Welcome New Year

•January 6, 2012 • Leave a Comment

Hello 2012!! So so so glad last year is behind me and officially over! GAH!!

I have made a resolution to stop using so many exclamation points. Unless they are absolutely necessary! (kidding…)

Xmas gifts fo glass made their way safely home to their new caretakers and have been hung with care.

Hawaiian Fling in her new home

and so is Divers...

I find that I really enjoy seeing the pics of the art up in their permanent locations. Keep them coming.

Update on the Saga of the soldering iron. I can’t remember what i posted here, so I’ll do a quick recap. Soldering iron temp was fluctuating wildly. ordered new tips; they were absolutely not the correct ones. Finally located a dealer for hakko in the US. Wonderful customer service (for the quality of the service, alone, I would recommend them). Sent the iron and regulator unit off for a check up. Turns out that it was the tip. The repair order said the tips and housing were “heavily oxidized”. so I called them up to ok the repair and pay for it (complete new tip, ceramic core and house $24) and ask what I could do to further extend the life of the tip. The iron is almost 6 years old. When I told the service rep the age, she laughed and said, oh, you got your monies worth out of that tip. Which is good to know. so kids, clean your tip, keep it “wet”, use your sal amoniac block, and when you get a crusty build up, use a soft wire bristle brush to gently clean the debris from the barrel.

I have decided to move the glass workshop out of my back bedroom, to the Dining room. I do not dine in the dining room. And it takes too long for the heat to get to the back of the house. I have sold my dining table and chairs, and will begin the move next weekend. The back bedroom has never felt completely right. I’ve  been in it for 6 months, plenty of time to acclimate, but still no go. Once I get it moved, I’ll be starting one more underwater scene. I have some good ideas and am excited to get going on it.

I have put up the pattern for Lord Ganesha on Etsy.com, you can see it here. I will be adding other patterns as I make them. The original “divers” pattern will go up, the one with the light rays. I might watercolor that, since I don’t have a finished piece in that arrangement. Having fun with it, and that is what it supposed to be all about, right?

I think that is it. I am putting off getting ready for the day. I suppose I should get to it. Happy New Year!

Posted in Commissions, For Sale, Inspiration, Patterns

Coming soon

•December 24, 2011 • 1 Comment

Taking a break in January. I have sent off my temp regulator to be checked out by the wizards at Hakko. Hopefully it is something that is a relatively easy, and low cost, fix. Please. The tips I ordered turned out to not fit. wtf? I typed in the model number and bought the tips that came up as a result… but they weren’t correct, and the company took them back, without a fuss, so that was great.

I’m going to concentrate on some patterns. I will be offering some of my patterns up on etsy.com, for sale. Ganesha for sure, probably the sea life I just did, and the whale. I want to draw some stuff, some Buddha pieces and smaller hummingbird windows. Very enthused about that. Please look for the patterns there. once i get them up, I’ll post a link.

Wishing everyone a very merry christmas, and a joyful new year.

smooches, glasswench

Posted in Custom, For Sale, Patterns

and thus concludes our 2011 program…

•December 17, 2011 • 1 Comment

Divers

Ah, done. Yippee. Been working non-stop for the past few days, and now I can stop. Overall, I am pleased with it. Though I wish I had an additional month to work on it, but that is just my perfectionism streak coming out, lol.

Posted in Uncategorized

cancelled appointment = opprotunity

•December 15, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I am working glass like a crazed person. a tired crazed person. there is a lesson here. i think i have learned it. time management. crucial.

i had an appointment at work, a three hour block of time, for some permanent makeup. she called about an hour ago and cancelled. said she had a sore throat. normally, this would piss me off. three hours!! that is a huge block of time.

this time however, i am delighted. the 3 hour block is connected to my lunch hour, so that mean its four hours really. i am going to race home and work on glass. this means that i might actually get this piece done tonight. atthe very least, i can get it soldered and patina’ed. i was going to forego the patina, because of time.  but NOW i can do it all!

yeah for doing it all!

Posted in Commissions

out of sight, out of mind

•December 6, 2011 • Leave a Comment

 

after my last post, I realized that I had never writen up the post-ArtWalk blog. So here goes:

thats a huge photo, lol. the smaller size wasn’t working. It took a very long time to get everything ready. it took a vry long time to do all the hanging. god. forever.

lighting was defintiely an issue. it was better once it was dark, but still not ideal. somehow,  need to figure out how to spotlight each piece with direct light. gah.Have a good turn out, the first folks arrived not to long past 5pm, the official start time, and I had a steady stream of folks up until about 7:30. had a little lull at that time and one of my helper ladies went up to the corner and brought a group down, and that seemed to jump start the process again. it got quiet around 8:30, had only c few tricklers after that, and at 9pm I shut it down.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I figured that i would  be talking work most of the night. if i had made that bet, i would have lost, lol. people wanted to talk about the glass, mostly, which was lovely. Ganesha received much adoration, which I am sure he appreciated. the Hummingbird piece was also a popular one (note to self: hummingbird pieces for next year), and the Hawaiian Fling whale also had several fans.

Didn’t sell a single piece, which surprised me, and was very disappointing, to say the least.

Overall though, I would say it was a success. I had about 80 people through the space, and definitely saw an increase in spa business afterward. and that was the purpose of the event, to bring in new clients to the spa. getting the word out in regards to my glass work was strictly a bonus. I did learn a few things, and i will do several things differently  next year, but nothing major. I will do smaller pieces. Things I can easily transport and hang. I will have more lighting outside so my place is visible. It really is off teh beaten path, and was hard to find in the dark.

The buffalo chili was a gigantic hit, as were my helper ladies. Thank you Sarah, Dawm, Joy and Pam. And an espcially huge thank you to my Wine Chick, Anita for her tireless efforts and all the belly laughs. It was a really good night.

Posted in Custom

the rush to xmas

•November 29, 2011 • 2 Comments

i’m not terribly disappointed that I have only one lonely commission for xmas. I am just a little burnt out on glass theses days. doing a diver’s piece. once again, it was supposed to be simple, and i went overboard (pardon the pun, lol). I have until the 16th to complete it, and honestly, i have no idea how I will make the deadline. I just started grinding tonight. getting the complicated pieces done first, the ones that need the ring saw. tomorrow night i will attempt all the tiny pieces. and there is quite a few of those. why, oh why, do i do this to myself?

maybe, as a treat, first thing in the new year, i will make the lampshades for the reading lights next to my bed. a nice, simple box shade. nothing fancy, nothing at an angle, no complicated angles or patterns. simple box. that sounds nice.

i’ll take a photo tomorrow and post. not right now. time for grub, a fire in the fireplace, and a movie.

Posted in Commissions, Custom

ArtWalk Tonight 5-9pm, Downtown Red Bluff

•November 4, 2011 • 3 Comments

Here we go:

glassbizcardv2front

crap. you have to click on it. maybe this will work.

ha! Was at the shop til 1am, hanging glass and cleaning. Will take photos and post. I feel like it is my wedding day… been planning & prepping for this for a year. It’ll either fizzle or it will be great. I’m going pray for great.

Posted in Cool glass

DONE!! ArtWalk, here we come

•October 31, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Huge sigh of relief. Everything I wanted to get done for the show, is now done. Was done a week ago. Didn’t get photos of Northern Lights v2 until today though. With the light changing with the seasons, my side porch photo studio isn’t very good anymore. The sun is lower, it seems, and the porch doesn’t light up as much. Haven’t been able to fully illuminate the piece.

I heard noises out front this a.m., and went to investigate. It was my drunken neighbor/gardener trimming my honeysuckle and pulling weeds out of my poor munched-on-by-evil-snails dichondra lawn. And lo-and-behold beautiful bright light was streaming in the front window. I ran and grabbed the piece and hung it. Ran and grabbed the camera. took a shot. the light was already moving and being blocked by the trees out front, plus the trees out front and the garbag e cans and the crazy collection of people with no teeth who gather around my druncken gardener were all interfereing with the shot.

Thinking hard, I remembered that i had a long piece of white butcher paper that I couldn’t quite throw away. it was white. and unblemished. I thought i would be able to find a use for it at some point. and I did. running outside with paper and scotch tape in hand, i taped the paper over the window. my gardener said “hey man, i don’t look in windows…” i had to laugh. i explained what i was doing and ran back inside. All t his in my pjs, bathrobe and slippers, mind you.

totally worth it.

LOve it. its a little different from v1, and I love it. I can let it go though.

Fish Windsock #2. the belly didn’t get great illumination, to dense, and the photo with flash looked horrible, so you are just gonna have to settle for this photo.

 since i finished a week early, i was ambitious, and started another fish windsock. i might get it done in time. and i still have to clean up a couple pieces. Ganesha, the original fish windsock, the morning glory window.

A list of what will  be at the show:

1. Ganesha

2. Sun Flower

3. Hawaiian Fling

4. Jellyfish (pete brought this back last week, yeah!! thank you!)

5. Northern Lights v2

6. Angel’s Trumpet & Hummingbirds

7. Lola’s Tulip

8. Red Lotus

9. Morning Glorys

10. Fish Windsock times 3 (i hope. at least two)

on loan, and also being displayed:

a. Honu, Michelle’s Turtle

b. Plumeria & Butterfly

wow. that’s 14 pieces. that is fantastic!! God, I hope people show up.

Posted in Butterflies, Commissions, Cool glass, Custom

working my last nerve

•October 17, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Soldering this piece is killing me! I am not the world’s best solder tech,  by far. But by now I have figured out to pretty consistently get a decent solder seam. This piece is kicking my butt though.

I assume it is something out of rights with the iron. Nothing else has changed. I am using Mastercraft solder (supposed to be the best in the biz), same flux, same technique, etc. Iam however, getting some unusual results. My iron tip is cooling off very very quickly, which means i have to wait for it to get back up to temp before i continue. As a result it has taken twice as long as it should have to solder this booger. Plus I’m getting almost constant boiling, which makes no sense, right? if the iron is cooling, why is it boiling and popping?

I did some reading on the web, most of what it says to do there, I am doing. I have never taken my solder tip apart and cleaned it. I clean it while i am working, on a damp sponge, and then using the cleaning block when it gets gunky. One of the articles says i need to tke the whole thing apart, unscrew it, and clean inside. Well shoot. I have never done that. So i will try it when the iron has sufficiently cooled. Other than that… I don’t know.

I could replace it.They aren’t that expensive, surprisingly enough. About $6-10 depending on the width of the tip, plus shipping. I like the 1/8″ tip so that is the $6 model. The issue is the time. I’m going to be done with this piece tomorrow. I was hoping to bang out another fish windsock before the show, which I could totally do if i don’t need to replace the tip. Or maybe a small frog piece.

Look at how bold I am, lol. Wasn’t sure I was going to get this piece done, and now that I am, I’m getting greedy. If I keep the frog piece simple, I could conceivably get both small pieces done. I’ll shoot for it and hope it happens. I also need to check my list and make sure I have everything I need for the actual event. I have a lady from a winery coming on Weds to check out the space. I am hoping she will do a wine tasting, help draw peeps in.

Peter came by today and dropped off the Jellies, for the show. It is lovely to have them back, even if it is only for a short time. They are so dang pretty.

Ok. Time for dinner and some TV. Sons of Anarchy. That show has majorly cut into my glass time.

Posted in Commissions, Technique

just might make it

•October 4, 2011 • 1 Comment

it is 8:05 on a monday night. Just about 30 days until ArtWalk. I should be foiling, not typing. But I’m a tad burned out on glass at this very moment. the Northern Light v2 is turning out magnificently. I am going to have some trouble resisting the urge to keep it, and selling v1.

The teal and purple in the aurora borealis are deeper tones in this version. Only time will tell if that was a good choice. i enlarged the pattern and decided to set the tree off center. I added some grey to the snow and changed the shape of it a bit. Remembering what a bugger the corduroy glass was to foil and clean, I opted to use nubbly glass for the tree trunk. i did make one kind huge mistake, but i am not going to share it with you, lol, it will be my little secret. and I am the only one who will think it is a mistake anyway. probably.

I have been trolling ebay and etsy looking for those beads for the fish piece. to finish off the lures. to my surprise, i found them. it took about an hour, and it wasn’t until i lucked out and found the correct wording to describe them. I found a lady selling a lb of them for $3. three dollars! I was paying .75 cents a piece at beadman. and the ones that i bought from beadman last time are rejects… the holes aren’t drilled all the way through so they are useless for my purposes.

sparkle-y!

Its a gorgeous mix of colors. I mostly use the cool tones but since there are so many oranges, I might have to make an orange-themed version. very very pleased with the find.

I guess i will stop procrastinating and go foil. I really am not in the mood though. maybe a movie would be a better idea…

Posted in For Sale

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