Lauscha Caramello test results

I did some testing of Lauscha SNO 630 caramello recently.

It’s a creamy, caramelly warm beige that looks good with reduced silver leaf. It’s also really nice to use instead of white in black-and-white scrollwork beads, for a warmer but still crisp and elegant look.

You can see the full results here: Caramello Testing on Lauscha.co.uk.

Beads, buttons and ring toppers for sale!

My Etsy shop is up and running: HeatherKellyGlass on Etsy. I’m adding a new item each day, so check back often!

Currently up we have an autumnal focal lentil, a decorative button in blue and green, and a bright orange-pink silver glass interchangeable ring topper.

The ring toppers are great – they have a small nut in the back that will screw onto a 2.5mm threaded screw. You can get rings in sterling or stainless steel, pendant backings and cufflinks that you can screw the toppers on to. So you can have one ring and dress it up depending how you feel on the day! You can collect little wearable bits of glass art from your favourite lampworkers and show them off.

Sabine Little of LittleCastleDesigns has the rings in stainless and sterling, pendant backs in both, and cufflinks in stainless steel.

George Harper East (mizgeorge.co.uk, mizgeorge on Etsy) makes sterling silver adjustable rings for adults and children – these are fab, I have one and it is incredibly comfortable to wear. She also takes commissions if you want something a bit different.

I went for adjustable because my fingers change size quite a bit through the course of a day depending on how hot they get! I didn’t wear rings at all before this, now I can wear my own toppers (and the advantage of a ring topper over a necklace, say, is that you can see it yourself all the time!).

I’ve started a glass-related Twitter account: GlassByHeather where you can keep up to date with new listings, and also see me wittering on about glass in general.

Stock stock stock

Busy making things…

These lentils are part of my limited edition frit’n'murrini testing for Kaz – love them! The base is CiM peace and the silver leaf has brought out some sunset oranges and even reds around the edges. I’m making some more spacers to go with them and they’ll be coming to the GBUK Bead Fair with me.

I got round to putting implosions on ring toppers – I am very pleased with the result and will be making more. The goldstone and bluestone backings give them a lovely sparkle behind the flowers. I also made an implosion into an off-mandrel heart. More to be experimented with in that direction too, I think!

I got a 2-hole button mandrel and have been making 1 button per session. Am somewhat tempted to get another… These can be used as unusual closures on bracelets and necklaces, plus of course as statement buttons on handmade bags or clothing, or they can be made into fibulas.

I’m going to have a small section of my table for OCD-UK beads: all proceeds from them to be donated to OCD-UK. I’m making little flyers as well with some basic info on them. Because OCD is not all about handwashing.

I got my business cards today! Mini Moo cards, and they look great.

Whoops, been gone a bit, haven’t I?

Do excuse the vanishing act. I’ve been very busy doing a whole load of things. I’ve decided that it’s pointless to try and catch up on all the posts I’ve meant to make, so will just start here.

So, what’ve I been up to?

In April I officially became self-employed (as well as being full-time employed). I became a UK distributor for Farbglashütte Lauscha, so I’m importing lovely glass from Lauscha in Germany and selling it on my website at Lauscha.co.uk. I’m also gradually getting through colour testing it all, because we don’t have that kind of information as available as we do for other manufacturers. I’m posting the results on my website as well as on the Frit-Happens and Craft Pimp forums.

(If you’re interested, my testing typically goes plain spacer, spacer reduced or etched, silver leaf, silver leaf reduced and encased, psyche, terranova 2 frit, white, CiM tuxedo, CiM stoneground, copper green, ivory, then for transparents there may be frit painting with iris gold and a spacer over white. Plus testing with any other colours I think might be interesting).

I’ve been to some classes, all at Di East’s studio in Enderby, Leicester: By George, it’s Lush with Julie Fountain and George Harper-East in June, where we made beads the first day and made them up into jewellery the second. Di East taught Sarah Hornik’s Glass & Colour class at the end of July when Sarah got refused entry into the UK – she also had an open day immediately after which I stayed for and shared a table for my first time selling glass at a fair.

I went to Tuffnell Glass’s free Summer Bash in August – two days playing with glass and I camped with a tent I’d got specially! I had my first go with boro there and made some marbles. (I mean to try soft glass ones too as soon as I get the time…)

On Saturday I’m doing a figure class with Lucio Bubacco. Eeeek! I’ve never done anything like this before so should learn a lot. I did a bit of practicing this week – off-mandrel sculpture in soft glass is a very different way of working. There are photos up of what Lucio demoed on Wednesday – they are just amazing.

Here are some of my tests (click to go to Flickr to see more).

I’m getting ready for the GBUK AGM and Bead Fair on Saturday 24th September at the Loyd Lindsay Rooms, Ardington, Oxfordshire. I have a table booked there and will be selling my beads for the first time as well as Lauscha glass, so I’m busily making stock and trying to sort out how I will display it and all those many things.

Phew! There have also been a few fun swaps going on – there was a twistie swap earlier in the year that I got a bit over-enthusiastic about and made piles of twisties! I’ve just sent my murrini in for a murrini swap, and I’m quite pleased with a couple of the recipes I came up with. I have a charm swap due at the end of September…

I’m also doing a little bit of testing for Kaz’s monthly limited edition murrini and frit blends.

It’s all go, and I’m having a great time! I decided that this was the year I would go for classes and attend events, while I am still full-time employed and have the disposable income. I’m intending to go part-time so I have more time for glass, which requires the courage to actually leave or alter my rather dull job. I think I’d probably be better off leaving entirely and applying for something different part-time, but I know how things work here and there would be Change! So I keep putting that part off, but the days when I manage to get a decent amount of glassy work done are so much more satisfying that I know I have to do it eventually. I’m waiting for restructuring at my boyfriend’s workplace to be over, then I think I’m out of excuses. (He’s happy for me not to have a part-time job at all. I’m… not. I get issues about money and the spending thereof in that situation).

Life! It’s full of stuff! :)

Off-mandrel hearts

Serendipitously, Holly of Holly’s Folly Glass posted this off-mandrel heart tutorial and I thought “Ooh, that looks interesting” so I went off to have a go.

First off-mandrel heart

First try! I used a thick rod of transparent pale blue for the base and added twistie ends in neutral and green. I twisted the centres, shaped the heart end and added a loop in baby blue (tricky!). Then I held the heart in my reverse-action tweezers, not the loop, in case it might shock. I took off the rod and heated the end to round off, then tried to put the heart into my kiln… but the tweezers wouldn’t let go! So I stuck it in my annealing bubbles to cool down. My tweezers have very thin pointy ends, and one of them had got embedded in the glass. I hadn’t put them in the flame, but I most have got them too hot anyway because it was well and truly stuck. In the end I just bent off the tweezers, so now one of the points is shorter than the other, and the remains are still in this bead… After this, I used my needlenose pliers instead and always hold the loop!

I made heart 2 (the blue one below) in the same way, without the mishap. Then I read Mr Smiley’s heart tutorial (there are pics later on in the thread) and I made more… and more. They’re fun and rather addictive, but I still find the loops tricky!

Blue and pink off-mandrel hearts

Blue heart: pale blue with a blue twistie and a green+brown twistie.
Pink heart: Reichenbach mystic pink mixed about with Lauscha soft clear. Goldstone ribbon on the surface and encased. The shape has a bit too much on one side for my liking.

Citrine twistie heart

This heart is Lauscha citrine with my red roof tile twistie. There were a couple in between the pink heart and this one, but they’re off to the Valentine’s swap so I won’t show them yet. The RRT twistie hasn’t been a great success – basically it may as well be RRT and hades only, because those are the colours that take over.

Opalino raku heart

I really like this one. It’s a white opalino base with coe 96 raku frit. I didn’t strike the frit properly, though I did get the opalino hot enough that it’s started displaying faint black spiderwebbing in places. Neither of which I mind – I think it gives it a delicate look, and the muted colours go well with it.

Hearts and more

[end of Oct 2010]

I got back from Venice and the first thing I tried out was using my Carlo Dona press.

Purple tornado heart

On a hot head it takes a long time to get enough glass on your mandrel to fill this press! He makes them in different sizes – I forget the measurements, but mine’s medium-to-large and the whole thing is a fairly puffy 3D heart. The tornado bead above I didn’t quite fill it fully and it’s a bit uneven, but I like the effect. I used transparent dark purple for the tornado so it was saturated enough that it would show up.

Ivory heart front

I made one in light ivory next so it would be faster to melt down. There was something of a washing machine disaster halfway through, which meant I had to stick it in the kiln when I was still building up enough glass. Washing machines are scary when the drum axle breaks when the machine is still on and has a spin cycle to go through… It was leaping about and shaking the entire room! I was rather shaken after that and just made a couple of fairly plain beads to calm down, so in the morning I still had my large ivory blob on a stick. Pat from FH reminded me that I could bring it up to temperature again in the kiln the next day, introduce it to the flame carefully and keep working on it, so I did just that. I messed it up a bit by using dark turquoise and getting the dots on the front too hot so they reacted messily, but I am pleased I rescued it! The back’s a bit neater.

Ivory heart back

I made an end-of-day heart next, using bits and pieces of green shorts I had lying around.

Green heart

It has a SIS shard on top. I did make the mistake of making one of the central colours be CiM kryptonite and it didn’t like being encased so deeply by the others. So this has a crack down the centre that only goes through the kryptonite and doesn’t reach the surface. I do like this bead and I like the slightly random way of using up shorts. You’re not going to get the same thing twice!

Here are some of the other things I made (the hearts do take a long time so I didn’t make very many at this point):

Sangre kalera

CiM sangre, encased and with murrini on top. This was going to be a tornado, but I made the wraps too thick and then when I pressed it the effect got too squished.

Red snake kalera

More sangre. This has a black, white and red murrini from Kaz, and a MCD + hades twistie design that looks like a snake.

Electric avenue tornado

Tornado lentil with CiM electric avenue and murrini.

Dizzy martini

A small set with a CiM dirty martini base and a Cheeky Frit Blend called Dizzy. Dirty martini works well as a base for all kinds of things.

Cool Colours and odds

Lastly, some spacers in a number of Cool Colours and odds. Back: blueberry marble, Vetro cosmic storm, Vetro purple plum with dirty martini dots. Front: kiwi. Cosmic storm is lovely and has little sparkles in it. Purple plum is incredibly soft and soupy. Blueberry marble and kiwi are two of the Effetre Cool Colours – pretty striations when you just use them on their own.

October Trees

[October 2010]

The theme of the month was October Trees and the colour was Effetre 460 yellow ochre.

I haven’t much liked yellow ochre when I’ve tried it before – it’s a bit mustardy for my tastes. I generally prefer pastel yellow or dark yellow. (Or CiM creamsicle – mmm, that’s a lovely colour). Anyway, I started with these, which I think are a bit of a mess:

Ochre dotties

Then I started making trees.

Branches

Vetro odd pale avocado over clear, with the tail end of a red and brown twistie used to draw the lines, which I then added twists to. I pressed it and added the leaves/birds (whichever you prefer – I think they’re a bit more bird-shaped) as dots of a MCD + hades twistie and raked them for a somewhat abstract tree effect.

Hippo tree

This is CiM hippo, rolled in silver leaf and pressed, with the tree done in hades stringer. I reduced it at the end. This bead was partly a test to see if the silver got the same effect as it does on African gray – it doesn’t.

Ochre with silver

Some more goes at the yellow ochre. I do like this one – it’s yellow ochre with silver leaf, then a dark ivory design and dark red brown dots. The silver leaf made it go blue!

Ochre with Cheeky Frit Blends

This pair are with more of Kaz’s Cheeky Frit Blends. On the right is Tobacco Road, superheated and with the tree in dark red brown. The other is the same, with Green Green Grass frit. Not quite sure about the result – they come and go with me!

Turquoise with spirals

This spirally bicone is a base of dark turquoise with yellow ochre spirals, then dark red brown spirals on top at another angle, deliberately pulling the surface a little.

SIS tree

This is dark ivory that’s had silver leaf melted in and given a twist on each side. Then I drew a tree on each.

Etched fritty tree

Etched fritty tree. It has Tobacco Road frit on the bottom and Ferry Cross the Mersey in the sky.

Etched pink tree

The last tree: etched pink and purple. I like the tree shape, but I wanted smaller blossoms on it :)

Ochre and amber

Finally, the last go at yellow ochre. For this I used yellow ochre stringer on amber for the focal, and I really like this set. The BHB is the same, but the stringer sunk in a bit more over the course of heating and shaping it, so it isn’t quite as clear.

Cheeky Frit Blends: Ferry Cross the Mersey

Ferry Cross the Mersey

Ferry Cross the Mersey

Not a full test, but I played about with this a bit. Left is a white base with silver leaf, frit on top and superheated, the ends encased in clear and then it was pressed. Right is a white base, the frit was painted on with clear, then I added some silver brown dots that were reduced and dot encased, then it was pressed. Not successful since the silver brown is the browny-ambery areas…

The bird is made of clear dipped in the frit and painted on.

Nice deep blues in this frit, and lots of saturation for using with clear.

Cheeky Frit Blends: Afternoon Delight

Afternoon Delight

Blend 36: Afternoon Delight

Over white, over light pink and encased, frit painted, over straw yellow with twists, and on a light pink barrel.

A light and summery blend. Purty. I used light pink instead of white as the base for a couple of these since this blend has white in it. I really like the one with twists over straw yellow. It has a nice suggestion of roses. I imagine a set of those would look rather good etched.

Cheeky Frit Blends: Do Wah Diddy Diddy

Do Wah Diddy Diddy

Blend 33: Do Wah Diddy Diddy

First three: over white, over white and encased, and frit painted.

There’s a nice selection of colours in here, with the spring green and browns giving a foresty feel, then the deep blue and aqua add some extra zing.

The last two are superheated over white and with swirls over straw yellow. You can kinda see in the frit painting and the straw yellow nugget that there’s definitely a reactive glass in there that goes iridescent. Very tricky trying to capture it on camera!