Yeah, I know, I really didn’t need any more glazes. I had run out of clear glaze, so of course when I ordered my clear I just had to fill the box, right?

And some of the beads that came out of the last firing:

Now I need to go figure out where my Etsyhacks went.  As Rosanna said, “It’s always somethin’ “

Just a quick post to let you know that my website and blog now have a new look. I have a number of designs to add, some to subtract, and some new glazes to photograph and name…but since I’ve spent the better part of this evening trying to make the links work in my menu bar, I think I’ll just call it a night (incidentally, once I stepped back and took another look I discovered the very foolish oversight on my part that gave me so much grief). I do still intend to add ZenCart to the site, but this will have to do for now till I can get the darn thing figured out. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to be a program that I can just jump into and get it running. Sigh.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow morning I don’t wake up to “Hon, I need to to get a tick off me” at 6 in the morning. Someone will find himself wearing a tick collar!

I headed to the grocery store last Friday. When I walked in I noticed that they were swapping out the magazines for the current issues. Steady, girl…

I made a couple of passes down the aisles, and when I came back it was there!! Beads 2010!! And honest, I didn’t knock that lady over.

Six pieces!!! Whoo hoo!!  In my delirium I first counted 7, but you can see the six pieces up above. Now that I know what was featured (heck, I didn’t even know what I sent), I know what to make now!!!

Glad to say that ceramic beads are VERY well represented in this issue. Congrats fellow Beads-of-Clay members!!!

Little kiln is cranking right now.  I have a mix of greenware and glazed bisque in this load: not ideal, I know, but I have new designs that I want to get up on the site, including charms. I have new glaze samples in there that I’m excited to see. I’m also working on my Zen Cart addition to the site, but it’s a learning curve and the old brain was tired out last week.

Back to busy work. Have a great one!

I managed to get my kiln repaired on Wednesday, and it seems to have held up. Thursday I fired her up, and I was treated to these goodies on Friday morning. I had a few losses; the blue pendant on the far right kissed up against a steampunk pendant I made, and I lost a large round pendant when the wire sagged enough so the pendant touched up against the kiln post. Needless to say, that one got a little too hot and ended up with lots of bubbles, besides the big chunk that is still stuck to the post. I had my doubts when I was loading it up, but after triple checking it I thought I’d be all set. It seems like a lot when the kiln is loaded up, but then when I spread it out on the table…well, it looks sort of sparse. Once I’m devoting more time to the clay, I’ll be able to do all beads in one load, pendants in another, etc. etc. to maximize space.

Five more days….we are fairly caught up here in the office, more so than we’ve been in years past, so the near meltdown that I had a few days ago is long over. Not sure what that was about, other than just reaching the end of my rope. I haven’t felt too terribly stressed this year, so I guess it was just an off day. We’re all entitled.

Back to work now.

In more than one way. First, my portion of the hospital bill for my surgery was significantly less than I was expecting, so Yippee!!!

Second, I took a few minutes this morning to do a quick experiment before work. I had a greenware pendant which I painted with a dark gray slip (weeks ago). I saw a technique on my new Kristen Kieffer DVD about using acrylic matte medium as a surface resist. You paint the design on with the resist, then once it’s dry you take a sponge and wipe away the background, leaving a raised design. Here’s my first attempt:

The piece on the left is pretty much what the other one looked like, with the exception of the started-then-abandoned attempt at sgrafitto.

You can see in this picture that the design is slightly raised. I could have gone further but I was losing a bit of the resist along the edge and didn’t want to take my chances.

The acrylic medium will burn away in the bisque firing, then I can glaze it as usual. I’m very excited about this technique, as the designs I create will be 100% mine and not so easy to copy. I’ll be cutting another zillion pieces out of clay now for more experiments with underglazes and different colored slips.

The building where our tax office is located used to be a fabric store years ago (ie it closed during the early 80′s I think, since I very vaguely remember coming here).  I was up on the third floor and discovered these drawers which used to hold thread.  Hmm, wonder what I could store in there?

The small ones will be ideal for sorting the “ingredients” of my kits, and I’m sure I can find some use for the large ones.  It’s not a vintage wooden cabinet, but I’ll take it!

I’m feeling so much better this morning.  Amazing what some more meds and crawling into bed at 7pm can do for you. And then I arrived at work and popped open the kiln:

Sigh. I love it when that happens.

Mostly new glazes in this load. I went on faith and glazed a bunch of beads in the new glazes and it paid off. One of the glazes is glittery!!!  When I purchased it off the web that wasn’t translating in the picture, so what a cool surprise! And it’s not the glitter that spreads all over the place (like my nephew says, glitter is the herpes of the craft world: just when you least expect it you find some more).  Nope, sealed into the glaze.  Well, enough! I’ll let the pictures do the talking (hmmm, I suspect that perhaps little grubby fingers were on my camera lens–mental note to clean it).  It might take a few days but I’ll be listing some beads soon.

I didn’t realize till today just how exhausted I am. Between the nagging headache that I haven’t been able to get rid of for a week (even with prescription meds) and the fact that I’ve been working 6 day weeks for awhile now, today I’ve run out of steam. I managed to fire my kiln today, so I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll have a pleasant surprise when I come into work. I also think I’ll take Sunday off, since it’s my birthday. I think I might just sit in the recliner all day and watch movies. I need to rest up since my pottery classes begin on Thursday (yay!!!).

Isn’t that pendant adorable?  She’s listed in my Etsy shop. That’s a temperamental glaze that sometimes comes out purple, sometimes gray, but always very cool. Did I already write about this? If so, sorry! Didn’t feel like searching old posts.

I have some other items to list. I have the pictures taken and edited, but it’s just not happening yet.  Soon I’ll be able to tend my little shop again. I’m also planning yet another revamp of my website in the future.

Thanks for listening. I try to keep things positive around here, but every now and then everyone has to vent. I’ll stop now–off to pick up my son and head back to the hills.  I wish I had a driver.

Good grief–I’m not sure which image in my head is worse: the image of Culture Club or the image of Billy Madison doing that ridiculous dance on the stairs to this song.

I love my cheap-o rock tumbler.  I use it to tumble my bisque beads. It removes the fingerprints and smooths off any rough edges that the cutters leave.  All on its own. Without my help. Love it.

The white ones are fresh out of the tumbler, still wet.  There are a few beads in here that are intended for the Bead Dreams competition. I’ll be glazing the rest of them up and putting some kits together soon.  During tax season I’ve been collecting kit components, just waiting to get my pieces completed.  What kind of kits would you like to see?

I didn’t have my bisque bowl at the office when I went to fire my kiln the other day, so I made walls with the textured pendants which are intended for my glaze samples.  Only had a couple of escapees, which fired just fine anyway.

Can’t really think of anything else. I think I’ll go through my memory stick and see if there are any pendant pictures on there that I can upload to my shop, since it’s feeling very neglected lately (and my shop views and sales are reflecting that neglect). Enjoy the rest of the day.