Paperweights on Wooden Stands

I've been having a lot of fun making paperweights and wooden stands lately. The darker stands were made by my dad, however I will be picking up some darker stain later today :) I have a bunch of paperweights that are just waiting for the stands, so once those are done I will make another entry with those :) 

 

 

 

 

More marbles

AHHH I'm in love with soft glass marbles! So much easier to work silver glass with limited oxygen. Also can get decent sizes with only one concentrator. With boro I'd have two concentrators but seemed to take forever to get a decent size marble made. I just fixed this marble yesterday, I was surprised that this size marble could be fixed since it was soft glass but I had no problem reheating it in the flame. Anywho here is the marble.

Marble Pendant

We are having a 40% off sale in our Etsy shop for Monsters only :)

Here's one of the marble pendants. Probably going to try some small marbles to do the same thing but for earrings.

Soft Glass Marbles

Wednesday I ended up making one soft glass marble that turned out great but had a flat spot where the final punty was. Yesterday I didn't have much time on the torch but I was determined to make a perfect soft glass marble. I made four total, one had a mark that almost looked like a chip came off the marble so I wirewrapped it for myself :) It was a nice organic one with silver leaf on it. I was surprised I did so well with soft glass marbles since I like to use a lot of heat and thought boro would be easier because of that. It turns out the soft glass ones took quite a bit less time to shape.

I am starting to wirewrap some of my old boro marbles that have been sitting waiting to be listed online. Those will start to be listed on the upcycled copper Etsy now.

Here's my soft glass marbles from yesterday (only two out of the four)

I've been wanting to post here daily but it's been cold in the studio and need to get some wood for the woodstove to heat it up. Also my grandparents got in a car accident so been visiting my grandmother who has been moved into rehab.

Here's a group shot of most of the marbles I've made in the past few months and one of a jellyfish.

I didn't realize until the other day that I haven't posted an entry for about a month! We have been to a few Microcredit business meetings the past month and been working on a business plan. We are planning on selling glass rods and supplies on our website since there is not a supplier near us. When we start selling glass rods we will most likely only carry 104 (Moretti, DH and CIM). Once we get going we will try to carry all of 104 brands. After that we will work our way down in coe (96, 90 and then 33). We are very excited and should be able to start stocking up in a month or two :)

We placed a small order from Frantz of 104, we have been running low because our last order was Sept of last year! We got some good odd lots and uniques so those will be fun to try :) It should be here next Wednesday so I'll post some pictures of whatever we make.

I have been making quite a few marbles since the Kobuki class. I've made a few jellyfish and flowers but mostly other styles. Monday I did try something that I've been thinking of making for a while, I took two frit implosions and mashed them together. They came out better than I thought they would! I'll get some pictures of the marbles sometime this weekend.

Here's a picture of a test candle holder I made recently. Next time the base will have color. I thought I wouldn't need a base but it was very wobbly with the alien as the base.

Demo and Kobuki

Last Friday I did my first demo, it was with Marta's class. It was a snowflake/star bead demo, I saw a lot of the ones the students were making and they were amazing :)

I left before open torch that day to head up to the hotel in Maine for Kobuki's class. His class is amazing and if anyone has a chance to take his class I'd highly recommend it if you enjoy making either pendants or marbles. I got to see five demos, he did one I missed the night we headed back, four of them were flowers and one was the jellyfish I have been wanting to see really bad! This week I have been making so many marbles! Most of them are actually coming out decent. I tried two jellyfish yesterday, first one came out alright but I fixed my mistakes one the second one but it cracked! Not completely sure why it cracked but it still went into the kiln and will be part of my collection :) Here's a picture of the first marble I made after getting back from the class, really happy with it :)














Not sure if I posted before but we got a new car finally, it is a 2002 Ford Focus. The car is really fun to drive. It is a standard though so getting used to driving one since never really drove a standard around.