Mercury and HFCS

There was a news clip earlier this morning about mercury being in a large amount of food/drinks that contain HFCS (High fructose corn syrup)

This is a quote from an article from washingtonpost.com
"Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies."
...
"In the first study, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. The study was published in current issue of Environmental Health."

I wonder if they will still have the commercials talking about how high fructose corn syrup is fine in moderation.

Anywho, I'm glad we have been avoiding it already for quite some time :) because of my allergy.

Item of the Hour

From 5-6 Andrea's lampwork guppy is featured on the front page of artfire as item of the hour!

Here is a picture for after its time is up, can click to enlarge.

RIP Bamm Bamm

Last night Bamm Bamm got sick very quick and did not make it. He was fine in the morning, we gave him his meds and he was fighting to taking the meds. He fell asleep after on me for a while and then I put him back in his cage. He moved around a little bit and not sure what happened. Anywho here is a picture of him cuddling on me yesterday morning.

Treasury

I got an Etsy conversation from a user telling me they added me to their treasury!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=40430

I love winter themed stuff so this one makes me ultra happy to be in!


Bamm Bamm is doing very well, he is still sleepy and cuddly. He fell asleep for a minute in my arms this morning after his meds. Yesterday when we brought him home I opened the top of the carrier and he stretched out to poke his head out. He slowly started closing his eyes and his body slowly went downward till he was about halfway to the ground and realized he was falling asleep. So cute! :)

Bamm Bamm pt3

Bamm Bamm's surgery went very well and we should be able to pick the little boy up at three today if he is still doing good. Also the spot that the vet thought was a tumor turned out to be a hernia!!! WOOOHOOOOO

Bamm Bamm pt2

We brought Bamm Bamm into the vet today since it was the first day that a specialist was around. The area we were worried turned out to be a tumor. He will be going through surgery in the morning and we will know more once biopsy is done. He is staying over the night there and not sure if he will be allowed to come home tomorrow :( poor little dude.

BammBamm

Tonight when I was holding BammBamm I noticed a cold spot and when I looked there was a growth :( We are going to try taking him to the exotics vet in the morning. He is still active, eating and drinking so hope all goes well.

We got another cord of wood, actually burnable too. All stacked up in studio so should be torching again tomorrow.

Woodstove

Andrea's parents ordered a cord of wood from someone yesterday and while the person was unloading it they all went out for a while shopping. Once the person unloaded the wood into the driveway I started to bring it into the studio which is on the opposite side of the house but luckily got to use a sled to help bring it most of the way. Andrea's dad tried starting a fire once he got back and had no luck even with a torch. After having no luck with the fire we brought it out back to the driveway. So we got no wood to warm up the studio today but we are going to organize a lot of old glass and random things we no longer need in our studio to get some extra cash. I organized a good amount of our old kiln-formed glass yesterday. We will be keeping molds just in case we ever want to make a few things in the future. Today we will be sorting out the stained glass also since we want to put all of our attention into lampworking. It should help free up a lot of space not having sheets of glass collecting dust :)


I made a few boro beads, trying to get used to not using soft glass :) I already found a few color combinations I like, one has a nice winter feeling to it. I will post them once they are off the mandrels.

I've tried three candle holders the past few days and here is my favorite. It stands at 11" It was a little difficult to fit into our chili pepper kiln.

Farmer's Market

We e-mailed a bunch of farmer market locations and got a reply back from the one in Amherst. We will get the application once she gets everything ready :) For the market we will be selling my boro pendants, sculptures, marbles and whatever else I can think of by then. Last year it was May-Oct on Thursdays 2:30-6:30, not sure if it will be the same yet. Very excited about that :)

Thursday Andrea and I decided to split up the days for torching. Three days of soft glass, four days of boro then the following week four days of soft glass and three days of boro. To have it for we can both torch on the same day with different glass we need to order a digital controller for our old kiln, an AF99 that has not been used for almost a year now. Also we would need at least one more oxygen concentrator. Hopefully that won't be too long from now, then we can save for a new torch!!! We need to order some glass before anything else. I have barely any boro color rods left, probably use the rest for fillagrana pendants. Andrea is going to need some soft glass too, we are out of white, ivory and some other important colors.

The pictures that I mentioned about the chess piece inspired pendants I would post are in our Etsy shop. There are more that will be listed soon once the pictures are taken and edited.

Pendants

We have had three sales of pendants the past few days on Etsy :) I was making a chess piece and came up with a new pendant style that I will post probably tomorrow since I feel sick tonight. Also might have torched a little too long and got tendonitis :/We emailed a few farmer markets and just waiting to hear back to see which ones allow glass art.