May Madness again!

Yes, its that time of year already when I am surrounded by boxes and a never shortening ‘to-do’ list! This weekend will be the MCM Expo & Comic-con at London Excel, from 26th-28th May, where I have a small booth in the dealer's zone in the North Hall. A lot of people tell me they get lost, the secret is to look at the big section numbers on the wall of Excel itself, we are in section N4 which is the section where the cloakroom stairs are, towards the back of the hall. I’ve attached a map at the end, look for us at BF2.

 

Just because we don’t have a huge stall doesn’t mean I haven’t packed it with as much as possible! I’ve lots of new marbles, pens, pendants, aliens, earrings, plus some brand new designs seeing their first outing at the stall. Look out for a new display box with a weird blue glow coming from it, inside a new range of VERY glowy pendants and earrings, all containing some high grade glow-in-the-dark pigment which the makers assure me can glow up to 12-20 hours after being charged with light! That’s not all, I’ve also a range of glass that only shows its colours when lit by UV blacklights, so ideal for clubs and festivals too, plus lots of other new designs, as well some new big wooden boxes and a show special on ‘B’ movie cushions too.

 

For those of you not coming to Excel who like to come to the London stall I have further good news for you. As some of you may know I’ve been struggling with time issues, finding it hard to be at Covent Garden and have enough time to make glass. I’ve finally got some help with two helpers who are covering the long hours on the stall. I’m still trying out days but at present this means the stall is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays AND Saturdays! Please do pop along and say hi to Ellie and Pip who will have the same high quality glass pendants, pens and earrings, but without my ugly mug to scare you away! One of the advantages of the extra time this will give me is time to create new designs, and some of you may have already seen some of the new mega-sized pendants I’ve been creating for the stall as just one example of some of the new items I hope to introduce over the coming months.

 

As you can see there has been a lot happening here behind the scenes, and this is just the beginning. I’m planning to increase the selection and variety of glass available in my Etsy shop too, so please keep an eye on my shop and Facebook page over the coming months for sneak previews of new designs as well. The Etsy shop is now closed for a few days though so I can concentrate on getting organized for the weekend.

 

I hope I get to see lots of you at Excel this weekend, right now for me it’s back to melting glass and packing boxes!

 

All the best

Glenn

 

LFCC, Birmingham, and Sunden changes of plan

Firstly a big thanks to everyone who came and saw us at London Film and Comic-con at Olympia. For those of you who keep up with my random Facebook postings you’ll know at one point it was touch and go if I’d make it at all! I’m so glad we did, the new layout made walking around a lot easier with wider aisles plus less stair climbing with almost everything on one floor. I’ve already booked for next year, so I’m hopping to make that a regular appearance from now one (fingers crossed!)

 Although this past month has taught me that all plans can suddenly change at the last minute. A combination of transport problems and ill family member two weeks before LFCC caused some very fast change of plans, plus a few sleepless nights trying to re-arrange everything I’d put into place months before. I do dedicate a lot of time and energy before these events to ensure I have everything I need as well as a good choice of some of my best glass for people to choose – but then I also expect last minute things to go wrong, and as much as I make contingency plans forgetting to pack things like enough business cards does still happen!

Recent events behind the scenes means that I am going to have to radically change a few things over the next few months, and regrettably November’s Birmingham MCM at NEC is going to have to be one of the events I am not going to be able to attend. It’s really a shame, as it is such a relaxed event, we meet such great people there, and as a bonus Birmingham has some of the best curry houses we get to visit too! At the moment we may also have to miss the March 2017 one too, but I’m hoping things get resolved before then so we can make our return then. Also I am only able to get to Covent Garden one day a week at the moment, on Tuesdays, and I am also hoping in the next few months that I will be able to get there for more days too. I do also hope to also increase the amount of glass in my Etsy shop too, which not prepping for Birmingham will allow me more time to concentrate on too.

One show that definitely we will be at is London’s MCM Expo at Excel on 28-30^th October. Not only will we be back with as much as I can carry but we will be in exactly the same spot at May, with a ‘booth’ style stall too which makes it much easier to layout and display the glass for you to see. I’m already making new aliens for it, I’ll be extending the range of coloured inks for dip pens too which previewed at LFCC, including three new metallic colours. There will also be pendants, marbles, more rings and earrings, and if we have room some more boxes and ‘B-Movie’ cushions too. I do hope to see you there, so long as nothing else happens in the meantime!

All the best

Glenn

New Little Worlds 2.0 are coming! And this time they're Alien!

New Alien little worlds being cleaned

Long time no blog, but as I've been taking a few extra weeks away from Covent Garden and Greenwich I've been catching up on a few things, including new ideas.


Tiny 'Men-in-Black' marble with penny for scale

Lately everything has been small, from smaller and smaller little galaxy marbles for people making the 'Men in Black' prop (or just who like small cute marbles!) to a return to finding a replacement for the little world earrings I used to make.

For those who didn't read about if previously crack-in-world,

Past Little Worlds that had problems with batches of cracking glass

or haven't seen them, I used to make some little tiny world earrings and pendants that had multiple layers of glass to produce clouds with 23ct gold leaf as islands and continents. They were getting more and more 'Earth like' and was about to explore a way of even adding poles to make them even more realistic when I ran into some problems with the glass I used for them.

It was pretty exotic stuff, and also needed lots of layers which didn't always play well with each other, I could have a failure rate of 20% some days, added to which it wasn't even the usual borosilicate glass that I use so have to clear the decks to stop cross-contamination of the different glasses. One of the types I used was becoming harder to get hold of, and after waiting a few months got a precious 1/2lb from the American factory that makes it. That's when disaster struck.

I always had a higher than wanted failure rate, but this last batch was terrible! Out of about 50 I think only 3 didn't crack in half before I even got them out of the kiln. Contacting the factory seem to also fall on deaf ears, and later talking to people 'in the know' found out they'd been having problems with this for a while. Even when I did get them to work the colours weren't nearly as good or as reliable, so I decided to start looking around for an alternative.

I made a few back in January of last year, and one or two looked quite interesting. One batch mostly went a boring bloody brown colour, but a few of these were an amazing multi-coloured medley of blues and greens giving them a real Neptune effect. Some stayed a little lighter red and whites to make passable Jupiters too. However time constraints and swapping from Greenwich to Covent Garden didn't give me time to explore them further - until now.

I'm still tweaking the formula, the effects are quite random, but revisiting them I'm getting some lovely colour combos. There is a failure rate, but so far it's around 5-10% which is much better if it says like that. There are the green and blue Neptunes, a few with purple whisps, brown and reds for Mars, and even the odd Jupiter too. Plus it's given me ideas for new glasses to try, one is producing a green-yellow that's quite weird, and even some slightly metallic textures too. As for Saturn, no, not doing that one yet!

Pairing them up is going to be quite a tricky one though, but hopefully I'll have some in the Etsy shop soon, and will be bringing them along to the MCM Expo in Birmingham on 21-22ns March at the NEC.

100 Pens

You may have been wondering why the lack of new shiny in my Etsy shop, or general lack of new posts on my Facebook page. (Or maybe not!) Well, I've been making pens, lots of pens, lots and lots and lots of them. Endlessly. For weeks. And you can't have any of them!

Sometime last year a visitor at my Greenwich stall asked if I might be able to make some pens for a yearly event, which I'd said 'maybe.' Well a few weeks ago I was commissioned to make 100 pens for 'an event.' I'm not at liberty to say who for or what the event is, but the one main thing is that they all have to be blue, maybe with a little yellow. (And no, this has nothing to do with Doctor who!)

It's come at an ideal time for me, a few months before I start gearing up for Expos in October and November, plus all the craziness that happens at the end of the year! However I have had to put all the other projects and sculptural stuff on hold, as well as not having much time to blog, or make extra things to list on Etsy. Even my Greenwich stall is starting to look a little empty.

A few pens, and still a lot more to make!

In a way it's been quite nice not to have to think too much about what to make next during my days in the workshop. Instead of, 'do I make a pendant, and what sort, or a marble?' it's 'what to make next? Another pen! And then another!' I must admit around numbers 48 to 54 I did start getting a bit fed up of making pens, however once I got into the sixties I got back on a roll again.

They are now nearly finished, and hopefully by the end of this week or start of next week I'll have them all finished and delivered (crossing my fingers and toes that the client likes them!) After that I'll get back to some normality and start making lots of new pendants and marbles for the Etsy shop and the upcoming Expos, hopefully including a few new exciting things too!

London MCM Expo May 2013

I've said it before, and I don't mind saying it again; Thank you! Thank you to everyone who came and saw us at the Expo at the Excel centre this weekend, who took time to chat to us, who bought something from us, and of course those who just looked amazing! Thank you!



Outside the Excel Centre on Saturday night 

It has to be the most amazing Expo for us yet! With wider aisles, better spacing, and more exits/entrances it was so much easier to get around this time. Of course for us Expo started months ago, with me making extras that I've been putting aside ready, mostly larger sparklier marbles! That didn't stop me from last minute panics and glass melting, and the almost expected propane tank running out on Sunday morning! The local garage had run out of canisters, but luckily a local garden centre had one of my 'emergency back-up size' in stock, so a quick dive there and I was back in business! I managed a couple more kiln fulls by Wednesday evening, including a couple of new Aliens designs too, although neither ended up being mounted as I wasn't happy with them. I did have a very few Aliens, but not as many as I would have liked to have taken.

Wednesday night and Thursday morning was all last minute packing, and 'what have I forgotton' panics, before the evening drive to London. We decided to stay over the night before this time, as it meant we didn't have the early morning start and then drive through rush hour, and we could take more time over setting up. However we were really surprised to see how many Expo-goers had already turned up too, after checking in to the hotel as soon as we walked outside saw a group of fully dressed Jedi going into the corner shop opposite! I got a very quick snap, which doesn't show they were also carrying their light sabres too! So, now you know, Nisa shops are favoured by Jedi's!




Jedi's heading to Nisa

Friday! First a tense ten minutes whilst I tried to book for the October Expo, then a hour to navigate the complex Excel loading bay system, get our passes, unload, park, then finally begin to set up! We were luckly to be on a odd end where the stall next to us had to suround their stall for security (they sold knives and swords) so it gave us a handy wall to display the few aliens I'd bought. It was great to feel rested and able to take our time to set up, but the time still flew and before I knew it they were announcing the doors opened in thirty minutes!

And then the doors were open, and after that everything became a wonderful neon blur! Lots of people to talk to, many of them who'd seen us there last May and had come back again, including one Lady who'd deliberately come along for an Alien for her birthday pressent! On Saturday it was so busy they even opened the doors ten minutes early, but the new systems kept it feeling open and not crushed. I barely got chance to take any pictures, but I did get a quick shot of the Excel on Saturday night, which had turned into a lovely sunny day. Before we knew it, it was Sunday, the Expo was over and it was time to pack away and get home for a soak in the bath, a pizza, rest, and catch up on all the boring admin I've been ignoring for the past month as I've been manically melting glass! That hasn't stopped me from starting to plan for October's Expo though......



Our stall set up ready on Friday

Birmingham Comic-Con

Well, I am back! The Etsy shop is half re-opened, I'm still tried, but still buzzing with ideas after this weekends MCM Expo at Birmingham's NEC. Instead of too much waffling I'm posting lots of photo's here that will hopefully give you a taste of the event, and the always amazing costumes that so many people put together for these Expos that transform them into such colourful events. Ellie has a smart new camera and even managed to get a video clip ( You Tube Video ) of one of the 'parades' of characters - everyone from Darth Vader, Indiana Jones, Xena, to 'Top Gears' The Stig!!! There was even a stall of an R2D2 builders club, with lots of R2D2's wandering around the venue!

A very large and very empty NEC

Home for the next two days, the last set of tables on the end of this row
 

Of course, after a three hour drive the first bit of transformation needed was the hall itself! We got there by 2pm on Friday, ready to unload and put everything together, and transform some unexciting wooden tables into our stall.


A short video of The Parade

R2D2's from the builders club, note the massing Star Wars Stormtroopers at the top right of the picture

Another R2D2, this one hiding in a corner

Fight! Fight! Plenty of chances for some mock posed super-hero/villian fights!

An unlikely group!

Birmingham, here we come! (What have I forgotten to pack?)

Well, it's been months in the planning, and then lots of last minute running around and I am still wondering what I've forgotten! It's the Birmingham MCM Comic-con this weekend, and not only the first big event of the year for me, but also the first time I've ever done this show so am not sure what to expect! Hopefully it'll all be good things, and if it's anything like the London show it'll be full of amazing outfits and really lovely people to chat too! I've got some really nice new large marbles, plus new Aliens Specimen pictures too! OH (Other Half) is on hand again to help out on the stall, and in return I've promised her a trip(s) to some of Birmingham's legendary Balti houses! Yum! As you can see from this quick snap everything is packed (I hope), I guess I've either forgotten something as it feels like this time we've got less to take, I think I've got better at packing!

 I can't wait, although I am still wondering what I've forgotten.

Ah, just remembered..... clothes, toothbrush..... I haven't packed my suitcase yet!