What a Rush!

Phew - the show season is over, and we did a good job, I think! Part of me would have liked to have done more and more (more dragonflies! more forged earrings! more metalsmithed work!) but the more reasonable part of me is glad that we limited it to four shows this year. They were really *good* shows for us, and left us some time to deal with our non-glass world as well! And it left both myself and (hopefully) our customers "wanting more" for the future...

Now it's time for us to focus on our Christmas. We still don't have very clear plans yet but our tree is up and sparkly, and that feels like a very good start!

I'll leave you with a photo of my latest floral (still available, by the way) to tide you over until I post again. :) Merry Christmas! Happy Solstice! It is coming soon and I can't wait for the days to get longer!

Our Last Show of 2009 is This Weekend!

Elm Street Holiday Artisan Sale
December 11 - 13
Friday 5-10 pm, Saturday & Sunday 10 am-5 pm
395 Elm Street (the corner of Elm and Grosvenor)

Featuring the creations of 4 talented artisans:

Sumak Designs - Gemstone, Pearl and Silver Adornments
Formations in Metal - Metalsmithed Wearable Art
Hearts of Glass - Flameworked Glass Jewellery
& Donna Schultz's irresistable all-natural handmade soaps

PLUS - BONSAI from the president of the Winnipeg Bonsai Association!

Come with a friend or two to browse and visit in a comfortable and relaxed setting, while you enjoy complimentary coffee, tea and snacks. An annual tradition at Elm Street and Grosvenor!
















Here's a recent pic of some of our leaf pendants on our tree display. At $10 (etched pierced leaves) to $12 (veined elm leaves) to $14 (oak leaves) to $18 (our sculpted maple leaf pendants) they make great gifts and stocking stuffers!

Custom Dragonfly Stickpins on Etsy!

I am in love with our new dragonfly stickpin design! And we've had a great response to them at our recent shows. I've finally made an update to HeartsofGlass.Etsy.com in order to make them available. It's in there as a custom order, so you can select your colours and shapes and I'll make a dragonfly just for you!

New Purple Floral Bead

As promised, here`s a shot of my latest encased floral! I`m using a new technoque to apply the stamen now: pre-nipping-off a point-pulled stamen section, and attaching it to a clear rod. Then I can just plunge it in as deep as I want, and melt off the clear rod leaving an automatic "expansion dot" of clear on top.
Before this, I was plunging a point attached to the full stamen rod, then cooling that and nipping it off the bead itself. This worked fine when the stamen rod was skinny, but now that I'm working in a thicker section it was giving me more trouble. I was either breaking the stamen off too stubby in the plunge-dent, or breaking the whole darn bead off the bead release. The new approach is much less disaster-prone!



















Front shot, showing the stamen cane. I like how the stamen went a bit spirally this time! Finally, distortion working in my favour! >:)



















Side shot of the floral showing the reactive base. I love how the reactive cane recipe turned out! It`s a bit less yellow and more blue in real life.

My Mom should be landing in Winnipeg for a visit right about... now! She's here for work and knows we're working too getting ready for the Velocity show on Niagara this weekend. She`s agreed to help us come up with names for our work (such as this bead - suggestions, anyone?), and maybe do a little tagging duty too! What a trooper! :)

December Has Arrived!

And we've finally got some photos of a few of this week's creations! There's lots that's waiting to be wired as well. But here's the sneak peek!















Strawberry Ice opalino calla lily pendant.


















Mauve Dragonfly pendant.


Stay tuned for a new floral bead photo coming soon!