My first Etsy Treasury!

You may be asking yourself "WTF is a treasury"? Well let me break it down for ya. A treasury is a list compiled on Etsy that helps promote it's sellers. When the treasury list gets below a certain number ( I think its like 222 or something??) you can compile a list of things you thought were cool on Etsy. When your list gets put up on Etsy it stays on the main page for a day! This helps buyers find you on Etsy and brings traffic to your shop. It is great exposure since Etsy is so vast. Here is the link to the treasury featuring one of my rings http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=23468
Thank you to SimplySuzula http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5402913
for adding me to her treasury list and a huge thank you for all of the wonderful people on Lampwork Etc. http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102668for taking this screen shot for me!
While I am saying "thank you," to these lovely people I would also like to thank my friends, family, and customers for all their love and support. I also would like to thank God for giving me these wonderful talents so that I may share them and my passion for glass with others.

Warm fuzzies,

Genea

Holy Halloweenies Batman!

Yep! Here they are in all of their glory! 5 days of Halloween!

Here is a close up shot of the top half of my bead mat.

Here is a close up shot of the bottom of the mat.

.....And there is still more to come!

In loving memory

Kira, 12/19/98 - 8/22/08

Kira 1 yr old, Me 17

Kira 5 moths


To my beloved....
We will love and miss you, Kira!

BZZZZzzzz

That has got to be one of the WORST noises you can hear when you are in the middle of working on a bead in your studio. I had a little visitor today. I thought the buzzing was just a fly, but to my dismay it was BEE! No bueno! So here I am in the middle of a bead and this bee is angrily bumping into the flourescent bulbs of the light above where I work. What is one to do?!!! Well I finished my bead and then looked at the light. SHIT! The bee was MIA. That is almost WORST! Then there is no telling where they are. So I look for a few seconds. I don't see him so I continue. Then all the sudden I hear the buzzing again! This time the bee is on his back buzzing on top of my kiln! WTF?! Pretty sure the kiln temp was 960! (At this point my whole body is a GIANT GOOSE BUMP! ) He spins out of control and drops somewhere on the floor. I stop again to see where he his. DOUBLE SHIT! Gone again! This time I decide to turn off the bright flourscent light and turn on the other basement lights hoping that he will buzz to one of them. I am also terribly confused as to how he is still ALIVE after sitting on top of a kiln that is almost 1000 degrees! I am still nervously looking around for this bee and then all of the sudden I spot him. HE'S RIGHT BY MY BEAD PRESS THAT IS RIGHT BY MY LEFT HAND! EEP! I slowly move my bead press base away from him and grab my small notebook to smash him. *SWAT* first hit! HE'S STILL ALIVE! *SWAT* second hit! Still didn't quite squish him! *SWAT* third hit! Finally he is DEAD! I take my tweezers from my desk top and pick up his little body and put in the garbage. I put my gum wrapper from the basket on top of his body and mash him one last time with my tweezers JUST TO MAKE SURE HE IS *REALLY* DEAD! *SHIVER* And then back to making Halloween beads! heheheheheh

I can't wait to see what the kiln fairy brings me tonight!

Well I'm outie....

Much love,

Genea

Group photo

Group photo! Here are all of the beads that I have made over the last two days. I was totally inspired by these colors that I saw on a shirt at Gordman's.

Well I should get going. Have to make more beads!

Much love,

Genea

Mmmm pretties...

Look what was sitting on my bead mat. Hmmm what if I kept them for myself?.... Yeah, probably not. Oh well, more for you all right?!

I've been really inspired!

Hey all! Want to see what I've been up to?! Check out my post on Lampwork Etc....
http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2003896#post2003896

Thanks for the special order, Billie! I had so much fun making them!

Much love,

Genea

Psyche Metamorphosis

Hey all! So I am finally getting around to something I found to be really interesting about this awesome silver glass that is now available to all of us soft glass workers. All of these beads were made with Double Helix's Psyche,but you will notice how different they all are. Below I will explain all of the differences of how I made them.

As you will notice this bead appears to be very goldish greenish in comparison to the other beads below. This was the first bead I made on my Hot Head using 1lb cylinders. I cranked up my torch and blasted it in a bushy flame and here is what I got.

This bead was made on my minor. I made the base, used a somewhat reducing flame, used a clear stringer for the swirl, reduced and then encased. I put it in a reducing flame to pull out the metals in the dots, but in this instance I tried to turn up my propane knob. I only ended up with one really shiny dot and the others were pretty, but not as metallic and rainbowy as I wanted.

Ah, now that's what I'm talking about! This time I made the base, used a clear stringer, reduced it turning down my oxygen knob (this works far better to reduce) and making a little snake forked tongue flame and putting the bead at the tip of the little orange tongue. Holy crap! Isn't that EVEN BETTER?! I then encased and then used that same style flame for the dots. Teeny little oil slicks appeared! Woo Hoo!

Of course since I was now getting all cocky I had to try something a little bit different. This time I made a pretty dirty and bushy flame turning down my oxy, but not all the way the the forked tongue. I thought maybe I could get those gold tones like on my HH if I started with a dirty flame (I think it's just about impossible to make a really dirty flame like on a HH. These babies are supposed to make a nice clean flame. I mean that's why I upgraded right?! Anyways... moving on...) Well it didn't turn gold, but look at all the pretty streakies I got! Very cool. The darker stripes are what the original color looks like before you reduce it, kind of purply. Then I finished by encasing and applying the outside dots. I used my forked tongue flame and gently kissed all of the little dots on the outside and VOILA! See how beautiful they got?! YESSSS!

OMG! Do you see all of the little "oil slicks," in the dots?! As I was cleaning the bead I noticed all of the detail in the dots. Infact you can see that they are shimmery from a distance, but it's only when you turn the bead and really examine it that you begin to see all of the crystals that grew on the surface! WOW!Here is another picture showing the really shiny dots!


Well there you have it! These were my findings from my experimentation. Hope you enjoyed the show!

Much love,

Genea