Tackle that stash - First Christmas ornaments 2019

Among the glass beads a friend from Prague had sent me a while ago (for me a while can be anything between two days and two years) were two twisted glass ornaments, a short green one and a long purple one.
It would have been easy to put a hook on them to hang them on my Christmas tree or turn them into little pendants, but I'm not always going for easy, so I waited and waited and waited some more for my muse to turn on her brain and come up with something.
The only thing I knew from the start was that they wouldn't become jewelry which probably had to do with childhood memories.
My best friend's grandfather always had two trees. There was one in the big room and there was a smaller one in the playroom. It had a stand that had a music box and rotated - I don't remember what melody it was, I'll have to ask my friend - and it was decorated with beautiful vintage twisted glass icicles.
At least that's how I remember it, and ever since twisted glass, even if it's not clear, makes me think of that Christmas tree.

I know, some of you will think it's too early, but firstly we don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, so that's not a reason for me to wait, and secondly, it would be really hard to get everything done if I don't start before December!
The idea for these ornaments finally came from the peyote rings I had been making.
All of the components are stash, even some of the thread has been in my drawer unused for several years, not to mention the bubble lampwork beads that have been with me for even longer. Compared to those, the Delicas are rather new.
Unfortunately it proved quite hard to take a good picture because it's November grey here today and because the size and colors are so different. In case you can't see it well, the green ornament has got a little white peyote tube and an almost clear bubble bead, the purple one has metallic fuchsia beads and a pink bubble bead.

Maybe I'll give these two away as gifts, Ponder had already that glint in his eye saying how much he is looking forward to play with them. The twisted glass is attached to the wire that runs through the lampie and the peyote tube in a way that allows it to dangle, absolutely irresistible for my old man who likes to think he's still a kitten! ;-)
Another reason is that my little tree is running out of space. "You're gonna need a bigger tree!" my mind keeps telling me, but the spot on the stairs is so perfect for the little one.
First world problems!

Where did that come from?

My plan was to take one of my small Mexican Cantera opals and make something with it. Instead I stumbled upon this beautiful glass cab - believe me, my pictures don't do it justice - and decided on a little quickie. Just a very simple wire knit setting, you know, no extras, no beads, no double layers, nothing.
Very funny. Sometimes I wonder if I know myself.

The pictures can't show what exactly I did. There are double layers in there which hold the freshwater pearls now and the bezel went up a few rows, too.
It makes me think that I should take WIP pictures from time to time, but it's hard to remember that if you are caught up in a project.

So just have a look at the beautiful colors. Unfortunately that cab was a gift and I don't know where it came from. I think some browsing may be in order eventually.

Wrap yourself with beads

I haven't told you about my new work for a while. Did you enjoy the break? Well, it's over. I haven't been lazy the last months, bracelets, rings, necklaces, earrings, you name it, I made it.

For example I worked a lot with faux amber after getting a bag with cabochons, the colors are so lovely and the shapes quite different.

Tonight I want to show something else, however. It's not in my shop yet because I'll need to try and take some better pictures, preferably not at night.

I've had this spool of gunmetal colored copper wire standing around for a while, filled up with a load of Miyuki glass triangle beads, you know the ones that sparkle so mysteriously in the light. I think there are five different colors in there, from a berry color to a black lined brown which makes for a very earthy mix.

So I went to work and knitted and knitted and knitted, determined to use all the beads on that spool, and here's the result - a bead scarf! It's not too heavy - I have held stone necklaces that were much heavier - it's amazingly comfortable and you can wear it different ways. Depending on your size you can even wear it as a belt!

I still have another spool full of beads ..........

Interview with the artist - Laney from Izzybeads

I first met Laney through her Flickr account. If I remember right, her whimsical designs were the first ones to catch my eye.

When looking at this "Hot Dawg" she made, you might get an idea why.

Let's hope however she doesn't stick her Izzy into a bun! ;-)

Laney's beads just make me smile, be it the chicken, frogs or her flowers. As she was away on a show when I did my lampwork finds post last week, I couldn't show them to you then.
I'm sure this interview will more than make up for that.

Tell us a little about who you are and where you come from.

My name is Laney Mead, Izzybeads, and I now live in Hereford, UK, with my husband, two teenage children, my two golden retrievers, two elderly cats and four chooks (chickens). I make lampworked glass beads, mostly sculptural, beads to make you smile.

Chicken "Lithium"

What's your art and how did you get to do it in the first place?

Lampworking and more recently glass fusing as well.

I came into lampworking by accident. My ex-sister in law wanted to learn about glass bead making, she found a place near me that gave lessons, her and my brother in law (hubby's brother) stayed with us that weekend. As it was a small class, only three places, my husband asked if I wanted to go along, too. It was either stay home and tidy up or go with my brother in law. I chose to go. I lit the torch and the rest is history. That weekend we learnt how to make just a round bead, I have never had another lesson, preferring to teach myself techniques.

Glass fusing is something I came across, again by accident, whilst searching our rather sparse library for lampworking books - they had none - and found a glass fusing book, the rest I figure out as I go along.

I think this is one of the most asked questions - where does your inspiration come from?

My inspiration comes from everything. A song on the radio. A picture or photograph. A book, just about anything.

I do though take a lot of inspiration from the animals that live with me, my two golden retrievers, Izabel and Defi, my two old cats Megan and Claude - now 20 and 18, my girls - my chooks (chickens), Frankie, Poppy, Ever-Ready (ex-battery hen) and Dave - my son named Dave! - and the farm animals that surround where we live, the sheep, pigs and cows.

I went to Efteling as a child when I lived in Holland and promised I would take my children there which I did when they were 6 and 4, they are now 18 and 16. Sadly my limited Dutch was gone, but it didn't stop me enjoying it and I would go back tomorrow if I could, I love the world of magic and fantasy.

Tell us a fun thing about yourself.

A fun thing about me? I am rubbish at telling jokes and always manage to tell the punchline before the end of the joke .... that and I can't cook!!

Do you do other crafts, if yes, what?

Before glass I was a painter. More accurately I was a fine line artist, again self taught, but I did have a wonderful artist friend who encouraged me. My preferred medium was coloured pencil, the artist type, and I used to do pet portraits in a very realistic style. Sadly these pictures took hours and hours of very detailed and concentrated work and selling them was usually at a massive loss to my time, I now only draw for me and really only draw my designs for my next bead or glass art.

Octopus bead

Which one of your pieces is your absolute favorite? Which one was the hardest to make and why?

I don't have an absolute favourite, but I do wear my original chook bead, based on my much loved Duracell (another ex-battery hen) who died, and my earrings are my two goldens - head beads - Izabel and Defi Dogs.

Hardest bead? I don't think I have a hardest piece of art, if they don't challenge me, then they don't hold my interest, so each piece has to have some degree of difficulty which is what I love about glass. You can't make it do completely what you want, you have to work with it, not against it.

Is there someone whom you admire and who inspires you?

Over the years, I have loved the work of the Impressionist painters, their use of colour and light, as well as the great masters of glass such as Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka for their amazing work in recreating flowers in glass. Inspiration, for me, comes from so many sources, I wouldn't like to say just one person inspires me.

Purple roses and pearls necklace

If you had free choice of just one supply you can use for your art, what would you be dreaming of, no matter how expensive?

Time. There is just never enough hours in the day to do everything I want. I get very frustrated when I get tired and have to stop.

Do you sell online, if yes, where can we find you?

Yes. I sell through Etsy on Izzybeads and also through eBay at Laneys Beads and Glass Art as well as various fairs throughout the UK, throughout the year.

Is there anything you feel you need or want to tell the world outside now?

Yes. There is a wonderful poem that I think everyone should follow its advice ...

Dust if you must.

But wouldn't it be better,

To paint a picture, or write a letter,

Bake a cake, or plant a seed?

Ponder the difference between want and need.

Dust if you must.

But there is not much time

With rivers to swim and mountains to climb!

Music to hear, and books to read,

Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must.

But the world's out there

With the sun in your eyes,

The wind in your hair,

A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.

This day will not come round again.

Dust if you must.

But bear in mind,

Old age will come and it's not kind.

And when you go, and go you must,

You, yourself, will make more dust.

(Rose Milligan, Lancaster, Lancashire, England)

There's nothing much to add to that, is there? (Especially not when looking at the shelves around me ...)

I hope you'll enjoy browsing through Laney's world of glass just like I do.

The eleventh door - Pickle, anyone?

I wrote about this last year on our guild blog, but I just can't get over it, so I'll tell the story once again here.
On Christmas Eve a long time ago I got a big parcel from the tall guy. I dug deeper and deeper, through the paper, if I remember right there was also a stone in there, and then I found it - a plane ticket to the USA. I think I jumped around like a rubber ball. Then I saw the date for the flight there - the 28th of December?? I had to work the week after the holidays! The tall guy calmed me down. My boss came home from his family a day earlier to take over and they had already filled out my vacation request. I still have to swallow when I think of it, that was so lovely!

Once I had arrived in the USA, my friend took me to visit one of her friends. She had a beautiful house and a huge Christmas tree and there it was hanging in all innocence - a glass pickle. I thought that was very funny and asked her where she found that.


Just imagine my surprise when she told me that the Christmas pickle was a German tradition! And there I always thought I was German and still had never heard about that anywhere. Not in my family, not from any of my friends.
Obviously the pickle is hung into the tree in a hidden spot and the child who spots it first, gets a small extra gift. Oooookay. A nice idea, but I still insisted I had never heard of it in Germany.

It seems no one can actually tell how the Christmas pickle and its story were born, but it is produced in Germany now.
Maybe one of you can bring light into that sour darkness? ;-)

A child's best friend

His name is Teddy. I guess I wasn't very creative at giving names in my childhood, but I don't think Teddy minds. He has never complained and he has been around more than 40 years, in fact all my life. I know, I know, you thought I was 27, but the moment of truth is here ;-)


Back to Teddy. He was made by the company Hermann, he has light brown fur that has been worn down by years of sleeping in my bed and listening to my problems. He had plastic surgery, for example when one of his nose threads came loose. He also needed new pads for feet and hands, but I have a great surgeon in my family and I was a great nurse for him, so he was in the best care.
Actually I only remember one time when he was out of the house. A little girl that had come visiting with her father was so in love with "the talking bear" that he got loaned to her for a few days. I didn't go for the "You are such a big girl now and you want to be nice to her, don't you?". I was p..... ehm, mad. I really was. I didn't want to be a big girl and I didn't want Teddy to be out there without me.
Imagine my shock when he finally was brought back in a plastic bag, upside down! Needless to say Teddy never left me again. Indeed he is watching over my nightstand now, with all its treasures ...

Why am I telling you all that, though?
It's Melissa's fault. Melissa Vess makes lampwork beads (check out her ArtFire studio!), beautiful lampwork beads. I know, I have more than one.
And one has patiently be waiting on my desk for more than one and a half years. From time to time I would take it, have a good look at it and put it back in his little bubble wrap nest. And yesterday I suddenly knew what to do. The answer had been sitting on my nightstand all along!

Little Teddy can move his head, arms and legs. His body, arms and legs are crocheted from a beautiful silver-colored copper wire. Yes, there are differences and this one is really nice.
Now what was the song about the bones -"Toe bone connected to the foot bone. Foot bone connected to the leg bone. Leg bone connected to the knee bone..."
Little Teddy only has three "bones", one going through head and body, one going through shoulders and body and one going through hips and body, they are from silver-plated copper wire.


I need more heads ...............

Deronda and the magic of lampwork

It has been a while since I mentioned Deronda. The lady with the addictive lampwork beads? By now I do have a little stash of beads and cabs made by my favorite "lampies" and it was about time that I tried to incorporate some of them into new pieces.

Last time I got myself some bubble beads from Deronda.
The pink one has been turned into a simple little pendant with a crochet tube made from slip stitches only.


The blue ones that I could stare at forever are now the bottom part of these large earrings, also with crochet tubes, made from single crochet this time. What I like about using some kind of tube with lampwork is that the earrings don't get too heavy. I can't wear heavy earrings for long myself and I'm sure there are others that can't either.


My absolute favorites are the melties, though.
The bubbles on this cab look like big berries to me and I seem to feel a sweet taste on my tongue when I look at them.


I think the pattern on the back is just as beautiful as the front which is why I made sure the pendant can be worn both ways, even if the bezel is bigger on the back. We don't want that cab to slip out, right?


If you like glass, go to Deronda's ArtFire studio. There are so many more beads that I'm lusting after. Whenever I have just ordered something and it's on the way, bang, there are more beauties in her studio!

This is a sneak preview by the way. None of these pieces has been listed yet.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe ...

.... and it was one of Deronda Designs meltie cabs I had in my hands. I had been wanting to do something with it forever.
Just look at it, isn't it gorgeous? It makes me think of hot chocolate that has been topped with whipped cream and now the cream is slowly melting into the chocolate. I can almost taste it on my tongue.
Being a cab it needed a bezel of course, but for quite a while I hadn't been sure if I wanted to use wire in a matching color tone or silver. I finally decided today and I think it's was the right decision.


To tie it in with my comparison to chocolate, I'll just say the bezel could be a silver cup.
I then added three sterling silver chains on each side.


You should check out Deronda's studio on ArtFire, either bring very strong nerves or your purse, it's pure temptation. I have never been disappointed so far and will be back again and again!

Playing with money and glass

I haven't posted for a while.
My beloved computer has a virus. Nothing I did helped. I told him (yes, he's male and he even has a name, but I have forgotten it) to drink a lot, take two aspirin and see me again in the morning, I checked out special virus forums, conferred with my personal IT gurus and finally gave up wanting to try anything on my own. I lost all motivation and now I am waiting for IT guru #1 to come by and put him to sleep before he'll raise him out of the ashes again. That phoenix motif is really following me ...

Now I have to use the tall guy's computer. It's old and slow and is driving me nuts. To upload a picture takes forever because it's so hard to reach the USB slot where the card reader goes.
I had to install all kinds of new versions of programs that I use, but the tall guy never does.
I also never knew I actually use most of the bookmarks on my computer.

Nevertheless I'm here today to show you what I have been up to jewelry-wise in the last days.
It started with me rolling up small change. It's not like I need to collect "pfennige" to buy my bridal shoes from that anymore, it would be a little too late for it and thinking about it now I don't even know if that is also still done with the Euro cents. So it was rolling up and taking to the bank eventually.
Somewhere in this glass full of coins I found a rupee. What to do with a single coin like that? Crochet a bezel for it, of course!


Now didn't I have a "pfennig" somewhere? And a coin from the Scotland vacation? And good old Lincoln.


Here is the backside of the rupee, the others are made the same way. I had thought about leaving it open in the back, but it didn't feel safe to me. Which side to use for the front is an easy decision, I just throw a coin! So the only problem left is what wire color to use for the best contrast.
I use four to five different sizes of hooks on these, by the way!


I love lampwork beads, but I never quite knew how to incorporate them into my designs. Now I got a few to play with, focals and spacers and this is my first finished attempt. Another one is still on the wire for me to have a second look at.

I took a quick picture, please excuse my hand looking slightly dirty. I pushed some of my new prop stoness away and part of the "dust" came off. I only saw it when cropping the picture and as it was already uploaded (you remember the USB slot?), I didn't want to take another one.


Healing thoughts for my computer are appreciated! ;-)

Have you taken your vitamins?

Seems I am on the fruit trip, even if not intentionally in the first place.

I buy my wire online in England, from wires.co.uk and I love their colored copper wire. I could buy the list up and down and back up again and when a parcel arrives, I sit down, hold the spools into a light and giggle like a little girl at the beautiful shine.
So it is easy to match wire and beads tone in tone and you have lots of possibilities to experiment with different color combinations as well.

This is one of my favorite colors, a beautiful metallic orange although I think the seller calls it honey.
It's a bright and happy color and was perfect for these earrings. They remind me of a puddle of orange juice that is trickling down in a spiral. What better to use as accent than a clear glass rounded cube with AB (aurora borealis) finish? I like ice cubes in my orange juice!


Recently I bought some purple and black glass beads.
I have used them with black and purple wire before on this spool knit necklace. Here I put the black beads on the purple and the purple beads on the black wire for the perfect mix.


For this pendant I wanted to go tone in tone, though. After I started I found it began to remind me of a berry, so instead of going for a plane disk I made it domed.


On the pendant I had stopped at a disk because when I decided it was a berry, it was too late to make a ball out of it, it would have been much too big. What about berries for the ears? It still is blackberry season, hmm. Thought, said out loud and done, here is the result. Yummy looking blackberries for your ears.


Let me think, what else do I need for fruit salad? One idea already came from a forum friend (thanks, Cindy!), another one is welling up in my mind just now ...

Come on over for the bead soup party!

It had to happen some day, I guess. And I can't even blame it on the cats. Of course Ponder was sitting on the pinball machine yelling for me to hurry up with whatever I was doing at the moment and of course he tried to jump my shoulder, but the fact that I pulled out one of the drawers of my plastic storage case and hit the bead box with it is only the fault of my own stupidness and carelessness.
He sure loved the sound - clickety, clackety - of beads flying everywhere and was eager to help me clean them up, but I threw him out of the room and closed the door.
Only when I already had retrieved most of them from the corners of a big room (isn't it amazing how far these fellows can fly?), the thought to take a picture came to me. I also didn't feel like dropping the box again, so all you get to see is the epicenter which really was the easiest area to clean up.
I can be more than glad that these were not the really small beads.



A few ones tried to hide inside my armchair. Not with me. No bead will roam free in this house if I can prevent it! ;-)


This was a sign to me I desperately need to organise again, also the cheap beads like these ones *sigh*