Meet Some of My New Friends

We're just back from a weekend at the beach.  It was cloudy almost the entire time and even rained a bit, but looking at the bright side, that's always great for taking photos, the beaches aren't as crowded and we had fun checking out St. Simons as well.

So the first photo is of my two buddies.  I thought the shell was empty until the end of my walk and all of a sudden a bunch of little crab legs came out of the shell.  That one got popped back into a tide pool quickly.  And the Starfish was pretty quiet too at first.  Another one that I thought was already a goner. Then I flipped him over for some photos and all of a sudden, a few of the little legs started to move. Yikes!  Back into the ocean this one went.

This is the last of my buddies.  I called him Louie. Louie had gone over the rainbow already, but I thought you might want to see his lovely blue markings.  Aren't the colors of nature interesting?

I'll have some more of my photos for you soon.  But I'll leave you with a question.  How often do you see starfish pictured in that color?  Not too often, right? I wonder if people would ever want glass ones looking like that?  They're quite striking, but don't read "summer" or "ocean" necessarily.  Yet, they are.  So what do you think?  Should I make some to reflect the real Georgia starfish, or stick with my ivory colored ones?  I'm hoping you have an opinion.

See you tomorrow.

Krispy Kremes and Toddler Dreams

So last weekend on my way home, we stopped at a cute little airport north of Atlanta that looked more like someone's home than a place of business.  This is inside of the little cafe.  I love this bike.  Looks like it was for delivering newspapers.

And as we were close to a race track, there was this motorcycle too.  It's signed by all kind of racing luminaries.  So I took a close up shot, in case any of you are into it.

A handwriting expert would have a hey day with it, I'm sure.

But one of my favorite decorative items in that little cafe was this toddler car, which I really liked.  (Maybe it's just the little people who would drive it that I'm so fond of..not sure)

You know I'm in the South, when there are Krispy Kremes displayed with it too.

Hope you have a relaxing day planned.  I'll be talking glass and art tomorrow, but just wanted you to see a little airport's comfy cafe,  In a world where "newer" is often better, it was kind of fun finding this little hidden treasure.  Or as my kids would say, "Old School"!

A Christmas Song for You

Ho, ho, ho! Hope Santa was good to you. My friend here would like to sing you a little song..Click Here. My thanks to the Georgia Aquarium...and wishing you a perfect day.

And Sparky, if you're reading this, I miss you so much! Wishing you a perfect Christmas in Antarctica and good luck with your Art Show down there.

Autumn Leaves, Acorns & Pine Cones Class-Saturday at Flametree

Ah the joys of autumn. I honestly can't wait for the cooler temperatures and leaves changing. So when Maureen and Lance asked me to design a half day class for their FlameTree Glass Studio in Roswell, GA, I jumped at the chance.

I hadn't really made a lot of any fall items other than pumpkin and Halloween related beads, so this was a treat getting to play at my torch and decide what I thought would be fun.

And I think acorns ARE fun. Their shape reminds me of a spinning top and although they are normally rather sweetly muted in color, I thought they are the perfect bead to have a little fun with. So once the shape is learned, it will be great to see how the students can come up with their own ideas. I have all kinds of ideas in my sample box as well. (I just finished making two with glow glass rod and powder for our friend Joe of Glow Glass. That was a kick!)

So if you're in the area and have time, we're going from 12-4. The price is so reasonable too. Just $75. I think that is very fair and I promise, you'll learn a lot too. We'll even work on multiple styles of loops for the leaf beads and get a little glass cutting action with shears as well. Hope to see you...there are only a few spots left in the class, so hurry!

Complete Lampwork Set up Available

Unfortunately, another lampworking friend is closing up her shop to follow other avenues. I'm sad to see her go. Here are her complete photos of what's available.

You can contact her for all her details at psanthuff@gmail.com.

Complete Lampworking Set-up

Complete lampworking set-up for both soft glass and Borosilicate. Includes the following and more, all in excellent, gently used condition:

EQUIPMENT:

• Nortel Red Max torch with top-mounted pre-mix minor burner and marvering pad
• 12-foot hoses and all connections, gauges, flash-back arrestors, etc. for both oxygen and propane tanks
• 27” x 55” steel desk work space with two handy drawers
• Creation Station with universal arm and hand rest
• Olympic kiln digital programmable Model HB 86 E, 13 x 13 x 20 (outside dimensions) with stand
• Custom-made exhaust system featuring a galvanized hood with mounted fluorescent light and a duplex electrical outlet to handle attaching additional lighting if desired, Suncourt DB 210 in-line duct fan and ducting to fit standard 36” double-hung window. Separate carbon monoxide detector can be included.
• Propane tank

TOOLS and SUPPLIES INCLUDED:

• Good supply of mandrels including 1/16” x 9” & 12”, 1/8” x 9”, 5/32” x 9”, button mandrel, custom made mandrel holder stands.
• Suede welder’s apron
• 2 pair high-quality lampworking eyeglasses
• Good selection of various tools including different size tweezers, mashers, graphite marvering tools, button and lentil graphite molds, Zoozii Kalera Trio and Lentil Trio brass molds, glass rod holders, etc.
• Several glass-making books and DVDs
• Linoleum used as floor protection (if desired), and a naugahyde protective screen (to stop flying glass) on custom-made supports (see photo)
  
  

SEPARATELY AVAILABLE:

• ¼ - ½ lb. lots of most colors of Moretti glass and much larger quantities of white, ivory, black and clear
• Selection of frits, powders, and other goodies
• Large selection of beads -- semi-precious, glass, crystal (Swarovski), bone, etc.

My Home Town In The News

Perhaps you've seen the news reports about the flooding in Georgia. Well my friends, living in the middle of it, I have to say, was pretty amazing.

I love water and always thought I wanted to live on a lake. However, I never really planned for that lake to be in the middle of my street.

This is one house down from mine, and we escaped a lot of the harm that other areas experienced. We were lucky. My thanks to Anita for sending out this photo.

I only had one not-so-good experience. I went outside in the driving rain to take a photo of the water rushing downhill from my backyard. It was awesome and they were great shots until I dropped my camera into the stream of water. The camera opened up and the camera card flew out and got quickly swept away. I'm not sure whether the camera will work or not. I was so lucky with that minor mishap compared to others.

So if you don't mind, take a sec., count your blessings and today find at least one little thing to do for others. I know that's topping my list. Somehow, I still believe that karma can be a good thing.

See you tomorrow for some uber cool, very modern accessories. http://www.StudioMarcy.blogspot.com

Lights, Camera, Action-

This past weekend a group of friends and I went to a nice beach resort for an end of summer get together. Of course it had the delicious food, beautiful beach and the other qualities that resorts normally require.

But as usual, I tend to look for the details of a place. What is interesting to me? What might relate into the glass world? Lighting often does. And I was busy snapping photos of their lovely ceiling lights that were metal over glass.

The top photo is of one that I spied in their spa building. The combination of geometric with swirls intrigued me.

The center section reminds
me of blossoms with leaves in a very graphic design way. It fit its surrounding.

I found the second fixture in a more social setting. It too was in a hallway, but near their upscale restaurant. The leafy pattern swagging the side along with the swirly design that has a hint of floral again caught my attention. How would one interpret this pattern? It's much more intricate and less easy to replicate. (not that I'd want the exact one anyhow).

So next time you go out, don't forget to look up.
You might be surprised at what you see. It could be the inspiration for your next bead design.

See you tomorrow for my next blog post on http://www.StudioMarcy.blogspot.com. I have some glass comments that I think you'll enjoy.

Sunday Was For The Birds

For those of you who know me, I love birds.  I have bird feeders and bird baths in my back yard.  However, I was not prepared for this experience.

Yesterday morning I was awakened by a very odd sound.  And lots of them.  I laid in bed and listened.  It sounded like turkeys.

It felt like waiting forever until there was some daylight, but finally my husband and I went outside, armed with our little digital cameras.

About 40 feet up in our pine trees, were five very large wild turkeys calling to each other.  I think they were taunting each other over their flying skills, because when they finally took off, it looked like low altitude very large bowling balls with wings barely skimming the roof tops.

They first landed in the field behind our house.  It could throw you off, because I live in the suburbs of a 5 million + sized city, Atlanta, Georgia.  But we're so lucky to have this little pocket of nature behind us.  A very old half blind horse used to live there when we first moved in.  He used to enjoy munching on our pink cherry blossoms that hung over the fence in the Spring.

So these five turkeys enjoyed their bit of nature in the back lot and we watched for a long time as they strutted, fanned their feathers, made lots of noise and did their little turkey "look at me" dances.

I guess after that it was time to go 
check out the rest of the neighborhood, because they hopped the fence and started down the street.

You can see by comparing them to the mailbox, that these were not your Thanksgiving Day sized creatures, but ones who obviously were larger and far noisier than the frozen variety.

So that was my Sunday morning commune with nature.  I promise, tomorrow I'll get back to creativity, inspiration and glass chat.

I don't think that this gang roaming our streets will inspire any beads from me, but I wanted you to see that not all wild turkey comes in a glass bottle.

See you tomorrow!

One More Time- Glass Buddies

I just wanted to introduce you to a few more of our local glass peeps. Sometimes you see a name online and it's nice to know a face with it.

In this top photo, you see our dessert challenge winner in the front. Meet Fred, who not only makes delicious cherry dump cake, but is Board member Martha's husband. Behind him is Robert, our Beads of Courage coordinator and on the right side, Brian, who does a lot of our boro demos and works with neon too.

The bottom photo has some more great members.

Back row, left to right

Maureen who is our greeter and organizer of our name tags, Karen is a former Board member and our current librarian and Robin drives all the way from Alabama to attend our meetings. Front row left is Becky, our current Board Secretary and Kristy who is a former Board member and was on our Gathering Postcard team.

If you want to see more photos of our Southern Flames meetings, teachers, read our tips and tricks and all kinds of other cool stuff, visit http://www.SouthernFlames.org

Wishing you a happy holiday and I'm taking Christmas Day off from blogging. As you can see, I messed up and posted Wednesday in advance. But look for more posts starting 12/26.

Fire and Brimstone Rocks On!

So what exactly are "whoremongers"? I'm trying to figure this out. Is it similar to fishmongers who sell fish?

As promised, I decided to show you the quirky side of my weekend trip. One of the highlights was this billboard, which absolutely amazed me. I mean, what are they trying to say?

So I started thinking about divorce and television put into that same category, as well as where is this lake of fire, and can I melt glass with it?

If anyone has any insight to this billboard, or perhaps a joke that can go with it, I'd love to hear it.

Now for the even lighter side.

While driving, one of the things that cracked me up was that there was a building. One side was a Medical Emergency Care Center, like what we call "Doc in a Box", and the other side of the building was a gun and ammo shop. Life's little jokes all rolled into one place.

And - can you believe this? I saw people herding cattle while driving golf carts. That was so cute. I hope they got them rounded up before their batteries went dead.

And - we saw floating condos at the lake. Complete with tiny kitchenettes and bathrooms. First thought was, "where does the waste go- I'm not swimming near there", and then someone explained that it was contained and disposed of properly. Whatever that euphemism means. Honestly, they looked like fun. Tiny little barrack looking buildings lined up along little docks with a place to park your boat. You can rent ski-dos or whatever they're called and drive them right up to your back porch. I'm kind of thinking that could be a rip.

Soon, I'll write about one little town that we passed through, which made me think that time can actually stand still. Maybe my next post. (then i promise to get back to glass and melting it.)

take care,
Marcy