Written by Marie Dyson | 05 July 2009

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend, celebrating our independence and being with friends and family! We had a wonderful BBQ with my parents and a quiet weekend at home. Friday I was lucky enough to hit a sale for some great new furniture for my beading/craft area! I feel so much more organized now and have ample space for new beads!

I spent many long hours Friday night setting this all up, so come today, Sunday I was able to relax and make my first new pieces in my great cozy work space! CLICK ON THE PHOTOS FOR LARGER VIEW

Written by Marie Dyson | 02 May 2009

Here we are in May already! I have been busy with many areas of my business and lfie, but little creating! I did manage to make a few new lampwork glass beads, two cats, and a pretty set of coral frit beads I used in a bracelet below!

I just ordered some lovely new glass frit from BeadGoodies.com and can't wait to try them out! I have also ordered lots of new copper findings due to arrive any day! I have lots of ideas in my head, hopefully this week I will get a few of them created! Here are the beads and bracelet:

Written by Marie Dyson | 19 March 2009

My Lampwork Studio & Bead Making Process

What is Lampworking? Lampworking is a technique to make handcrafted glass beads from long rods of glass. Molten glass is wound around a steel mandrel that is held into a flame, the beads are shaped by rotating the mandrel through the flame.  A variety of tools and techniques are used to add shapes, colors and designs. Each one is its own work of art, two never quite the same.

Below shows photos of where I make all of my beads. My husband built me a wonderful work area in our garage! Each bead is made by hand one at a time on a steel rod (mandrel) in front of my oxygen and natural gas torch.

I have over 75 colors of glass to choose from. I currently work with a brand of glass called Effetre. I use a variety of tools to help me shape my beads and add decorations and designs. My average bead takes me 15 minutes to make, with more complicated items taking many times that long.

Once I am happy with my bead I slowly take it out of my flame, let it cool for a few seconds (so it is no longer molten) and stick the entire bead and mandrel into my kiln. Glass needs a chance to 'settle' in order for it to be properly cooled, this process is called annealing. Annealing gives the glass time to sit at a stable temperature (950 degrees) and properly settle/align. My beads soak at this temperature for a minimum of 30 minutes depending on size.

When the soaking period is complete my kiln automatically begins the cool down process, the temperature drops at a very slow rate to finish the annealing process. This entire process from soak to completely cool to touch lasts about 4 hours. Annealing beads is a must if you want to greatly reduce the chances of a bead cracking.

Once my beads are cool to the touch (usually I do this the next morning) it is time to clean them! I take them off the mandrels and collect them all in my bucket. Beads are attached to mandrels with something called bead release, a clay like substance that lets you work your hot glass on the mandrel and gives you the ability to break it away when you are done to remove the bead. Next I take all my beads and sit in front of a large bucket of water and used a diamond tipped bead cleaner to scrub out the inside of my beads. This removes all the bead release from the inside. Rinse in some clean water, dry and they are now ready for use!

A few interesting things to know about the lampwork process:

• I wear special safety glasses made for those working with glass. They not only protect my eyes from broken and flying glass but also reduces the sodium flare and IR levels produced by my torch and the glass melting!
• My work space has a large ventilation hood installed to suck up the fumes from my torch and glass.

Written by Marie Dyson | 12 March 2009

One of my goals this year for my business was to try new things to encourage my jewelry to become more unique. This month I purchased some fun new stamps for metal and a few new tools and started creating stamped earrings and charms for my bracelets. My favorite is my bird and heart stamp!

I start with a blank piece of metal, usually a circle disk in copper (although my sterling silver pieces just arrived so expect to see those soon!), place my metal on my nifty stamping pad and hammer away my little designs! I follow this with a hole punch at the top center.

In order to make a stamped design stick out from the metal you need to oxidize the metal. I do this with liver of sulfur, a nice smelly solution that works wonders! This process takes a few minutes and turns my copper almost completely black! This is when I spend time polishing my copper with some steel wool and then toss in my tumble for some cleaning!

A fairly lengthy process, but worth the results in the end! I am still thinking up other ways to use my new stamps! I also have an alphabet stamp set that I can use for personalized jewelry! One thing with jewelry is there is always a new technique you can learn!