SteamPunk Glass

Back to Blog!

2012-01-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

You may have wondered where I've been (or maybe not!) Between having problems logging into blogger and all the craziness of the Xmas season of making enough glass for the stall I've barely been on line for ages.

I really don't know where the last few months have gone, the workshop is in more than a mess than usual. I didn't expect December to be quite so crazy, which I am more than grateful for as I expect January to a quiet and lean month. I normally get through one 6kg gas bottle in a month, I got through two and the remains of a third in one month!

However I am taking the time to give myself a little rest, and catch up on some neglected projects. One of this is a Steampunk radio project, of which I finally got around to putting together. (If you check back through the blog there is mentions of the brass plate and the long valve over a year ago!)

It's pretty much done, expect for the internal lights which will shine up through holes underneath the valves to make them glow. I'll make a video when I get that done, as I also have some circuitry that will make the lights flash and pulse.

I wanted to make as many of the parts myself, and not just 'spray it brass and stick cogs all over it' - Steampunk should be so much more than that! That's probably a rant for another time, but I did use just three parts from watches. Two are the brass end caps on the horizontal red/green valve, I think they are the cases from watch springs. The third one is the tiny silver cap on the blue/green valve which is actually a winding knob. Apart from the switches, which will work the circuits, I made everything else.

The wood case is actually scraps of skirting board, the brass plate was in the off-cuts at my local model making shop, which I added a fancy paint effect to. All the little brass & copper rivets I made from tubing offcuts - bead makers will know the Impress bead liner, which usually adds silver cores to charm bracelet beads, and makes rather fun custom shapes for the valves! Add in a few bits of copper wire, lacquer, and two sturdy brass chandelier couplers, and it's nearly done!

I must admit it's not exactly how I'd orginally planned it, some bits I didn't use at the last moment, and added ones I didn't expect to, but I'm quite pleased with how it's come out. I already have another one in mind, which is going to take a bit more research, and will be mostly clear glass, and hopefully quite a size!

When Ejector seats fail & other technological problems

2011-09-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

I am sure in the early days of Channel 5 there was a program called 'When Ejector Seats Fail' which always struck me as a very odd thing to fill an hour with! Well here I've had various technological breakdowns and let downs this week, although not quite as dramatic!

Firstly blogger; I can't post comments on any ones blogs, not even my own! Apologies, I'm not being stand-offish, it just keeps telling me I need to log in, logs me in, then tells me to log in. After five times around the mulberry bush I give up and forget what I was going to post! On my last post 'Traveller' asked about Murano visits, sorry for the delay, I really did try to reply! Do check this out for the ultimate 'where to visit list' http://maps.google.de/maps/ms?hl=de&gl=de&ptab=0&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=100055046274195658943.00049373d4e78bcba8d4a&mid=1288086552

I hope you enjoy the trip!

More desperate than blogger is my oxycon dying. For non-glassy people an Oxycon is an oxygen concentrator which takes air, and filters out the oxygen which I use to run my torch to melt the glass. I have two of these, as boro needs alot of power to melt and to keep the colours bright as lack of oxygen in the flame 'steals' oxygen from the glass making the colours change. Like many lampworkers I use refurbished ex-medical ones which are still working, but aren't quite good enough anymore for hospital use. They are cheaper and safer than having bottles of oxygen.

The oldest one of these has been playing up, and has been a bit wheezy for a while, it's over three years old, and lately has struggled to keep pressure. Last night the 'red light of death' came on while I was working, and it conked out. I let it cool down and tried again, but after a few minutes it stopped again.

I moved it today to a more open position, so it can get more air to cool it, but once again after five minutes it stopped dead. I half expected to hit the credit card and order a new one, but first I opened it up, hoping it was just the cooling fan that was broken (apparently one of the more common faults. I found one loose pipe, tightened it up, and turned it on. The fan was fine, and that seemed the last hope was gone for it - then a few minutes later I felt a breeze from inside the unit. Investigating I found the real fault was a short piece of tubing that had aged and split! A quick rummage in the shed for a new bit, and it was back working again, even better than it has been for months! Maybe it's not quite an ejector seat, but it's a real relief to have it working again!

New Work Space

2011-09-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

Excuse the lack of blog update for the past few weeks, but
I've been moving! No, not house, but workshop.

I hadn't realised how little space I've been working in,
until I wanted to find somewhere for the new kiln, and find somewhere to spread
out the parts for some Steampunk sculptures. Until now the only spare space has
been the top of the kiln, not really an ideal workspace! It was actually on
suggestion from "the other 'alf" who felt that as I was working in
there 24/7 it only made sense I took over the spare bedroom/study which was
being used more for storage than any work! She also rather fancied this smaller
room as her office too. A quick advert in the local paper and the sofa bed was
gone, and then the grand move around could begin.

It's still work in progress, I've spread out a bit but I
still realise there isn't quite as much room as I thought, but I have managed
to put in a massive 6x3ft table to work on, in addition to the lampworking
bench! My old room is finally getting a makeover and decorate, and is already
filling up with books that until now have been spread around the house.

I've been able to drag out some old bits of treasured
electronic 'tat' too, including my Denko 1946/7 shortwave valve radio. It's an
amazing radio, I snapped it up years ago for £5.10 when I was still at college;
it really should have cost a lot more, however I got it in an auction and the
guy I was bidding against seemed to have got distracted and didn't realise he'd
been outbid by 10p! I remember listening to radio

Australia

in the mornings between 8 and 9.30am
before the signal faded as the sun interference increased and the signal faded
out.

One thing I haven't set up yet is a photographic corner, so
still no new listings yet, but I've been working like mad so it shouldn't be
too long before I can start refilling my Etsy shop. I have been playing with
the new kiln, and have managed to try out a few kiln casts.

Its quite exciting
and nerve racking to do, I feel like I've got lots to learn, but have managed
to make a few nice casts already. I will hopefully add a new dimension and
styles of glass to add to what I already make, there will be much more about
this to come!

New Kiln, New Horizons

2011-08-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

The trip to Stourbridge gave me inspiration in unexpected
ways. It gave me a new appreciation of techniques like fusing, stained glass,
and casting, as well as ideas of ways I could incorporate some of my lampwork
into these varied disciplines, in fact I was brimming with ideas!

One serious restraint (along with cash for materials!) was
that my current kiln is ideal for annealing, which is what I bought it for, but
it won't go high enough for fusing, let alone casting, and new kilns aren't
cheap! However last week I saw this old kiln for sale, and got it for a song!

It's an old ceramics kiln, but has a controller which is
suitable for glass which needs greater control. However it was in a sorry
state, and the two elements were broken and hanging in pieces inside the kiln,
plus I didn't know if the controller was still ok, but took a punt at it anyway
from only seeing a few blurry pictures!

First job was the new element; a quick call into Kilncare Kilncare
whom I know by reputation as being first rate at sorting out elements. They'd
never made elements for this kiln, so I sent them the best remaining element,
which was in about three parts! I wasn't sure if there was more missing! As it
was they thought the element with it was too long for the rating, so made
elements to match what they felt it should be. I can't praise their service enough,
I posted the element out on Monday morning, and Thursday morning I had two new
elements in the post, and at a reasonable price too! So much quicker and easier
than trying to get 240v elements in from USA!

The next task was getting out the remains of the old
element, which turned out to be a much trickier job than I expected. I am not
sure what had happened to the kiln, but a lot of the coils had become firmly embedded
in the brick lining. Working away I also realised that much of it had also
melted into the bricks, leaving a metallic coating. I really needed to get that
off, as putting a new element on it would either short it out or cause hot
spots which might also damage the element. This took ages to do, and caused
more of the fragile and battered lining to come away. I had to turn and move
the kiln around to make sure I didn't miss any, a mirror came in use here
spotting bits of element that I originally missed.

When I finally got it all out, and hovered out the dust and
debris, I installed the new elements, which took no time at all and fitted
perfectly!

The only thing that worried me was that one of the channels in the
kiln-bricks had come away, so had to prop a bit of brick in case the element
started to sag when heated. I then fired it up, which a very slow rise to 200
degrees, which went fine, so did it on a full rapid fire to go up to 400degrees
C. Not a problem, it actually overshot the temperature, probably because it's
so well insulated. I am used to my fibre lined kiln, so was amazed how quickly
it got to temperature.

It still needs a little more work, the feet on the base are
bent, and I've ordered some kiln cement to sort out the damaged channel plus
some kiln furniture like props and boards, but now that I know it works I don't
mind spending a little more to get it up and ready for the next phase - melting
glass in it!

Stourbridge Busmans Holiday Continued

2011-07-25T13:55:00.001-07:00

Continuing my day out at Stourbridge, here are some more pictures of the day out, starting with some more of resident glass blower, Charlotte, making a glass heart.

And organiser Julie Fountain of Lush lampwork, http://www.lushlampwork.co.uk/ who organised the day out! Here she is finding that wet newspaper is enough to stop your palm being burnt by hot glass!

After a look around at some of the wonderful glass at the cone, we stopped for a bite to eat in their tea room before heading to Broadfield House Glass museum.

We started with a look around some of the contemporary glass on sale in the shop, as well as a quick visit to resident glass blower Allister Malcolm

who was working on some glass restoration work making a new foot for an old vase - right down to putting a punty mark like the original.

After a look at the contemporary sea themed exhibition,

it was time to look around the collection, including the amazing world of cameo glass.

Stourbridge was where the way of re-creating the Portland vase was discovered. The Portland vase is a dark blue Roman vase with raised white relief, and for a long time no one was sure how it was made. It was found by putting a small cup of dark glass into a larger cup of white glass, then blowing it into a vase, a blank could be made. From there it was a long task of slowly engraving though the white glass to reveal the dark glass bellow, in the process creating some amazing cameos. At Broadfield they have some of the finest works, including three vases thought to be the best works ever produced using this method.

I have to say, they are breathtaking. The photos really don't do them justice, one has a figure with a cape where the layer is left so thin it's translucent, allowing some of the colour though.

Unbelievably the museum gets no real funding, and was nearly closed down recently because of local council cuts, despite having an international important collection.

I even managed to find a 'flip flop' in the collection! A customer at the stall told me how she played with these as a girl growing up in Stourbridge. At end of day glass makers might make 'friggers' - fun and silly obects such as glass canes and animals - and this was like a glass goblet with a hollow stem. Over the goblet end would be a very thin glass bubble, when blown into it would expand slightly, then fall back, making a 'flip, flop' noise!

Of course, I also found a 'little' valve!

From there we went to The Ruskin Glass centre, which has several studios for glass artists, and has both a strong educational element, along with helping glass artists to develop and launch their businesses. I wish I lived closer, I'd certainly be up for a unit there myself! We met quite a few of the artists there, although we were all starting to flag by this point! One of the most amazing ones we met was Terri-Louise Colledge.

Along with painting directly onto glass, she also engraves cameo glass with nothing more than a dentists drill, making stunning works of art. Again, the pictures really don't do them justice. One of these vases (the blue one with ivy leaves and a chameleon - the photo of the lizard side didn't come out!) took her seven weeks to cut away the white surface to make the design. She showed us a previous unfinished version, which two and half weeks into it chipped! It was on a critical part of the work, so she just started again! We all gasped at that, some pointing out we get annoyed if an hours work on a bead goes wrong, let alone weeks of work!

Outside we found a relaxing area, this wonderful pond,

where the waters trickles down the layers, spiralling around in each before running down into the next. Of course, it's all made of glass, each section is a screen of an old TV that has been slumped into shape in a kiln - I can't think of a better use of an old TV, or ever seeing a program more relaxing that this.

As everyone slipped away I popped off for a quick pizza with some of the lovely ladies from the forum, before getting back to the hotel and getting my boots off! It was an amazing day out, and left me wanting to try out a whole host of techniques. Mostly it has left me with loads of ideas and inspiration, and filling up notebooks of things to try and equipment to buy! I am already organising a workshop move around so I have more room to work! Many thanks go to Julie who organised this trip, and our tour guides who kept us amazing and interested thoughout a long and fruitful day!

Stourbridge Busman's Holiday

2011-07-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

Last week I went on a Busman's day out to Stourbridge to meet up with some fellow lampworkers from Frit Happens Forum, and for a whirlwind visit of some of the glassy attractions there. Stourbridge was (and still is to some degree) the centre of glassmaking in England, and is jam packed with studios, factories, workshops and museums.

Of course it's no short haul for me, so finding I could get a bargain room at £15 for a night in a nearby hotel in Dudley I decided to go up the afternoon before so I'd be fresh for the 9 am start, then amble back the day after and give myself a little break in the process.

Despite the confusing buses, and a change at a bus depot, I managed to find my way there. I think Dudley must be one of the Midlands best kept secrets, I took a wrong turning coming out of Dudley Port station; one minute I am in the middle of houses, noise and traffic, next minute I'm standing by a canal with nothing in site either way!

View left, view right!

The hotel was similar; it was right on a main road, but when I wandered off looking for dinner I found this;

Next morning was then a ten minute bus ride into Stourbridge, and meeting up with about 24 lampworkers and jewellers who'd travelled from all over for the day. We started at Ploughden and Thompson's, a glass factory that still makes raw glass, using a traditional cone chimney kiln as their factory (although the top of the chimney was removed in the 1920's). However they use modern techniques and kilns now, while we were there the glass blowers were making very high grade glass for a neutron detector array that's being built under the alps.

Neutron array detectors freshly made!

They explained how they have to use a low background radioactivity sand from Norway that costs about £4,500 per tonne, unlike the normal sand which is about £400 a tonne! Most of their work is producing glass for scientific, medical and military use; they showed us an array of goods from light covers that go in submarines, on fighter aircrafts, high power microwave generators for cancer treatment machines - it was quite an array! They even showed us what looked like flecks of glass, but were tiny glass tubes with a 12 micron hole for use in IVF treatment!

An array of their wares, top right is the finished neutron detector with a selienum internal coating, bellow that the cover from a fighter jet wing indicator lamp, centre is a high power microwave generator from a cancer treatment machine.

They do also make some decorative glass, and include Tudor glass which makes cut lead crystal.

Lesley has a go at glass cutting under the expert eye of Tutor Glass's lead crystal cutter

After chatting to the cutter and sandblaster, and having a go (I had a go at sandblasting, and was way too heavy on the controls! But I still want a sandblaster for xmas!) we had just enough time for a quick look around the storage rooms.

Sadly they'd had rain damage recently as thieves had taken the lead off their roofs, and at this point we just ran out of time. Probably a good thing, as I'd have gone shopping for glass at this point!

From here next stop was a tour of the Cone Museum, the last remaining intact glass cone in the UK.

This was a fascinating tour, seeing how glass was originally produced in what look an almost lethal environment! There was so much to see, and a chance to watch Charlotte, their resident glass blower, in action,

before being whisked off for a much needed sit down and lunch!

And that's only halfway through the day! I'll continue this in the next post, as I have some amazing pictures from the next two stops to come, of both old and new glass, and more from the Cone too!

In the meantime I am refilling my Etsy shop at the moment, and there should be a few more bits going in there, including some new marbles and paperweights, over the next few days.

Micro SteamPunk Adventures

2011-07-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

One of my latest experiments has been adventures into micro-steampunk. Now, I don't know if such a thing exists, but it makes sense that it should! I've even seen film of nano technology where they made a simple cog and wheel that moved, it seems everything starts with cogs!

Doubtless you've been previously battered by one of my rants about 'sticking cogs on stuff and calling things Steampunk' and I tend to avoid using cogs just for the sake of it. However for some ideas I've been mulling over for the past year or two they suit it perfectly. And yes, there will be glass involved too.

I can't use glue for what I have in mind, so engineering wise it makes sense for me to screw parts together. Problem is there doesn't seem to be many tiny teeny nuts in your average watch or grab bag of steampunk watch components. So, as I always figure, if you can't buy it, make it!

First step is to making tiny thread, for which I needed a tap and die set to make matching micro-nuts and bolts. I thought the £20 I paid was rather pricey, for a faily unimpressive plate of steel and pack of taps, until I looked at 'proper' ones from watchmakers catalogues. A professional set a mere £395!!!!!!! I've given them a quick go, and they work rather well on soft brass, but a little stiff on stainless steel. I even managed to make a tiny thread using one of the larger cutters on an old thin mandrel! So far I've made a very good threaded hole and bar thats only 0.7mm!

I also figured a small watch lathe would help when boring micro holes neatly and squarely into the ends of brass rod to make nuts. (I am looking at sizes between 0.9 - 0.4mm) I had an old baby wood lathe, which although ok, didn't have a second chuck to hold work.

A quick scrounge around I found an old hand drill which had rusted solid, but the chuck was still good.

It took alot more to get free than I expected, but finally got it out, including cutting it out of the nice cast iron frame, which was a shame.

I was originally going to leave the bevelled gear on it, but it didn't mount very well. A look overhead and I found an ideal bit of old curtain pole (knew I kept that for a reason) which made an adequate stock holder.

Although I drilled the stock with the mini drill to make sure it's level, (that wood was harder than expected, it even started to smoke!)

the set up isn't ideal. I've given it a test drill, it needs refining such as a turned thread instead to ease the work into the drill, also I need to stiffen everything up as the mini drill isn't steady and can easliy be knocked off centre. However, it is a start!

The top quick pictures are of my first micro-thread; I used the plain end of a piece of threaded rod from an old watch. The thread is about 0.7mm to 0.74mm, so quite small, but I am looking at making it even smaller. That hole in the brass bar really is threaded, with a nice shiny penny for scale!

Decorative brass effects & Steampunk Radio sculpture revisited

2011-06-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I posted a picture of a brass plate I was working on, which then got put back on the back-burner once again. Pulling it out a few weeks ago when I had five minutes spare I realised I'd made a daft mistake. I'd forgotten to put a sealing layer over the initial brass before putting on the decorative paint coat. The masking I'd used to make the pattern had left some glue and grot, when I tried removing it it had only made things worse. Doubtless some people would say it adds character, but I know it's there and shouldn't be!

It's taken me a while to decide to start a fresh, hopefully learning from my mistakes along the way - but then isn't that what arts and crafts is about? Here is a picture of the new bright and shiny brass plate.

To make this brushed brass finish is actually quite easy and takes no time at all. If you pop down to Maplin's or an electronics stockist you can buy a rubberised polishing block which is normally used for degreasing and cleaning the copper on PCB's (printed circuit boards for the non-technical) prior to etching them or soldering components onto them. Their part number is HX04E http://www.maplin.co.uk/polishing-block-2109 if you want one too! It works really well on many soft metals such as copper and brass, and lasts for years if looked after, although mine looks a little grubby from the dirt I took off this apparently clean brass sheet!

To get a good finish it's just a matter of polishing in one direction, then the other, and back again a few times until you get the finish you like. Just make sure you keep it flat against the brass as you do, and go in nice long and even strokes.

It's no good for really deep scratches, but will certainly buff up most boring bit of brass and copper. To help hold it use some double sided sticky take to fix to a bit of scrap card; saves those finger marks on the edge! (Neat trick I got from an instrument maker!) Brush off the remaining dust with a soft cloth, and lacquer or spray varnish to protect that finish.

If you are feeling really fancy, after you've got a nice finish with the brushing marks going one way, using just the corner of the block make some figure of eights over the surface to produce a unique decorative look. If you don't like how it looks, just polish again to remove it!

I'll try and post some more pictures as this comes along, and also explain what I'm going to do with the bag of cogs and this odd little (and surprisingly expensive) little metal gadget too.

In the Press & Big Marbles

2011-06-21T12:43:00.001-07:00

I am seriously letting my on line life down lately, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day, and I still never seem to get enough done! Although I do seem to empty the tea caddy quicket than I used to, so I suspect that I need to decrease my tea breaks and increase the time between them!

A few weeks ago I got a small mention in the Evening Standard. I had originally hoped they would be using a picture of one of my stoppers, as they had asked for high-res images, but sadly not and the mention was quite small - I even hot footed it to London to pick up a copy, so at £23 a ticket so rather an expensive clipping for five words! (One of those was 'and'!) I've highlighted the area in the picture.

Thanks to the weather and most of the DLR being closed things have been rather quiet at the market, so instead of making new pendants to refill stocks it has given me time to go back to some serious marble making. I've been trying to get the sizes up, at the moment I seem to be hitting a 'wall' at 40mm; although I am still playing with ideas to get up to the magic 50mm/2inch mark without having to invest in new equiment. Despite that I am really pleased with some of the new ones, especially a big 40mm galaxy spiral, which has a multicoloured galaxy floating in the centre. Even the back came out well, with lots of metallic blues!

Here are a few pictures of some of the new marbles, including some Lattachino vortex marbles. I have been approached about the possiablity of using one of my larger marbles as part of a public art statue, which is giving me even more reason to get some large marbles made!

Busy Days, and get ready for news!

2011-06-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

Excuse the late posting, its been some busy weeks, made more so by so much happening last weekend. Firstly, I finally got the long awaited storage! Yay!

Also on Friday Greenwich market had live demonstrations of blacksmithing, and woodturning, as well as mock-ups of rooms filled with items available from the market as part of their of push. It was then I found out that I've been in the press! One of my galaxy stoppers was featured in a two page spread about the market in 'The Wharf.' It's a free paper that's distributed around canary wharf. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get my own copy, but have been promised a photocopy at least.

Here are a quick couple of photos from the friday before last, with Tom Biddulph www.tombiddulph.co.uk demonstrating wood turning, give one of the stall holder Menzie a quick lesson in woodturning!

I will have some exciting news coming up this week, keep tuned to my facebook page and twitter on Wednesday; I won't say anymore in case it doesn't happen but I am bracing myself for some more exciting news too!

I am also planning to have a 'Virtual open-day' very soon, although I've been having problems getting webcams and old laptops to work! I've nearly got the tech to work, so hopefully I'll be broadcasting live webcam from the workshop, I'll have to remember not to swear if I burn myself picking up a rod thats still hot!

The trolley saga updated

2011-05-24T04:31:00.000-07:00

Last week I was describing the nightmare of getting through trolleys every few weeks as I move my stuff from Essex to Greenwich market, all via public transport. I ordered parts to make a new, longer lasting trolley, but the results were both mixed, and now unnecessary!

The first problem I had was finding a board wide enough to fit the bearings I bought, so had to make a platform out of two bits bolted and glued together; a very inelegant solution. By Friday though the metal for axle had still failed to arrive, so I had to improvise, using a length of clear 20mm acrylic tubing I'd bought to make marble display stands, with a rod of steel tube though the middle. I knew it wouldn't last, and hoped it would survive long enough to see me through the weekend.

Pictured here is the basic set up, as I headed into London on the 6.46 train. By now I had found that it was just all too heavy, and the handle on the original bag (which locks in place) was now too long. Getting to the station had turned into hard work again, as I either had to balance it as I pushed it forward to keep the centre of gravity just so, or drag it like a dead weight. Pushing it forward was more comfortable, but now it made the rucksack feel more uncomfortable and heavier! By the time I got to the end of Saturday the acrylic was cracking and the axle was sliding back and forth, and I was running out of ideas how to transport my equipment.

Then on Sunday I finally got the news I was waiting for! I have storage! There are engineering works yet again this weekend, so to avoid the replacement coach bit I will be doing an extra day on Friday at Greenwich. I'll be quite loaded on the way there, using yet another trolley I have which I doubt would survive a normal weekend, but which will get me and my two storage crates to Greenwich where they can now live!

This doesn't seem like grand news, but in fact it'll do three things for me. Firstly it'll give me back Mondays, as I am usually wiped out from all the heavy moving. It will also allow me to take more and a wider range of stock, and lastly it means I can now concentrate again on a new display. I've wanted to revamp and change some of the equipment, some of which is getting pretty tired and battered now from the constant travelling, so if you see me sketching behind the stall on Friday that's what I'll be working out!

The Trouble with Trolleys

2011-05-18T12:48:00.001-07:00

All my equipment, on the 'robust' trolley, ready to go.

And this is what it looks like when it's all unpacked!

Each week I need to lug a lot of stuff back and forth from SteamPunk Glass HQ to Greenwich. It really is a lot. I can get it into one giant wheeled holdall, which is about 3ft tall, and 16inch square, but experience showed it to be just too heavy to lift on and off busses and trains, and I don't want to overload it. (I don't drive, I never got around to learning, so it's public transport for me.) I now have it down to the trolley, and a large rucksack. The rucksack has stock (and a couple of overnight things) and the large trolley mostly has my display equipment and any heavy things like marbles.

Eventually, I might get some storage at the market, but it's very limited and there is a very long waiting list. I normally travel to London early Saturday morning with all this, which involves a bit of a walk to the station, then a train and DLR. After a day at Greenwich I pack up, and another DLR trip and bus ride later to where I will crash for the night, ready to bus and DLR back early Sunday morning.

Now why am I telling you this? For sympathy? No, to explain the amount of changes and moving around I do, and how I am currently getting through trolleys at an alarming rate! The original holdall I use are idea size, but it didn't take long to break the little wheels on them. Buying a new one seemed like a good idea, but that lasted two weeks before ball bearings trickled out of the bearings at Liverpool street station! I invested in a very robust metal trolley, with chunky wheels, and strapped the holdall onto that. A wheel broke after a week, so I assumed it was shoddy workmanship and got a replacement. All good for many weeks, until once again a wheel broke off.

So, enough is enough! Monday morning I ordered these 260mm/10inch Pneumatic tyres, a length of 20mm (one inch) stainless steel rod for the axle, and a pair of industrial bearings. The result won't be pretty, but I hope it will be tough. I am going to use the holdall as the carcass, and do away with the heavy metal trolley which will also reduce weight too. I've got a sturdy hardwood base already built which will bolt through the canvas and plastic; the only weak link might be the holdall, fingers crossed by the time they go (as I have a second as backup!) I might finally have local storage. In the meantime I'll post photos when the new trolley is ready to roll!

Bottom upwards; orginal holdall wheel, robust but broken metal and rubber wheel from latest trolley, and top the new monster 10inch wheels!

Craftpimp & the Wonderfull metalwork of Anna McDade

2011-05-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

I've recently joined craftpimp http://www.craftpimp.co.uk , which is a new forum devoted to craftspeople, and is a very freindly place too! As part of that a new Etsy team has sprung up, however it's a select affair! Only three of any discipline are allowed in at any time, and numbers will be limited to around 50 people in total. I've been very fortunate in being one of the few hardglass lampworkers who've been accepted onto the team!

One thing I really like about it is the diversity of top quality skills, and I hope to go around the whole team to share some of the delights with you (if you can't wait, put in the 'cpteam' tag in Etsy's search to see what's on offer!) However one that I couldn't wait to share is the amazing metalwork of Anna McDade.

Along with illustrations Anna produces some really drool worthy metal jewellery using silver, bronze, brass, gold and copper in ways that knocks socks off anything I've seen for a very long time. Some pieces just scream 'add me to a Steampunk/Victorian/Cyberpunk outfit NOW' like her copper and silver collar.http://www.etsy.com/listing/33321897/copper-and-silver-collar If it was plain it would be wonderful, but she also etches the copper with her own designs too. If that wasn't enough she even gives a choice of images that she puts on the designs.

If plain colour isn't your thing then check out the copper bracelets and cuffs (I certianly have!) which by giving heat treatments she has added some wonderful patina. I know alot of people wear copper bracelets to help with reumatism, but these are so much more stylish than the bangles my local chemists and new age shop sells.http://www.etsy.com/listing/52619630/large-copper-bird-on-the-wing-banglecuff (Picture at top of the blog! The one bellow is floating cityscape http://www.etsy.com/listing/70575988/medium-copper-floating-city-cuff )

Now I could rave on for ages, but I think it's best you go and have a look for yourself, especially as if you buy some of her bracelets and rings it'll remove temptation from me hitting the 'buy' buttons! It's certainly a treat for the eyes to see such quality and unquiqueness.

Craft and Design Month - come play marbles!

2011-05-10T03:43:00.000-07:00

As part of Craft & Design month, http://www.craftanddesignmonth.net I will be at Greenwich market this Friday to help promote the amazing range on offer there. This Friday 13th the focus is on stationary, toys and gifts, and as part of that I've dug out a large bag of my handmade marbles to play with!

Yes, come along that day and you can play with my marbles! Of course they might not be my best marbles, they will stay on the stand too oogle at, but I have a nice lot of seconds and test marbles that I don't mind being thrown around! I've even been featured in press releases for the market, which is amazing as I still feel like 'new boy' there! Hopefully there will be lots of interest, and I'll try to get some pictures too if I can! More info at http://www.craftanddesignmonth.net/events/?pc=SE10+9LS&r=4

The two Fridays after that there will also be events, on the 20th the focus will be jewellery and fashion, and on 27th May it will be interiors and home. I probably won't be there on those dates, but will be around on Saturdays and Sundays unless something major crops up, you can always check my Facebook page for any last minute news.

On the trials of new designs

2011-05-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

Making new designs takes time, and time isn't something I always have. However it's interesting to see how some designs seem to organically grow from old techniques and new ideas, whilst the really hard ones to work are the ones I design backwards from knowing how I want something to look, to then figuring out how to make it!

Today I've once again been battling with shaving brushes. For those who don't know, the 'old' style had a metal finial which the brush (or 'knot' which is the correct term apparently) fitted into, then the glass handle fitted onto that. The problem is I cannot get anymore of these, as they are no longer made. I spent a few weeks, and a can of expensive silicone mould resin, trying out casting them in pewter, but I really wasn't happy with either the results or the look. The ideal thing would be making an entirely glass handle and fitting the knot directly into that, making a more seamless look, and removing the potentially troublesome metal to glass bond.

Easier said than done! Today I've made only 4 handles, and one failed lump. The best one being the first, which then cracked. Thinking I was on to the right idea I carried on, and I think the last one is nearly right. Realising it would be a bit of a slog I stopped using colour, and have been working with just clear as I work out the shapes and process, and thats been quite a happy idea as they look really good with just a touch of colour.

At the opposite end of designing are the happy organic pieces that grow out of existing techniques used in new ways, rather than the hard designing of having the finishing product in mind and working backwards. One of these was from a chat on the stall with a chap buying a calligraphy pen, who suggested chop stick holders to match would be great, as he used them to rest pens on. I made a few rectangular style ones, but coaxing glass into in-organic squares isn't ideal, so I tried a leaf design. I like making leaves, they are very free form, and each one is always different.

As I made more I found that some rocked, and I liked the way they seemed to 'tremble' like leaves on a tree, so I've been making them all like that. As they are all boro, I think they'd be ideal for tableware too! I'll try and list some on etsy soon!

Making the mundane interesting

2011-04-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've been trying out a few new designs this week, and if you subscribe to my facebook page you may have already seen pictures of some new work from me. Along with some more razors I've also been expanding on non-jewellery glassware too. I've produced some calligraphy dip pens!

Unlike other glass versions these are made with borosilicate glass, and have a classic holder inside so can take any italic nibs! At the moment the metal holders are visible on all but one of them, but I also hope to make some where it is a little more hidden too.

I am trying to make a little more time for making new 'stuff' along with all the usual favourite I already make as I would really like to expand the range of glassiness that I have on offer. I like making pendants, but I like making functional objects even more, especially if I can take normal boring items and raise them up to be more 'interesting' such as the razors I already make.

I am quite surprised and intrigued by the comments I hear when on the stall to the razors. Often men comment 'they're a bit posh for shaving!' but I think everyone should be able to start the day with special and individual things to remind them that they are too! My favourite is when I often seen young girls, usually 7-12 years old, who point very excitedly at the razors to their Dads, suggesting they should get one - and the fathers ALWAYS have full beards! I think they are trying to tell them something!

I hope to get some more razors made soon, and so start listing them again on line, up until now I've only been able to make just enough for the stall, but I've managed to get a small stash of the heads so will hopefully have enough to be able to list them too. I am also hot from the torch (quite literally!) where I've been working on another new non-jewellery item, and is looking good. This came entirely from a chat with a customer at the stall, and has already started to morph into an unique design whilst playing with shapes! More on that to come!

Monday is the new Sunday

2011-04-18T12:47:00.001-07:00

Where have the weeks gone? It seems like a million years since I've had time to update the blog or add new items for sale. Greenwich market has been keeping me very busy, even when it's a quiet weekend I still seem to have run out of something and need to make more!

Monday has now turned into the new Sunday for me, I drag a huge case on a trolley and rucksack to and from the market every weekend, and it's quite a load. So far I've managed to break two trolleys and one wheel! Monday morning I'm left somewhat battered, bruised (from lifting the trolley up and down onto trains and buses as I don't drive), and more than a little tired. However I've never been fitter!

This Sunday I decided to take a much needed break; it was marathon day and I expected the market to be quieter as the route goes around the market, blocking entrance from nearby Cuty Sark DLR station. It's actually taken me a couple of days to feel ok, just ready for a very long four day weekend! I plan to be at Greenwich for Good Friday to Bank Holiday Monday, hopefully I might see some of you there!

I'm trying to make lots of new razors and bottle stoppers ready, and feeling a bit rested today I've even found a little time to polish a few new ideas that I've had on the back burner. I'll try to get some photos taken! In the meantime here are some of the new razors I've been making, plus a new 'publicity' photo of me melting glass.+

I'm at Greenwich!

2011-03-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

Last week was momentous! After a lot of work, I have been accepted to trade on weekends at Greenwich Craft and art market, so it's all systems go! I'd have blogged sooner, but I've been in Greenwich nearly the entire week until now!

Wednesday was a chance to test out some new stall displays, and get feedback from the market managers. I was delighted (and somewhat pleasantly stunned) when they said I could come back and trade any day! I returned on Friday, there were a lot more stalls, however it was bitterly cold and instead of making some much needed cash I spent loads on hot drink and food instead!

Saturday was the big day, the sun came out and I was delighted to be rushed off my feet. I had such great reactions from customers to my stall, and near the end of the day started running low on some stock which I really didn't expect. It was quite a relief to be so busy after so many lean weeks, and as I've had to spend a lot on new equipment for the stall too. Sunday wasn't as busy for me, there were a few minor problems, but not enough to mar an incredible start to trading at Greenwich. It's quite an effort to haul all the display equipment as well as enough glass, I seem to be breaking a trolley every week! The new heavy duty one I got Thursday broke on Sunday morning, so I'll be glad when I can get storage space near the market.

I will certainly be back next weekend, and as many after that as I can manage. In the meantime I've still got some tweeks to do to the stall, plus I need to melt some glass! I've barely made any glass for the past two weeks as I've been so busy trimming material and making display stands, so I want to make lots of new stuff for this weekend. I will be a little slack on posting new items on line until I get settled in, but once I have I will start filling my Etsy and Folksy shops with new glass!

Selling Happy

2011-03-12T13:48:00.001-08:00

This Saturday I dragged my increasingly battered case up to Highgate for a new-ish fair in North London. As I'd booked last minute was put outside, which turned out to be great as the sun came out, and the tables were bigger! It was in a pub, and setting up on one of those beer-garden tables with seats was a bit odd, but I seemed to make a fairly good job of it (unlike the photo I took which didn't save!)

To be honest, it wasn't really as busy as I'd expected, however I did ok, and really quite enjoyed it after a slow start. I've met and seen a lot of different stall and stall holders lately, and I am really surprised the amount of different ways they approach selling. Personally, I just turn up and waffle to anyone how wants to listen about glass!

I've certainly seen a few people struggling too, and I've been there too. However tonight on my way home I compared it to my 'old life' where I was selling electrical engineering stuff that people had to buy, and how little joy there was in that. People were buying it to fix problems, but now I feel like I am selling people a little bit of happy.

Today there was a lovely lady who really liked the pendants but was torn between two, until her husband offered to buy both, which made her really happy! The funny thing is I've done the same thing, because treating my other half makes her happy, which makes me feel happy. Does that make sense? I am not making something that people have to have - like cornflakes, or soap - but something they like which is going to make them feel good when they wear it, or something they are going to give as a gift which they hope is going to make the recipient smile too.

So when I am struggling with a broken wheeled trolley, ends are quite meeting, or I'm standing on a packed commuter train after standing all day behind a stall, I can at least try to remember why I am now doing this, because when I think of it in this way how can I not think how lucky I am to have such a great job!

Out and about!

2011-03-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

A bit short notice, but I am out and about with 'stuff' including lots of new marbles too! Wednesday I am (fingers crossed) at Greenwich market, the covered main market, as I am doing a trial day there from first thing to close, which will probably be about 4-5pm.

Saturday is even more exciting as I am attending a new market in Highbury that is running about there times a month. It's 12-5.30 at 'The Boogaloo' bar at 312 Archway Road in Highgate, London. More info at http://www.facebook.com/wonderhillhigh I will be there with lots of new pendants, marbles, stoppers, and all manor of glassy 'stuff!'

Decisions, decisions

2011-03-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

It's been another tough week, I normally am quite good at making decisions and then going and getting on with things, but not this week as I try to decide 'where next.'

I've been hoping to take a semi-permanent stall somewhere, but as with everything it's all about the location. I wasn't really happy with Spittlefields market, although the people are nice I did feel like my stall must have been touched by the plague as no one really wanted to come and look, and they don't run a Saturday market. Camden was 'interesting' but I was so tired out from doing Spittlefields (plus the nightmare tube breakdown at the start of the day) I had to cancel the Sunday.

I'd really like to be at a dedicated crafts and art market, this week I went to chat to the Greenwich market manager. I am due to do a trial day on Wednesday, but they have a 'no more jewellery' policy which means I'd might not be able to sell my pendants there. That might make it unviable, I am hoping they will see how unique and unusual they are and let them in. If not, I guess it'll probably back to Camden for now, but it's tough trying to sell hand made goods next to cheap imports. As I planned to be at a permanent location I've recklessly turned down a couple of one day fairs, and wondering about trying to book up some now just in case.

In the meantime I'm melting glass like a manic, and it's become a creative time for me again as I re-explore marbles. I've been experimenting with some new design ideas, again based on sci-fi and space themes. I've got no photos yet, they still need some baking to really bring the colours out, but I'll try to post some photos here or on my Facebook page within a few days. If anything fiddling around with stalls and making display equipment is really cutting into time I prefer to be creating. In the meantime I am trying to list at least one new thing a day in my Etsy and/or Folksy shop. I am using the Facebook page a lot more now when I do, so if you haven't found it yet it's on https://www.facebook.com/SteamPunkGlass

That was the weekend that wasn't

2011-02-27T03:57:00.000-08:00

This weekend's assault on London's fairs turned into a fairly bleak affair, and has left me battered and bruised.

Friday I was at Spittlefields market, which was indoors so at least I didn't have the weather to worry about. I did get a quick snap of the stall on my mobile (so quality is a little poor as I forgot my camera) . Despite the clothing stalls near me doing slow but steady trade, it was pretty quiet. I'd hoped the nearby office workers might be around, the weather was a nice crisp spring day too, but I did very badly. By the end of the day I'd only sold one pendant, and that was to the stall holder next to me, which didn't go near covering my costs of the stall and travel.

I had better hopes for the next day, when I took myself off to Camden to take a place at the craft/fair-trade market. Despite leaving extra early I was scuppered by London Tubes. After carrying my huge case- it's about 4ft tall and 16inch square - which contains all my stock, stand, and covers, down various stairs in Moorgate station I found there were signal problems. After ten minutes the tube moved to the next stop, which then stayed there with no idea of how long it would take. I needed to be at Camden before 9, and at 8.30 I lugged my case back up to the surface (more stairs!) One bus to Camden turned up, but it was packed, so I tried looking for a cab - but there were none. About to give up and walk back to the train station to return home I spotted a cab and was on my way. At 9.05 and £15 lighter I got to the meeting point, and was lucky enough to get a stall, and it was indoors!

I tweeked the stall layout, putting up a bright purple cloth backdrop to hide the wall and piller behind me, and had plenty of people looking, but the rain and cold kept alot of people away, although I did get to chat to some nice people who liked what I did. At the end of a very long day I had just covered my stall and travel expenses (but not the extra £15 cab fare!) I didn't get home till 9.30, and originally had planned to do Sunday as well, but by this point two days of standing and then carrying a huge weight had done me in. I may well try Camden again in a few weeks when it's more 'in season' but for now it's some Radox and deep heat for me! And then looking at cases or trolleys with bigger 'stair-friendly' wheels!

Boiling pink, and getting ready for the weekend

2011-02-23T03:03:00.000-08:00

Since the sudden removal of the day-job, it seems there are less hours in the day than I previously believed! Gone are those hours of staring at spreadsheets that turned five minutes into an hour, and replaced by... oh, staring at spreadsheets working out if I can afford to do this! This time though what feels like five minutes is usually an hour!

I think almost everyone who I've spoken to have been amazing positive and think that I am doing the right thing. Certainly looking at the alternatives (a 'proper job') seems both a step backwards, and the options and positions open are very limited. That's not to say I do keep getting that little voice in the back of my head wondering if I am doing the right thing. This weekend though, fingers crossed, I shall be in London with a new stand and new pendants! I am more than a little nervous!

I've been ploughing into making new pendants ready, and having more time at the torch has had some unexpected bonuses. Along with exploring new shapes and styles I've dusted off some 'troublesome' colours that haven't worked in the past. One of these, Solara, was supposed to be tones of yellows and purples, but just bubbled horrendously, and either stayed clear or went and unappealing 'ear-wax' colour! However with more firepower I've started getting some rich amber tones, and although there are some bubbles left trapped inside they actually add a more organic feel to the pieces. Here are a quick couple of shots in different lights, this is one where the purples seem to come out in certain lights which doesn't really get picked up well by my camera, along with the patterns I've added to them.

One other is a wisteria colour, which also was like handling boiling jam. I've managed to get this to stay smooth, and now rather like it, which is great as pink is closely related to this colour. I had a try again with pink, but I still have trouble with it, but I think I am getting there! I've also managed to get some shaving brushes made and listed on Folksy too!

At present I am hoping to have a stall in Spittlefields market on Friday, between 10am-4pm - although I don't have a guaranteed place, so won't know if there is room until I get there, so I am keeping my fingers crossed! Saturday and Sunday I will be in Camden market, in the crafts and handmade area just over the bridge. The weather is supposed to warm up this weekend, so lets hope it stays dry as well, maybe I'll see some of you there!

Snakes, Gin bottles, and a busy week!

2011-02-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

New snakes with the eyes painted on, waiting for them to dry. The bright orange ones are a lovely soft glass called 'Clockwork' that I couldn't resist making some non-glow ones in too.

Well it's hardly been a quiet week, amongst everything else I need to do I've been filling up the kiln to bursting point!

I got a quick photo of some of the latest batch, excuse the wobbly photo as I had to peak through the kiln door to get this shot and I don't think the auto focus liked it much!

One of these new things I've been making are some glow-in-the-dark glass snakes. I got a batch of unknown glass rods a little while ago, and they don't seem to be compatible with any glass that I have. Rather than waste it I found that the glow-in-the-park pigment that I have (non-toxic non-radioactive I am pleased to say!) mixes very well into it. I ended up doing a separate kiln load just for these. Normally I would dot on some eyes with a different colour, but since they might crack and fall off I've used some bake on olive green glass paint. They glow really well, the pigment remains much stronger than when I tried mixing it into boro, and work especially well under UV blacklights too!

Before having the eyes added, in normal daylight (the blue one and leaves are from the Bombay Saphirre bottle)

Exposed to UV light, even with a little shade in daylight these little fellows really glow!

At the same time I decided to make use of a Bombay Sapphire gin bottle that's been laying around the workshop for ages. (I didn't drink any of it either, the bottle came from a friend!) If you've not seen it, the bottle is made of a stunning pale blue glass. Almost all the lampworkers I know covet these bottles, and often make them into earrings and beads. However I didn't realise how tough the glass was!

I wrapped the bottle in a plastic bag, and gave it a sharp tap with a hammer. Nothing happened expect a shrill perfect note that left my ears ringing! A finger in one ear, I tried again a little harder. Same result, and when the ringing in my ear had stopped I tired again. After a few attempts, tinnitus, and the worry I was going to damage my hearing I stopped and wondered about putting a call out on he Frit Happens glass forum to see how other people tackled this indestructible bottle! I then thought of glass cutters, and put a pair on the opening of the bottle, and within seconds had turned it into nice tidy shards of glass!

It wasn't too bad to work, and made a few test leaves and a nice snake out of some of the shards, I'll certainly get around to melting down the rest of the bottle now. Ontop of all of this I've even been working on a new display stand. This one has solid shelves rather than the fiddly dowel ones that people had trouble putting boxes back onto, and also takes a lot more boxes. I'm still not 100% sure where I'll be, but I hope to be at large in London next weekend if all goes well. In the meantime I'll be filling and emptying the kiln as much as I can ready!

Stepping off the Ledge

2011-02-07T02:10:00.000-08:00

I have some rather momentous news. As you may or may not know until now I've been having to divide my attention between glass and a 'dayjob.' I often have other full time crafters asking how on earth I manage to do both, and it is tricky at times, normally it's making glass which suffers though when my job becomes too busy and stressful - although going off to spend a few hours melting is a great antidote to stress, which was one of the reasons I got so into it in the first place! (Plus it's addictive!)

However for sometime now I've been really struggling with the day-to-day 'difficulties' of work, and last week things came to a head with some rather grim meetings and I decided enough was enough. So I quit!!!!!!

I won't bore you with the details, after all that's now part of my old life and very negative, I am more interested in moving forward to a more positive future. I don't have a job to walk into, but it feels like the right thing to do if only for my sanity and health! Added to this there have been so many strange coincidences and bits of synchronicity lately, it just feels like the right time. My other half always used to say 'let the universe provide' and would have faith in herself and just go for it. Years ago she moved to London to live with me, with no job, and by noon the next day had a job a short walk from my flat! So many times lately I read the quote 'leap, and the net will appear,' to which I always remember the part in 'Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade' where he steps off the ledge of the cliff, to find there was a bridge there all along hidden in plain sight by an optical illusion. You just can't see it until you are on the bridge. I think it's about having faith in yourself, something the cooperate world seems unable to inspire anymore.

I am still weighing up my options, but it's between going and getting another job and carrying on like I was, or going for it and striking out on my own. After a particularly nasty meeting last week, which left me feeling a bit battered, I called a number I'd had got of a market manager in a very large venue to test the waters. After 20 seconds of telling him what I made the reaction was amazing - and so opposite what I'd just endured - and was offered priority of a stall any day I wanted, whenever I wanted and was hugely positive and upbeat.

Now I wasn't planning on doing lots of fairs or a regular stall originally, and I'd want to check out some more venues first, but the idea is very tempting. Faced with a return to cooperate life where saying 'no' to added stress earns you a black mark what would you choose? Live in fear, or make the leap?

Note; The picture is one of my own that I did a few years ago, if you look very, very closely, you might just see a little man on a treadmill who's driving the big rusty machine ;)

Like playing the piano

2011-01-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

Doubtless you may have wondered where I have vanished to lately? Hibernating for winter, abducted by pirates? Sadly it’s more a ‘Lost in January’ than ‘Lost in Space!’

Apart from just trying to get through the day-to-day, I’ve been working on some larger longer term ‘stuff,’ hopefully more about that soon. I was surprised how whacked out I was by the Christmas flu, and the odd side effect caused by not being at the torch for a longer period. I’d forgotten how to make nice things!

At least that’s how it felt as getting back to it I seemed to only produced only wonky pendants and shaver handles in various shades of puce and congealed algae green! It took me back to my hot head days (a starter torch for soft glass), and remember that when I spent an hour a night on it I could see my work improving, but a huge intense day session might just produce poor work and frustration.

I guess it’s like learning to play the piano. Not that I’ve ever learnt to play the piano, but I think the analogy is right! It took a few days before it all started to click again, and then all the subtler bits started coming back. Also I noted how much slower I was working, which speeded up a little the more I worked. The next day was much more productive, with more and more looking ‘as they should’ with more details and colours in the pendants and marbles I was making (choosing them as they are were more second nature to me). I even managed to have ago at a couple of jellyfish brush handles, I feel very guilty as I know a few people have asked about these and it’s taking ages to get them right. I am nearly there, and hopefully within the next few weeks I’ll be back up to where I was before xmas again!

Silver Lined Big Holed Beads

2011-01-13T03:49:00.001-08:00

I've finally had a chance to make some silver cored beads! I started by using brass tubing before using more expensive silver, and the first couple I made went really well. I used some reject beads with dents and imperfections on them. Once polished up the brass was really bright, they almost look gold! The hole through the middle is about 4.9-4.7mm, and the metal is put in after the beads have been made and cleaned.

I also tried some copper, but it was much thicker and I kept cracking the beads, but I'd got more confidence using the press and so switched to silver. I had some breakages, I seemed to go just a little too far at the end as one broke into three bits. Typically it was a really nice bead too! The next couple came out ok, then I had two nice ones chip, I guess I was getting too over confident at this point! Both were made with blood red glass with purple lusters and sparkles, I will certainly make some more of those as I really liked how the effect came out. I took some photos of them before I have to smash them up to get the expensive silver back out.

Finally I got three nice silver ones made, including quite a chunky one with some nice green swirls. Oddly even though I used the same silver tube the hole came out a little smaller (about 4.4mm, the others are between 4.9-4.7mm which I am told fits alot of the bracelet chains made for these beads) I guess as there was more silver in this one.

It's been quite expensive buying the press, silver, mandrels and bits and bobs, but overall I really like the effect, and boro really lends itself to these sorts of focal beads. I should have tried doing these years ago, especially after prowling around shopping centres this weekend. I am so spoiled looking at some of the amazing handmade ones from other UK lampworkers, I didn't realise how boring the mass produced ones are! I am certainly going to make more of these, I am going to have fun dreaming up new colour combos, so please let me know if there is any you'd like to see!

The Plague!

2011-01-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

My plans to get stuck into lots of projects over the Xmas break really didn't go to plan. Just before Xmas we were wiped out with the flu/cold bug that was going around this year, and still haven't really got over them even now. It did rather put a damper on the festivities too, as we didn't go anywhere but alternated between lying on the sofa or bed! We got in a few treats to nibble on, but a lot of the nice rich food has gone to waste as chicken soup was about as much as we could manage. Unfortunately it seemed to go to my chest, and next trip to the bottle bank won't see me taking lots of post new-years champagne and beer bottles but cough mixture bottles!!!

This has put a delay on working on the shaver handles and big-holed silver cored beads that I wanted to have ready in the new year. I did manage to get this little bit done on my Steampunk radio project before I got too wiped out. The paint effect on the brass plate has been drying for about two weeks, and needed a little bit of touching up where I took the masking away, but it's looking quite good. I originally was going to have it flat, but couldn't remember how I did that so went for this stippled texture which I think makes it stand out a bit more. There is green and blue in there to give a slight peacock iridescent effect.

The box will need a few more coats and rubdowns to get it right. I am using ruby shellac varnish, which I mix up myself. It needs gently rubbing in with a cloth, followed by rubbing back, then re-applying. The more layers I can add the better to give that feeling of age and depth. I need to leave the plate at least another week now for the touch ups to dry, so it'll give me time to keep adding layers before I start assembling it. I am not sure I am yet up to sitting over a hot torch with large lump of hot glass to make shaver handles so I think the next job will be the silver cored beads. I've got some test beads made, so now I need to anneal then core them, then hopefully I might be up to getting back to glass!

Merry Xmas and a Steamy New Year!

2010-12-23T04:46:00.000-08:00

Over the next few weeks I am hoping to work on a few neglected projects, that's as long as I don't eat too much! Apart from working on some more shaving brushes, I want to finally get around to a little Steampunk sculpture/gadget I've had in mind for over 6 months now. I've got some of the glass for it made, but it was only a few weeks ago I managed to put together the main wooden carcass. I am sitting around indoors awaiting the Post Office to (hopefully) deliver several overdue parcels, so have brought a few bits in from the shed to work on them (all the glass melting equipment being too noisy for me to hear any knocks at the door!)

It's really not looking very impressive yet, the next job is to put a decorative finish on the brass plate using a technique I came across by accident a few years ago. Its an oil based finish, so might take a couple of weeks to dry, plus I am not sure I can remember exactly how I did it originally, so it might be a few weeks before I have more of this project to show. If it comes out well, then I might build a bigger and more complex one. In the back of my mind I sort of know what it is, but explaining might take some doing, so you'll have to wait to see how it progresses.

Although I'll be around over the Xmas and New Year break I might not be on line as much, so let me take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me over the past year with helpful comments, ideas, inspiration, and by buying from me! Do have a happy Xmas and great New Year!

Casting Pewter, and 'Carry on Screaming'

2010-12-21T03:49:00.001-08:00

If you can't buy it, make it! Well, that's my motto, with the added proviso that if you can't buy quite what you need or what you buy is rubbish quality then see if you do better!

With a bit more time after the chaos that the lead up to xmas brings, I decided to try my hand again at pewter casting. I'd not done it for a while, put off by the cost of the special rubber resin that's needed to make the moulds. I wanted to make my own custom shaving brush parts, so at the same time thought it would be nice to add some extra flourish to them too, as well as making them more suitable for fitting glass parts to.

Here are my first efforts which, sadly, are disappointing but I knew the first ones wouldn't go to plan. I'd forgotten how hard the rubber was to work with, it's very thick and sticky, and my original sunk to the bottom making the mould too deep! Mind you, an old 'Moo card' box made a very handy mould former!

The first one (bottom left corner) has half the top missing where the metal didn't flow down properly. I tweaked the mould and it worked a little better, but the bottom was only half filled producing a half ring. I guess this was from the air not escaping quickly enough, or the sections being too thin for the metal to happily flow into it. I'd like to re-tweak the mould (thus saving some expensive rubber) but I think I might thicken up the sections of the prototype and start a fresh. The easiest way would be to split the mould to make two 'D' shaped sections, but I don't want too many mould lines so am trying to work with the natural dips in the prototype.

I found a little time for some glass, I've never managed to make eye's before (except very tiny, tiny ones) so when I saw in the latest 'Glassline' magazine a different way of making them I had to have a go! I think catching a bit of 'Carry on Screaming' before I made the first one might have influenced me a bit, with it's blood shot eye and trailing bloody optic nerve! The second was a bit more 'fish eye,' and when I got to the third I wondered what on earth I was going to do with all these wonky eyes!? I guess I'll end up popping them in a nice old laboratory jar and leave it in the kitchen spice rack! Yes, around here everyday is Halloween!

Christmas is Over & Synchronicity

2010-12-13T03:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy few weeks, what with two craft fairs and a welcome influx of orders, plus various 'dayjob' things that need my attention at the same time! Last Thursday I was at the Museum of London's Docklands branch for their Xmas evening fair. It was nice to be in the warm, but after a frantic hour of getting the stall up, three hours of chatting to customers and stall holders, then a frantic half hour packing up the dry air started taking it's toll as I begun loosing my voice! Luckily a couple of old friends turned up (including Miss Alice who seems to know every interesting corner of London!) who insisted I stop for a quick drink before trundling back on the DLR to get home, like Cinders, by midnight.

With nothing else planned now, it suddenly feels like xmas is over for me! I'm still adding to the Folksy and Etsy shops, and a good job too as one of my razors has been featured in the Folksy Festive Sampler, which is both an online newspaper, and a real paper that's being given away around the UK! I need to make more shaving brushes and razors (they are quite time consuming) and I am in two minds whether to continue to sell them on Folksy or sell them on my website to save people the hassle of opening accounts on Folksy, although I suspect I'll carry on just selling them on there for the time being.

At least now it feels like I might get time to sort out one or two projects I've been mulling over for a while, including some custom metalwork for the shaving brushes. The night before I was about to order in supplies I was chatting to my other half about silver cored beads, as I know boro versions of these would look fantastic. Spookily the next morning I logged into Frit Happens (a forum for lampworkers) and found someone offering a special press to help core them! Such strange synchronicity, I had to buy it, and now added to my 'to-do' list is practice big-hole-beads too. I suspect my Xmas break is going to be quite busy after all!

When is Purple, or Blue, Pink?

2010-12-08T07:25:00.000-08:00

It seems that pink is a colour I continue to have problems with! Not just with pink glass, but boxes too!

I spent a lot of time trying to find just the right boxes to fit the marble bottle stoppers I make. Most I came across just didn't suit the long profile, and those that were long enough were too shallow. I was about to take a deep breath and have some made to measure (which could have been expensive) when I found the ones I now use. At the same time I also got new boxes for my pendants as well. Although more expensive, they were much better quality, had nice pristine white cushioning, and much more sturdy - very important when posting stuff out!

Of course things don't always go to plan! I had originally chosen purple for the samples, but they had no stock, so went for classic black. When I went to order lots more in time for the Dark Mills Festival I found they were out of stock until after the festival was over! Ekk! However they now had purple back in stock, so went for that, even though it meant I'd have a few non-matching boxes.

The first box I opened was great, a light but nice shade of purple, but all the rest were so light they were (in my opinion) pink, or lilac at the very least! I couldn't really wait another four weeks for replacement black, so have stuck with them. I've nearly used them all, so now I've gone back to black, at least that way there is more chance of them being the right colour in future!

Pink is a colour I have real problems with when working it, all the brands bar one seem to bubble and cause problems. I have come across one make which is lovely - and really expensive and hard to get! However I was delighted last night when I coated the back of a pendant in wisteria blue, only for if to come out a really nice shade of pink! Boro - it's weird stuff sometimes!

Pictured here is a new pendant I made last week for a commission, I really must work with more Gilson opals!

Real-life SteamPunk For Dangerous Ladies

2010-11-17T04:36:00.000-08:00

I can't think of anything more Steampunk than these! They are beautifully made antiques, with plush boxes, and one even has decorative motifs cut into the side. They are wearable, and gadgets with a real use even though not a very nice one!

I am not sure who would want to wear a revolver as a ring, but seeing the recent fashion for Steampunk's wearing all manor of pistols and ray-guns I am sure this will inspire someone to create a non-lethal version! Many thanks to Alain of www.littlegun.be for his kind permission for sharing his pictures of these wonderful antique with you.

Yes, they are real revolvers! The first one was made in London in 1870, and the box says it all! Mind you, can you see many blokes loading those fiddly but -oh-so-cute!!!! little bullets?! I am not sure if the recoil would do more damage to the wearer rather than the victim, but then would you cross anyone who wore a loaded gun on her finger? They do say the female is more deadlier than the male, and here we have proof of that! This first one even has seven shots rather than six!!!

Alain has pictures of two others, one is called 'Le Petit Protector,' and another more decorative one is unnamed. He has loads more curios on his site too if you want more crazy Victorian gun inspiration - even a miniature canon that fires at midday by being triggered from a lens on a sundial!!

Upcoming Fairs

2010-11-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

I am out and about, and at large again soon! First of all I will be at West Bergholt, which is just outside Colchester on Saturday 20th. It runs from 10am till 4pm, and there is more info here; http://creationsfayre.blogspot.com/2010/08/meet-stallholders.html

Also on Thursday 9th December I will be in London, at The Museum of London's Docklands venue for their Christmas fair. This is an evening event, and runs from 6pm till 9pm, I understand there will be about 50 stalls, mince pies, mulled wine, and even carol singers (although I can't vouch for them all being called carol!) More info; http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/events/eventDetails.htm?eventID=2733

Excuse the lack of blog and Twitter postings of late, I've been frantically making for both of these fairs, plus items for a shop in Cirencester called M.A.D.E at 9 Silver Street. They don't have as large a selection of my work as The York Gift Gallery, but they do now have a selection of my Steampunk Whistles and Marble Bottle Stoppers! Please do check it out if you are in the area and let me know what you think!

The York Gift Gallery (19 The Shambles, York) I am pleased to hear from owner Kate that it is going from strength to strength. They managed to raise £100 last week towards Breast Cancer, and I was more than pleased to help it along with a pink pendant from me. You may have noticed a lack of 'pinkness' in my shops, it's one of the colours I find hardest to work with, so it's quite a rare pendant!

You may also have noticed a lack of new 'stuff' in my Etsy and Folksy shop of late, making the recent batch of razors has taken up a lot more time than I realized, plus I am making lots of new stuff for both the upcoming fairs and the York Shop, but I will try and get some new bits listed soon! It's great to be so busy, I even had to order a 'little' bit of glass - 32kg of clear rods!!!! That should keep me going for a few months! I have lots of ideas of new things to try, including a still half finished glass Steampunk sculpture, but I guess I might not get the chance to do them until the xmas holidays!

Razors, Marbles, and Beer

2010-10-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

It's been an odd week, most of which I've spent trying to make as many razors as I can, only to run out of the heads! About ten minutes ago the postman turned up with some more (phew!) so I will get some more listed on Folksy soon! This had me going through my stash, and I am now reaching the end of the old two blade versions which aren't made anymore. I think I've got two more to list, then it'll be the end of a little era, and I'll only have the Mach3 heads which are a little more expensive. I still have a stash of shaving brushes, however they are limited in quantity too. I've found some replacements, but they don't have the nice silver finials and are a lot more expensive. At least I know have the firepower on my new torch that it's a little easier to make such large glass items, I just need to make them now!

After getting the new torch I realised I needed a bigger marble mould to help me when making marbles and cabochons. Almost everything I seem to do starts in some way as a marble, until reshaped or bits are added. In a fit of madness I ordered a new mould from USA, not realising how big it was! It's massive! The picture here shows it next to my original first graphite marble paddle, the largest hole on that is 25mm (1 inch) and this one has 6 holes on each side, going up to a whopping 1 3/4 inches! As only use the rim of the mould this (in theory) means I could make marbles up to 2inch or more although I've not managed to do anything bigger than 40mm yet that stayed in once piece!

Our local pub closed recently, only to reopen a week later under new management. It's good that it's still going, but the changes aren't good for us as my other half has lost her part time work there as barmaid. I am not sure how old the pub is but it's listed in 1841 census, but I don't know how much further it's history goes back. It's a real old world place, there are pictures in there from around 1900-1910 (at a guess looking at the outfits) when it was much smaller and next to what looks like a dirt track! We did manage to obtain a 'little' something from the landlady as she was clearing out. New pumps were put in a while back, and these older pumps are good solid brass (I guess they're 20 years old or more), rather than their new faux-brass replacements. There is talk when we eventually move of building a home mini-bar one day, and this will certainly help put Del-Boy Trotters home bar to shame! For now though, it will go into the loft until we decide when and where that will happen. It does give me time to find some more horse brasses and old beer pump badges to go with it though!

Random Hord of Metalwork

2010-10-19T08:50:00.001-07:00

I guess it's not surprising that I own a few quite random things. Anything usual being sold or thrown away I do tend to pounce on, as well as hording all sorts of junk. W keep talking about clearing out the loft again, but neither of us can really face that mammoth task! Last time we got a quarter of the way in there before retreating with two car loads of boot fair and charity boxes!

Clearing out the workshop I came across these two moulds I bought years ago at a flea market. I've already posed the question 'what are they' over on Frit Happens forum; although the wise heads and glass addicts there were equally unsure, they all agreed they were excellent things to have! Best guess at the moment is they are injection moulding casts, the material seems to be a copper/copper alloy/bronze, and apparently a beryl-copper alloy is used in some injection moulding machines, plus the sprue hole seems very narrow for normal pouring of casting liquids.

The only thing I really am not sure of is what the resultant 'things' were for. One is bottle shaped, the other is column shaped, and both seem to have slightly textured flat backs which I guess are to glue onto something else. If anyone know please tell me, as I'd love to know!

We did also 'aquire' for a very reasonable sum a very grand bit of brassware this week, but I'll share some pictures of that next time, when hopefully I figured out what to do with it!

Return of the Razors!

2010-10-13T07:25:00.001-07:00

Yes, razors are back!

One big problem I've had with making the razors I was selling in my Folksy shop last year was that the heads were no longer being made. Luckily I have a few squirreled away, although once these double blade ones are gone, they'll be gone for good!

Fortunately, I have managed to track down a source of new heads, and they take the Mach3 triple blades which I had lots of people asking about last year. They aren't quite as 'Edwardian' looking as the old type, and quite a bit more expensive, but it does mean I can continue to make them!

One problem I'd forgotten about (probably deliberately!) was the amount of rejects that I end up with. Making such long handles introduces alot of stress in the glass. Normally this isn't a problem as a good long soak in the kiln will anneal out these stresses. However on such long ones as this by the time I've finished working on the far end the other end has cooled too much and starts to crack! Even trying to keep it warm doesn't help, in fact it often makes it much worse, I even find that putting it into a warm kiln brings the temperature of the 'cold' end up too quickly and causes it to crack! Argh!

While trying to work around this I've been experimenting with making the entire handle solid glass. This makes, to my mind, much more pleasing and organic shapes with the light going straight through the handles allowing me to do much more exciting things with the colours and designs. Also as there is less metal work it makes the heads for it cost a little less too so I can do them a bit cheaper than the other Mach3 types! I really find this type exciting and want to do many more of these solid glass handles, I've only listed one so far but I have ideas for so many more

I have also found out the Venus Ladies blades fit these new heads too, so if I can get the pink boro to behave and not boil and bubble and go a horrible colour then I'll try making some Ladies razors too! Watch this space!

Firepower!!!

2010-10-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

My New GTT 'Lynx'!!!

Much excitement here as I have a new torch! Although calling it a 'torch' seems a little tame, flamethrower would be much more apt description!

My current 'old faithful' minor has served me very well, but I've been itching to work on larger pieces for quite a while, the lack of heat also makes it slower too, and I've been unable to make any marbles above 36mm - and that really is pushing it past it's limit.

For a while I've had my eye on a GTT Lynx, which I finally took a deep breath and ordered. In preparation I decided to spend the weekend tidying the workshop, which ended up being a bit more of a dramatic move than I planned involving moving the extractor system to give me more elbow room.

I've not had a real chance to play with it yet, although I did sneak in a quick hour to see what it could do - it's going to take a little getting used to! I managed to make a flower marble, just under 31mm, so that's a good start, although I seemed to get a lot more grot on the glass than I expected. I am hoping it's just the move and the shake up of the propane tank, as that tends to be where any dirt tends to come from. Hopefully now I can get stuck in and get those razors and shaving brushes made now I have the firepower to deal with them! I think there will be some loud music played this weekend as accompaniment to the soundtrack of a fierce flame and intense glass melting!

Here's a quick couple of pictures of the workshop before it gets untidy (it really doesn't take long!) Under the desk at the left is a bulk glass storage rack, can you believe this was all the room I used to have for my legs? No wonder I used to get cramp after a long session!

And the Winners are......

2010-10-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

It seems like an age ago that I annouced that when I reached the magic 50 sales on Folksy I would do a little give away! Well, today a few little packages went out as a thank you for suporting my shop. I'd have loved to send something to everyone who bought from me, and favoured my shop! Instead I picked out of a hat (well, ok, not a real hat but a random number generator!) firstly Terry from http://www.folksy.com/shops/EdieOhara (lovely neck warmers in silks, wools and cottons, ideal for these colder morning!) as one of the many people who have favourited my shop.

Second up was the fabulously named Treaclezoo http://www.folksy.com/shops/treaclezoo who makes such fun crocheted things - they do look good enough to eat - who has been one of the many kind people who've bought from me on Folksy.

Hopefully I'll get to 100 sales on Folksy to do another giveaway with more prizes!

I've not managed to do much this week as I spent alot of time moving around the workshop, making more desk space so I can find what I'm looking for! Of course these things don't go to plan, so it took more time than expected, but the results have come up better than I expected, and now have a nice 'U' shaped workspace with the kiln back in easy reach - much safer than having to wander around with hot marbles. The worst part was having to move the extractor fan, only to knock it back down trying to get the benches back in! Doh! At least now I might not hit the wall with the end of long rods which was happening where I had it before. Above is a picture of the 'old' workshop, I'll try and get some new pictures taken before I make it too untidy!

And The Answer is.....

2010-09-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who had a go at guessing what strange glass items I was making last week. The answer was..... Dog Whistles!

Set just above the range of human hearing but they can be heard by dogs (and cats, but they are above being summoned by a whistle!) these whistles can be used as a training aid. The metal is gold plated, giving it that bright brass look without having to polish! At the other end is a link which can be attached to a keyring, bag, belt, or hung around the neck on a cord. I have made a hollow borosilicate glass centre with lots of colour to make it more eye-catching.

I imaged them straightaway as being an ideal addition to a Steampunk utility belt or purse. As Steampunks are likely to get into many scrapes and adventures, I can see this being quite useful; whether it's crash landing an airship in the Artic and needing to get the attention of a passing huskies train, or distracting werewolves in the back streets of London, I am sure this will do the job while adding a touch of extra style to any outfit!

Marble Video

2010-09-23T04:55:00.000-07:00

One of my most asked about items is the flower marbles I make. Maybe because I know how they are made I don't really think about it, so I was surprised when people asked me questions which I thought odd, like 'do I buy them and put glass around them?' I even had some people asking if they are real flowers inside! Initially I was surprised at that one, the idea of putting molten glass over real flowers! Toasty! Then I realised what a compliment that was, that I'm getting them more life like!

I figured the best way was to show how it's done. The problem with that is one of these can take me 35-45 minutes, depending on how well it works and how complex they are. I decided time lapse was the best way, so I speeded up the action three times to make this little 12minute video.

My camera memory is a bit limited, so I had to cut making the coloured glass cane that makes the stripy flowers, and the first ten minutes. Also it has a bit of a tint as I put a spare pair of safety glasses in the front to remove the sodium flares the glass produces - a previous attempt was just lots of bright yellow glows!

I hope you enjoy it, I just wish I could work so fast normally!

SteamPunk Saturday & Competiton

2010-09-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

It feels like ages since I've been at the torch, what with so many events and things going on. One thing I've been wanting to do is make more Steampunk inspired stuff, but I seem to be easily distracted by pretty shiny new glass and techniques to try out.

I'm trying to make a conscious effort not to do 'sticking cogs on stuff.' I'm not saying there is anything wrong with 'sticking cogs on stuff,' but the genre is more than cogs. I guess it's part of the genre becoming more known, and thus more commercial, and cogs and gears are quite iconic. There is a whole other host of motifs that have yet to be explored. Also, making cogs out of glass is difficult. I know, I've tried.

One very common yet now seldom seen Edwardian design was faux marbling. You still see it on old books, and was done by floating oil based inks on water, making pretty swirls in it, then passing the paper under the water then up to 'stick' the colour on. Faking marble with paint on decor is even older, I have a copy of a 1600's book on how Paper Mache and wood was made to look like tortoiseshell and marble.
When I started making the razors (some exciting news about them coming very soon!) the first comment my 'other half' said was the effect reminded her of a tortoiseshell. Since those early ones the handles became more colourful, and now they remind me more of these old marbling effects. The name 'Steampunk Tortoiseshell' seemed to have stuck though!

I am also too practical for my own good, and even when I try to make Steampunk stuff often they don't get finished unless they 'do something!' This weekend I've been marrying up my 'Steampunk Tortoiseshell' glass with some brass parts (no cogs!) to produce something that does something, and is also wearable. Whether that 'something' is useful is another thing altogether! I'll announce what it is in a few days time when I start listing 'it' in my Etsy shop. However if you'd like to leave a comment with a guess the first one to get it right I'll send a free handmade marble to! No limit to the amount of guesses, and as an extra clue this device is unisex, and can easily be held in one hand. I can't wait to see your guesses!

Be a Revolutionary Rebel - Make and Buy One-off's!

2010-09-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

Black Gilson Opal Heart inside red Pendant

Recently I applied to some of the 'professional' selling sites, the ones that go after adverts and write-ups in the glossy posh women's magazines as the place to buy from. Initially I was a bit disappointed that they weren't interested in what I have, but thinking about it again I can see how what I do doesn't suit their way of working, The more I think about it, the more I realise I am probably the complete opposite of what they do!

Everything I make ends up being a one off. It doesn't mater if I try to do the same thing twice to make a pair (now you see why I don't list many earrings!) each piece is always slightly different in some way. My curiosity often gets in the way too, 'what if I add green to the next one, or add this, or take that out?' and suddenly I'm making a one off again. If I put my mind to it I can make several flower marbles in a row, but even if they are the same colour they end up with the petals and shapes slightly different.

ZOOM!! Rocket pendant -listed st Etsy Store

For those who like one-off's this isn't a problem, but when listed in a glossy magazine I can see how that might be a problem. I remember an Orchid seller I used to know having the same problem when trying to win a contract with a large well-know chain store. Although he won on them being raised in England, he couldn't guarantee that each plant would be the same, which is what they wanted for them to all match on the shelf, so they went with a Dutch grower instead.

One of the things I found great about doing the stall last week was that people were so excited to be able to buy pendants that they knew were one off's. I'd forgotten what an usual and rare thing that has now become in our mass-produced society.

Tadpole Squiggle galaxy - listed at Folky

Not being able to 'knock out' twenty closely matching flowers does mean that I photograph and list each item individually. This week I re-jigged my photo setup for the twentieth time, as I seemed to spend hours taking photos that still weren't any good! Finally I've got a set up I am happy with, (for now!) and I'm getting more consistent photo's, and each is taking a lot less time too. This means I've been able to crack on and list the HUGE stash of pendants I've made recently, and start to re-fill my Etsy and Folksy stores.

I guess I'll never be a 'designer' with people wearing exactly the same handbag with the same logo in every city, but I know that when I box up and post out a pendant or a bottle stopper that the person at the other end is getting something unique, and that gives me a warm glow in itself. It's almost as if I'm being an underground rebel against the mass-produced culture! Viva La Revolution!

Dark Mills 2010

2010-09-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

What an amazing weekend! Where do I start? We travelled up to London on Friday so we would be ready for an early start Saturday morning, having picked a hotel literally a stones throw from Merton Abbey Mills. We even bumped into the events creator on the tube on the way there! After an evening catching up with old friends I didn't sleep much as had too many 'did I pack that?' going around my head!

A big breakfast then I dragged a body bag sized case to the venue and started setting up at 8 am. Although the event didn't start till later, I got plenty of interest from locals out walking dogs and grabbing coffees. I had a few manic flurries, but the day was fairly quiet - well almost! I didn't realise quite how close to the stage I was, and from midday I started having to do a lot of shouting! After about 6pm I could feel a sore throat coming on, not to mention the sore feet! It was a really hot day but being close to the hotel I did manage to dive back to change while Ellie, my OH, took charge of the stall (including getting the first sale of the day!)

I got to talk to lots of people, so many were really complimentary about my glass, it was so nice for people to be able to see the colours and depths to them. Some people said I'd given them too much choice! Although I'd planned to stay open till 10, by 8 we were dead on our feet so threw everything in the case shut for the night. We'd originally planned to go to the 10pm bar/club, but after a quick bite to eat we were ready for bed! So much for my rock-'n-roll lifestyle!

Sunday was a much more relaxed day, but turned out to be more amazing still! We were able to set up later, so got a bit of a lie in, before forgoing the rather disappointing hotel grub for breakfast in the Waterwheel cafe, a smart move as it was soooo tasty! We were due to have a stall next to us on Saturday selling wigs, but sadly her car broke down. When Ghoulia Peculiars http://www.myspace.com/ghouliaspeculiars managed to make it on Sunday everyone was suitable overwhelmed by the amazing handmade creations she bought with her. Wigs don't even come close to describing them, even a full head masks to transform the wearer into a wolf! Her Ophelia wig was so long she said it still trailed the floor when a 6ft model was wearing it (with heals!) There was quite a bit of trying on, even the compare Dave Disaster ran away wearing a rather fetching floral one onto the stage! One of the things that made the event so enjoyable was that all the organisers and co-ordinators were so friendly and helpful, and very, very well organised!

I managed to get more breaks during the day, and after 8pm we slowly started packing away just as a troupe of fire performers started to heat things up! Ellie got some fantastic shots of them (I'll upload more on my facebook page from the weekend.) About then an Alien wandered into the venue as they started an open air screening of the film. Someone must have called for help, as an exact copy of the 'Ghostbusters' car turned up to deal with the Alien menace! It was a slightly surreal but very fun end to an weekend full of amazing sights and sounds - I just had to get a shot of me by the car!

I've not counted the pennies exactly, after the extra expense of the hotel room and travel I may not have done more than break even, but it was such a great weekend it was so worth doing. It was great to meet so many people, thank you to everyone who came up to see my glass and chat, I certainly hope I'll be able to do it again next year!

The stall set out ready! I need more coffee!

Pondering customer - too much choice!

Wow! Wigs and masks from Ghoulia's Peculiars

Julia from Ghoulua's Peculiars fits an amazing blue wig

It's not a full moon is it?

Stall organiser Steph tries out the Medusa wig!

And Compare Dave Disaster tries something in pink!

The gathering crowds and the very smartly dressed singer from Ghostfire

Look - You forgot to polish those boots!

Fire!!!!

Alien Vs Ingela from http://www.veilofvisions.com/

Ooops! Alien decides this is a good time to leave!

Can I get one of these?

Last Minute Threading!

2010-09-02T02:31:00.000-07:00

A quick reminder that I will be at the Dark Mills festival this weekend in Collingwood in London http://www.darkmillsfestival.com/market.html , I'm still working like mad putting everything together, I have my tick list so I hope I don't forget anything! One thing I have been checking is the weather, especially after the winds and torrential rains of last weeks bank holiday weekend. The good news is it looks fine and warm, ideal as so much of the event is outdoors, and I am sure there will be some amazingly dressed people at the event to make my currently purple tinted hair look rather tame! I am very much hoping my new cyberpunk pendants will find some new homes to go along with some amazing outfits!

A quick couple of photos of some luscious red pendants, each with some lovely Gilson Opal heart-shaped inclusions! These will be on the stall this weekend, so long as I get a move on and get the ends crimped and them boxed and packed in time! Must dash, there are some last minute glass snakes that need putting on cords! If you are coming along I hope to see you there, if not have a great weekend! :)

The Value of The Dry Run

2010-08-24T03:13:00.000-07:00

One of the limitations on doing fairs for me is that I can't drive. In all these years I just never got around to learning. Living for so many years in London didn't help, as it's easier there to hop on a bus, tube or train than sit in a jam too. I figured whatever I would have spent running a car I'd spend on tube and occasional Taxi fares.

It does make getting to fairs tricky, especially if I want to take plenty of stuff with me. For the upcoming Dark Mills festival I wanted to improve my stall layout, a lot of other crafters have mentioned adding height to their stalls too. If I was a car driver no doubt I'd invest in some nice glass display units, but I had to come up with something light I could flat-pack.

My solution is this simple stand which is designed to take the new boxes I am now using. It starts as two thin planks, two flat panels, and a bundle of wooden dowels. Four bolts lock the corners together, which isn't that strong until all the dowels are pushed into place, then the whole box becomes much more rigid. The jewellery boxes are then laid onto the dowels which holds them up at a nice angle, with two holding the back and another acts as a register to support the bottom edge - the new boxes even have a lip which helps with this. When I first tested it out I found I could fit 60 of the large sized boxes in this, on a table space I'd originally have got less than half that onto. They look pretty good too, as each pendant is framed by the white foam they are on. Also the inside area will act as a neat storage area for lids and spare stock - much better than a suitcase on the floor which is what I used before for storage!

I set up a dry run of this in my living room, which turned out to be invaluable. Since first making it I'd added runners so I could slip a black card down to hide the storage area, but they now stopped me getting the bolts on! Plus the paint now clogged up the holes so the dowels now didn't fit! So glad I found that out when I could rush to my shed for tools rather than at 7am on site! Once that was done I tried laying out the other side of the table with the busts and new bottle stopper display (a funky new acrylic holder I've made too.) It took a while of moving bits around, but got it looking 'ok,' but it wasn't quite right still. As this was a dry run it meant I could leave it and come back to it, and move things around at leisure. That was invaluable as it took just moving one thing to go 'ah ha!' Not only had I got a layout I liked, but realised that I could use one of the busts to fill in space when (thinking positively here!) the ribbon necklaces sell out! I just need to make a device to hold the little world stud boxes next.

One of the extra things I realised from the test setup was the digital picture frame looked lost, and took up valuable space on the free side of the stall. I picked it up and lent it on the main stand meaning to shuffle things around, and suddenly saw that was actually the best place for it! Out with the drill, a few extra mounting holes (stab myself with a stanley knife, typical!) and it's now at eye-level! I just hope the rechargeable batteries last all day!

Now as it gets nearer the time I am starting to get nervous, I've spent a lot on bits for the stall so I really hope it does well! At least with this dry run out of the way I now know how the stall will look and have got some daft problems resolved in advance. Fingers crossed the weather stays fine now!

Unobtainium and Jellyfishes

2010-08-20T03:01:00.001-07:00

Having a few more hours in the day has allowed me to get a little extra time to try some more difficult materials and techniques. One of these has been to play with an unusual glass called 'Unobtainium!' This has a fabulous pearlised/metallic blue finish, but it's not without its problems.

Although it's been around before the film 'Avatar' I think most people know the name from that film (I know fellow geeks will also remember in 'The Core' it's what their ship was made of too) and according to Wikipedia it's any mythical material that can't be made. It does look like it's not glass, looking more like metal with it's sparkling shine, so I guess that's why Northstar gave it this name.

One downside of it is that it does have alot of metals in it, which sometimes can cause compatibility problems., and they recommend not deeply encasing it. Of course that's the first thing I did! I've played with it a few times, but this week I wanted to really give it a hard test to see if it really was that temperamental, I'd certainly had it cause cracking before. I did everything wrong, used loads of it, deeply encased it, let it cool outside the kiln - and it was fine! I even tried this with small samples I have of it's related big brothers 'Super Unobtainium' and 'Silver Unobtainium' and they were fine too! Then typically I made one last night that figured would be fine and it's cracked badly! Ho hum!

One other thing I've been trying again is Jellyfish. Jelly's and mushrooms are two of the first things most boro people seem to make, but I'd never really tried them very much as they always seemed to lack detail. Having seen some different techniques (plus inspired by one of those shock-horror TV documentaries 'Killer Jellyfish Swarms' or some such terror title!) I tried again. I can't get them as deep or large as I'd like, but I'm starting to really like the effects. I even tried putting a couple into a shaving brush handle, which they seemed made for! It's really at the top extreme of size that I can make with my present setup but I think once I can afford to upgrade to a more powerful torch I'll be able to make them more reliable and the jelly's bigger and deeper.

It's all gone a bit mad here!

2010-08-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

Isn't it always the way, that everything suddenly happens at once? The big one for me is the Dark Mills festival, which I've been making lots of pendants and stoppers for, and as you can see here some of the pendants ready for quality control!

Quality control in this case is my other half, who volunteered to help out. I'm my own worst enemy, I tend to be very picky on the smallest details, so it's great to get an independent eye (and ex-quality controller at a jewellery warehouse to boot!) I had realised how many pendants I'd actually made until they were all laid out, so it's been a quick (and expensive!) order for more silver crimps and cords!

Even with the extra help my 'to do' list seems to be lengthening by the day, when I got confirmation of the opening of a new gift shop and gallery in York where I will have some of my marble stoppers and jewellery on display! It is opening at the start of September, and I need to have the first parts there..... just before the festival! Ekk! On top of that a 'day job' project is about to come to ahead too. So it's going to be a manic few weeks, so please excuse the intermittent listings and blog posts until normal service is resumed! If you are in the Colchester area I'll also be having a stall at West Bergholt on Saturday 20th November, more details here! http://creationsfayre.blogspot.com/2010/08/meet-stallholders.html

Announcing.... Dark Mills Alternative Festival!

2010-07-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

It's finally confirmed, I will be having a stall at the upcoming Dark Mills Alternative festival in London on 4-5th September! This is also a FREE festival - and there aren't many of those these days!

The event is at Merton Abbey Mills, Merantun way, SW19 2RD, close to Colliers Wood tube station . There are going to be quite a range of strange events, from Burlesque dancers to alternative art, live bands, even seminars with actors and actresses, directors and writers of top horror and sci-fi films. A few of the events have to be paid for, but there is lots going on for free too, and I think there is even a regular arts and crafts fair on too. I'm going (unless something changes at the last minute) to be on a corner stall opposite The Coles Shop which houses a restaurant and cafe, and near to the 'Goth Market' at the bandstand.

I'll be taking along many of my new cyber pendants, some which will be UV reactive glowing, so ideal for clubbing! Also I've been hard at work perfecting some new improved versions of galaxy marbles which I'll have as bottle stoppers, along with a whole load of other bits and bobs. There will be a great deal of new things that I have barely listed up, so please do pop along and see me and the glass! It's going to be quite an unusual mix of people going along, so I'm planning on taking a good selection of items from nebula pendants to flower drops so hopefully there will be something for everyone.

Don't forget, it's FREE to get in, and you don't have to be 'into' alternative fashions or lifestyles to come along, it's open to all and it would be lovely to see some of you there!

More info on the Dark Mills website here,
http://www.darkmillsfestival.com/

A Shower of Flowers

2010-07-26T03:14:00.000-07:00

This has been a manic week! I've been so busy this is the first chance to stop to update my blog for nearly two weeks as I've been making a mad amount of flowers!

Aside from final deadline for a bit of 'day-job' work that I needed to complete last week, I was approached by a Lady in USA who wanted some of my flower bottle stoppers for a wedding shower, to give as gifts to everyone who was attending! That seems such a lovely thing to do, however the date was only a few weeks away, and it meant making 25 stoppers! Plus I needed to make 4 flower pendants as well for some 'younger' guests whom the wine stoppers wouldn't have been appropriate for! EKK!

My main worry wasn't so much making them, the Lady was very flexible in taking them mixed whites to go in with the theme of 'Magnolia.' My big worry was (and always is) once they leave me and go into the hands of the post office! I figured that could easily add a couple of weeks to the deadline which meant I'd have only until the end of the month to get them on their way.

I originally was going to send in two or three batches, so that they could go as soon as ready rather than send them all at the last minute, but I managed to get them done quicker than expected. First job was to get my 'day job' work out of the way, so I went into midnight oil burning mode and did a couple of late nights of number punching. It's odd, I often find I can get more done late at night than during the day. One thing I didn't count on was a sudden heat-wave, which made torching rather 'warm' to say the least!

By Friday I was so close to having them all done I decided I might as well get them all ready and send via express service - as much for my peace of mind - so I would know they'd turn up in time. So Monday morning (today) I finally sent off the box, I nearly passed out when I was told the cost though, it seems peace of mind is rather dear after all!

I didn't manage to get very good photo's, but here are a could of quick snaps of the first 16 I did.

On top of all this I also got confirmation about a very big event that I'll be attending - I will be a tease and tell you more about that in a few days time, so watch this space!

Glow in the Dark Adventures continued!

2010-07-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to take some photos of some of the pendants I've made with glow in the dark and UV reactive materials, but it seems my camera didn't like it! While I was struggling to get the UV light in position to show maximum 'glow', the auto-focus and light sensors got rather confused and wandered around! I got better results with the 'firework' setting, but the camera then decided fireworks would be a long way away, so everything went blurry! Anyway, here are the pictures!
Before.....

and with the UV! I've tried to keep the effect subtle in this one. that way it doesn't glow during the day and only when it's hit by UV light so the wearer won't look like a glowing neon sign when walking around during the day!

Sory about the duff pictures on this one, the normal one is a bit washed out, but it shows how the pink UV reactive glass changes so dramatically under the blacklight. It's normally clear so I put some white underneath it to help reflect up more light and colour. When the light is more distant to the UV tube it looks much more pink, but my camera has made it look purple!

It's been great fun to play with, and I've been trying to keep the effects subtle so they don't come across like cheap halloween jewellery! I've already listed the first one on Etsy, but I need to find the best way of using the very rare pink one before I use more of that.

Computer Meltdown

2010-07-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

To keep the wolf from the door I've been working on some hugely boring spreadsheets and Access documents. I start the morning with good intentions but by about 12 o'clock (ok, 10 o'clock if I'm really honest!) I'm bored witless and falling asleep at my PC. However it has meant an end to commuting; on one particularly tough day when I was struggling to get motivated I got a call from the office, where they mentioned the air conditioner was broken (again) and it was +30 degrees before 10 in the morning! Suddenly waltzing to the bottom of my stairs to start work seemed to be put back into perspective.

However the one thing that has been struggling with this new regime is my old PC. It's been grinding and making some worrying noises of late, it was only a few months ago that I had to replace the power supply. That was a wake-up call and after that I did a big back-up of information.

Then yesterday I flicked on the pc, went to make a coffee whilst it booted up, and came back to see a new error message, 'Windows was unable to open normally,' blah, blah, various options were given - why don't they give an option 'I don't care, stop ******* around and just ****** get on and start up!' I am sure EVERYONE would hit that one!

After an hour going from calm attempting all options to bad tempered ranting (I wonder if Bill Gates ears are always burning?) I conceded that it's time was finally up after 8 years of troublesome service. When it had started looking dodgy I considered getting a new hard drive (I think this is was has been corrupted) but it's getting so flaky I figured it was going to have to be a new PC.......... groan. So much for me saving for a new torch.

Well the new PC arrived early today, and I've spent most of the day loading up software, which takes an age! However it's rather nice to have a PC I can't hear! I now realise how clunky the old one was, but I am struggling to get used to Windows 7 after XP - yep, it was that old! I'm just glad the old one lasted long enough for me to miss out Vista!

Artist Of The Month Award!

2010-06-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

I was very surprised and delighted to be contacted a few weeks ago to be invited to accept a rather prestigious award! Frit Happens, a flameworkers forum I’m a member of, invited me to be July 2010 Artist of The Month! My first reaction was ‘are you sure!’ Looking back at some of the previous recipients has some amazing glass artists, so it’s quite an honour to be included in such fantastic company and to get such recognition from my peers. If you’d like to read the full article it can be found at http://www.frit-happens.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=21804.0

Meanwhile I’ve been prowling around the workshop in the dark! Not because I’ve had a power cut, but as I’ve been playing with black-lights and glass! Black-lights (for anyone who doesn’t know) are those deep blue UV fluorescent lights that are used alot in nightclubs. Various special plastics really react and glow vividly under their light, whites reflect them very intensely, and they show up any dust on you like your covered in flour! They are often used by stamp collectors to check imperfections and marks on stamps, when I was playing the light it even showed where I’d missed tiny bits when the walls were painted!

I’ve found that a few soft glasses do reflect back the UV, but I really wanted boro colours that worked with it. I wasn’t surprised to see that the purples became so much more intense, but they still didn’t have that glow. I had tried glow in the dark powders which can be mixed into glass, but had trouble with them burning out, but a few questions on the forum and more research and found that the glow-in-the-dark colours I had tried didn’t like the higher temperatures that boro needs to melt. I got a great ‘aqua’ colour and it works a treat! Not only does it literally ‘glow-in-the-dark’ but like most of these pigments it reacts really strongly to the UV and looks radioactive!

Whilst searching out boro colours I discovered one factory used to make a reactive colour that is normally clear and vivid pink when lit by blacklight. It hasn’t been made for 8 years, but I found someone who had just 7 sticks left! Sadly they said they had none of a related colour with the fabulous name of ‘Atomic Kumquat’ but when I got the rods noticed one was slightly lighter in colour. When I popped my blacklight on it glowed orange! Yes, I am now the owner of 6 rods of ‘Electric Flamingo’ and one precious rod of ‘Atomic Kumquat!’ I’m really going to be careful how I use these, although I must say I’m finding the effect from the glow powers much more effective. I’m still experimenting to get the most out of these, but I hope to have some made ‘club-wear’ pendants ready soon, along with some new versions of Gilson Opal pendants too! It’s exciting times here, and great to be working with such unusual materials, I hope to be able to share the fruits of this with you soon!

Craft Fair at West Bergholt

2010-06-21T06:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I packed up as much as I could carry and headed out to the nearby village of West Bergholt where the local primary school was having a mini craft fair as part of their fun day.

I don’t normally do fairs, but everyone from teachers and volunteers, other stall holders, and the customers were so friendly and nice it made it a really lovely day out – despite the weather! We were setting up under some open sided tents, looking up at the forbidding sky that kept sending lashing rain and strong gusts every twenty minutes or so, and then bright sunshine! The wind was the worst, nearly having a disaster as my chair flew into the table! Luckily the lovely folks at http://www.hazelfisher.co.uk/ next to me spotted some unused windbreaks and we quickly put them into action! (Do check out her Etsy shop for some wonderful and very unique Steampunk cards!)

Then about three minutes to two the clouds broke and sunlight greeted us in time for the gates being opened. It was very busy, and so many people said such lovely things about my glass! I can see why people get addicted to doing craft fairs, it can be such an ego boost! I did manage to get flustered once while trying to add a necklace to a pendant, tiny crimps in a field wasn’t really such a great idea, thank you to that Lady for being so patient!

The sweetest event was shortly after opening when a little girl walked straight up to my table, and hastily announced ‘I want to buy something for my Mum!’ ‘Err, ok, what would you like?’ I asked at which she pointed to a flower pendant, which I boxed and gave here, she thrust some crumpled notes into my hand and ran off with the pendant! Aw, bless!

Sadly after three quarters of an hour the rains returned, and went between bright sunshine to lashing rain every twenty minutes or so. It did at least give me chance to gossip about glass with Apryl of Bluedaisyglass www.folksy/shops/bluedaisyglass who makes and teaches fusing, and was even kind enough to direct other glass addicts to my stall!

However as it neared five o’clock and the wind finally managed to use our tent as a sail we all surrendered to the weather and headed home. And the one thing I did forget was to take a camera and pictures! Hopefully the event will be on next year, and I will be trying to do a few more of these in the coming months too, so stay tunned!

News Flash! I’m at large this weekend!

2010-06-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

A quick news flash, I will be out and about this weekend with my wares! I am taking a huge new batch of Nebula Pod pendants, flowers, bottlestoppers, earrings and odds and ends to the Summer Fayre in West Bergholt which is a small village near Colchester. Its on Saturday 19th and starts at 2pm, until about 4.45, there are a few other crafters there too. If you want to come along the sat nav postcode is CO6 3JF, I think there is a small entrance fee, with proceeds going to the local primary school who are hosting the event!

Fingers crossed the weather stays nice!

Folksy Milestone Giveaway!

2010-06-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

I was going to do a celebration giveaway on Folksy when I hit a milestone of either 100 people favouriting my shop or 50 sale, however I managed to pass both milestones when I wasn’t looking!

However I realised I’ve not quite got to 50 sales on Folksy, so can do the celebration giveaway after all! Some of the sales were for two or three items, but Folksy logs each thing sold as a separate sale, so I’m 3 away from the magic milestone of 50!

So, I’m going to do TWO raffles! One for a small pendant for everyone who has been so kind to add me to their favourite shops, and a second larger one for everyone who has bought something from my Folksy shop, one entry per item they have bought! That way anyone who has been lovely enough to return to buy more from me is in with extra chance to win!

I will probably be giving away two of the lovely new nebula pendants I’ve been working on lately, although I haven’t chosen exactly which ones yet, so maybe I’ll give the winners a choice of colour preference as well – I’d hate it if someone loved green and got red instead! I've popped on a picture of some I have in my Etsy shop to show you what they're like.

I’ll be doing both draws as soon as I hit the magic 50, so you’ve still got time to add me to your favourites or pick up something you like ready for the draw!

http://www.steampunkglass.folksy.com/

Sunday Updates

2010-06-06T10:02:00.001-07:00

Very short blog update this week, but if you’d like to read more there a long interview with me at Indie Smiles http://www.indiesmiles.com/where-the-boys-are-part-ii-steam-punk-glass/ It’s part of a series of interviews with crafting blokes who also sell through Folksy.

I’ve been working on a few things, and I just had to share these with you! I’ve been working with Gilson Opals again, they seem to really lend themselves with the new nebula pod pendants I’ve been exploring. Personally I prefer the white opals, they seems to work better on the dark backgrounds. I have them hovering above the centre where most of the light concentrates which helps bring them alive. Typically I’ve now run out of Opals, and my ‘Opal Man’ hasn’t got any of these nice round ones left, however he does have some other shapes which will may suit these even drops even better – watch this space!

SteamPunk Valves - Can you tell what it is yet?

2010-05-27T03:55:00.001-07:00

Having a bit more time to breathe has let me think more about the ‘art’ side of what I do. This still feels a very alien concept to me, when I first went to technical college we shared campus with an art college which took up an opposing side of the campus to us. It always felt like an opposition too, few of the engineering students would even visit the union bar as it was very much in the art department’s domain.

One of our tutors (who could make Gordon Ramsey blush, I learnt both engineering physics and new swear words from him) claimed to be banned from the staff room permanently due to his run-ins with art tutors! Welded metal sculptures were very popular with them, with many dotted around campus. He claimed that they installed a very large one outside the main technical college entrance on a large patch of lawn, which would have been highly visible from the science blocks windows. He said he then phoned the local council to complain that someone had dumped a load of scrap metal on the campus lawn, and demanded they come and clear it away – which they did! We couldn’t get anyone else to confirm – or even deny – that this had occurred, but I suppose it goes someway to showing my in built reservations about this ‘art’ stuff!

Lately I am much more drawn to it, I still try and make it functional art, such as pendants and jewellery and so on. A few more sculptural pieces seem to be ‘arriving’ in my workshop though, but I am still trying to break down my inner reluctance to really go for it. I even managed some rather good flower parts, but ended up putting to one side deciding it was too much of a waste of good glass to make the full thing. However this rather natty and totally barmy bit of glass ‘happened’ the other week as I revisited some lampwork valve ideas. I managed to break the first tube after I first got everything together, but it was so interesting I took the trouble to refit it all in a new tube. Some of the metal bits have suffered, but are still intact despite they grey colour, which I actually kinda of like. Apart from the copper coil and grey metal bar at the opposite end this is all glass. There is a tiny blowout hole on the right underneath by the red seal to help equalise the pressure of the hot gas to stop later cracks. It's about 5 inches long.

I am going to use that to insert some copper wires/device as part of it, and the longer glass rods will drop down inside a box. I’ve got quite a few bits to go with this, but it appeals to me to make something Steampunk that isn’t just something with cogs stuck on it! (I’ll save that rant for another time!) It appeals also to that sense of wonder I got as a kid opening these old radiograms with their strange colourful oversized components and glowing glass wonders! I’ll post more about this as it goes along.

In other news an interview with me will be coming up on the Folksy section of Indie Smiles soon, http://www.indiesmiles.com/category/folksy-favs in a running feature about crafting blokes. From what I remember of the interview I suspect I had my mad head on that day, so heaven knows how crazy I’m going to sound! Although looking at some of these valves I am making lately I wonder myself as I know what I've decided to make with this; functional and useful it really won't be! ;)

All Change!

2010-05-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

You may have notice I’ve been a little quiet on the blogging and listing front of late. I can now reveal some good news of some enormous changes which will hopefully mean both those things can improve!

I am now no longer commuting for the ‘day job!’ Instead I have taken on a project which is entirely non-office based, and everything will be done on the interweb! I still can’t quite believe it myself, and still wonder when I’ll be told it’s all off and to get back on the commuter un-merry-go-round! Although these first weeks (and my internet/twitter/blogging etc silence) are a bit mad as I spend a lot more hours getting things started, it does mean a huge quality of life improvement for me as well as getting me nearer to the point I can dump ‘the day job!’

Apart from the financial saving, the saving in time is a huge boon to me. Already I’ve had a few evenings that I’ve been able to get on the torch and play around with new ideas, rather than rush around doing chores or just being so shattered I fall into bed. I thought it might take a few weeks to have an effect but already I have got a lot of new ideas and directions I want to go with the glass.

To prove the point I’ve made an entirely new style of pendant with shapes that I really love! They are so much more organic, like seedpods or tropical flower buds, and I’ve developed a different way to capture this nebula look. There was a bit of hesitation when I first did this, but I took a leap of faith and here’s the result! I was actually more nervous about making the second one in case it was a fluke and I couldn’t make it again!

This past week I think I’ve done some of my best work for a very long time. I feel the reduction in stress and travel hours has made a difference already, and just at a time I want to start taking my glass in some new and exciting direction too. Even things like getting photos taken so I can start listing some of them is easier when I can do it during a needed tea break between looking at spreadsheets. It really feels like I’ve got a large chunk of my life back.

And then I found out I’ve been featured on Joy Funnel’s blog too at Fired With Imagination! http://joyfunnell.blogspot.com/2010/05/strangely-startling.html Joy is a maestro with silver clay and fresh back from Japan where she’s been seeing how silver clay is made. So it’s quite a treat to see that she has a complete set of jewellery – earrings AND bracelet – made with some of my Steampunk beads! And very good timing as I've been working on a new idea for Steampunk beads too. Now that’s a good end to a good week!

A word From Our Sponsors

2010-05-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

No, don’t panic, it’s not an advert! I mean YOU, the people who are lovely enough to buy some of my glass, as without you I’d be surrounded by unwanted glass things and not be able to afford to buy new glass to melt! So a big thank you from me!

I always forget that what I make goes away to have it’s ‘real’ life. For me it ends when it goes in the post box and I (hopefully) get feedback saying it survived the post and is what people expected. It doesn’t mater how many times I send something out, I always worry it’s not going to meet people expectations when they see it in real life!

Now and then I get pictures back when they’ve been added to projects, such as these lovely beaded necklaces from Christie Hemsworth where she’s added some of my hand formed leafs to her own creations. I am quite in awe of her work, I really don’t have the patience for seed beads, I can’t thread one and the idea of trying to put this many together brings me out in a cold sweat! What’s great about these is how she’s blended the leaves into the design to compliment the colours. Many thanks to Chris for sharing the pictures and her joyful creations, you can check out her Folksy shop here; http://www.folksy.com/shops/Christie

One wonderful surprise I had this weekend was a sneak preview of a silver bracelet that uses some micro marbles that I made for it. This is different beast altogether, and the final piece looks more impressive that what I envisioned when it was described to me – I can’t wait to see it finished now! What both things have in common for me is how they have been used in ways I would never have thought, so much so I had to double take to recognise them as things I made. It’s very rewarding to see these things ‘all grown up’ and off living a new exciting life I’d never have expected.

The attack of the TRIFFIDS!!!!!!!

2010-04-29T01:56:00.000-07:00

Triffids? I hear you ask, yes, Triffids. Mad?! I hear you ask or exclaim, yes, I probably am!

I am really not quite sure where these little critters came from, I’ve been thinking a lot about some rather serious minded sculptures, and I think my mind rebelled against too much serious thought. They are such fun to make though, and with each one I made I had several ideas for different versions!

Two have already escaped though! I didn’t even manage to get photos before one black-legged Triffid and a rather nasty one-eyed Amazonian running Triffid vanished! Lucky the black-legged Triffid was re-captured one the Isle-of-Wight and is being held in a secure location there. He moved a lot quicker than I expected, and is unusual in that he has one black leg, and the rest are green.

The One-eyed Amazonian Triffid is more of a worry though; this is one of the fastest Triffids, recording speeds up to 15 miles an hour. We suspect it can go faster, but the chap with the stop watch didn’t realise how fast it was and stood a little too close…. Triffid growing is not without risks! This one is still at large, last spotted trying to board a flight to Canada, we suspect it's trying to get back to the Amazonian jungle!

I hope you enjoy these little slices of glass botanical madness! Three of them are now in my Etsy shop where you can see more pictures of three different species and learn more about Triffid botany!

Volcano Blues

2010-04-21T02:44:00.001-07:00

I’ve been putting a lot more into my Etsy shop over the past few weeks, and it’s been great as I’ve been sending little worlds and marbles to USA, Norway, and my furthest yet sale to Australia! My past ‘assaults’ on getting my Etsy shop to work have always fizzled out, so it’s been great getting on a roll again with it. I should have know something would throw a spanner in the works!

Yes, it’s all about ‘that’ volcano with an unpronounceable name in Iceland. With Etsy being such a US based site with international sales I’ve been reluctant to list anything more until I know the Royal Mail is back to normal(ish). I’ve been checking their updates, and it’s still all delayed. Sending to the USA is quite badly effected as they are now sending a lot of recent mail by boat now! Ekk! And a slow boat too!

I’ve been using the time to make another little batch of little worlds. I don’t do these often enough, they are soft glass and it takes me a little while (and failed attempts) to get back into the swing and not blast the glass with mad amounts of heat! These have come out completely different to the last lot, some have got only very light reactions to them, I guess I’ll have to call them ‘Mostly sunny day’ worlds! I’ll need to clean them and pair them up before I can list them, another for my ‘to-do’ list!

I am also concentrating a lot of torch time to glass sculpture. This is quite a departure from the ‘practical’ world of jewellery to make things with ‘no purpose,’ so I was glad to stumble across a quote (I think it was on the Folksy forum) that the purpose was ‘things to make me smile!’ In the course of this I seemed to meander off the very arty project to make some very silly and fun sculptures instead. I hope to have got some special props and more made before I photograph these, so I’m going to keep these under my hat for a bit longer. I suspect they might get me on the front page of Regretsy* though!

In the meantime here’s a snap, courtesy of NOAA public access program, of an older icy scene and what I hope isn’t the type of ship being used for mail to the USA!!!!

*(If you haven’t come across Regretsy yet, it’s one of those snarky blog/websites that point out the odd/funny/disastrous things people list on Etsy. Although most of the stuff is rather ‘suspect’ I personally feel one mans junk is another’s treasure, and at least these people are making something. Not that I want to buy any of it though!)

Photo Credit:US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Nature creeps in

2010-04-14T01:39:00.001-07:00

Tiny glass plant
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

One of the things that attracted us to where we currently live is the closeness to ‘nothing.’ Walk one way and it’s shops, train station, all the stuff you need. Walk the other way for a couple of minutes and it’s fields and hedgerows.

Not that I get to see much of nothing sandwiching my time between early morning train travel and all other spare hours working glass or taking pictures of it, but I think having so much nature around is really soaking into my work lately. I still make glass leaves and small flower marbles as colour tests without thinking of other shapes. The past week I’ve been trying some more outlandish plant ideas, which have been more freeform and quite liberating after the precision needed for marbles. It was my other ‘arf who pointed out how she could easily see which was the first and last, but not due to an increase in quality. Each had become larger, bolder, (and ever slightly crazier!) I’m not showing those yet, as it’s all still ‘work in progress’ – be warned, it’s nothing like more normal stuff

I try to limit my size normally as I have limited torch power, and I’m aware of the cost of the borosilicate colour glass when making larger items. However I think a size increase is inevitable, I look longingly at the USA lampwork magazines where $2000 torches are being use to make full sized bottles and the like. So I’ve been using my ‘Harry Pickup’ mode (as a previous post) and making smaller and smaller objects. One of which is a new sculpture of a plant with flowers in a pot, which is about 30-40mm high. I couldn’t even melt the punty off the bottom on this one, I was worried the heat would make the make the top melt and ball up! Not the sort of marble I want! In the end I ground off the glass rod when it was cold. I’m going to pop that in my esty shop later this week.

Back to nature, I was lucky to see an amazing sight back in the cold days of February on my morning walk to the train. I go over a small river which has a flood plane left populated by weeds, rabbits, dragonflies and more. There was a sudden commotion in the frosty distance and a baby and adult rabbit making sounds rabbits shouldn’t make! A stoat was trying to pick off the baby (he/she failed) and it was amazing to then see the strange, almost serpentine, way the stoat moved though the think undergrowth. I knew there were stoats locally but had never seen one before, and felt a bit spoiled to see one actually hunting too in real life rather than on a TV documentary. Not great for the rabbits, but an amazing site on a cold morning, and worth missing a train to stop to watch for a few minutes!

Random Notes of Tea Breaks

2010-04-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

Despite deciding not to list so much on Etsy, that’s exactly what I’ve gone and done! Within the space of a few days I’ve pretty much doubled the amount of listings there, plus tweaked the prices on a few where exchange rates have changed, or old things I’m fed up of looking at!

I’ve also listed some of the new pendants I’ve been making, which I am really rather pleased how they are now coming out. I’ve cut down the failure rate, but I am taking a lot more time over them now. Originally I planned to add chains or nice leather cord with silver findings but they took ages to turn up, so I’ve listed them now as an ‘optional extra’ as I know some people just want the pendants to add to their own necklaces. Somewhere I’ve got a stiff silver choker, I am sure one would look great on that, but the grand tidy-up scheme seems to be taking a lot longer than planned! I was going to do blitz listings of old bits and bobs, but it seems to take ages to get everything photographed, and I so easily get distracted by ideas to try. I found a white marble when sorting through that I saved as it gave me a brilliant idea – I just need to remember what it was!

You can find my Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/steampunkglass

In aid of my memory I’ve got back into the habit of carrying a little notebook and a nice pen to scribble away in. I seem to be filling it up nicely. I normally jot notes on backs of envelopes, but my other half got me a selection of little books which are really nice to use as well as keep all these ideas together. I am not sure how useful any of it is, but it’s a nice way to turn ideas over in my mind with a cup of tea and a slice of cake! I seem to have developed a rather odd habit lately of really fancying cake when I’m having a session on the torch. I’ve given in and started buying a Victoria jam sponge especially for those long weekend sessions! Not doing my waistline much good, but with a cup of Lady Grey it makes very civilized tea breaks! Here’s a page out of my mad tea ramblings, I’ve picked one of the clearer and less messy pages!

The Harry Pickup method of craft design

2010-03-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

Who? I hear you ask, maybe followed by ‘what?’ and then maybe ‘have you really lost your marbles?’ (The answer to the last is yes, there are probably some rolling around under my bench somewhere.)

Do you ever have one of those craft problems where you are missing something to make the ‘thing’ you make? Or it’s gone wrong? Or there is an eyesore on it? Well then it’s time for the Harry Pickup method!

There is a lot of hype around this chap, and maybe it’s more myth than reality, but just after WWII Harry was (supposedly) trying to find a way of getting rid of some nasty caustic waste ash. In desperation he even tried flushing some down the loo, when he noticed it caused an interesting reaction. All the limescale was removed!!! He then took this waste product and turned into something every housewife wanted! Unsure what to call this new product he just took the first three letters from his first and last name…….. Ah! See, you probably have heard of him!!!

So basically I’m talking about taking what you think are negatives and turning them into practical positives, and when things aren’t going to plan I think to myself ‘What would Harry do?’

I’ve been looking into holders to mount marbles in to make walking sticks, and I’ve had a lot of ‘Harry’ moments doing it. I’m still miles away from getting them made, but each stumbling block has helped improve the design. For example I was looking at some nice brass lampholders, and converting them to use as a cup for the marble. However they had an earth terminal fixed to the side; removing it would have left a hole. So instead of thinking how I could remove it, I wondered how I could use it? I could use it to secure a hand-strap! Ideal so it could be put around the wrist to save dropping it, (useful when the top is solid glass!) or even just to hang it up. In the end the holder was too small, but I’ve kept the idea for the hand-strap which I wouldn’t have had if I’d just cursed the useless holder and moved straight on.

On a Steampunk forum a while ago I came across a thread where someone was trying to get rid of some writing enamelled into some old lab glassware (which of course caught my eye!) There were lots of complicated answers, attempts to burn it off then re-annealing it, super-dangerous chemical treatments. My solution was to turn it into a feature of the sculpture he was thinking of making by putting a decorative brass collar around it. Simples!

I see so many links to motivational websites telling us to be positive, all are very good at talking up how to think positive, but I really don’t find many telling you how to turn that into reality. I hope this will give you some ideas to get around that stumbling block by using the stumbling block itself as your leverage. So next time you are stuck, try thinking of Harry, and turn the unwanted into an advantage.

Wake up, it’s Friday! Oh no! It’s Monday!

2010-03-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve always struggled with sleeping, mostly I’m quite a light sleeper, but there are times I have some insomnia. A few months ago I started taking some ‘safe’ herbal pills, which really seemed to help. However in the past few weeks they have started building up in my system, leaving me lethargic and dull headed, but it’s been so gradual I’d not really noticed, or just wasn’t bothered!

Then last week I was working on a glass sculpture when an hour and half of work shattered on the final assembly thanks to my tongs slipping. Now I’ve learnt to be quite ‘Zen’ about glass, going with the flow, try to accept when things don’t work and start again, and viewing mistakes as steps to learn what I need to make the next and future ones better. However I wasn’t bothered – which I realised was wrong in itself. Reading up on the ‘safe’ valerian I realised my rather stupid mistake, that it should be for occasional use and I’d slipped into the bad habit of taking it every night!

Well a few days for it to clear out of my system and I realise how little I’ve managed to achieve in the past month, which is quite frustrating, but on the good side various odd things including my mysterious limp vanished. A close call! I’ve been taking good use of the extra energy and tore down to the local propane man for a new canister and was back in record time. I spend one day on experimental stuff, not all successful, and then the next day dived into some of the new glass to make some floral pendants; I’m loving one of the new colours, some great green-blues that remind me of Monet’s water-lily lake paintings with metallic hints!

Now however the insomnia has returned! I’ve tried cutting down on coffee and tea to help, but Mondays are the worse, especially after such a great day before at the torch!
Maybe I’ll have a ‘coffee Monday’ where I allow myself the injection of scary strong coffee! I stumbled across this on the net, which is a wonderful mad scientist way of making coffee. Not tried it yet, I am sure I saw a tabletop version that uses the same principle once, and I am lacking some of the flasks to make this.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/flashback_the_florence_siphon_arabi.html

Thanks also to the Graphics Fairy for the vintage image, well worth a look at this site for some great project source material for crafting! http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

And as for valerian; just say no!

Ingenious Gadgets and the glass/work imbalance

2010-03-17T03:21:00.001-07:00

flower
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

Were do I start? It seems ages since I’ve blogged, and even longer since I’ve listed much new. I’ve been suffering from that ‘life getting in the way of art’ thing the past month, everything from birthdays to attend, illness, lack of propane, to new glass to play with and new techniques to try out. Oh, and I appear to be turning into ‘House!’

First there are a couple of charity auctions that my bottle stoppers are appearing in; I do get a lot of requests to donate things, and since my turnout isn’t prolific it’s very hard to donate to many, so it can be quite eclectic where I donate to. Firstly there is a ‘blind auction’ for craft students at Derby University http://www.derbycrafts.co.uk/lot4.html it’s such a shame they need to raise money, but there are some fantastic donations and well worth a look, and one of my galaxy stoppers is there. The other one, which there might be pictures for soon, is for Air ambulance, (it’s criminal that such a life saving service needs to rely on people being sponsored to sit in baths of baked beans and the like!) There is an auction at this years ‘Flame-off’ – this is an annual gathering of pyromaniac lampworkers like myself, where we get together to swap ideas, see new techniques, and do a lot of damage to our credit cards! Sadly I’m not going to make it this year, but there is one of my flower stoppers making an appearance.

I certainly need to get making some bigger marbles so I can get some walking sticks made, I’ve managed to mangle my foot and have been limping around. I am starting to suspect the daily crush onto trains isn’t helping since as soon as I get a few days rest it’s fine, then by midweek it’s back again which doesn’t help my ‘cheery’ disposition at the dayjob (“whatdaya mean, we can’t introduce random beatings for the staff? It would improve productivity- it worked for the Romans, their empire was bigger than ours!”) Yes, I have to suffer a dayjob for a little longer until I can afford to stop, which will be a great relief to me and those that have to work with me! I am at a stage where I cannot get enough time because of it to do the important glass stuff, and various ‘work’ projects have really painful curtailed that recently. That will have to change!!! Although the shower finally died last week, along with the propane becoming empty, so looks like I have some serious DIY to tackle instead rather than some new stuff I’ve been working on. Fear not, I really will have some stuff worth waiting for to see soon!

A very pleasant surprise was being featured in a Flickr gallery recently. It wasn’t just getting one of my razors featured that overwhelmed me than the company I was put with; stunning exhibits from the Corning, and several artists who are renown glass artists and teachers, it’s certainly made me think more seriously about where I am going with the art side of my glass, and how much more I want to re-address the balance between make creating stuff rather than just surviving the day to day. That’s probably something I’ll touch on more in another blog soon; in the meantime you can see the gallery here; http://www.flickr.com/photos/brfun/galleries/72157623522757982/

Another thing that has brightened my week is finding this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ingenious-Gadgets-Obscure-Eccentric-Contraptions/dp/0715321897 in the bargain bin at the local bookshop. It’s like a Steampunk wish list! I’m certainly inspired by some of the designs, many are much stranger and dafter than anything I’ve seen Steam-folk carrying! A whistle stuck to a wrist strap as an early personal attack alarm? I am tempted to recreate the top hat holder though, better than leaving them stacked in a corner! So far the only glass object is a fire-extinguisher grenade or an ink cleaner; neither appeal to me to re-create, but I’m sure with all this inspiration and warm evenings I shall be off to the shed with evil mutterings and cackling!

Heart Keys

2010-03-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

Here is a sneak look at a new idea I’ve been working on. I’m calling them ‘heart keys’ as it seems rather appropriate! I’m thinking they’ll look really nice on some silk or organza as a simple choker or necklace, but my design skills are falling down on this one, so I might just sell them as loose focals for those with more fair for putting them together with nice fabric and silver!

I’m hoping to refine the idea a bit more if I can, and play around with this theme, I also am expecting 10lbs (yes! 10lbs! That’s about 4.5kg in new money!) of new borosilicate glass tomorrow which has finally got from the USA through customs and the post office, so it’ll be a wonderful excuse to play with it all!

Sunshine Award

2010-03-01T01:29:00.001-08:00

A big thanks to NoodleBubble http://noodlebubble.blogspot.com/2010/01/award-goes-to.html and Tracy at Cinnamon Jewellery http://www.blogger.com/profile/02436484670257361377 who’ve both given me a Sunshine blog award. I think I am meant to now find another 12 great blogs, which is very hard as there are so many good ones out there! You probably can’t go too far wrong by checking out all the Frit Happen Forum blogs http://fhfteam.blogspot.com/ which has way too many lovely glass from fantastic lampworkers to look at! I will try and find some time though soon to list my 12!

This week I have been struggling (and failing) to be able to keep up with blogging, twittering, facebooking, foruming (that not a real word!) and all the other bits in the on-line world., and have been conspicuous by my absence. I’ve been way-laid by a rather heavy work load (non-glass sadly.) Even Saturday was a near write-off as I then suffered a stomach bug. Typical! However I did manage to get a few hours lampworking in, and tried out a new idea. I am not quite sure what is bubbling in my brain these days as I seem to have come up with possibly the cutest and most romantic – maybe even kitsch you may say – idea to date. More to come in a few days when I get them out of the kiln and photographed, I might even dare to tell you about the genesis of the idea which is anything but romantic!

Return to Galaxies

2010-02-17T03:12:00.001-08:00

I’ve been beavering away on my galaxy marbles again. I stopped making them for a while as I wasn’t very happy how they were coming out, so went back to the drawing board and tried a couple of different techniques to form them. I am much happier with them now, and leading on from the complex cane techniques I’ve learnt a lot recently about ways of building up more complexity in the marble.

Wot more!?! Yes, I am still excited to find out how much I can pack into something just over an inch in diameter. I do like the idea, especially with these, that I can put a whole world – or even worlds! – into such a small space so the viewer has more things to discover.

If you go to one of the forgotten distant wings of The British Museum there is, (at least there was the last time I went there) a small display of items from the 1500-1600’s. Among them are what look like large boxwood pocket watches but inside they have the most amazing carved religious scenes. In a space less that an inch ½ across are dozens – yes dozens!- of figures clustering around a crucifixion scene, some of the spears soldiers are holding are no more than a splinter. How some medieval genus managed to carve these, probably with quite basic tools, inspires wonder and awe at their craftsmanship. I guess it’s seeing things like this that convinces me that even a marble or a bead can be a big enough canvas for any epic scene. One of the technical problems I’ve had with these marbles is down to the lack of heat I can get into the marble until I can afford a bigger torch. Looking at these is a reminder that I don’t need to make them huge to be full of interest.

On an exciting glass front I am awaiting a new shipment of glass colours from a factory sale in the USA. It’s rather battered my ‘big torch fund’ but it will mean some new colours and some glass I’ll have a decent usable quantity of. One or two I’ve been rationing because I’m down to a few stubs, so it will be great to go wild with some really exciting colours, including one of the sexist multi-coloured blues ever, and even two new reds!

In the meantime here are some pictures of one I’ve turned into a wine stopper – they are all the same marble but I am finding they really look different as I move them around which is exactly what I want, but makes a real headache of photographing them to show what they are like! This one is up at my folksy shop.

Edited as I've since found they are called 'prayer-nuts' and you can see a few on the British museum website, although they are more impressive in real life! http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_results.aspx?orig=%2Fresearch%2Fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&searchText=prayer-nut%2C&fromDate=&fromadbc=ad&toDate=&toadbc=ad&x=15&y=9

Urgh January!

2010-02-02T04:15:00.000-08:00

Well, January is finally behind us, and what a relief! Between all sorts of domestic stuff to sort out, and being laid low with various winter lurgies, running the risks of sprains and breaks from snow and ice and the general malaise the new year brings it feels now I can get back to real work! I read a tweet (yes, I twitter too http://twitter.com/SteamPunkGlass if you’ve not had enough of my ramblings here) that ‘January is like the Monday of the year.’ Quite a good analogy I think.

I’ve been plotting a clearout sale, but like everything else I’ve not managed to get that organised either. I’m a little behind with everything, and still trying to catch up so maybe they’ll be a January sale in March! One thing I’ve been working on is a collaboration with a jeweller, can’t say much about it yet but it’s very exciting and is giving me lots of new ideas too!
I have been pleasantly overwhelmed by the response to my little cloudy worlds this week. I don’t make them very often as I need to fiddle with the kiln settings, and then spend a good few hours trying to match them into pairs. As they are all free-formed I sit down measuring them all with digital callipers to get the closest matches. It also gives me chance to check each one and throw out any rejects. Since it’s been a while since I last made them I wasn’t aggressive enough with the treatment that makes the clouds, so I have a few with lighter blue glass and just a few wisps of cloud. I’m not sure what I’ll call these yet, ‘wispy clouds on a mostly clear day little worlds’ seems a bit too long and ‘clear day with some high altitude cloud worlds’ too much like a weather report! I might go for something easy like ‘light blue little worlds,’ shorter but even the initials are still bigger than the worlds!

Going to MOO!

2010-01-27T02:20:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I was stopped in the street and asked if I’d like to help product test some cakes and biscuits. Cake! I understand cake, and I like cake (although not ones with those crunchy sugar crystals on the top, cake should be soft and gooey and is sweet enough already without adding crunchy bits!) So I spend a couple of hours scoffing cake – cool!

So last week I answered a request from Moo, who make the lovely little mini-cards I send out with orders, give to people, hide in restaurant menus, use as a portable slide show and my other half uses to show people what I do when they say ‘uh, marbles? Why?’ followed (hopefully) by ‘oooo, I see!’ They wanted people to come and test a new product. I was a little surprised to be picked as I couldn’t bring a laptop, however they arranged a loan one, all I needed was to bring a usb with images.

I really didn’t know what I was going to be seeing when I got there, I guess I expected it to be a new printed product, but I was told I was going to be one of the first people in the world to see it! Despite having to use a mac-book for the first time, it all seemed to go quite smoothly. I’m not sure of the best way to describe what I was testing, it’s sort of a mini-display for images, like the sort of thing you see on windows vista where all the pictures flip through like a pack of cards standing up (very Alice in Wonderland!) Like their products it was quite slick, I’ve seen and used web-based services like this that have been less clear and thought out – not bad considering this was the testing phase. I’m not breaking any confidentiality clauses, they said it was ok to blog about it, and they are looking to launch it initially for business card makers first. My verdict, it was ok.

Oh dear, not ‘cool’ or ‘wow’ but ‘ok.’ It generates a like to a nice little animated gallery, which can be viewed from the Moo site only, but personally I can’t see it’s something that’s going to rock my world. I have a Flickr gallery already, which viewers can interact with and comment on, plus galleries on my website and even Facebook page. Maybe it will be the next big thing, time will tell. I was going to post the link here for you to see, but it seems not to work, so you’ll have to wait until it comes live! In the meantime here’s a non-moving picture of one of the new stoppers which I’ve popped into my Misi shop which I am going to try and list more in this year.

How Low Can I Go?

2010-01-19T03:49:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I get asked if I can do something special or different in glass. Many are to revisit and remake old favourites, but some are for new twists on things I’ve already made. It’s always interesting to hear new ideas, and they often take me down paths I wouldn’t have expected to explore.

The ones that seem easy often turn out to be the most problematic! Recently I was asked if I could make a red flower in a marble. Now I don’t normally try to do specific flower, mine are more ‘impressions’ of a flower, but this seemed such a simple construction, I thought ‘No problem!’ How wrong I was!

After about the 9th marble, I finally got the shape to start working, about the 12th I think I pretty much nailed it. It just goes to show how Mother Nature is rather more clever than we think, and how complex simplicity is! I won’t tell you what the flower is, as this is for someone else’s special project. My next problem is trying to get the colour right, which again turns out harder than expected. I bought a sample pack of Northstar’s boro colours which I use as a palette of colours. There are about 110 or more colours, then added to that I have most of the TAG colours, some Northstar experimental colours, plus the odd bit of Borostik, Glass Alchemy and Momka colours! Basically anything I can get my hands on! Out off all these different makers and different reds I was surprised how so many of them turned the same dull colour in use. Further investigation found that I wasn’t the only one finding this, when thinned down all these opaque reds returned to a rather bland dull brick red. There are some rather sexy reds in transparent, but as yet I haven’t got them to work with an opaque base to make a good red. I shall persevere!

Then the other day I had a less promising question. Could I make vortex marbles smaller? About 9-14mm? I thought not, but tried anyway. Unsurprisingly the first attempts were blobs of glass that fell onto the pie tin I keep under my torch to catch wandering bits of hot glass. However I tried again the next day, running the torch at lower pressures, using the same techniques I’d use on a full sized one but with tiny 4mm glass rods. I was so surprised when it worked! I even managed to put some aventurine sparkles inside them, although they work quite well plain a this size too. The first one was about 15mm, but it didn’t take long to start getting them down to 10mm!

Having achieved what I set out to do, the obvious question popped into my head; how low could I go? I thought 9mm was as small as it could go before I started loosing the design. However I got one to 8.65mm (according to my digital callipers!) Then a touch under 8mm, then an insane one which should have been 6mm! I really hit the edge of what was possible with this one, I couldn’t get the bottom to polish off properly so it’s the only one with a ‘dented bottom!’ Also when I measured it I found it has squashed slightly where I’d held it in tweezers as I’d tried to finish it, so one side is 5.76mm the other is 6.06mm! The results are shown here, the 10.5mm green one is my favourite, although the photos don’t really do justice to them as my camera wasn’t happy with focusing this small either!

And yes, that is a 5p coin!!!

I will play with this some more soon, apart from my other half wanting a pair as ear studs, I want to see if I can do some of my other designs small to make a range of real glass micro-paperweights for Dolls houses. I need to clean up and simplify some of the designs first, but they are such fun to do I really can’t resist trying them out! I am hoping to get more workshop time soon, if I can do them without having to charge too much (it's quite labour intensive) then I will probably list them on Esty in the next few weeks.

Whats in a name?

2010-01-11T05:03:00.001-08:00

One of the first things I tried making in glass where heart beads. However my first efforts were rather ‘unfortunate’ so I was delighted to come across a new way of forming them freehand a little while ago. What I particularly like is the little hanger which adds an almost Victorian flourish to them, plus (when I get them right) the space between makes another heart shape! I still can’t get them quite even, but I’m probably being fussy! In fact I’ve just made one deliberately uneven, which I like it more than the even ones as I think it has more character!

Borosilicate colours can be really odd; because of the weird way they react with light they look different depending on the light source, the direction of the light, what’s behind the glass and so on. I’ve had to start taking photos with them on both white and black backgrounds to give a true impression of how these look. Under daylight the purple lustres come out (I guess it’s something to do with UV) but put them in front of a white card and they vanish again!

One of the colours I’ve been using to get really rich purple lustres is called ‘Silver Creek,’ which I had to order in direct from USA as no one stocks it over here. Before that I was using double purple and triple purple passion and still not getting the zing I wanted. I think it’s called ‘Silver Creek’ because it’s got a lot of silver in the formulation, but doesn’t really help tell you what colour it will be!

Boro colour makers have gone wild with their naming, I guess because all the ‘normal’ glass has got all the sensible names already! I’ve got rods with names like ‘Alien Blood’ (green-white) ‘Unobtainium’ (an amazing pearlised blue) ‘Steel Wool’ (glittery grey) even ‘Red Elvis’ a transparent red which sounds like it should be a Cold War Communist version of the King of Rock & Roll!

These odd names are rather handy as it helps me to remember what the colours do as unlike normal soft glass they don’t look the same as when they are melted in. Many of the rods are so dark they look dark blue or even black, but when used do strange things instead, even turning cream coloured! The older colours tried to have helpful names, but Green Amber Purple isn’t a great name – and this glass starts out Bristol Blue coloured plus I’ve not yet got any purple out of it either, although wonderful creams, yellows, ambers, blues and greens!. I try to label every boro rod, but I do end up scrabbling around for a certain colour with one hand while holding a hot marble in the other, so there can an element of serendipity as I end up using another colour instead.
At least these colours live up to, and often exceed, their wonderful mad names. Many years ago I was helping stack paints, all had been given glamorous emotive names like ‘harvest barley’ (a sort of yellow off-white) and ‘seagulls wing’ which turned out to be a very boring grey!

Hello to a more interesting year!

2010-01-06T01:18:00.001-08:00

(Photo Credits:NASA)

Sorry it’s been a while between blogs, but now I have battled though the crazy time of the year to the other side. Typically my ‘to do’ list got sidelined slightly; painting the workshop, making some hearts well in advance for valentines day, and finally finishing a mad walking stick I promised myself months ago. Instead I learnt a rather fabulous new way of adding colour and shapes into flower marbles, and started making a new frockcoat for an evening out in March! Yes, three months away but I sow slowly plus I use an antique singer machine as I find electric ones are too fast for me. The dependable 1922 machine hardly ever jams and even though the treadle is a bit low (not being a short Edwardian Lady!) it’s so much more controllable for a ham fisted amateur sower like me, plus is quiet enough to be able to hear too!

So, imagine my amazement when in the New Year I hear non-crafty people proclaiming ‘I’m glad I’m back to work, got so bored sitting at home after a while.’ I can barely contain my annoyance when I hear such things! Other Crafter folk have said to me that they have had chance to catch up on projects too – none have complained about boredom!

I don’t normally go in for New Years resolution, but this year I really want to do more ‘interesting stuff;’ last year was an incredibly grim year for me, and if nothing else was a reminder that time really does speed by all too quickly if we let it. This year I want to strive toward a positive year, be interesting and interested in the world, improve my glass art, make some other projects I never get around to, plus venture out into the big world more too!

Finding time still remains a big problem, but I am certainly going to do my best to find as much of it as I can! However I’ve been so busy with projects the past few weeks I’ve not had a chance to photograph some of the new glass I’ve been working on, so in the meantime to kick off the new year as I mean to go on here is an interesting photograph from NASA’s archives (thank you NASA!). I’ve no idea what’s going on here, but it looks far from boring!

Thank You!

2009-12-21T01:14:00.000-08:00

Firstly before everyone goes away and settles down for the Xmas holidays, a bit thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past year. It’s not been an easy year, but it’s been lovely to have ‘met’ (albeit virtually) so many great people in the glass and crafting worlds. Thank you to all who’ve taken trouble to comment on my blog, given inspiration and advice, and of course special thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to buy some of my glass creations! It is very appreciated, not just because it means I can buy more glass, but it means I must be doing something right for you to want my glassy bits!

It’s not going to be all rest for me over the next few weeks, I want to get into the workshop and try out some new ideas and continue to strive to improve some techniques over the coming year. If the snow thaws I might even battle into the shed and try and make some things I’ve promised for myself (I still have a half finished walking stick in there somewhere!)

Thank you, and have a merry Xmas, and a great New Year!

Glenn :-)

Quick update and Spoonerisms

2009-12-11T03:08:00.000-08:00

Thank you to everyone that replied to my blog, it has been very helpful, and if anyone else would like to add I am still very interested to hear what you have to say!

Been a little more than hectic this week, not helped by spending most of it on trains going nowhere. I posted some weeks ago my idea to give those of us who still have to commute (working on stopping doing that) a little something back. I sent it to the train company, who then two days later promptly decided they weren’t squeezing enough money out of their franchise so reverted it back to ‘public ownership’ which seems to mean no ones in charge. Having said that I quite like the new bizarre mix of 1970’s and 2006 carriages linked together, the old ones are way more comfortable too! However it's lucky dip as to if they are running on time or hugely late though.

Back on the creative front the other week I popped into the Folksy Xmas do-thingie to hear what Folksy had planned for the site and to meet a few fellow sellers. One of the lovely people I met there before I had to rush off was Claire McNeil who runs an Etsy and Folksy shop called Spoonerisms http://www.etsy.com/shop/spoonerisms

Claire hunt out old unloved spoons and turns them into Jewellery, on the night she was wearing a lovely pendant made from the end of spoon which had stunning art-deco style pattern. I think it says a lot for craftsmen of old that these old spoons had such wonderful detail on them that can still be reworked and re-envisioned into something beautiful and desirable again.

One of the lovely things Claire has also done is create a series each with their own stories of past loves, broken friendships, and times past called ‘Broken Promises,’ each spoon having a personal memento embedded in resin in a spoon. The stories are very personal indeed, my favourite is an earring given to her by a chap she met in a bar, clicked with, exchanged numbers, but never saw again. It has the romantic title of ‘the one that got away.’ There are so many lovely ones it was tough to pick a picture, and some with such heartrending stories, even an old engagement ring that never turned in to marriage. Gulp! I do promise that not all the stories are quite so sad though!

I’d love your shopping feedback!

2009-12-03T02:17:00.001-08:00

Flower Disc
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

I really would love to get some feedback from you all, especially all you lovely people who have supported me by buying at some of the sites I list on.

At the moment I seem to have bits of stuff all over the web, which is a bit messy and I suspect very inconvenient for you, the buyer. Some of you have been really lovely, stalking around the various sites and setting up accounts to be able to go in to buy my glasswares; thank you for going to the trouble!

I’d like to make thing easier and better, and maybe try and concentrate on fewer, and better, places to list my items. At the moment I have stuff on Etsy, which is a very good site but all in dollars. I have a lot of stuff in Folksy, plus a sprinkling of supplies in Misi and other bits at Coriandr!!! And then of course there is also Artfire which I hear good things about but am not listing in (yet!?)

On top of that I have an option to have a shopping cart on my website instead, which I turned off as I had so many other sites with listings in already.

Help! I am not sure which is better, so I’d really love to hear YOUR feedback as to which venue, as shoppers, you’d prefer to use, and also which you hate to help me decide what would be the best to concentrate on. I don’t mind if you want to leave a comment on my blog, on my Facebook page, on twitter or even email, I’d just really appreciate hearing what you think as shoppers.

Thank you in advance!!! Glenn :-)

Random SteamPunk Post - Doing it with Style!!!!

2009-11-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

‘A brass unicorn has been catapulted across a London street and impaled an eminent surgeon. Words fail me, gentlemen.’

Indeed! I am sure the knowledgeable and film geeks amongst you will recognize these stunned word, spoke in such a way you know the words are spoken by an Edwardian Gentleman (in Capitals, of Course! Emphasizing he is a Proper Gentleman!)

No? Well ok, I’ve only managed to see the film once myself so far so I wouldn’t have know the quote either! I am talking about the incredibly bizarre, and slightly daft, Vincent Price ‘The Abominable Dr Phibes!’

For some reason I have seen the sequel ‘Dr Phibes Rises Again’ several times, but the original hardly seems to be shown, and I’ve only managed to see this 1970’s classic once (which will be handy for my Other Half to know if she’s thinking of xmas pressies, hint, hint!)

And the reason I mention this? This weekend I have watched a couple of big recent blockbusters, dripping with CGI, big names, cerebral plots, accurate research, quality acting….. yep, really disappointing. Whereas there was nothing wrong with them, they lacked a certain soul and fun that these old cheesy 1970’s horrors could get away with. Where all the lead men were busy giving brooding looks, I’d rather have a daft line like this to keep me awake and smiling!

As for the recent rash of films like Saw, don’t get me started! Please just stop at one! Besides, you want interesting ways of revenge? Vincent Price was having people eaten by locusts and popping them in giant gin bottles before some of these people were born!

I rather like the style and eras these old shlock horror films were set in, a sort of clean scrubbed Technicolor Victorian/Edwardian London; Such a shame men these days have rappers and football stars as fashion icons, whereas I had Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as well dressed respectable men to emulate – stopping short of course of tramping around graveyards in the dead of night digging up people and shoving a stake in their chest.

Or is it just me? Am I a secret Victorian trapped in an era of baseball caps, when you can’t wear a hat in a pub because the cctv can’t see your face (Yes, that really happened to me, I was told I couldn’t wear a hat in a London pub!) Certainly nice to see SteamPunk getting a bit more mainstream credibility; it’s almost becoming an reaction against ‘casual;’ putting on something nice and special to go out shouldn’t mean put on a different designer checked shirt and jeans surely? We are well overdue a return to style I say!
(Photo Credits:US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Ok, time for my Laudanum; I promise my blog will return to normal next posting and I’ll waffle about glass instead!

Bottle stoppers have stopped – but your flower colour suggestions are welcome!

2009-11-25T03:58:00.001-08:00

Bottle Stoppers
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

I am still having problems getting some of the really nice bottle stoppers that I top with my marbles. I’ve found other ones, but they aren’t as good quality so am holding out for new stocks to come in. I was quite pleased with the gold ones I got as alternatives (very Christmassy!) but now they’re out too! Argh!

The other weekend I found a local clearance store had some bottle stoppers on sale, fitted with some terribly made glass ‘shapes’ (distorted blobs I’d call them) – and there was me thinking I’d been first with the idea! They were so cheap, and in a custom made display box, I was sorely tempted to go back and get some, take off the naff glass, and fit my own. I went back intending to get some to see me through and then decided not to. For one thing it goes against joining the SRA as it supports badly made imported glass from sweat shops (literally in the case of making glass!) However just before I walked away I took a closer look and was glad I hadn’t wasted my money. The stoppers had been thrown into the boxes with the glue still wet, so some were stuck to the lining of the boxes, glue was smeared down the sides, and even the chrome plating was so thin I could see the base metal beneath.

I think I’ll just keep making marbles and flowers and wait until I can get some new stoppers that I know are made well.

In the meantime I’ve been playing with pendants again, this time putting some of the flowers I’ve been making inside some small discs of glass, they’ll be about 1 1/2inch (about 40mm) a few bigger and a few smaller. They look pretty good, I’m being rubbish at getting photo’s taken but hope to make and list some more this weekend. I threaded up one last night on some nice sea-green ribbon, it’s white and dark turquoisy blue petals and if I get chance I’ll try and list it tonight!

In the meantime any requests or suggestions for flower colours you’d like to see? I can’t be sure I’ll be able to do all the colours but I’d really like to hear what everyone would like to see or wear!

new crop of flower stopper marbles

2009-11-19T07:55:00.001-08:00

new crop of flower stopper marbles
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

Sorry for the rather thin on the ground post the past couple of weeks! I seem to be doing my headless chicken thing here lately. As promised here are some pictures of the alien blood flowers I was making the other week. I am hoping to get back into the workshop and work on some more of these.

I did manage a long session the other day where I tried some really quite advanced techniques, however despite all the separate ‘bits’ and techniques working a treat, when I tried putting them all together everything failed! Never mind; if it was easy it wouldn’t be worth learning after all!

Hopefully I will have more to blog soon, in the meantime I’ve snuck some more stoppers into my Etsy shop, here are some of the alien flowers in the meantime; some are test ones which later got rejected, and they haven’t yet been properly fixed into the stopped, but it’ll give you an idea of how they are going!

Alien Blood and Flowers

2009-11-09T02:02:00.000-08:00

I have been struggling to make anymore razors at the moment, my failure rate has really gone up on these which made for a rather disheartening session on Saturday, especially when one really cool looking one cracked right in half then tore up all the bead release which mixed into it. Sigh. I was so expecting to get lots done too that day, but several hours and throwing four in a row into my dump pot (big jar of water for broken and unhappy glass) I decided to give up on those for a bit. I will battle on though; I will get some fresh bead release and try again!

Sunday was a much more fun day! I found some old cd’s I haven’t listened to for ages and went back to flowers for a bit. I made this flower marble the other week which came out really thin and translucent which I’ve popped onto a nice chrome bottle-stopper, ( now in my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33964917 ) this single flower technique takes a bit more time, but is rather rewarding and so I thought I’d explore it more, and found there was a lot to learn about it.

The glass makers produce some colours that are ‘odds-lots’ or experimental, and a while back Emma at http://www.theflyingbead.co.uk/ who is another Borosilicate addict (do take a look at her lovely beads!) swapped me a rod of ‘Alien Blood’ one of Northstar’s batch of one-off colours – and with a name like Alien Blood how could I resist a rod to play with! It puts me in mind of the X-files! It’s a very pale green-white colour, and it’s rather nice to work with! I do hope Northstar decide to add it to their range as it thins down to a quite realistic looking floral white, and stays more solid in colour – although I haven’t looked in the kiln yet, this is what I can tell from what they looked like before annealing. It’s been a while since I was so excited about what’s cooking in there as it ‘felt’ like a good session where I got to grips more with this technique. I am keeping my fingers crossed!

A simple Train idea

2009-11-02T02:10:00.000-08:00

I know this is a blog about glass, crafting and the universe, but an idea occurred to me this weekend that isn’t about any of the above. Doubtless it will be ignored when I try sending it to National Express (humm, not sure about the express part after this mornings delays) but on the off chance some transport mogul is reading this I though I’d share in my general effort to do a little thing each week to improve the world.

I popped on the train this Saturday to go to pick up some crafting supplies. Now the train was quite packed with people taking advantage of cheap day returns etc, but as they weren’t ‘real’ commuters they clearly didn’t understand how it works so had made themselves comfortable with plenty of space defended with bags on seats etc – and who can blame them for wanting to enjoy their journey.

Now at the moment I can’t afford to ‘do glass’ fulltime so suffer the soul numbing, shoulder squashing misery and expense of a daily commute. So I wondered, ‘why can’t I have some perk or preferential treatment at the weekend?’ I pay a very scary amount of money each month for this discomfort – with the annual increase I expect it to be over £400 a month next year! – so how about doing something for me Mr Train People? And it won’t loose you any money, but you might make more!

This is the idea; At weekends let people with monthly or yearly travel cards go and use first class. There aren’t going to be many of us wanting to suffer the abuse of another train trip after 5 in one week, and I very much doubt many – or even any – first class tickets are sold at the weekend. This would give us a little ‘thank you’ from the train companies, with the added bonus of freeing up some standard seats for those buying fares on the day. And it won’t cost you a bean Mr Train-person.

Also you might start selling some first class fares too, if I wanted to travel to London for an event at the weekend with my other half I’d hardly want to sit in first class and leave her in standard, so I’d might want to splash out and get her a first class ticket – thus Mr Trainman you get to sell a more expensive seat, although I’d prefer you to give me a special discount to encourage that. Not forgetting all that extra revenue the coffee kiosks would make as I might want to travel at the weekends if I was going to enjoy it.

This wouldn’t cost the train companies anything. Those seats are unused at the weekends (bar the occasional chav with a can of pseudo-Australian lager whose probably not paid his fare anyway!) So the cost of a little ‘thank you’ and comfort is nil, and maybe a few people will even get to like it enough to upgrade their regular tickets.

So, does anyone else think this is a good idea, or even better is in charge of ther railways?!

Quick peek!

2009-10-30T15:47:00.001-07:00

Here's a quick peak at some of the hearts I've been working on this week, I'm hoping to get some of these little ones listed plus some more now I've got the hang of them.

Have a Heart!

2009-10-29T03:11:00.001-07:00

swirl4
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

I’ve been practising with making some new glass hearts in my freshly revamped workshop. It’s strange how more relaxed I already feel there, I’ve given myself more room although at the expense of a rather useful table – but in hindsight the table was mostly piled high with junk and ‘dunno where else to put it’ items that we all seem to have. I still haven’t painted the walls either! That might be a job to do over xmas I think, even though I’ve been saying that for past 8 years since we moved in.

The only downsides are that my kiln is no longer in arms reach, so will have to move that, and I don’t have a space to photograph in now. I will have to return to a space in the kitchen I’ve used before. I also have two boxes of findings I need to find a new home for – so really I’m nowhere near finished!

The glass hearts were really nice to make, I felt less rushed and so took more time over making them, and as they have a nice open area I felt I could really explore some of the tricks and colours that boro has to offer. It seemed really odd that I’ve been working with it for a while now but this was the first time I felt I was really getting the benefit of the colours and effects that boro can produce. Of course some were a bit wonky, the nicest one cracked, and what I thought would be a nice pink colour is a naff shade of puce, but that was more than offset by the wonderful metallic/pearlescent ‘unobtainium’ colours and lustre. Shame I haven’t been able to take pictures to show you yet!

Workshop Revamp

2009-10-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve not posted much recently, but this weekend I’ve started a small revamp of the workshop to allow me more space to work. One of the critical things was installing new ventilation as the old system (opening window and dangling a hose out of it) wasn’t very good or efficient. ! One of the reasons for improving this is a safety issue as a lot of the boro I use has high levels of heavy metals in them, and I really don’t want to breathe them in.

After some hole cutting and loft clambering I managed to get the extractor running, so at the same time I made some new splash backs from some aluminium sheet I rescued some years ago from a printers clearout, and backed them with some ceramic insulating wool just in case it gets too hot. The only thing I didn’t do was paint the wall which still have the same paper and paint as when we moved in years ago. Maybe that’ll be my Christmas project!

Lots more to do yet, I am not sure where everything is going to go yet as I’ve had to sacrifice a useful table, but I hope I can get everything in!

Shaving the old fashioned way!

2009-10-16T02:18:00.001-07:00

shaving brush
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

The shaving saga continues! I’ve now finally listed in my Folksy shop http://www.folksy.com/shops/SteamPunkGlass some shaving brushes to go with the razors I’ve been making!

This created some interesting problems to resolve, I’d have got some underway sooner if it wasn’t for the sudden DOH! realisation when I made the first prototypes. I basically made a larger elongated marble with one flatted edge to secure to the brush, forgetting that the top of the brush has to be flat too to allow the brush to be stood up when wet! DOH! The alternative was making a stand to go with it, but then that’s a whole new headache for another day. The downside is that flattening distorts the design a little, so I’ve put lots of dichroic into these to give a real sparkle to the shaving experience! On the outside I’m getting the hang of the real value of using boro colours as I’m getting better and bringing out some of the metallic effects of this wonderful (and sometimes frustrating!) glass.

The only brush blanks I can find so far are Badger hair, I wanted to also offer a synthetic alternative but it seems wet shaving using a brush is a dying art and they aren’t made. In fact the badger ones are discontinued as well, and from the dust on the boxes looks like they were made a long time ago! I have to admit I do use an electric razor in the mornings - when I’ve not had enough coffee to be able to find my elbow the idea of putting a sharp blade to my face seems like asking for trouble! However when I have more time or am going out special I do drag out a manual razor and get a ‘proper’ shave; I figured there must be blokes like me who do this and would like something to make the whole experience a little more ‘special’ when I devised the idea. It certainly evokes a by-gone age of elegance when people took time and trouble to do things like this well, of old barber shops and men with handlebar moustaches – or is that just me? I certainly remember my Dad having an old brush that was worn nearly down to a stump before he got himself an electric razor – which I recall then always broke a few months later and he then spent most of his mornings trying to clean or get to work! Sometimes the old fashioned ways really are better!

One for the chaps!

2009-10-05T07:08:00.001-07:00

Blue and orange razor
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

This has provided me with some unexpected technical challenges, but I can reveal part of a new project I’ve been working on – stuff for blokes! Apparently we chaps are rather difficult to buy for, and so when I came across these razors it seemed worth having ago at making them ‘a bit more interesting.’

I could have made my life easier by making several different long beads and putting them together, but decided against it. I figured that having more joins would increase the risk of water and grot getting inside the handle. No one wants to shave with a razor with mould and algae growing in it! Also aesthetically I thought it would be nicer having the colours flowing together as much as possible.

The thickness of the core and length of these created surprising headaches! Keeping a single bead over 75mm long from cracking was interesting, often one end would crack whilst working at the other end! I lost a few from the bead release breaking- that always seems to happen when I get a really good colour going! Then cleaning out a bead that long was fun, using special bead cleaner, files, I even tried toilet cleaner at one point! Small bends in the mandrel added a new dimension of fun too…

Finally I managed to get a two listed on the Folksy, who were doing a ‘men’s gift’ special, and was selected for their ‘top picks!’ Within a hour someone had snapped up one of the razor too! Makes all my secret squirrel plotting and work feel worthwhile.

I will certainly make some more of these now I’ve figured out the techniques, I also have some more items to add to this range, one that is going to be very much a blokes item too! I am told that the razors may fit the Venus razor cartridges, so I might even manage some for the Ladies too. If you’re a regular on my Flickr stream or Facebook page you’ll see I’ve also been adding my marbles to wine bottle stoppers, I hope to be listing some soon, and making more. The past few months I’ve had so many interruptions and setbacks it’s nice to get so it’s so nice to be finally listing some new and exciting stuff, I hope this will be the first of many new ideas!

Experimental group

2009-09-25T06:00:00.001-07:00

Experimental group
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

I haven’t managed to post or list much new as been rather busy trying to tidy the workshop and sort out a few domestic things. Our cat Merlin, despite a second op, is much better and thank you to all of you who sent kind words and thoughts! He’s returned to mischief, being generally fussy about food, plus now he’s taken to following me constantly as I am now his best friend for retrieving him from the vets! Touch wood that we don’t have to go back for a long time.

I am quietly working on a new idea for some xmas gifts for us blokes for a change! I am told we are rather rubbish to buy gifts for (it’s easy for me, just send glass rods!) Here is a quick preview of some experimental shapes for some ideas I am playing with – I am not telling you what they are for yet though - I don’t want to spoil the surprise! ;-) There is a 5p coin for scale, the shortest of the long thin beads is 76mm long.

There is a quick listing of some clear glass leaves over now on my Folksy shop of a destash of leaves I made for another project that just didn’t quite work. Rather than gathering dust I am giving chance for some other creative soul who I am sure can have a bright idea of what to use them for, plus whoever buys them within the next week I shall add in some coloured ones too!

New Toy

2009-09-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

Well I finally have a new toy that I’ve been promising myself for ages! This is an infinite rim, multi-hole, graphite marble maker, straight from the US of A!

I should have actually had it last week, but the post office has been rather causing headaches, I seem to spend most of my time apologising to American customers for non-appearing orders. I am not sure how they can send me two parcels from the same post office 5 days apart? Never mind, I have it now!

I have yet to use it, but I can see it’s certainly best grade graphite. I don’t have too much problem from my current one, but have noticed on occasion the odd speck coming off and marking a marble. This one also has special conical holes which are meant to make shaping a little easier and smoother, and there is one big hole on the flip side too! With marble tools it's actually the edges of the rounds that are used, the marbles are rotated inside them to make them spherical, this special shape is supposed to make that easier.

I must admit I didn’t expect it to be so chunky though, feels like it’s made to last, even has a little spiral on the counterweight finial at the end!

It does seem though as soon as I treat myself to something I suddenly get unexpected bills. One of our cats, Merlin (the psychotic black & white) has reoccurring ulcers around his chin and mouth. Last night we found one was bleeding rather nastily so it was down to the vets with him. Apparently it was a simple case to cauterize it, but one was in a sensitive part of his mouth so needed a general anaesthetic for a 2 minute op! (I feel like he needs that to give him pills!) All went well, I pick up the little devil tomorrow, and sure he will be back to his mad psychotic ways very soon. What really worries me is the vet says we will have to open his mouth every week to check to see if they ever reoccur; so now as well as burns on my fingers it’ll be puncture wounds too!

Birth of a Marble; Picture show

2009-08-27T03:18:00.001-07:00

I’ve not a lot to report at the moment, but I did try to take a few one-handed pictures of a 'galaxy' spiral marble; although some steps aren't shown clearly as I needed both hands for those!

It’s not tidy, but ready to work! The black ‘thing’ is a graphite marble mould, the marble is rounded out partly in the flame and partly by rotating in a mould that is too small to fit it – only the rim is used. Weird, yes, but it seems to work!

2nd step, getting rod hot ready to add the spiral

Spiral is made! I couldn't show this step very well as I needed both hands!

Added some glass to make a nice, and hopefully interesting, base!

I've melted more glass off the fat 10mm rod to make the front and attached a thin 4-5mm rod to the back to hold it - very much a two handed job that! The thin rod is a 'cold seal' so can easily be removed, although sometimes it can remove itself thus the pie tin in case it falls!

This now takes a lot of time to melt and get the shape right, also getting rid of as many imperfections in the front to make a nice crystal clear lens. At the moment it's more of a 'bulge' shape.

Getting there! Front now rounding out nicely, the back rod will be switched to front and back again as I try to get all parts even and smooth, using the rim of the marble mould to try and tame it into shape where needed.

Still rounding! This one I've popped a Gilson Opal inside, which would be done before adding the lens glass.

As round as I can get it, the supporting thin punty rod will now be removed, any scar left given a quick work over to remove, then it's into the kiln for a very long soak to anneal.

Hope you enjoyed that, obviously there are alot more stages between that I couldn't show, but hopefully this give you a bit more idea about how it all comes together from a few sticks of glass to a little ball!

Ready for Halloween?

2009-08-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm sitting in a mini-heatwave trying to make pumpkins! Sadly my pumpkins are rather too evil to show, (now living in the reject jar with other frightneing reject beads for company!) I did however start making these very silly ghosts with clear borosilicate for a few Halloween swaps, although they are probably more 'trick' than 'treat!'

Having said that I've had some great suggestions for using them, better than 'melting them back down' which was my idea, such as making them into a mobile or dangling them from fishing line in front of candles etc.

For those of you who wonder what all this lampworking thing is about I've made my first video; I don't thing Spielberg has much to worry about! The odd pink tint is due to filter I put over the lens to cut down the flare you get from putting glass into the flame. Not the best video tutorial every, but certainly a horror one as it has me doing the soundtrack!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suGewedmhRw