Marble Video

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!

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

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!

A Shower of Flowers

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!

Nature creeps in

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!

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

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!

Spring Flowers

Sometimes I spend so long thinking and working with a technique that leads to a new bead or piece of jewellery that I forget the results will go off to have a life of their own. So it was a real pleasure to get some photos from Christie at www.folksy.com/shops/Christie who bought one of my flower drops pendant beads a while back, and made this lovely necklace with it. She has managed to match the colours inside the bead really well, (although I don’t know how she has the patience to deal with stringing all those little tiny beads – that would drive me nuts!) I was just thinking of giving them a rest and trying something different, so it was great to see and spurred me on to do some more, a few of which are now in my Folksy store; www.folksy.com/shops/SteamPunkGlass The way I like to work these is quite organic, so the flowers and overall shape are never the same, making each a true original design.

Whilst I was making more of these I also ‘risked’ a couple to try a new technique, which I will showcase in the next few days when I can get some pictures taken. It’s mostly gone well, although one of the best ones cracked in the kiln (isn’t that always the way!) I think I went a bit OTT with a couple of them suddenly becoming fun sea-shell shapes as I worked them - well I was by the seaside last week, so hardly surprising!

I will be listing more soon at Folksy, I am not going to list in ETSY for a while now, as I have been rather disappointed in it of late, and I can’t devote enough time to two shops as well as the website and everything else that keeps me away from the torch.

Boro Boro!

boro flower drops
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

Another long day ding anything but glass! I've been working from home on some 'day job' stuff which has become very tedious. I just want to go and play glass! (Stamps foot!)
What has made it worse is I have two lots of very exciting glass to play with! I have some Northstar reactive glass that I swapped over at Frit Happens for a tool I don't use. It's been a while since I've used this sort of glass, it can be tricky but if I can pull it off there are loads of lovely colours that can come out of an apparently clear or beige coloured rod.
The other really exciting one is a few rods of coloured Boro (borosilicate - basically Pyrex!) I've been playing with clear for sometime to get a feel for it, but the colours are something else. Each colour acts differently, there is so much chemistry involved! I managed to get a hours play tonight, and the colours are amazing, although one bead did break in half, but it was a good try out. I still ended up going back to old favourites and did a couple of flower implosions - it's great not to have them crack near the end and not to have all stray bubbles in them I get with soft glass. I think there will be alot more of these to come!

Ah, as I sit down to do one thing, I end up doing something else! I forgot about the buttons and started making these ‘ghost’ implosion beads/drops/pendants. They copy and old glass paperweight technique of including colours into glass then getting the hot glass to drop around the outside. Difficult to describe, and tricky to do, as I realised last night as I found twenty or so early failures laying in a box. I’ve been finding them more fun in coloured glass, and the nice thing about the these transluscent inclusions is you don’t always see the flower until it’s against skin or moves and then it’s suddenly there! I’ve done some in solid colours too, but not nearly so much fun.
Of course last night’s was a little too exciting, I found a couple of rods of very pale transparent blue (like the Bombay Saffire Gin bottles) and tried a few like these. I’d just made a really lovely (if I say so myself) flourish on the loop, very ornate, when the punty (glassmakers name for a rod which holds the glass, often made of glass as well) broke and the red hot bead dropped!Well a quick bounce off my lap was ok, but it rolled under the bench, I can still move fast! Down on my hands pulling the propane hose out of the way whilst it quiety scorched into the floorboards! Managed to retrieve it but that flourish was ruinned (and the floorboard!)