26 glaze tests and other stuff

I've been playing around with glazes again. 26 tests went into the kiln and one came out acceptable. But it's a colour I've been trying to make for a long time now. I even think I can repeat it. I hope so! There are other possibles in there but it will take a bit of fiddling with the formula. But I like doing that.

In other news, the beads and I are off to Wichita for our daughter's graduation with her Bachelor of Nursing. We couldn't be prouder of her. She graduating cum laude from the university that she did very poorly at years ago when she was probably way to young to be there. Then it's graduate nursing school in the fall. I just love seeing her get where she's always wanted to go!

Then it's up to Mum's to sort a few things out. She was recently admitted to the nursing home and now it's time to see if this is a permanent arrangement. It is a little tough seeing my mum at this stage of her life.

I'm also more than a little sad for other reasons. My son deploys to Afghanistan later this evening. It seems like such a short time since he came back from Iraq (15 months). He's off to Kunar province on the eastern border with Pakistan. I know very little about the area, except that it has been an area of intense insurgency and a cross roads for smuggling. But we've been through this before. It will be alright.

My son with his lucky charms, my dad's dog tags

Market Friends

I've been doing the downtown monthly art market for a year now, since it's very first day. This art market was the brain child of a couple of gallery owners who are commited to bringing life back into our down town area. This weekend was our first aniversary!



I've only lived here for 5 years and getting settled into the community and finding my niche has had it's ups and downs. But the art market has been one of those things that has enriched my life beyond words. We are a little bit of a family here. It's not all about selling. It's about community and my life feels quite blessed for having made the friends I would probably never have met were it not for the market. There's the intrepid core of us who've been there from the beginning. But there is also that extra special element of the people who come down to see us every month. We chat, we laugh.


One of those people who've been there from the beginning is Melissa. She dislikes having her photo taken, possibly even more than I do. But isn't she a gorgeous little thing. She makes these 'dragon eggs' from gourds. I must admit that I didn't really get it until I started watching her work on them. She's a little dynamo of energy. When she's not talking to customers, she's making her art. Each of these little beauties is drawn free hand with special markers, then laquered to preserve the finish. All born of her imagination.

The gourds are just a wee bit of what she makes. She's also a very accomplised textile artist. I just don't have any photos to show you.

I've made a commitment and next month one of these will be mine. Did I tell you they rattle? Yes, I do indeed need one of these.

I can't seem to stop!!!

I'm not OCD, really. But sometimes I get into this rut of making things over and over. And once I got the hang of it, I found I really enjoy making button clasps. This one is for a very simple necklace with picasso finish beads, that I also have a little obsession with.

To get it to lay right, I angled the clasp and eye pin ends upwards. It works pretty well. It just photographs ugly.

This necklace is heading off with me to art market tonight. We don't normally have a night market. But our first annivesary of this market opening last year happened to coincide with First Friday Art trail. So it's a bit of a celebration. I have loved this market and all of the wonderful people I've met there. It's kept me from being a complete and total hermit. So I'm off!

Have a great weekend!!!!

The idea

This is not my idea at all. Doing a button clasp in this style is completely inspired by Lorelei who did a kick butt video tutorial on making a button clasp. Unfortunately, I can' t for the life of me find the link to it right now. Anyways, when I was at the San Antonio bead show people asked me how to use buttons. Well describing it is a whole different ball game than doing it! I needed examples, I needed to do it, and really, truly humility kicks in. I have been so spoiled by all of you out there that have had such lovely vision of what my humble pieces can become.

One of the things I struggled with was that my clasp attempts wobbled in the button. I really wanted to have the eye and shephards hook to be very stable in the clasp. No wiggling, no wobbling. And that's where the light bulb flashed on. Wind a bit of small gauge wire back through the clasp and voila the clasp became very stable!

And the result is that this clasp looks a little like it has been sewn on. At least it does to me.

Bottom line is that for my next bead show, I am definitely going with examples of ways to work with my pieces. And I am very grateful to all of you who've shown me inspired ways to use my pieces.

Thank you!

Here it is! The link to Lorelei's button clasp tutorial.

Back from SABOS Bead Bazaar

We got back late last night, I mean really really late, about 1 pm. Maybe that is not late for some of you, but it is for me. I generally turn into a pumpkin by 10:30 pm. As many of you know this was my first bead show. I am exhausted. I am ruminating on the meaning of life and bead shows. It had it's up's, it's downs, and it's lessons, and it's really truly great things. But to tell you the truth, I am just tooooo tired to talk about it any meaningful way. I'll get back to you all about the bead show on Wednesday on the Beads of Clay blog.

The dogs are ectastic to be home. Ms Alice has literally been twirling on her hind feet. At 60 pounds this is an awesome and somewhat frightening sight to behold. I am ectastic to be home. There is nothing like your own bed! I just need a few more hours in it.

Now some of you have asked about when I'll be listing again on the ole Etsy shop. Well, that was to be today. And I got side tracked. You see, I have been deprived of making anything for a week and all of a sudden an idea took hold. It had to be done and then it was 6 pm and nothing on the list was done and well.....tomorrow, there will be stuff in there again. I promise. After I finish helping my friend Carrie with a raku firing. Promise, really!

Meanwhile, have a look at those gorgeous wild flowers up there. That is Texas Hill Country in spring. That is what we drove through for several hours. I've in Texas for 5 years and never been out to see this beautiful country side. The roadsides were carpeted in their full glorious bloom. Makes me rethink my colour pallette entirely.

On my way to San Antonio

Well almost on my way. The bead sets are sorted. The pendants are packaged. I've been to Hobby Lobby for a few extra bits and pieces. Yay! They had a sale going on some things I needed (and some things I didn't). Miss Wiggle Bottom and Old Bob are booked into the doggie spa. OK, it's not really a spa but they do come home bathed and festooned in new bandanas. I am actually a day ahead of my list. I do not know how that happened. That never happens.

I'm off to do a little dress rehearsal with the beads. If you are in the San Antonio area this weekend stop in. I would love to put faces to names!

The key to ceramics 101

Those little keys up there are bronze toggles I’ve been working on. They are prototypes and that I am not entirely sure will make it beyond this stage. They are little horrors to make and I'm not really sure I like them. But I really wanted something to go with the oval filigree pattern that could work as a clasp. They are up there to lure you into this blog post.

But the ceramics part of this is an answer to a comment by Kelley. I’m so happy she asked about the ceramic process. You know, I often talk like everyone knows exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of times this is not the case, as my children like to point out, sometimes rudely. They also like to point out that to assume makes an …. oh well lets not go there on this nice clean blog.

So here’s what I do from start to finish to make a bead and a few definitions thrown in for good measure.

bisque kiln

The bead gets made, dried and cleaned. Then it and all its brothers and sisters go through the first firing, the bisque. The bisque is the firing that goes before glazing. It makes the bead hard enough to glaze without falling apart but porous enough for the glaze to sink in and bond to the surface. This is a pretty low temperature firing in terms of ceramics, cone 04 (around 1900 F). I’m not going to go into the whole Orton cone stuff, because, yawn, because heat work and cone bending is far too boring even for me. The pieces can touch at this point because nothing melts in this firing.

glazing bisque beads and pendants

Once out of the kiln, I brush glaze on the bead. Fresh out of my glaze jars, it’s a thick liquid. Fired to maturity, it’s a glass surface bonded to the bead. Lot’s of chemistry here, also far too boring to go into. But for those of us who have a bit of mad scientist lurking in our psyche, it’s pretty amazing stuff.

Then it’s off to the glaze firing. I fire to cone 6 (around 2300 F). This one takes about 10 hours and another 8 hours to cool before I can unload the kiln. All of the pendants and beads are put on metal rods that won’t melt at that temperature. They get loaded so that nothing is touching, because if the beads touch they will become melted together in interesting but totally unusable ways.

cabachons and buttons on bottom shelf


pendants on middle shelf

beads on top shelf

18 hours later, shiny sparkly finished beads

So there you have it, ceramic beads in a nutshell.

One other little note. I do use metal clay as well and refer to that as a bronze/copper firing. Metal clay in fact has nothing to do with ceramics other than it’s plastic like clay in its moist state. And firing really isn’t what happens in a ceramic sense. In the kiln metal clay sinters and all of the stuff that held it together burns away and the microscopic particles of metal melt together. More geeky science here.

And if you made it this far in this post you need to head to your nearest ceramics studio and get your hands muddy. Oh and do join me on the Beads Of Clay blog tomorrow for a little behind the scenes as I get ready for my first ever bead show.

Thanks everyone for your lovely sweet comments on the bird and branch pendant. I love that feedback and it always inspires me to new things.