Gorgeous Glass Gems

I spent 3 days cutting up the dichro slabs, engraving them with the Dremel, and then grinding and beveling them, and hustled them into the kiln yesterday for firepolishing - here are just a few of the cabs, liberated from the kiln this morning: (I wish dichro photographed well!)

Those of you with a trained eye will probably spot my mistake in this pic - Of these 7 cabs, somehow, 3 of them (the 2 uppermost ones, and the round one in the middle) - missed out on the beveling stage in the grinder.

Even more disheartening: out of the 35 cabs I made, only about 10 of them are beveled. I don't have the slightest idea how this happened - all 35 were in a bucket next to the grinder, and I was pulling them out one at a time to bevel. I sat at the dang grinder for 4 hours working on this - have NO CLUE how I missed more than 2/3 of them.

I was just going to leave them unbeveled,, until I started planning to solder with some of them - they are 7/16 inches tall, and my tallest bezel wire is 1/4 inch, so it will just barely work. And if I don't slant the top edge a little, I don't think I will get a good bezel.

So I am now going to haul out the grinder again, and bevel all the cabs I missed the first time - and then I'll firepolish them (again) tomorrow.

I have listed one of the cabs on Etsy - these are just SO pretty! Can't wait to make some rings, pendants, and bracelets with them. And I have put aside one for beadweaving, too!

This one's available on Etsy:   SOLD!!

If you'd be interested in some of the blue-green-purple ones, let me know, and I'll list them, too.

Wednesday Worktable

Here is this morning's Worktable:

4 projects, which I'll show larger pics of below. And my iPad, streaming a Netflix movie. Couldn't make it through the day with some video entertainment! And speaking of making it through the day, there is my ubiquitous Diet Coke - this particular one is number 2 so far today.

So, from left to right, here's what I'm working on:

A blue and silver dragonscale (chainmaille) bracelet - almost done; about 3/4 inch to go!

A beaded cabochon - the beading itself is finished, but I need to glue the ultrasuede to the back and finish the edges.

More repairs, or as I now call them (thanks, Maggie!): Do Over Jewelry! I don't get good color when I take photos at my workbench, because the necklace on the left is made with beautiful, stop sign-red bamboo coral, yet it looks Halloween orange here. And the triple-strand necklace on the left is made with huge chunks of rose quartz (and freshwater pearls and Czech glass), and was simply too heavy for what it was originally strung on (as was the bamboo coral necklace, for that matter).

Once the Do Overs are dispatched, I can move on to my own projects.

Happy Wednesday!

Another look at the past

On Tuesday, I showed you the very first cab I ever beaded a bezel for.

Here is the second - made about a year later:

This was also made from one of my own pieces of dichroic glass, and I really love the colors.

Still working on the black and white jasper cab from yesterday...stitch, stitch....

Worktable Wednesday

Here's what's on the workbench today:

On the left: a 3-strand necklace repair I just completed for a customer - it is just waiting for me to call her to come pick it up. This one was a toughie - it had been originally strung on thread, which had broken. What I thought were size 15 seed beads (making up 2 of the 3 strands) were actually even smaller than 15s, and were seamed beads. The slightest pressure on these seamed beads, such as merely sliding them off the worn thread, caused the seams to pop open - so I have my fears for the longevity of this necklace. The equivalent of about 6 inches of these beads were lost due to this fragility, since once they popped open, they would no longer stay on any beading material.

On the right: a rectangular cab I am creating a beaded bezel for. I have never done anything other than an oval, so this will be a new challenge. Black and white is a favorite combo for me, and this stone is gorgeous. It is a deep snow white (opaque) and a deep opaque black, and I have absolutely no idea what the gemstone is. I'd love to know, if anyone has ideas. It is definitely not snowflake obsidian. It looks very similar to this picture I found on the www - called "black and white jasper." I am not familiar with this name, and wonder if perhaps there is another name for it. Any gemologists or geologists or gemstone wizards out there?

I am champing at the bit for a new issue of Bead & Button to arrive, so I can start a brand new weaving project - I really have a case of beadweaving fever right now!

What are you guys working on today?

Beaded Dichroic Glass Cab

I'm taking a bit of a stroll down memory lane this morning - I have never blogged this before, but I am so into beading bezels for cabs lately that I wanted to show you the very first one I ever did - way back in 2008.

The cabochon is a piece of my own dichroic glass, to which I added various delicas, and light sapphire AB Czech firepolish beads. I then beaded a peyote rope with the gold delicas.

The sentimental part of me wanted to hang on to this, but someone actually bought it right off my neck! Can't beat that!

Hot off the Worktable!

A new beaded cabochon:

And look what colors it is! Surprise! I keep working with these colors, over and over.

This pendant started with a gorgeous cab from my friend Mak, whose pieces are always so colorful, fun, and inspiring.

Here is the bezel in its early stages:

One side is higher than the other, so my finished bezel laps over the top on the lower side for a couple of rows (visible at the lower left, just to the left of the strip of matte copper seed beads crossing over the cab):

It's hardly noticeable, and certainly no big deal, but I know it's there!

After finishing the burgundy peyote weaving, I added the strip of matte copper seed beads across the top just for whimsy, and did a picot of slate gray and transparent copper seed beads around the top, and then a slate gray picot around the outer edges.

It had been awhile* since I wove a beaded bezel, and I kind of stumbled when I got to the backing, but I recovered nicely, if I do say so myself. And I enjoy this technique so much that I won't wait so long before I do another one, so my poor brain can't forget again. LOL.

This cabochon flashes so many gorgeous colors - burgundy and other reds, blue and slate gray, coppers - it is just yummy.

It would look great on a chain, or strung with complementary beads, or on a beadwoven rope.

And it is available now in my Etsy shop!

And since we are on the subject - here is the last cabochon I created a beaded bezel for:

*It has been a year, basically, since I did this piece - wow, where does the time go?
a) Look at the colors - there's my blue and burgundy, again
b) How can I forget how to do something I have done multiple times, and the last time was less than a year ago? A little scary...
c) This one is also available on Etsy!

Beading a Bezel

I have really been itching to beadweave this week, and after the fiasco that was my non-contrasty geometric peyote bracelet this week, I decided to bead a bezel for this beautiful raku cabochon by MakuStudio:

I just have 2 rows stitched here, and I apologize for the over-exposed pic.

This cab is very tall, and actually its height varies all around the circumference, so this one will involve a lot of stitching and a bit of a challenge to make the bezel even all the way around.

Me and my iPad, round 3 (oh, and I've made some jewelry, too)

Well, the iPad and I have reached a detente.

Here are the things I like about it:

• its portability
• the web browser (and everything else, duh) boots immediately, unlike my laptop
• SplashID: a terrific app for securely storing passwords and other sensitive info. You can toggle between the browser and splashID whenever you need to look up or create a new password.
• Netflix: the iPad is perfect for streaming video content
• the games: great animation, resolution, graphics. But my left hand and wrist get sore from holding the iPad, because while it is light (though my case adds some weight and dimension to it) it isn't weightless. And I only have one hand free for game play. My case has a built-in stand, but it isn't the right angle, or I don't have the right height stand to set the whole unit on, in order to have it be at an accessible distance both for my eyes and my hands, so there you have it.
• my calendar app: very handy (and portable) - and also serves as a To-do list. But this app has drawbacks - it takes far longer to make an entry of any sort than it does to jot in down in a day-planner.
• readers: they are all terrific (Kindle, Nook, iBooks, etc) - well organized, back lit; just a pleasure for reading (but far heavier than a Kindle, and easy to inadvertently turn pages by touching the screen)
• the native Notes app: great for quickly jotting down grocery items, reminders, etc
• the photo album: I have finally loaded my entire jewelry portfolio onto the iPad. But this has drawbacks, too - you have to load all photos through iTunes on your laptop/PC, and it must do a full sync every time you want to add even one photo, and with 1850 photos and counting in the album, this takes a considerable amount of time (a full 30 minutes on my laptop to sync the photos).

In all honesty, most of my time on the iPad is spent playing games.

These are the features I find mediocre, and certainly NOT as functional as my laptop:

• document handling: I looked at at a number of apps, and finally chose the pricey DocsToGo, because it supports .doc, .ppt, .xls, and .pdf (possibly more, but these are the big 4 for me). It also must be synced though iTunes IF you want your documents to be hard-stored on your iPad. If you are OK with them being out in the cloud, and therefore only accessible if you have WiFi access, then that is another way to go. But I needed the ability to read and modify certain docs at any time, so iTunes it is. At least with the document file transfer mode in iTunes, you can quickly just add docs one or 2 at a time, without having to do a full document sync each time. 

My biggest issue with documents on the iPad is the #&$^% iPad keyboard. As I said above, I really need to hold the iPad to keep it steady AND at the correct focal length for my vision, and at the right angle. The built-in stand in my iPad case is great for reading, but not for using the keyboard or the touchscreen - the pressure of my fingers knocks it right over. So when reduced to one hand to type with, on that crazy iPad touch-screen keypad, I am basically typing with one finger (can't retrain my right hand to do the whole Qwerty keyboard by itself), so it takes forever to do data entry anyway, and add to this the fact that my fingers (which are truly average size) hit the wrong keys fully half the time, so I have to type very very slowly, and make a lot of corrections. So I try to do all document writing/editing on my laptop, and save the iPad document app for reading only. Not as efficient, but that's my solution.

• Zite: I am crazy about the idea of this customizable, intuitive news app. But I have to rate it as mediocre, because of the scrolling issues mentioned above - every touch of the finger opens something I didn't want to open. And even more annoying, the articles are often abridged articles from the web, and usually contain hyperlinks, and in order to access the links or the additional content, after clicking on the link, you get a pop-up asking if you want to open the content in Safari. This really seems like an annoying, duh feature to me - admittedly, Safari is the only browser I have on my iPad (does Zite know this?) - so of course, I want to open the link in Safari. Why do I have to click yes every damn time? Just open the link, please.  And since Zite seems to be a mini-search engine of sorts, much of the content in the individual sections is repetitive (for instance, Star Trek is a module I have added to my Zite, and while it has great content, this week it has had article after article from various sources wishing Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner a happy (80th!) birthday. So, happy, happy birthday Kirk and Spock.

Here are the features I try to avoid at all costs, and reserve for when I can be on the laptop

• web browsing: This is simply a comedy of errors on the iPad. I use the native Safari browser, but doubt any other browser would be different. And the same issues exist with many specialty web apps: The webpages are too small to be seen on the iPad, so you have to pinch to enlarge, and then scroll around endlessly, as each finger swipe sends you farther than you wanted to go. And in so many apps and webpages, so much of the content is clickable that if you touch the screen at all to try to slow down the scrolling or just to scroll a bit further, you are likely to accidentally click a hyperlink, and off you go...  And oddly enough, one of the worst apps for this accidental hyperlinking is AppAdvice, the iPad app guru - I can't scroll anywhere in that app without clicking into an article I didn't want to open. And if you touch anywhere near the bottom of the screen, you will likely be taken (inadvertently) to another section of the app
• e-mail: takes forever to read in the iPad - for the same reasons as the web-browsing. And to try to reply to e-mails from the iPad? Same issues with the keypad. Not a time-saver at all
• anything involving more than a few taps of the keyboard.

And here are features I personally find no use for, at least not yet:

• iPod: Yes, I've loaded my tunes onto the iPad. But there are far better options for listening to music in the situations I find myself wanting to listen to music. Would have to have headphones for listening to iPad tunes at a doctor's office, or on a plane; and I have a stereo iPod doc at home and at work, which provide better sound quality.
• GPS: I have one in my car, and really don't see how the apps that offer GPS/traffic info on the iPad would work without active WiFi access. Which one doesn't usually have while driving.

I've probably left some stuff out, but that is certainly most of it. So while I like my iPad, I can't say I love it, and I'd be fine without it. But we are peacefully coexisting.

Here are a couple of things I made this week: I beaded around a gorgeous raku cabochon, and forged and enameled a copper palmetto tree pendant (a custom order). I am still working on some ideas of how to creatively design a necklace to support the beaded pendant.

More Art Clay Silver, and a Little Venting

Before I get into the meat of this post, may I just vent for a moment about how irritating the blogger login process is?

First of all, I carefully copy and paste my e-mail address in, because if I type it in, blogger ALWAYS rejects it as invalid.

Then I carefully type in my password, and without fail, blogger tells me it is invalid, and makes me type it again. I mean, every time, every single time. They do the same thing to Bailey. What is the deal?

But this is my favorite: Then I get the error page, that tells me this:
"Your browser's cookie functionality is disabled. Please enable JavaScript and cookies in order to use Blogger."
Which of course is complete horseshit, because my cookies ARE enabled, and then I have to go to my favorites and click back to my blog page, and now I am logged in. Blogger login sucks.

OK, I'm done.

I've taken a lot of classes since the last time I posted, so here is the scoop:

I told you I was going to take a few more Art Clay Silver classes, and I have.
A couple of weeks ago, I took Enameling on Art Clay Silver. Our class projects were a pendant and a pair of earrings. In this picture, the organic binder in my pendant burns off in the kiln.

This picture shows everyone's projects firing in the kiln. This stage takes 8 to 10 minutes. Once the pieces have fired, we will sand them, and then apply the enamel. Did you know that enamel is glass? I didn't, until this class, that is!

Yep, the enamel is actually fine particles of glass that we fuse to the metal.

This is my pendant, after it fired. I had just finished brushing it with this wire brush, so all the silver molecules are now "standing at attention." Prior to brushing, it looked like a piece of pottery.

Here are both projects, right before I started applying the enamel.

They are sitting on the different sanding cloths used to smooth them.

There are 2 different ways to apply the enamel. (That's why we had 2 class projects!) One way is called sifting, and that is how we enameled the earrings. Fine, dry particles of glass frit are placed in a very small sifter, and sprinkled over the pieces, just like sifting powdered sugar over a cookie.

The other enameling method is called Wet-Pack, and I forgot to take a picture of it. In this technique, the fine glass frit is mixed with a small amount of distilled water to make a slurry, which is then applied with a very small paint brush to your piece. This technique gives you more control over where your color ends up. Whichever technique you use, the piece is fired in the kiln again, to fuse the enamel to the silver.

I used the Wet-Pack technique on my pendant, so in this picture of my finished projects, you can see that the color is applied just in the swirl design on the pendant. Where I sifted enamel onto the earrings, I got a more widespread color effect.

These techniques can be combined, but that's too advanced for me!

This past Saturday I took an Advanced Art Clay Silver Class, where the project was a pendant with a bezel-set cabochon.

Initial prep of the clay is the same as with other Art Clay Silver Projects, but preparing the bezel is tedious, and must be done first (so your clay doesn't dry out). The bezel is formed from 28-gauge fine silver, and must be measured to fit the cabochon fairly precisely. Silver oil paste is used to "glue" the bezel's seam together temporarily.

Once the bezel is done, the clay is prepared, and the bezel is pressed into the clay. The pendant is dried prior to firing - the clay can be allowed to dry overnight, or drying can be sped up by using a mug warmer.

Once the piece is dry, it goes into the kiln. Here is a shot of the organic binder in my pendant burning off - that is my favorite part!

After firing, the stone is placed into the pendant, and then the fun begins (not really). The next step is bezel rolling, and this was my least favorite part. The bezel must be carefully fit to the stone in order to hold the stone in place, and this step requires 2 tools and a lot of hand and finger/thumb strength. I do NOT have a lot of strength in my hands, and this step was very difficult and painful for me.

Starting at the bottom of the bezel, a bezel-roller is pressed all around the stone to snug the stone in place. This is repeated at the top of the bezel. Then, a curved metal burnisher is used to roll the top of the bezel over the stone to really hold it in place and give it a nice finished look. This was absolutely a nightmare for my hands and thumbs.

We then painted diluted liver of sulfate on the Art Clay Silver, to give an oxidized look to the pendant. We painted, rather than dipping the pendant in the liver of sulfate, because you don't want to get the liver of sulfate on the bezel or on your stone. Following the liver of sulfate, the piece is polished.

This picture shows my pendant after the liver of sulfate but before polishing.

This is my finished pendant, after polishing.

And that's it for Art Clay Silver today!

I started this post over 3 hours ago. I had the (usual) technical problems logging in, and the (usual) issues with picture uploading - I don't know why the pics can't just load where you want them to, instead of loading at the top of the page, and having to be dragged. Good grief. And one backspace too many, and you delete a photo, and have to upload it again, which I only had to do FIVE times today. Then, Blogger crashed in the middle of my post, and was down for 20 minutes. All this whining is to get to this: poor, long-suffering, patient Bailey has been sitting beside me for an hour and a half, begging to go outside. He alternately gets up and growls, noses my left hand, and then sits back down in the exact same position, then starts all over again in 2 or 3 minutes. And I kept thinking I would be finished ANY minute, so I made him wait. Bad Mom! I don't feel too guilty, though, because I finally gave in about 10 minutes ago, and, as I suspected, all he wanted was to go bark at the workers next door again. He can be very manipulative!