New Floral Stamen!

New Bracelets for New Art Festival

Accepted! New Art Festival June 2011

Andrea and I just got some great news - we've been accepted into the New Art Festival!This is an outdoor festival held in a Central Park in the Glebe, a sophisticated and funky neighbourhood in central Ottawa. It features a blend of fine visual art and handcrafted artisanry in media such as jewellery, glass, ceramics, wood, metal, textiles and more! Check out the artist directory from 2010 to see what I mean. We're very excited to participate and have a million ideas. More updates coming soon!

The New Floral Stamen

So I finally got to use my new floral stamen stringer in a new bead. Here is the result! I get a sprightly, vaguely Eastern European feeling from this one. :) It will be unveiled at our final Winnipeg show this weekend.
This look is so different from my past ones. Definitely the most successful petaled stamen I've ever made, but it's so vivid that I'm it sure whether it would work with less flame-coloured flowers! I think it might work best as a separate mini-flower cane on its own. What do you think?

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! :)

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!

Studio Shows for the Next Two Weekends!

Andrea and I are getting ready for our Velocity Studio show this weekend! After the bustle and bright lights of the huge Signatures show a week-and-a-half ago, we're looking forward to capping the season with laid-back, cozy studio shows. It was exciting to meet so many new people at Signatures, though! I really came out of my shell and felt like I was "in the zone" with greeting and answering questions. Sometimes I can be so shy at shows! Luckily Andrea is so outgoing.

Speaking of reaching new people, I was on the radio this morning! CKUW's "People of Interest" show at 8:20am. I went on a bit of a ramble about Coefficiency of Expansion and different glass families that probably bored people, and I forgot to bring up our recycled leather bracelets when asked about recycled elements, but overall I think I got the message across about the durability and soulfulness of artisan-made flameworked beads. And of course I mentioned the studio shows! Since they are held in private studios/homes word of mouth is crucial.

So I hope to see you this weekend or next! We'll have lots of new leather cuffs (we almost sold out at Signatures!) forged earrings and dragonflies.

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.

Elm Street Open House - The Spring Edition!

Andrea and I will be displaying our glass talismans on the first weekend of May (Friday, May 1st, Saturday May 2nd and Sunday May 3rd) with a small group of artisans at the Spring Artisan Open House at 395 Elm Street in River Heights. It's at the corner of Grosvenor, right by Grosvenor School. Whether you're an "in the know" Elm Street regular, have heard the buzz and have always wanted to check it out, or are getting it on your radar for the first time, we warmly invite you to come have a peek at some very hot metalsmithing, gemwork, firesculpted glass, and handmade soap. Friday night is wine and cheese night, and there will be great snacks and a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere all weekend.

Elm Street Artisan Open House - the Spring edition
395 Elm Street
Friday, May 1, 5pm-10pm (wine night!)
Saturday May 2 and Sunday May 3, 10am-5pm
Admission is free of charge. All are welcome!

Heather will also be teaching Intro to Beadmaking and Intermediate Beadmaking at Prairie Stained Glass May 2nd and 9th. If you've always wanted to learn the basics of lampworking give Brian a call at 783-1117 to see if there are spots left in these classes (there were still a few left as of Saturday but space is limited). Heather focuses on a clear and encouraging approach to teaching and is proud to say that several of her former students have made waves for themselves as glass beadmakers!

New Florals!

I spent some time photographing my new work yesterday and wanted to share some glam shots of my latest florals!

This was my first floral test of the new "Effetre Ultra Clear", Peace White and Bordello Red. The flower is *okay* but I wasn't thrilled with any of the new colours. Ultra clear is not really ultra anything, just regular. Lots of visible bubbles in the rods itself, and you do have to work it quite cold. Manageable, but not amazing. Still, the next step up is way too expensive for me, so I'll just work far back in the flame and I'll be fine. :)
Peace White actually looked a lot less opaque than my old white in rod form and didn't seem to resist translucency any better. Bordello looks okay in this photo but in real life it's actually a lot darker and duller. Layering it over yellow was a mistake, since it's more of a purple red! A little goes a long way. The "starry" silver background was also unexpected. I thought I was using silver leaf but it was actually silver foil that I'd managed to slip into a leaf envelope. Insanity!
This was my second go with Bordello, matched with Effetre Ink Blue. Again, it's darker and browner in read life. Still, it was a pretty bead with my reactive cane background!
...So much so that I made an almost identical bead my second time at the torch. Without really planning to! This one has regular red, Effetre Amethyst centre petals and Leaky Pen accent flowers. I *am* thrilled with Leaky Pen!
Here you can see how close they look. Even the same size! Weird.
This one is very cute and tiny and pretty close to perfect! Ink blue on Leaky Pen with a lapis and cane background. It's one of the smaller florals I've made! Not sure why I went so small. I guess it'll make it more wearable, at least.

And here's a family portrait to show the different sizes and shapes. I haven't measured them yet but the biggest one is around 30mm, the middle one around 25, and the smallest just 20ish. Yay, I'm making florals again!

Now I just need to think of names! Any suggestions?!