My week off has been spent productively, I think.  I mean, for someone who hasn’t actually changed out of pajama’s, I’ve gotten a lot done.  I’ve planted a ton of seeds and cared for all of my animals… Of course, that’s all in my virtual game world.  My real world has been less productive, though the torching is going pretty well.

I actually made a mini set yesterday and all the beads look decent.

There was another test bead, an encased floral, I made with this same background color, but my year hiatus made me forget that this glass doesn’t like to be encased and… well… it’s getting a watery grave in the bottom of my quench bowl.

I’m really going to work  on keeping a balance between my gaming and crafting because I don’t want to burn out on either one.  So, here’s my first attempt at melding the two things.  Oh, yeah, there are things I could do better on this, but it’s a starting point.

Special shout out to my guildie and new cheerleader, Kristian/Shira. 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement.

**Need to get the photo stuff out so these look less pitiful than they really are.

I did it!  I lit my torch for the first time in about 14 months. And I actually made beads. They aren’t great.  I won’t be posting them for sale on Etsy or Facebook, but they may one day make it to the bead orphan bowl… The bowl with functionally competent beads that were one-offs from one of my torching sessions.

I’m super rusty, which I guess is to be expected.  I suppose it could have been worse.  I filled a couple presses like a boss, but when it came time to decorate those bases… Well, that’s were it all fell apart. Witness the sad bunny…

I have a few more beads in the kiln right now and sadly, not much progress was made.  But, I’ll keep at it. If nothing else, I did remember how much I love to melt glass.

It’s been soooooo long since I’ve done anything crafty, but that all ends today.  First step was getting my blog back up and running.  Check.  Second step, getting my glass desk cleaned off… check!  I also spent an hour of my life working on my bead release.  Bead release is the bane of my lamp working life.  I hate putting it on and I hate taking it off.

But, I did it so today, I fire up the torch.  It’s been over a year, so who knows what’s going to come out.  Baby steps. 🙂