EllyLoo Creations-Lampwork & Jewelry

So, Lately, my glass mojo has been ‘leaking’ out.  I’ve been making spacers, and pretty beads, but nothing new that I’d go “OOoooo” over.  So I tried a tutorial that I haven’t tried since I was a brand spankin new glass girl, and sooo excited because I had been eyeing this tutorial, and always wanted to try it. 

So I allowed my mojo to mutate a bit, and I attempted another implosion.
Next time, I will be leaving the flowers off, they’re not that hot.   This is a Mandrel Wound Implosion bead.  YOu’ve seen implosions in boro pendants, in Marbles, etc, but this is with soft glass.  It involves a large disk bead, lots of dots, and lots of patience.  (I get my glass too hot, you can see how the implosions ’swirl’ around the mandrel…that’s ok, I LIKE them that way.  I also like my marshmallows burned and crispy.  Really!)

I think next time I will try silvered ivory dots.  I like how they implode.

I’ve been experimenting with Glass shards lately.  I know how to make them, however, I have no patience to practice and do them just right, and so I purchase delectable colours from Joe and Barry at Avenue Beads.  It’s been fun watching him make the shards during his webcam broadcasts for the last few months.  Also, they’re good people, those fellas.

Here are a few pictures of what I made with shards lately!  Shards are paper thin pieces of glass broken into pieces.  They’re made by blowing a bubble of glass, letting it cool, and then breaking it!  Yes. I pay money for broken glass!  Then you wrap the bead in the shard just barely touching the flame to it.  It will almost hug the glass as the heat melts it!  You can leave them raised (melting down sharp edges) or you can melt them right in flat.  These ones are melted flat, but still look like they’re raised!

Yellow is usually pretty far down on the list of colours I use most frequently.
But, as things go, I may not be able to get enough of it now!

Yellow (I can’t remember which, it’s very pale banana popsicle colour on the rod) –with silver ivory stringer dribbled on it, and then a random design of Triton, which is then reduced, to get a wonderful oilslick (I always hate using that description, it’s a gross/pretty connotation) sheen to it. It’s mostly a greenish/bluish shimmer.

I enjoy how the silvered ivory webs out to give an organic feel. That way, I can practice ‘drawing’ with triton stringer, and if it turns out not so hot, it looks organic and ‘natural’, because of the underlying silvered ivory. of course if it turns out just the way I want, the silvered ivory is still stunning.

That’s my sneaky trick, and that’s why I do a LOOOOOT of non ’specific’ design beads.

It’s aaaaaaall practice.

If you’d like to buy it here, that’s ok, if you want to buy it on my artfire, it’ll be up tomorrow morning.

Okay, so after the big Bead Oasis show, I kind of lost my ‘oomph’.  I also got that awful coughing virus, and it put me out of commission for a while.

However, I just bought some new special glass, and have some pretties to show you!  Double Helix’s Aurae, and Triton.  They both reduce to a really nifty sheen, as you’ll see!  I’ve been making big holed beads in preparation for trying out the new Nortel Bead liner, so that’s why some of these have 1/4 inch holes. 

Triton goes a mirrored silver when reduced (it does other things too, but so far, I can do the first!), if you look closely, you can see me with the camera!

Aurae is like a Fairy glass!  It reduces to a delicate golden sheen, like liquid sunlight!

This one below is an elegant beauty that has Triton in it in reduced and unreduced form.  There are a few mirror shiny spots, but unreduced, it’s the ethereal blue that you see.  It also includes silvered ivory.  I really enjoy how it turned out!

Here are some photos taken at the bead oasis of me and my booth that I shared with Jody Wieler.

I had a great time!  Thank you all of you who stopped by and said “hi!”.

Sometimes, life hurts.

Hi! I said I’d show you what I cooked up using the optic mold 2 posts ago, and here you go!

This is a striped stringer that I made. 

I plunged soft glass into the mold until it came out with a nice clean shape–and by the way, this will take a few tries!  You have to make sure the glob fits into the hole without catching, tamp it down, bring it out, melt a bit more on the rod just behind the shape you just made, fit it in again, tamp it down… etc etc… until you have a nice inch of ’shape’.  Take a stringer of whatever stripes you want, and then lay them down in the grooves.  Take another glass rod or a mandrel, and use it as a punty, attaching it to the end.  Melt it down, keeping the stripes straight, and when you have it soft enough, pause, take it out of the flame, count to 3 and pull!

Why did I make yellow on clear?  I would like to put cute little stamen in the middle of my flowers.  Here’s my first try. I decided I need more practice.  Like… I don’t like how the stringer melted a ring around itself…I’ll have to experiment more.   Anyhow, please also ignore the scorched glass, my clear clearly wasn’t cleaned right! I do the last moment “armit swipe”, hoping it’ll get most of the gunk.  But I DO like the cute little stamen it leaves behind! 

There’s another striped stringer used in this bead, can you spot it?

When I sit down to do glass, I get in touch with what I feel like. Often, if i’m in one sort of mood, and try to do a piece that doesn’t match, nothing works out.

I’m not sure about which mood matches which picture, but I know that each picture is of a style of bead that I often have to ‘feel’ before it turns out right. And after, when it’s done, it’s a big happy sigh, and I feel good about it.

 Sometimes, I guess the style represents a few moods. I mean..the bicone–it’s angular and takes some good marvering to get that shape…but the colour design is purely organic. I didn’t plan it. The dotty ones take more concentration, but I wasn’t in a ‘colour’ mood. The smooth olive shape…I wanted lots of colour, but I felt really happy about the smooth round plump shape.  I think that shape is my favourite of all the shapes I could make….the one that best fits “me”.

When something turns out right, and ‘echoes’ what I feel, it’s cathartic.

These are all available for purchase, please email me if you want one.

I’ve recently been made aware of a live webstreaming website.  Mostly people just sit and chat on the webcam with other people…I haven’t explored much, I’m too askeered of what I’ll find. BUT!  There’s this one channel where these two guys ”Joe and Barry” from Avenue beads in Chicago do their glasswork on camera!  Mostly, Joe blows Shards…but often he’ll sit down and do a bead, like this one! He loves his trees! (this is linked to his website…Joe made this, while we all watched!)

This has been my entertainment for the past few weeks!  I tune in around 9 or so, and keep him on, commenting when I feel like it, or I just lurk.  He’s got a knack for doing his glasswork and reading the computer monitor and responding to what people type, so it’s fairly interactive!  Check it out, it’s a fun time!