Happy Earth Day, Easter, and Sunday Show-Off!

I'm a little late, but nonetheless: Happy Earth Day! Also, I'm just on time to say Happy Easter!  We're always celebrating nature and the earth around here, so I didn't feel that I had to show off my little planet earth pendants, but maybe another day :)

A new week, and finally new listings!  I've been pretty busy lately making spring goodies, and have barely had time online.  The big Mother's Day show is coming up next weekend, so I've been working on new designs too, some are firsts for me, and a few are with skills I've had to dust off, but you'll see them after the big show :)  Today's showing off includes new insects and a teal sea turtle:
First, a red and pink butterfly pendant:

Next, here's a cute yellow and black bumblebee pendant:

And for variety... A new teal tiger-striped sea turtle pendant!!:

They are all my babies, so it's hard to say which is my favorite, but you know me: I sure do love sea turtles :P    Have a great weekend, and remember to be kind to your Earth every day (I'm sure you already are!), and Happy Easter!

Farmer's Market Finds!

I'm inspired by all the advice I've read from environmentalists that say "Eat local, eat organic, and eat what's in season!"  Now organic may not always be feasible, but if we can at least have some farmer assurance that they don't use conventional fertilizer and pesticides, I'm satisfied.  For now...  And yes, I do realize how fortunate I am to live on the West coast, where farmer's markets can run all year round, and have ripe goodies no matter when you come.  We are blessed here, and I am told that it's much harder to eat within a 100-mile food radius of your home if you live in areas less-suited for rich farming.  I'm not intending to evoke jealousy from you cold-climate lovers, but here are some goodies I picked up at the farmer's markets recently:

These are gorgeous.  It is art in the form of a root vegetable, color beyond my wildest beta-carotene-dreams, and I am in love with them:

Purple carrots!

These are purple carrots, with orange and yellow flesh inside.  We roasted them in the oven, and they were delightful!  It was fun buying them, chopping them, photographing them, cooking them, eating them, and now blogging about them.  I highly advise you snag some of these if you find them, as you can see I was clearly smitten with them.  A little olive oil and seasoning, plus some ripe local avocados on top, and voila! Lovely, healthful lunch :)  It helped that I sort-of went along with this recipe from Smitten Kitchen (my favorite food blog).

Besides my newfound love of purple carrots (which, by the way, were too woody for snacking raw, so let me just put that out there for you who had dipping in mind!), I was also able to score a great deal on some strawberries at another farmer's market.  I got 4 little green baskets of strawberries for such a deal that I had to photograph them as I was washing to cut and freeze them (some to eat now, the rest to freeze, can't have any going bad on me!).  It was a lot of strawberries, and I am now smoothie-equipped!

Well, as this is also my glass blog, it must marry up to the obsession somehow:  I'm now inspired to see what vegetables I can represent well in glass, as I already have two glass carrots (photo to come, promise!), have made a few other veggies, and will likely try for a gardener's necklace SOON.  Stay tuned.  And, eat fresh and local if you can. :)

Easter Eggs!

Tonight's quick post is to show you the fun stuff we made in our most recent lesson: Easter Eggs!  They were fun to make and decorate, and without the cleanup of regular egg decorating :)

My student made two and helped on another.  The basket was mine, and I think it turned out rather well, don't you?

New Fire Divas Collection on ArtFire: Spring Goodies!

Today's feature is a new collection of Fire Divas glass goodies fresh on ArtFire.  We have a few new Fire Divas lately, including Michelle of SunDoor Beads and Christina of FengBeads, so there are even more goodies to choose from in the Fire Divas collections :)  Besides this new collection to show off, today is the last day to take advantage of the Fire Divas sale (secret coupon Divathanks for most, see blog for specific shop coupon codes!), so make sure you visit the blog post to know what you're missing!

Glass! Lampwork from the Fire Divas Guil...

Curated By: shepherdcreat...

ArtFire.com

Craft Tutorials
 

Sunday Show-Off: Big-Holed Beads!

As beads are what first attracted me to lampwork, I must stay true to my roots.  This weekend, I worked on new color combinations and have a kiln full of wavy beads to show later.  For now, let's look at a few new big-holed beads (the ones fitting Pandora, Chamilia, Trolll bracelets, etc.):

If you can make that first bead in the session, you may make many others.  This bead is made from one of my favorite color blends with red and purple.  At the very least, that one bead needs some company!

You get on a roll, and start making many new beads.  Nowadays, I wonder who will receive the beads I work on, and if they will be used in some fantastic creation.  Even by themselves, they are focally attractive to me :)

Before you notice, you haven't eaten for a few hours, your throat is dry, and the kiln is Chock FULL!  We realize our addiction and take the first step to moving on; admitting we have a bead problem!

Well, at least I know I'm hooked, I love beads! Stay tuned next week for new designs and colors, and some awesome focal beads coming soon to a photo near you. Happy Sunday!

Sunday Show-Off: Student Earring Pairs!

Happy Sunday! Today's post is to show off what my student and I made in our last lesson: earrings!  We made several pairs, but this was our first time making earrings at all, so she wasn't able to make as many as I was, but don't worry: she gets to take them all home! : )

Our earring pairs from the most recent lesson!

 
I made the purple/teal ones into earrings for her before she left so they would be giftable now :) 
We would have made Easter stuff, but we're ahead of schedule with St. Patrick's Day goodies already under our belts, that we felt earrings would be a good way to mix it up.  Have a great Sunday and week, and I'll see you on later!

Sunday Show-Off for March 6th, 2011

Today I have some new designs specially themed for this month's holiday, plus a new pendant that you'll usually find in my shop as a sculpture...

First we have this large shamrock/clover pendant.  It has a colorful green shamrock implosion in the center of it, which I think makes it very different from my usual clovers:

Large Implosion Center Green Shamrock Pendant (Listed on ArtFire)

Next up is a smaller clover/shamrock pendant, using mint green and a more silvery green as the actual little clover "painted" on with glass from behind:

Small Mint Green with Clover Pendant

Lastly is my newest crossover from sculpture to pendant category... this custom-made hummingbird pendant!  He's already found his new home by the sweet girl that special-ordered him, but I wanted to make sure he got his 15 minutes in the sun... hummingbirds like that ;)

Silvery Green with Yellow Accents Custom Hummingbird Pendant

Thanks for checking out my week's progress, and I'll see you back soon :)