The lazy days of summer

August has been spectacular, but the long summer days are getting a bit shorter and it was nice to get a bit of badly needed rain.  Some weeks were too warm for working on beads, and some new perennial garden additions came my way, so creating new flowerbeds for those took some time, but their flowers will reward me for years to come.

I made a string of black beads with starry white flashes to honor the Perseid meteor shower, which makes its annual appearance around August 12th.  One of them promptly split in two, but that makes a cabochon pair for earrings.  If a bead splits it usually means it was not cooled down slowly.  They usually break right away if they are going to, but now and then one surprises me and breaks long after being made.  At the end of the season the year’s crop goes into the oven for the annealing process, a heat treatment that strengthens and tempers the glass.

starry night

Mo beads – black with hints of yellow

Mr Mo, my black cat, has golden yellow eyes that are quite striking in contrast with his velvety black fur.  Last summer I made a series of pet beads in colors of several animal friends, and the Mo series were mostly black with hints of gold and yellow, with clear encasing.

Here are three Mo beads mounted up as a necklace and earrings, with black seed beads providing dangling accents.  It is always fun to have part of any jewelry be in motion when the wearer is.

Black bead dangles

Click on the photo for a close up of the earring and pendant set.

Below is a shot of the champion snoozer Mr Slikypants Mo, sound asleep with his feet in the air.

Mo snooze

Lovely larimar

Larimar is a beautiful blue semi-precious stone mined in the Dominican Republic.  The blue colors are like ocean colors in the Caribbean and the stone is popular on many islands in the area.  On a trip to the Virgin Islands I picked up a specimen of larimar cut like a small marble and a card indicating what stones came from each part of the world.

Here I tried mixing various blues and stirring the colors with a metal rod to create a marbled effect.  These beads do not have the usual clear coat of glass called encasing, so the color is right at the surface of the bead.  It was an interesting challenge to try to match the color.  First I made a core bead and then layered more colors on the surface and stirred those together by hand, being careful to just heat the outside of the bead and not get the entire bead molten.

Stir it up!  Click on the photo for an enlarged view.

larimar marble and beads

Playing with fire

Bead making season is underway at last.  The optimum temperature range for  lamp working glass is between 65 and 80 degrees F, below that range and the glass is too chilled to melt properly, and above that range the artist tends to melt.

Spring and warmer weather arrived long ago but playing in the garden won out, the lawn needed mowing and the vegetable garden had to be planted.  Now with summer here I can finally make time for playing with fire.

Below are a few photos of bead making in progress:  you wrap an initial core of glass onto the steel rod and marver that into a cylinder, then add additional colors on top.  Here I am using a technique to capture a small bubble of air by making a dent in the glass with a sharp steel tool, and then covering the dent with clear glass.

Seattle has a new glass museum, the Chihuly Glasshouse and garden will be an inspiring place to visit.

adding molten glass to the bead

poking dents into the glass

cooling the bead away from the flame

Snowy sunrise

Winter is just around the corner now, and Mount Rainier is wearing the winter robes of white, looking especially chilly in the dawn light.

Mt Rainier sunrise

Bead making season wound to an end with the warm weather and a series of warm to hot pink beads.  I have some special rods of pink glass that is called “Striking Pink.”  Before you heat the glass it looks clear, but once it has been heated, or “struck” then it changes color dramatically.

These were hot pink with touches of amber or uranium green, making them a bit warmer.

bubblegum pinks

Beads make wonderful gifts, as do handpainted silk scarves.  Check out my friend Lisa Chitwood’s artwork at India Denali Designs on Facebook.

Pet beads

Mandy Hula blue merle beads

I have been working on a series of pet beads.  Some were inspired by the unfortunate passing of some dearly beloved pets.  I made one series with blacks, grays and hints of brown and blue to honor a blue merle Australian Shepherd, she of the dancing hairy skirts known as Mandy Hula.

Sambeaux tortoiseshell beads

Another series was made to honor a very pretty tortoiseshell long haired cat named Sambeaux.  I had a nice time snuggling with Sambeaux, scratching under her chin while she purred nonstop.  I will miss both of those dear friends and I know their owner is missing them mightily.

Jasper orange tabby beads

A third series were in the colors of an orange and white tabby, our friendly neighbor cat Jasper.  I had not seen him for several weeks and feared the worst, but he showed up with a freshly shaved neck which tells me he must have spent some time at the vet’s.  That series was an extra challenge as the opalino cream colored glass has a lower melting point than the clear and amber encasing.

Click on any of the photos to see the entire row of beads in each series.  I think Aura Sun Arts will be specializing in these pet beads for many a furry friend.  Custom requests are always accepted.

Ocean’s calling

beading in progress

Enjoying blue beads again, I am working on a new wrap in aqua colors.  Here are pictured some seed beads in tubes and the tray, the tiny needle used for the peyote stitch fringe, and two handmade beads on a stainless steel rod.

The royal blue wrap was made earlier and I have the basic strand assembled for the aqua blue necklace.  It has three handmade Aura Sun Arts beads in the seafoam blues that remind me of tropical oceans.

seafoam blues with a bit of fringe

Here it is with the ruffled fringe of smaller seed beads added on.  I may add some fringe to the right side of the strand just to see how that looks.

I have not been to the beach in a long time, but I take a look at Hempstead Beach on Long Island New York, by webcam when I want to pretend.

Click on either photo for a closer view.

Annealing glass beads

a kiln full of beads

Here we have a kiln full of handmade beads ready for annealing.  Annealing is a method for heat treating the beads to make them less likely to break.  Annealing is also used in metallurgy to make metals less brittle.

After several hours in the hot kiln, the beads reach 960F and are then allowed to cool slowly.  Now they are ready to release into the wild.

Glass is still glass, so a bead might break if dropped.  It is also wise to avoid thermal shock to glass beads, so if you were wearing a glass bead while sunbathing and then jumped into a cold swimming pool it could have unhappy results.

Armed Forces Day

Today is Armed Forces Day, thank you to all who serve.

Land of the Free

My front porch has flown a flag for the past ten years, and now there is a bit of bunting on the railing as well.  Sometimes the local school band practices marching on my street, not a real parade, just the flavor.

Spring is here, the days are getting warm enough to start making beads again.  Glass prefers working temperatures above 65 degrees.

Here are the first new beads of the season, on the rod at the bottom of the photo.  They are smaller than my usual beads shown at the top.  In the center of the photo are some of the stock glass rods used to create the beads.  I am needing smaller accent beads, and am also experimenting with a larger steel rod which results in a bead with a larger hole.  Click on each photo for a closer view.

first beads of the year

Fire bead in a woven choker

fire bead in peyote stitch woven choker

Finally finished another woven seed bead choker this week.

I call this series Fire beads because of how great they look in full sunlight – like they are on fire!  Translucent ambers and blues with glimmers of gold and lots of encased air bubbles make this handmade Aura Sun Arts bead special.

The focal bead colors are repeated in the seed beads along the necklace, in shades of amber and brown, with flecks of gold and a scattering of blues.  The bead weaving technique, using upholstery thread and a tiny needle, is called the peyote stitch.  With it you can create patterns or completely freeform pieces, it is much like knitting.

Browns and blues just naturally complement each other, it’s a good team.  Here is another shot to show the detail on the end clasp.  Some of the beads were just 1mm in size, it made this one more challenging.  It is 15.5 inches long.  $250.00.  Click on each photo for an enlarged view.

fire bead with bubbles