Fun and Funky Earrings

While on holidays in Panorama, I was lucky enough to discover "Bavin Glassworks". The little cabin had a lovely selection of handmade jewelry mostly made with lampwork glass beads. They had other wonderful art there as well like hand blown glass and paintings made by the owner. I of course had to get a couple of beads to satisfy my craving. In a previous post I had pictures of myself taking one of their classes on lampwork beads. These lovely beads were sitting there calling my name. By now I am sure some of you know that I really love green. I went right back to where we were staying and put together these fun earrings using Vintaj findings.

I also found these lovely beads {sorry about the fuzzy pic}. I don't usually gravitate to orange, it may even be the last colour that catches my eye, but there was something about these. I think it took me about all of 10 minutes to make both pairs of earrings. I could just picture the end result so clearly, that does not happen very often, I am usually a fly by the seat of your pants kind of artist.

I hope you enjoyed these little treasures, hope to see you again soon.

Leaffy Bracelets and More Publication news!!

I honestly was not expecting to get the e-mail today, but I was overjoyed when I got the news that Bead Trends Magazine has picked two more of my pieces for their February issue!! I am overwhelmed and truly humble that I am lucky enough to be published by this amazing magazine 5 months in a row. I am not bragging, so please don't think that of me, I am just so happy I wanted to share my news with you.
I have been away for the last few days so I was unable to post. I made these bracelets just before the end of summer holidays. {what a relief to have two of them in school} The top one is made with light green agate nuggets, wire wrapped and finished with this fun leaf toggle clasp. {nuggets are from Fire Mountain Gems}

This one is made the same way but with Russian Amazonite and finished with the same leaf toggle. Has anyone noticed I tend to use a lot of green? I am realizing lately that it pops up everywhere. Not a big deal really, you sell what you love and I love green. I wish I could remember where I got the Amazonite, it might have been at my local bead store. Anyways, I really love how dark it is compared to the regular Amazonite. I have been thinking of trying out the milky pale Amazonite with some black agate nuggets, just to see how it would turn out...

To be continued???

Marie

Turquoise 5

Not a very original title, but I guess that has never been my "forte". I wanted to see how many bracelets I could make with one strand of Turquoise. I used all copper beads etc... with the turquoise. Some have more and some have less. They look quite nice separately but just for fun I had to see what they would look like all together.

Not bad eh? {that is "Canadian" BTW} lol. I love the richness of antiqued copper and mixed with turquoise it just looks that much better.

Tomorrow is back to school here in Calgary, first time ever that it is in August as far as I remember, it usually always starts the first weekday after labour day. I am not too disappointed though, the kids have been fighting too much lately so I am looking forward to the peace and quiet. I have one going into grade 4 and the other is starting Kindergarten. Two down...Two to go :)

Have a great day!!

Marie

Going for Chunky!

I am really finding wire wrapping relaxing. I have been doing it while watching the kids play outside or sitting with them while they watch a movie on a rainy day. It does not take much effort or too many materials and I can do it almost anywhere. The top bracelet is made with large Camel Jasper nuggets and the Carnelian nuggets. I used bronze 20G wire and a copper toggle. It is actually quite nice to wear. Not rough like you might expect.

This one is made with Red Jasper and Grass Jasper. I used the same bronze 20G wire and copper toggle. They look really fun and fell very rich because of the weight. They are not that heavy, it is just a noticable weight and the feeling of something significant adorning ones wrist.

I hope you come again soon

Marie

Here are the Beads!!

Nothing too fabulously crazy there, but with a little practice I could get good at it. I love green and so that was the first colours I had to pick. I also got some aqua, pink, purple and some kind of red. The first bead I made is in the first picture. It is the green one with the orange in it. I only used green glass, one colour. She was showing me that the minerals in the glass can be affected by either too much oxygen or too much propane. I really like the way it turned out.

This picture is me experimenting. I really liked making the disc beads. The way the glass would just layer on top of itself, or mixing the different colours together.

I was learning and practising gravity swirling and dots as well, you can see a little of that with these. I purposely left one drooping so I could use i as a pendant.

These last ones are the focal beads I made. They are not perfect but not bad for a first time. I liked adding the fritt, it was interesting how it just melted in. I think my favorite of these is the squarish one with the ivory in it.

I have no had time to make anything with them yet. Too busy trying to get stuff ready for some shows that will be coming up starting in September. I imagine I won't have much time during the week to make stuff once the shows start. I just hope I have enough variety to keep everyones interest.

And yes the glasses were very sexy ;)

Marie

"Bavin Glass Cabin" and ME!

Now when I say Cabin, I literally mean cabin! What a fun and cute little place it was. I thought I would post up photos of my awesome lampwork glass experience. My daughter took these pictures of me working. Then the batteries died before she could get a cool pic of any of the beads.
Now if the camera adds 20lbs I look better than I thought. lol. I am working hard at losing a few pounds right now and these pictures don't make me feel too bad about myself. Gotta love the sexy glasses. I put my hair up since I did not want to set it on fire. I loved learning all the techniques, the beginner ones at least. Now I see how much work it really is to create these beauties.

I was looking into how much everything costs to start doing this at home and I can see why some artists charge so much for their beads. In Canadian dollars it would be at least $3000 with a small basic kiln. WOW! I can not imagine putting out that kind of money. I did find a place in Calgary that teaches classes, so I might go and do a little more of that for fun and just keep getting more of Sue's gorgeous beads. It seems to be a worthwhile investment to purchase from her instead of setting up my own shop. lol.That is Becky in the picture, she was my instructor the day before. So you are actually seeing pictures of me on my Birthday!! I was so glad to be able to go and do this instead of being at the cabin with people. I loved being there and being able to relax and not have to think about anything other than what I was doing.

I still have to take pics of the beads themselves, so keep checking back and I will be posting them soon.

Thanks for coming

Marie

Bookmarks and coming home!!!

By now most of you know that I have started making bookmarks. They are selling so well, that I ordered a huge amount so that I could stock up for Christmas. I have a feeling that is going to be my best seller.

These are some of the new ones I have made. The top one is Antiqued Brass with an Angel from Vintaj. It also has a Chinese lampwork bead. The second is silver plated and is strung with a short length of chain with wire wrapped burgundy pearls. They really look terrific hanging on the outside of a book.

This last one is copper and is also strung from a short piece of chain. I wire wrapped three sizes and two shades of Aventurine beads as well as some fun copper beads.

We are back tomorrow and I will be able to come see if you guys have left me any comments on my scheduled posts. I am just afraid what my hotmail is going to look like. On average I get about 30 e-mails a day.

Thanks for stopping by.

Marie

We are back and Glad of it!!

These earrings are made with Sea Sediment Jasper, and Vintaj findings. I love the pale milky look of this particular Jasper mixed with the brass. Just thought I should add a little eye candy to this post, since I don't have too many good things to talk about today.
I have a scheduled post that will go up right away and this one will be up shortly after. I had to come on and say that I have delete all my facebook stuff. I was tired of my family undermining each other on facebook and so my fan page also went with it unfortunately. I honestly don't think that I will ever go on holidays again. Too many things went wrong and made it extremely un-enjoyable. I am gad to be home and with my husband, he is being really wonderful right now and I can not imagine loving him more.

So on to better things. I was creating like crazy while I was out there. I made a whole bunch of bracelets and earrings as well as a turquoise necklace. I am waiting for my batteries to re-charge and then I will be taking pictures later this evening. The best part of this trip, was getting to go on the day before my Birthday to this cute little cabin called "Bavin Glass Cabin". I learned how to make lampwork glass beads. Let me tell you, I have a whole new outlook on this particular art. "Sue you Rock!" It was incredibly fun and maybe even a little addicting. I absolutely loved it. On my Birthday I went back and rented the torch for 3 hours and made a whole bunch of beads. I will be taking pictures of those and posting some. I also want to make some pieces of jewelry and post those too. I am not great at the whole bead making thing but some turned out pretty cool.

I can't wait to show you all I did.
Have a great day!

Marie