I’ve decided to change things up a bit since the normal weekly updates just aren’t working for me (obviously since it’s been over a month since my last post).  Between crafting and writing about crafting, I just have no time to actually have a life.  So, I’m just going to do sporadic updates when I feel like it.  Hey, guess what?  I feel like it today.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been a very busy little bee.  I made a bunch of beads, mostly random, but some with an intended purpose.  I tried out a couple tutorials for the first time with varying degrees of success.  The first one was from Jacqueline Parkes’ My Secret Garden, which is awesome.  There’s a special tool required, but I was able to pick itup locally and very inexpensively, which is like a first for my special lampworking tools.

Not my first effort. That one lives somewhere in my “never see light of day” pile.

My first effort was passable.  I used the same glass as what is used in the tutorial but it came out just meh.  I’m too conservative sometimes, I think.  Anyway, the big learning curve to this tutorial has to do with timing and placement of the components.  Anytime I have to pull components first, it usually doesn’t go well, but this time, I had minimal shrapnel.  One flower made and I decided to tackle another one since that had gone pretty well.  This time, I tried pink – the same pink I hadn’t been able to make the rose petals with.  Yeah…  It didn’t go well, but I don’t think it was all my fault.  Sitting in front of the torch, pink rod in hand, creating my gather, I noticed it.  A bubble formed at the end of the rod, then blew out.  There is a small hole down the length of the rod. $#@!

I think that most of my newer dark pink glass has this hole, which really ticks me off since that glass is not cheap.  Grr…

Getting better with the flowers.

The other tutorial I tried was the Kerri Fuhr Raven.  It went pretty well.  The background I tried was one from her tapestry tutorial.  Now, I’ve tried this tutorial before and frankly, I really suck at it.  Stringer work has never been my strong point and neither is raking, both of which you really need to do this successfully.  I’m getting better though, but since I had already messed up the tapestry bead, I figured, “I’ll put a bird on it.”

The raven came out pretty good!  It’s nearly impossible for me to photograph without setting up my light tent, but yeah.  I’m happy.

If you totally ignore the background, this one isn’t too bad.

In other news, I have a new hobby.  I need another hobby like I need a hole in the head, but I’m weak in the face of learning something new that is both fun, functional and marketable.  What is this thing?, you ask…  glass bottle cutting.  Someone on Lampwork Etc. had posted some picture of wine bottle glasses – basically just the bottom of the bottle cut to the length of a drinking glass.  They posted a link to a YouTube video and I was off.  It’s so easy.  At least, I think it’s easy because I haven’t actually tried it yet.  My cutting contraption is on its way from Amazon right now.

Then, I started looking through the forums and saw a few threads on making beads from bottles.  I’ve thought about this before, but it always seemed kind of difficult.  But now, I think I’m OK to tackle this.  I have a kiln now, which I didn’t have when I first thought about it.  Also, with recycled glass, you really can’t mix it.  Bottles don’t come with the co-efficient of the glass stamped on them.  This is important because you can’t mix different COEs because one glass will cool much faster than the other which will cause it to shatter.  No bueno.  You really have to not mix the glass.  Even say, beer bottles from the same 6-pack might have different COEs so you really need to keep the reclaimed glass separate.

But really, what’s the fun in making a bead that is only a single color with no decoration?  Not much, at least not for me.  The ONLY time I do this is when I’m making simple spacers.  Boring.  Enter a new tool/idea to my life…  Stamping it with leather stamps.  I picked up a couple of cute designs – flower and butterfly – so I can make some beads with some dimension and interest, even though they are all one color.

I put some feelers out to my friends and co-workers about saving their glass bottles for me, so hopefully I’ll get a good amount of free glass to try this stuff out on.  Luckily, a lot of my friends drink a lot, which I guess is why they are my friends.   What I’m hearing a lot from them is “I only buy the really big bottles.” That’s cool with me because I can make vases and candle holders.

Time Warp…

I actually wrote this a couple weeks ago but never posted it because…  Yeah, I have no excuse.  I just didn’t post it.  Moving on…

The bottle cutter arrived and I excitedly tried to cut a couple beer bottles.  Miserable failure is how I would classify it.  I thought, maybe the beer bottle glass is too thin, so I tried an old wine bottle.  Again, miserable failure.  But the wine bottle was green, so I took it out to the garage and whacked it with a hammer.  That was satisfying.  Then I turned on the torch and melted it down.

Recycled/upcycled/reclaimed glass beads

Melting the glass down and pulling it into rods was pretty fun.  I used a new press to make the sweet little flowers, then I dug out my old presses to do the other things.  I actually love the leaf press for this reclaimed glass.  I’m going to try it with some brown/amber beer bottles soon.

Success! Tumblers.

I finally had some success cutting the bottles down to “tumbler” size glasses, so I grabbed a pretty Skyy Vodka bottle my sister gave me and tried that…  Yeah – NO!  The bottle didn’t cooperate, so…

Bwaa ha ha!  Let it be known… This is what happens to naughty bottles in my house, bitches!