A little Beachie

Still working on pieces for AppleFest.  Since the craft show appeals to a variety of people, I felt I should have a variety of price points and designs.

So....... I've been making some simple pieces with Lake Erie beach glass (why, oh why did I give the grandchildren free range to pick some  beach glass from my collection) and metal clay sheet (AKA metal clay paper.  It's just semantics!)

They aren't particularly creative but they are fun to make and they are pretty!

And of course, everything I do comes with a few problems along the way.  This time was no different.  Super glue leaks through paper towels and puts holes in the table cloth.  (My fingers got stuck a little too but nothing serious.  Got to them early.)

Try, try, try again

A friend of mine gave me three small pieces of beach glass she collected while on vacation. She wanted a piece of jewelry made from one of the pieces. I'd already made several beach glass charms with small pieces of glass that worked out great.

That's the thing when using glass with metal clay, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Lately it seems that anything with glass hasn't been working out for me.

This particular piece not only had the silver leach amber coloring into it (which is mostly expected) but it appeared to "pucker" around the edges. That's the first time that's happened! It also looked like the glass hadn't been cleaned before firing, but I know that wasn't the case. (Although that has happened before.)

So (as usual) it's back to the drawing board. Hopefully one of the other two pieces meets with success.

And, as usual, nothing is going to waste. I chipped out the glass and plan on imbedding some polymer clay into the empty metal clay frame (or maybe some resin!)

Major waves, little beach glass

My college roommate, Cindi Armstrong, comes to visit me every year over Labor Day. When I was teaching, our time together was limited. But, now that I'm retired we have lots of time to visit and enjoy our usual adventures (with a few new ones each year. Like visiting the new winery and discovering a sweet little wine called "Dazzle").

We always make visits to our camper on Lake Erie. One of our favorite pastimes is to walk the beach looking for beach glass. One would think that really strong waves would bring in more glass, but sometimes it doesn't seem to work that way. Maybe what the waves bring in, they take back out.

This year the weather was pretty violent. There were some pretty heavy duty storms with lightning and very, very strong winds. The waves were white capping and the flags were flying straight out.

Cindi and I braved the weather and headed to the beach for a short (and I mean short) walk (we didn't want to get blown away). We found several larger pieces and a variety of colors. The first thing I found was a brown piece of ironware with an interesting design on it. After that there was nothing of exception.

Another thing we usually do is make a piece of jewelry. Two years ago I taught her how to do Kumihimo and last year she worked with the metal clay for the first time. She made a piece that was similar to one of my pieces. This year, we again did metal clay and combined it with beach glass.

This time, Cindi tried her hand at designing and created her own original piece. We added the beach glass after firing with wire or thread. Cindi's piece has the blue glass. I think she did a great job!

Stuck in summer mode

Finally made it to a guild meeting tonight. It's been several months since I've been able to attend. We met at Beyond Beads in Cranberry Township. What a nice store.

This was our Christmas party, so there were lots of goodies to eat, lots of show and tell to inspire and informative tips to help with our metal clay work. We also exchanged charms. Each of us took three charms, dropped them in Santa's hat and took out three charms. The variety of charms everyone made was inspiring; balls with crystals, mittens, christmas trees, ornament shapes, and lots of beautiful snowflakes to name a few.

I guess I'm just not ready for winter. My charms included beach glass. A holiday and winter theme never even crossed my mind. With two inches of snow coming and a high of 19 degrees, I guess I'd better get ready (even though I don't want to!)

No diving!

My latest beach glass pendant took a dive into a hot bath of liver of sulfur. I'm thinking it was too hot. The glass cracked in several places. The cracks aren't all that visible, until the piece is held up to the light. It is still wearable but not sellable. So, I have myself another new necklace (which is okay.)

This experience is "another learning experience." (There are just too many of those!) If the water for the patina is heated in the microwave, wait until it cools down.

But I do like this piece with a patina.