slytherin floral, lampwork bead

Just listed: a fish and a set!

This week has been insane in many ways and I haven't found any time for listing or blogging until this weekend. So now I want to show you two items.

The first one might not be a great surprise - it's a fish!

Goldie, lampwork fish

Goldie is a girl with a taste for glamuor. Her body send out sparks from the gold aventurin I used for the pattern. Her fins are in light and medium amber that bring out the golden look and her lipstick is dark red.

The next item is really five items. It's the first set I've ever listed!

They are made of dark grey glass with a white dot pattern. I'm really fond of the tranquility in them.

But most of all I'm quite proud of having made a set! I'm normally more of a focal kind of lampworker. When I make a bead I allready have the next one planned in my head and I jump between styles and techniques. A lot of the joy in torching lies in the infinite possibilities and constant ability to change.

On the other hand I'd love to make jewellery with a set of lampwork beads! And I guess I'm not the only one thinking so.

For further info and more beads and jewellery, please visit my ArtFire studio!

Beads or jewellery? A lampworkers dilemma

I bet all of the lampwork artists who also make jewellery know this dilemma: You open your kiln and pcik out the annealed beads. You release them from the mandrel and carefully clean them from bead release (the clay the steel mandrel is dipped in before you make your beads).

And now what?

Should I sell it as it is?

Or should I make some kind of jewellery out of it?


And in that case - sterling silver or silverplated?

Or leather or beaded or....?

And what length?

(I borrowed this picture from Reeds. Hope they'll excuse me!)

Gaaaaahh!!!

I find I tend to keep more and more of my beads as they are. This is for several reasons:

1. I think that in webshops, people prefer buying beads to jewellery. That's beacause you often want to see pices you are going to wear with your own two eyes. Beadshoppers are also used to shopping online and therefore has a lower treshold for buying stuff unseen.

2. If someone wants a bead made into jewellery, that's easily done. The customer can also decide wich material, length etc he or she wants to have. If, on the other hand, someone wants to take the bead out of the jewellery, I'd say no, of course. I might make a similar one though!

3. I have homeparties with my beads and jewellery now and then. And though people love touching and trying my jewellery on, I sometimes think they love going through my bead boxes even more! I very often get orders on jewellery made from beads out of my boxes. And here too can they decide wich materials to use etc. They even have a display of my materials at hand as I always have quite an exhibition of jewellery at these parties!

4. It's also a question of time. I love making jewellery but I LOVE making beads. And as there are only so many hours in a week...

On the other hand - there will always be people who loves to buy readymade. And also - not least important - I really enjoy putting out the torch once in a while and make something with some of my glassy goodies!

Bead of the day on Fire Divas blog!

One of my beads is Bead of the Day on Fire Divas!!
Check it out: Fire Divas blog

And don't forget to join our Facebook fanclub for everyday updates from the Fire Diva world!

Just listed and going out of the saftey zone.

Yesterday I actually listed two items on Babs Beads & Design on ArtFire. One of them is another example from my fish collection:


This one differs from the others in one significant way; It actually tries to look like a real fish! It's a glassy friend to the swordtail fish (Xiphophorus helleri) swimming around in our aquarium here at home. Swordtails come in a lot of different colours and most common is the all orange one, but ours have black fins and tail.

The bead is a female fish as I thought the sword that adorns the male swordtail would be to thin and fragile for a glass bead. At least if it's going to be worn in a piece of jewellery!

The other bead is something quite different. It's easy and fun to make a kind of bead you are familiar with and just alter colour combos and little details. It's also very much fun to be inspired by other beadmakers and see what you can come up with, using their concept.

But sometimes I need to step completely out of the saftey zone and do something different. Just play around with different glass and see what comes out!

Mostly, the beads that are a result of this process end up in the "good idea but need to be worked on"-bowl I've got in the kitchen window. (A bowl that all kids that come here LOVE to go through! They think the beads are all beautiful.)

But sometimes I come up with a bead I'm really happy of. This is an example of such a bead:


I call it Winged raku, cause I don't know what else to call it! :) The black bead has a raku frit deco that developped wonderful colours. I'm deffinitly not a raku-master, so I'm excited every time I get soe kind of colour out of that glass.

The wings are made of light amber and Rubino oro.

For more info on these beads, please visit my ArtFire studio!