My lovely sister-in-law was nice enough to play around w/ her new camera using some of my beads as practice macro shots. Hubby leaves soon, so just the pic: 
lampwork
Tumble Etching Beads
My Mr. is home for some R&R, so this will be a quick post 🙂
My first try w/ tumble etching was a big FAIL- never use the Harbor Freight grit sampler to etch beads. I ruined a whole bunch of hollow focals, maybe they can be saved when I get my sandblasting set-up ready to use. The two beads below are a few that etched well in around 8-10 hrs. The hollow fumed focals still have very tiny shiny spots from the crackling of fuming, I assume. The ribbed beads didn’t tumble etch well since the valleys stayed shiny while the ribs etched well. They are on deck for sandblasting. I’ll try and get some pics up for the visual peeps among us. 
Pile of Hollow Big Hole Bead Lovlies
I hope I’m not the only one that loves these- still debating on whether to just core w/o beadcaps or do the whole she-bang w/ coring and double beadcaps. Sell them separately or in a set? Having a hard time making up my mind on this one..perhaps you can help me decide. 
Z-99 Experimentations
Time has certainly flown during my absence of blogging. Didn’t mean to be gone and have the shop closed for so long- time moves differently when a spouse is deployed and the New Year wasn’t as big of a deal as his R&R coming up will be. I’ve been experimenting when it’s warm enough in the studio to fire up the torch, here are a few:
The beads above are made w/ a hard to find glass- Z-99 Purple Rose Special. The Zimmerman family has stopped production and decided not to sell their glass recipes to the industry. It is a wonderful and reactive color, these beads were made on a base of Effetre White- yep, just white- w/ various frits and powders added.
Not to worry, I’m still in love w/ making my organic hollows. Here is a set that hasn’t been etched yet:
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and shared it with the ones you love. This gal knows better than to make any resolutions, but perhaps we’ll be seeing each other a little more frequently at this space 🙂
BABE! 2010 and Beads
BABE! was a hit and I’m looking forward to next year’s show. Even w/ travel expenses and shipping my work, it was still worthwhile. How lovely it was to see repeat customers and getting to meet new smiling faces.
I ran out of business cards before lunch on Sunday and now know to hold a few back so if there is some who like to grab multiples, they won’t take all my stack.
The booth shots were, unfortunately, quickly taken on Sunday since I forgot my camera on Saturday when my table was freshly arranged and all my beads were there. These show a table considerably picked over.
I also got to spend some time with my dear friend, Ann– we spent a day in SF and shopped at the Ferry Building w/ lunch at the Slanted Door. Yum!
This was just a quick shot of us at the BART station before I had to dash back to Mary’s house to drive up to Oakland and get set-up before the show.
Now to relax and decompress for a day or two and get ready for the holiday travels.
Now to relax and decompress for a day or two and get ready for the holiday travels.
The work that didn’t sell will be going up shortly on Etsy– as soon as it gets to me by mail. Just keep a look out on the blog and I’ll update before adding to the shop.
Beads and 100 Followers :)
This past week has been a whirlwind of travel, meeting new people, and trying to get ready for the show next month. Just noticed that I have 100 Followers for this blog!- thanks for your interest and here’s to showing you work that continues to grab your attention. 
Met up w/ some wonderful beady people over the weekend and look forward to our next Carolina Firefiend meeting. One member generously let me borrow her Jim Moore press since my Impress Bead Liner was too slim to fit my big beads inside to core and cap. (these three beads above are a few I’ve done so far, before running out of bead caps) Another is going to tumble etch some of my hollows to see how it compares to my usual acid etch method.
Thank goodness my wonderful cousin is nearby and willing to babysit my little man, making it possible for me to go to these meetings.
Big Hole Beads
Being part of an online exchange usually stretches my boundaries and makes me try something new. This time the exchange is for big hole beads and since I never do anything the easy way, I decided to see how well I could encase some long big hole beads, these were made on 1/4″ mandrels. The last pic is the four I made with only the two on the top pic making the cut for possible inclusion for the exchange. The second bead cracked since I admired it for too long and the one on the far right has a sharp end. I was able to make these with my Electric Mandrel Spinner– there’s no way my wrists could have managed otherwise. 
The short one is 14.5 mm long and the large one is 35 mm long or 1-1/4″.
I knew that thing would come in handy one day.
And Again..two more sets for Etsy
These look nice together- totally by accident that I put that strand of encased crackled beads together and after setting them next to the hollows noticed how nice they look together..hmm, I can see a new set in the future w/ a mix of matte and encased beads.
These will be going up shortly onEtsy Update!
Finally getting around to re-opening my shop and putting up new work. These are smaller hollows than what I normally make- so if you like them snag them, because I didn’t make many.
These will be listed shortly:
Work, work, work
Trying to get the time to get all these listed is causing me a headache. About to head out of town for an appt. that will take most of the afternoon. Maybe tomorrow?
Argh, and all of these still need to be etched and photographed..maybe the in-laws won’t notice me slipping off while they admire the little man this next week?
And a closeup of a favorite bead.. still trying to figure out which color of coral it was. 