Well finally I found the time to write a litlle bit about what is going on around here.

After such a long "summerbreak" lampworking in my new studio didn't go as smooth as I thought it would go.

First of all the colorcombinations...my normal routine is to choose a set of glassrods (opaque and transparent) in colors I think will make a lovely combination. After that I start pulling stringers, twisties and sometimes I will also make murrini's and when I've finished all that I finally start making the beads. However the first couple of days the colors I choose didn't seem to work at all together. The beads turned out totally dull or even plain ugly.

Secondly my skills. I almost felt like starting all over again, I had to reinvent the hole stringer/twisty-routine again, wasn't able to make some kind of beadset.

So after two days I started getting a bit grumpy and started thinking about what I was doing wrong and why thinks didn't work out. My conclusion was that since I wasn't able to light my torch for a long time, but in the meantime did see a lot of lovely and inspiring lampwork on the internet, too many ideas and techniques were stored in my head which resulted in blocking my creative fun. So the next day I allowed myself to just play and connect with the glass again. I didn't plan something, just grabbed some black and whiteglassrods and some of my favorite blues and greens and started pulling stringers and placing dots.

Apparently that did the trick because that day I made this:

And since that I made these:

The first set I sold already and the last two are on Ebay at the moment.

This particular set could really make my day because of the gorgious rich colors. Yummie bright pink and rich oranges provided by the combinations and layering of goldpink/rubino and opalyellow/rubino on a grey base with lines in coppergreen and dots in white, opal yellow, coppergreen and pink.

However this particular set makes me really sad :(

In the past I have used Kugler grey with white, rubino and EDP (Evil Defitrifying Purple) which resulted is some lovely beads. It has the same COE (104) as Moretti and so it should be compatible but... In this particular set the rubino/opal yellow/goldpink doesn't seem to like the grey base so much because most beads have superficial cracks in some of the rubino parts.

When I first noticed a few of these beads having cracks, I thought I didn't warm them enough before putting them in the kiln and since I was planning to list these on E-bay, I decided to make some new ones to replace those with cracks. However every day I see more cracks appear and they even appear in the new ones. And so although these beads (made with very expensive glasses) really make my day colorwise they also make me very sad.

I want to sell top quality and therefore these "beauties" will not be for sale.

Remember these:

I was so happy to sell these on Ebay for a reasonable price but unfortunately they got lost in the mail between here and the buyer in Spain. I feel so sad about it because there is so much of myself going into these beads. I guess now the price will not be as good as I though because I can't let my customer down now can I. So I have to figure out wether or not I shall refund or try to make another similar set.

Today I listed some new beads on E-bay...all made with some of my most favorite colors.

Blueballs

a combination of light skyblue, light and dark periwinkle and powderpink, decorated with lines, swirls and layered dots and matching spacers.

Grasshoppers

A gorgeous green from CiM which is beautifully bright and transparent grassgreen from Moretti, decorated with lines, curls and dots using periwinkle and opal yellow,.

LOLLIPOP

A large handformed flat focal made using with Light sky blue, light transparent blue and opal yellow, decorated with handmade murrinis trapped inside the transparent glass, lines, layered dots in brown, yellow and light sky blue and a trail of bright orange raised dots.