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!

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! :)

New Jewellery for Signatures

Some recent work that will be available at Signatures!

Smoke Tiger bracelet

A relatively simple bracelet with wild impact. Grey frit-swirled beads, encased tiger beads, rutilated quartz and sterling silver accents with an adjustable-length lobster clasp closure.

Tyndall bracelet

Reminds me of the fossil-rich mottled limestone used in many historic Winnipeg buildings. Ivory disks with silvered ivory spirals, black labradorite and sterling silver accents with an attractive adjustable-length lobster clasp closure.

Arctic Tiger necklace

An icy new riff on my ongoing Laza Tiger series. Striped and reactive encased "Artic Tiger" disks with reactive blue encased beads, moonstone wheels, tiny peacock pearls and sterling silver on sterling silver ornate chain with an adjustable oversized oval spring clasp closure.