Going Tribal!

Having alot of fun making patterns and marvering bicones. I made quite a few and my shapes are getting better--yay!!
Here is one of my favorites from the session....

Set Goal

I cannot for the life of me make sets consistently. I have tried and I do have some sets here and there, but cannot do them on demand. That is why I want to set it up here(pun intended) and now to discipline myself and focus on sets til I have this skill under my wing.
Just so I won't drive myself crazy in the process, I am going to limit the goal to half a set per session or 2 matching beads for sessions around/under 2 hours.
The sets shall be 5 to 7 beads, with or without spacers.
There, I said it! Let it be known throughout the land!

I got a tattoo!!!

Last night, Hubby and I were busy doing our hobbies til the wee hours. I stopped before my usual midnight/1am shutdown to be ready for a full day on Saturday. Went over to see what the Hubs was up to and he was sketching and having a snoot.
We talked for a few minutes and he casually doodled on my arm. It's a normal thing for us and it was around my tricep area, so I just waited for him to finish(he was fast--about 1 minute!).
I tried to peek, but had to go to the mirror to see what he drew.....PUNKED by the Hubby!!! And with one of those permanent India ink pens!!!!!!
But man, he draws so well I couldn't be mad!!
OK sweets, it is on--you better not ever go to sleep...nyar nyar!! >:-D....

More Kugler/ASK fun

More fun with Kugler/ASK and silver....the reactions are so pretty! 
This bead is one of my favorites of today's batch.

Olive, Silver Rattan, Turquoise Ivory and Gaia...

Kugler Stringer test for Compatibility

I did some stringer compatibility tests for a couple of the Kugler 104 line colors. The stringer test is fairly simple and is not entirely accurate but gives a quick result. The more compatible the two colors are, the straighter the stringer. The boro/Moretti stringer bent so much that it shattered into many pieces.

Some fun with Psyche....

Pulled out the ol' Double Helix Psyche and had a blast--it never fails to amaze me how many different reactions you can get with this glass. It is one of my all time favorite 104 silver glasses!

ASK Glass

This bead is almost all ASK glass with the exception of the dot of Double Helix Kronos for the heart and Effetre Black near he ends. This bead luckily survived. Other beads that had a mix of Effetre, Double Helix silver glass and ASK had varying results. Some cracked, some didn't. The smaller beads had a larger chance of surviving.....
This glass is so pretty--the way it reacts with other glass and with the silver glass. I have read that Arrow Springs not only had problems with the clear being compatible, but also some batches of certain colors. This makes it important to test each batch of Kugler before using it in a bead, or heartache and money/time will be lost. Wish all glass was compatible with each other--wouldn't that be cool to be able to mix boro and soda lime? :-D
Ahhh....at least I can dream....

Prince Rupert's Drops

One of the coolest videos on glass is the demo on the Prince Rupert's Drop. Molten glass is allowed to drop into a bucket of water and cool to hardness. Once cooled, the drop can be hammered and it will not break. But, if the tail of the drop is broken, the stress in the glass is instantly released and the drop disintegrates into powder. Cool!!

Silver glass love

Whether it's boro or soda lime, silver glass is fun! Colors dance and swirl over the surface and depending on how much heat, O2, time and glass you use..... you will get different effects...it is endlessly intriguing!!

Kugler Beadmaking 104 versus ASK 104 glass

I ordered a bit of the Kugler to test against my ASK glass and it should arrive either today or tomorrow. There is confusion about what happened with the deal between Kugler and Arrow Springs and whether the copyright is for the name or the glass recipe. One thing for sure, some of the colors are so beautiful it would be a shame not to have them any more.

I have a tough choice-- if I want to continue using this glass I need to buy the Kugler when I run out of the ASK......BUT, now I hear that Arrow Springs got stuck with 20,000 pounds of unusable Kugler clear glass rods when Kugler refused to recall it(at around $30/pound,that is alot to have to eat...)....not good......I can't buy from a company that would do that.....

Sigh....I gotta think about this...I may boycott buying the B-line of Kugler in support of Arrow Springs.....it's a tough choice and I have to find out more of the story behind it. I don't know if I could stop ordering the K line.....such pretty color! Oh my....

Well, the package arrived and some of the colors are identical. Silver Cinnamon looks like Silver Rattan on the outside, but the core looks like the dark cinnamon color in the ASK glass. This batch of Silver Rattan looks more beige(like Effetre Sage Premium) than the gorgeous bamboo color of the past pulls. I am sure it will look very similar once melted....

Desert Chameleon or tobacco, is more transparent in this pull. When heated, it does goes transluscent/opaque and looks just like the old batch. 

The Olive is identical to the rods sold as ASK. The color is lighter than the first pull of Olive which was absolutely stunning. When reduced, the color darkens a bit , but not like the old batch.

Pink Lady Slippers is lighter than the rods I have from a previous batch. 

Mystic Grey rods are gorgeous! Slightly more bluish. It remains to be seen how it will look once melted, but the rods at least are beautiful!

Caramel Apple looks very close to Silver Rattan--that beigy look, but it is slightly more yellow in the rods. 

New Colors:

Light Sand Brown-- The rods look ivory and when encased, remains ivory.....I used it with silver colors and it appears a dusty red sand color--looks very much like when silver hits Vetro Seashell pink....it gets a thin surface brown webbing....

Dark Sand Brown-similar to all the other silver browns....looks like Vetro Lime Sweet in rod form, but when melted as very close to rattan....

My Orange Crush--looks like what you would expect opaque orange to look like

Black Mirror--just looks black--I need to melt it to see :-)

Smokey grey--A pretty neutral grey transparent in the rod form. On the website it looks opaque. Unannealed test beads are grey transparent. Annealed, the grey is a very dark brown--almost an olive brown. In normal light, it is almost black.

Gold and silver fume

A new test for gold and silver fume--why not use them together?

Here is the result. The pink, orange and green is from gold, and the blue is from the silver....

yikes that is alot of bubbles! Gotta work cooler next time!