"Sea Horse" Hearts! My newest and most incredible feat in glass to date!

Hello friends!

Ok well I guess it's time to tell you what I've been up to. I hate to spoil the surprise after just making one bead or post in text what I will be working on. It tends to bite me in the butt, so I have been keeping things a secret. I had wondered if I should tell you now or wait to show you a whole collection of beads. I have had a few people asking and I can't keep exciting secrets to save my life! 

So here's the story. As you may have read a few days ago I freaked out. I had been doing a run of weeny dings and had all these plans to stock up my shop full of wing dings and weeny dings. I had  a few other projects on my list too. I kept trying to push on trying to re-stock, but I just couldn't. Beads weren't turning out. I was bumming because I kept seeing people post new work. I wanted to make ideas I had had in my head forever. Finally I panicked and stopped EVERYTHING. If I didn't stop what I was doing an "artist's funk" was surely in store for me. If you have never experienced one be glad. Sometimes this crappy uninspired feeling will last for MONTHS. Ugh... totally don't need that after my kiln being down for 2 weeks and then me being sick.  

So I just said F* IT and did what I wanted to. I had tried a few little tests to see if my idea was even possible. So here it goes...

So as you may know, I am totally in love with MAKU's hearts and Staci's.

MAKU hearts.

Staci's hearts, which were inspired by MAKU's hearts :D

Ok so the first step was to see if my glass idea would work. Here were some simple tests to find out. 

Here were some quick doodles for ideas. Originally I had wanted to make some glass enameled pins, but upon thinking about this idea it would be much easier to just put a blob of glass on the wire. So how could I take the inspiration I had, translate it into glass and make it my style?

So I laid out my arsenal of elements to give this idea a whirl.

I created the FIRST two "Sea Horse" hearts! OMG Look! It worked! Not only did it work, but look how AMAZING they are! 

Here is a shot of the dots on the wire. They have a trapped air bubble of course since I just LOVE to add that element. It was one of my favorite things I learned when I was first making beads :D

So after this SUCCESS surely I needed to make more!  So off to work I went....

Now what colors to use??? Hmmmm well Dark Ivory is always  a MUST, but which other colors? I asked Ricky and my sweet, sweet husband replies, "What about Red Roof Tile"? I love it when my hubby speaks glass to me. I guess that happens after 9 years of bead making and 5 years of being married ;) What a great idea! 

Oooooo AMAZING!

My palms were sweating and my heart was RACING.. 

Ooooo so awesome!

Gotta keep going...

Now for another of my very FAVORITE COLORS(and seems to be everyone elses too), Stone Ground! OH.... MY.... GOD... Look at how GORGEOUS this is!

WHOA... Just look at that COLOR. 

BUT..... with all great things comes CRISIS. The most DREADED sound ever to hear while you are lampworking. All lampworkers ears are fine tuned to this one little particular sound. When you hear a little *tink* while you are working that is BAD. That is the sound of glass cracking. So I did hear it a few times as I worked, but thought surely it must be the little dots of glass on the metal pins, right?  WRONG.... Dead WRONG. So where were those cracks?

At the bottom cone part of the heart! *dies* :'( I can only make about 3 hearts in one sitting. They are pretty intense as soon as I create the fin and add on the little "antenae". So surely those would be the delicate things, right? Nope, it's the cone. So why is it that this is happening? 

So lets take a look. If you notice. You will see that the glass is the thinnest at the cone's base. The rest of the heart is super thick with a lot of mass. So as I was neglecting the bottom of the heart so worried about my "sticky outies," it was therein that laid the problem. 

I was HEART BROKEN... literally and metaphorically. The one in the picture above was my FAVORITE.. I might even say it was my "Preciousssssssssssss". 

I mean, LOOK at it... Oh *sigh* such a bummer :(

So dismayed and disbeliefed at 

 this horror I HAD to try again. I am a very determined person, so this was NOT going to stop me. I would just try harder and remember to really make sure to give the bottom of the heart some good heat inbetween keeping everything else warm.

Here is the entire run of "Sea Horse" hearts I created :D Aren't they amazing?! As you can see I had better success my second time around! Thank God! 

 Here you can get an idea of the size of the hearts. So you can expect to see these GORGEOUS beads in the shop later this week!

I am really digging this theme so I have created even more amazing beads today! I hope to make a lot more this week.

You can expect to see these AMAZING hearts in the shop this week! 

See you soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

xo Genea

Why the BIG paws?

A bear walks into a bar to order a drink. 

The bear says to the bartender "I'd like a gin and........................................................................................... tonic. 

The bartender says "Why the big pause?" 

The bear says "I dunno, I've always had them". :D:D:D

This was one of those old silly jokes I heard from my sister. I guess my mind is a lot like Bumble Bee from Transformers. My mind works in clips of videos, music and silly things of that nature.

So what does this have to do with my post? Well if you remember I am working on the paw print jewelry and keychains for Advanced Animal Care of Colorado. Well as you may know I am quite particular about the quality of my beads, right? So since I am such a harsh critic of my work I decided to let my husband critique the paw print beads I made thinking he wouldn't be as picky as myself.

Want to see the ones he rejected?

Yep, ALL of them. Every last one! So you are wondering to yourself. How did these get rejected? They look like paw prints the hearts are pretty. I'm confused!

 

Ok so here are 2 more paw prints. On the right you have the one that "failed" on the left  you have the one that "passed". So why did one pass and one fail? If you look at the bead on the right Ricky didn't like the more "horse shoe" shape of the dog pad and the fact that the dotted toes were so close to the top of the bead. Did your heart sink? Mine kinda did too.... BUT, he was right about some things....

I do really like the more "heart" shaped pad on the left paw print and making the paw print smaller and more centered did make it look better. I guess the right paw print is kinda big and looks maybe more like a bear paw(hence the opening joke).

So back to the drawing board I went and made all new ones!

 

The order will resemble these two prints. The pendants have the red hearts on the back and the keychains have polka dots.

So where are ALL of those "rejected" beads going? The landfill? HEAVEN'S NO. I can't hardly throw away anything I could think about recycling! After all there really isn't anything wrong with them perse, they are just different than what our idea for them was.  So yes, beads are rejected from the studio based on FUBAR results AND design "mishaps" if you will.

These beads  go to the place all rejected beads go, my mom's bead box ;)

These beads enjoy a happy "second life" in her bead box to be made into whatever else she thinks up. Why don't I sell the "seconds"? Well quality, of course! I want only my very best work out in circulation! Something we can both feel happy about :D

Now on to finish up the order....

WHAT ELSE IS NEW???....

Still working on getting the new jewelry shop up and running and everything in it's proper order. Listings to come soon....

Working on some glass testing and prepping for the holidays!

Are you ready for all of that Christmas shopping yet???!

See you soon!

xo Genea