Glass Art Revealed

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BUSY BUSY BUSY!!!

How does time move so fast??

It’s been a crazy busy time, with a family reunion and wedding this summer, and plenty of bead making and selling on Facebook! I am really excited to have found such a great bunch of people that buy and enjoy my beads.

I am also getting so much better at the product photography. While I love landscape, outdoor and nature photography, and felt pretty good about the results I was getting in years past, product photography has been a dirty word shouting out loud exercise in futility…!

I finally bought a smaller lightbox–and what a difference that has made. But I’d still rather be torching than taking photos any day!

Please share your own product photography tips!

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Look Out World!

https://glassartrevealed.com/glass-art-gift-club/
Join the Glass Art Gift Club today!

Getting ready to launch my Glass Art Gift Club soon at the Kris Murray Child Care Success Summit next week!

This should be amazing ….. and completely crazy as my husband has had some serious health challenges this week, landing him in the hospital for 3 days…yikes.

Those “best laid plans” have a way of biting and snacking away on your behindus when you’re not looking.

And sleep deprivation only makes it worse, until you reach that giggling hilarity point of no return, which it then becomes fun again. I think.

 

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Labor Day Blues

Wow, another summer appears to have moseyed on by, and I never even got the tent out once! But we did just get home from the annual family reunion, where we were once again shocked and amazed by the growth of the nieces. What are they putting in the water??!!

Seems like only yesterday they were so little, and now the youngest hit the double digits…..yep the mighty 10! Such a great age. And the next birthday for the oldest is 12, in 2 weeks, although we celebrated early since we were all together. They are both still young enough to be impressed and not cynical, happy with books and engaging gifts, not demanding or expecting ridiculous presents…plus they are just nice young ladies.

I give big props to their parents. They are teaching them the reality of life–kindness and consideration are much more valuable than things, and far more positively received by the rest of us! Just wish we’d had more time to spend together, which is always how it feels when we get home. That, and maybe getting all the laundry done while we were there and before we left would be cool too….!

The lodge was as fabulous as always–how can you not have a great time in a fishing lodge on the Historical Register that is over 101 years old?

5 minutes after we drove up, I walked out to the end of the dock and sat there with my dog, listening to the ducks quietly gossiping, while the fish jumped and splashed. The stars at night were simply sublime—I truly enjoyed gazing at a deep velvet sky dripping with tiny diamonds of light, and the quiet humbling that comes with finding my place within that vastness….

…until the ginormous clouds of hungry evil bastard mosquitoes found me and sent me rocketing into the lodge double time.

That was the lake’s way of telling me it was time for a cold beer and family catch up.  Hope your Labor Day was amazing too!

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Smoky Summer

Wow, this has been a rough past couple of weeks, what with all the smoke pouring into our valley and devastating the view and air quality. We’ve had a weird wet then dry summer, lots of lightening storms lately which is beautiful to see but never good, and a whole slew of fires in the West.

The American fire northeast of Foresthill in Placer County, was about 60% contained, and there were some clearer mornings here in Reno before the afternoon wind shifted and brought it back in. Then the Rim Fire near Yosemite started and the smoke is just pouring into our area.

Starting to really feel it now–the itchy eyes, and scratchy throat. I’ve already started on eye drops for the seasonal allergies, and even that was about 3-4 weeks earlier than normal. So now with all this smoke…..yuck.

It actually makes it tough to want to torch! I need to have a window open to get fresh return air. It’s been very wet, creating lots of bug puddles, then hot the last few weeks also–in the mid 90’s–and so if I wait until it cools off, I get eaten alive by all the fresh, new, giant and voraciously hungry mosquito’s….ugh!  Just on a big whine fest–sorry!

So instead of being bitten all to heck while torching in nasty smoke, I have been cruising the auction site Ebay, and the Garage Sale area of Lampwork Etc, searching for unique glass, tools, and other goodies to buy! And I got a monster deal from Double Helix glass–the company was moving, and had unbelievably inexpensive Garage Sale boxes (well, per pound it was inexpensive for DH standards!!) and I managed to snag one!

No returns (yeah right, no worries!) and no choosing any specific glass, so I have no idea what some of these babies do! But I did know a few of them, and got some of last years experimental test types so I am a happy, happy camper indeed.

Soon I will be experimenting with all kinds of weird reduction and striking glasses.  I’m still pinching myself on this purchase (and trying not to focus on the “why didn’t I get 4 or 10 or 25 boxes instead of just one since they are so amazing!” syndrome).

Have you ever bought an absolutely fabulous deal and then obsessed about more later–even though the first one was an amazing blessing and plenty?? Let me know!

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Custom Designs!

I was recently invited to join Custommade.com, a site where people request specific items to be…. well, custom made! Being part of an organization that promotes actively buying custom made items has been wonderful! Being one of the Makers is an honor and has exposed me to a much wider variety of glass designs and challenges.

I was definitely intrigued when I saw a request for a Nose Shaped Wine Stopper!! Yep, here are some of the versions of the wine stopper below!

My customer John, who was getting hitched recently, wanted this specially made to give to his brother as his  Best Man’s gift.  Apparently, the size and shape of this brother’s nose has been part of the family history for a long time. John sent an image of his brothers nose to work from, and I really enjoyed learning a little more about nasal anatomy….!

The first images are of my first nose ever, made in glass–or for that matter, made in ANY other medium! (I did make a glass Christmas ornament in the shape of an ear once, as a happy gift for a dear friend who had just gone through some amazing restorative hearing surgery…but that’s another story!)

The wine stoppers I had in stock had really short shafts, and just weren’t going to cut it, so I ended up buying several more with different shaft lengths.

The first big/almost life size nose I made was a bit too cartoonish–definitely wide flaring nares (the hole parts of your nose!) but with a very long and narrow profile…..hmmmm, gotta go back to the flame. Of course, one of the intermediate nose versions I made was really great, just tooooo long for the wine stopper shaft… Rats.

Time to make another one….Well, finally! The third one was definitely the charm!

So now I am just waiting for him to come back from the honeymoon to hear just what the brother and the rest of the family thought of it–I’ll keep you posted as soon as I hear!