Contemporary Glass Flowers

I was asked to make bright flowers in the style of my Anemone Bead series and this is what I came up with.  My customer has a contemporary home.  I can see these in that setting.  I'd love them each in their own individual vase lined up.  Kind of the way we see Gerbera daisies in photos.

It gives me ideas for making fluffy dandelions.  I've always thought about how would I make those.  Perhaps this is the first step?  Or a way of making "fireworks"  that's another one I've contemplated about over the years.

Is there something you have been muddling over to interpret in glass or in another medium?

Madly Listing

Thank goodness I'm not a boat with that blog title!  Actually, I'm working on my 50 listings for this Saturday's Tophatter live auction.  I am experimenting with this, so please come join me and the fun.  1pm EST on Saturday, Feb. 23rd.  This Saturday!

This is how it works.  I am partnering with Jenelle Aubade and her beads which are lovely sets, pairs and very jewelry design oriented. I'm bringing my sculptural pieces so they all complement each other.  The buyers join Tophatter and each piece is offered, one at a time and you bid in real time.  I am there to answer any questions.  And we each have our own little avatar person.  So sometimes you get great deals and sometimes the bidding goes high.  It looks like fun.

Here is the link:  http://tophatter.com/auctions/15406

Please come to see us!

Rings...and More Rings

I have a full tray of handmade flamework glass flowers on adjustable metal rings waiting to be listed in my StudioMarcy.esty.com shop.

Most are "Statement Ring" size.  They really show up on your hands and are lively and fun.  I have some smaller ones as well, which are for the women who also love the handmade artisan style, but prefer to use their "inside voice " as my son says.  Both sizes also have some more geometric and also organic styles along with the whimsical garden flower variety.

Roses- Fresh Off the Mandrel

If any of you know me well, I have the brownest thumb on this side of the Mississippi.  If it can't grow by itself, it's not going to survive.

So when my sister asked me to make her a rose pendant, I was venturing into new territory.
You see, I had just been at my friend Marilyn Peraza's studio a few weeks earlier, and she makes such gorgeous roses. It's her "thing".  But I am kind of funny about techniques,  unless someone invites me to watch, I feel funny soaking up someone else's work.  I think it's the old copying thing that we're all so afraid of.  So I missed learning from one of the best.  (although she has two wonderful tutorials on sculptured roses and rose murrini here.

You can see my first attempts.  I'm not crazy about the colors though.  I need a shade of yellow that is right in the middle. I can't remember which Vetrofond special color I used on the lighter and the brighter yellow is an old Russian 104 glass that I have.  The butterscotch-ish one is an opalino and the pink one is a CIM. I tried dipping each pink petal's base into frit first, to give it some variegation, but I think that specific frit wasn't the best for that particular experiment.

I'm not done yet.  My sis still needs a yellow rose pendant for one of her friends and I'll complete one that I am more satisfied with.  I've got ideas to try still.  Because for me, part of the fun is the journey.  Trying different techniques, tools and then trying it some more until I'm happy with the end result.

If any of you have expertise you'd like to share, I'm more than happy to listen and soak it up.  Meanwhile, I'm off to my studio to try a few more ideas that are floating around in my head.

Oh, one more thing...Marilyn has some teachers come to her studio.  Look around on her site and check them out.  It might be a class you'd enjoy taking.  Tell her I sent you!

Rainbow Colored Rubber Tubing- Fun for Funky Jewelry

There is something about this combination of joyful colors in a necklace that just makes me want to smile. The designer, Yvonne Irwin says it reminds her of a carnival and I had a similar reaction of thinking that it looks like a visual party.

Yvonne is the shop owner of MyElements on Etsy who sells these rubber tubes, colorful O rings and quite a variety of other jewelry making pieces.  I found her through some of my friends and have to admit, am a bit addicted to the tubing.

You see, it works perfectly in some instances for a quick ending to a memory wire style necklace that uses my lampwork.  It keeps it lighter weight and for me, a quick string.  Here is an example of one that I just recently made.  (It is available if you message me, but not up on my StudioMarcy etsy site.

I love this light periwinkle blue color of the tubing.  It goes with a lot of my spring colors.  I have used plenty of other colors.

The O rings work well for accents between some large hole beads strung on the memory wire + tubing made up choker style too.  I'll show that necklace another day.

So pop by and visit Yvonne's shop.  One of the other options with this tubing is to feed wire through it and bend it around.  You can make corkscrews, loops or whatever you like.  Lots of fun and funky options.

If you've made something already with it, please post a link.  We'd all love to see it.

See you tomorrow!

Jewelry Design Dilemma

So you probably remember my post from Monday, where I showed you some of my new flowers in pastel colors.  I've been dithering over what I want to do with them still.  This is one of my options that I pulled out  I liked the silvery gray sparkle with the opaque flowers and some of the transparent bead in here.  I was thinking perhaps this one should be made into a bracelet?  What do you think?  Stringing ideas?  Change it up to something else?  What would you do?