Rolling Along and Painting with Fire

I am just back from a vacation with my Mom, two sisters and my youngest son. My Mom and two sisters have happily finished their radiation and/or chemotherapy treatments and all are doing very well. I saw this trip as a celebration of our lives and our health. I am happy to have those treatments behind us. It is not easy watching your loved ones deal with the side effects but I was also pleased to see that cancer treatments have come such a long way. I encourage you to support your favorite breast cancer research foundation. It is important to all of us.

My sisters and I sitting on top of 4 feet of shells washed ashore by Hurricane Sandy

My sister Pat, myself and my Mom

We, as a family, are lucky to regularly visit the West Coast of sunny Florida; palm trees and beaches, my favorite place to be. This trip had a special side trip in it for me. I was an hour drive from Barbara Lewis' new store Painting with Fire in St. Petersburg. Definitely put that trip on the agenda!

Photo from Painting with Fire website (I forgot to take a photo!)

What a joy it was to meet Barbara. She is definitely a kind hearted soul. (Again I forgot to get a photo with her). She dropped everything she was doing to chat with me, give a demo and even allowed me to enamel a couple of beads (should've had one of my sisters take a photo of this!). I explained to her the trouble I have had in removing the bead from the mandrel after it has been enameled. She gave a mini private lesson so now I should have no trouble making enamel beads. Thank you Barbara, I am looking forward to trying this technique out in my studio.

The two beads on top are from Barbara's demo. The bottom two are from my mini lesson.

Of course I shopped too. Barbara's store is full of goodies. I had to refrain from overspending. There was so much good stuff. The shop has everything you might need without feeling crowded. The shop is very comfortable but not lacking for any supplies. In addition to a great stock of enamels, plenty of beads to enamel there was nice variety of metal working supplies. I picked up some jewelers saw blades, a trivet for enameling metals on a flat surface, metal beads to enamel and some sari silk.

Metal beads to enamel

Sari Silks

Ribbed beads to be enameled

The whole stash! The trivet is in there, buried under the silks.

I didn't waste anytime putting those silks to use. I am trying out some new styles.

The Power of OM necklace by Ema K designs

Sari Earrings by Ema K designs

The Power of OM set

Boho Sari Heart by Ema K designs

I will be listing these pieces in my Etsy shop soon or you can visit Ema K designs on Facebook to find these pieces. What do you think of this new design style? I would love to know your thoughts. I know I had plenty of fun visiting Barbara and her shop. If you get the chance you should definitely stop in to meet Barbara.

One World One Heart 2011 WINNERS

AND THE WINNERS ARE......
The winners of my One World One Heart 2011 giveaway are numbers 20 and 71.
Robin of the blog a Robins Nest. 
Connie of Concetta Williams on Etsy.

Robin has won....the enameled tree pendant

Connie has won....an enameled tree bead

I also participated in OWOH on the Fire Divas Blog and the winner of that giveaway is Trisha too of Easily Amused. This is the pendant she won.

I send out many thanks to Lisa of the Whimsical Bohemian for the enormous task of she undertook spear heading this event. I have made many friends world wide. I would have never met so many fantastic people without the OWOH event.

Congratulations to all the winners!

As always, thanks for stopping by.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Transitions ... from shirt to bead

My son found this t-shirt on line. I purchased it for him for Christmas. When it arrived I was wishing I had bought one for myself. I love this t-shirt!!! I still could buy one and so can you if you want. You can find the Transitions t-shirt right here on shirt.woot. The problem is I'm not a huge fan of t-shirts. Those necklines feel like they are strangling me and drive me nuts all day.

Now if you have been following my blog you will have noticed that I am hooked on making tree silhouettes. It was a natural transition for me to turn this t-shirt into a tree bead. I love it!!!

Transitions by Ema K on Etsy

Now maybe I won't keep threatening to steal my son's t-shirt or maybe I will because I have listed this bead in my Etsy shop. He better watch out. :D

How Long Does it Take to Make a Bead?

How long does it take to make a bead?
This is a question I am asked often when I am selling my work at a show. It is difficult to answer simply. It depends on the style and the amount of detail in a particular bead.

However, at a recent show I had a customer, who has just begun to learn the process of lampworking. She called her husband over and explained in detail how I make one of my bejeweled beads.

She and I began talking and she brought up the point of how people often ask how long it takes to make a bead. She informed me that this is the wrong question to ask. The question should be, "How many YEARS did it take to get to the point that you can make this bead?"

I have been thinking about that statement and have come to realize how absolutely right on topic this statement is. I have been lampworking for more than 5 years now. It took me four years to develop the stringer control necessary to place so many dots in just the right spot to create the bejeweled beads that I consider good enough to sell. I continue to work on my stringer control because I love to draw on beads, as in my OM beads, enameled hearts, or my butterfly beads. Some days the control is better than others, so the skill is still developing.

My Fire Diva friend, Lauren of Maybeads wrote a blog which inspired me to write my story. Stop by Lauren's blog to see some of her very first beads.

My Etsy shop

Om Inspired

I love to know where an artists inspiration comes from. It is something that I find fascinating. Back in my quilting days I knew a quilter who once told me she finds inspiration for a quilt everywhere she looks. It occurred to me at that time that I did not completely understand that. I did not feel that way about my quilts. I was more inspired by a fabric or a quilt pattern, which I thought was rather simple and boring of me.

Since my discovery of lampworking I can now say I completely understand that statement. I am inspired by everything. Every shape, color, pattern, nature in particular, gets my mind rolling with excitement and I begin to think, "how can I translate that into glass?" It is truly an exciting place to be. The only problem is that I have so many ideas sometimes it can take quite some time for these ideas to actually come to fruition and be seen in glass. I have a couple of sketch pads which I always draw out my ideas. I refer back to these images and notes when the time comes to take these ideas to the torch or if I need a kick in the inspirational pants.

My fellow Fire Diva (read the Divas blog), Janel, writes a blog for Art Bead Scene. She put out a call to other Fire Divas (Become a fan on Facebook) for OM beads. I have been wanting to make OM beads for sometime but for reasons unknown to me I simply never did. Of course when I read Janel's post my brain began to light up and excitement built. A day at the torch produced some OM beads and left me feeling satisfied. Another idea finally made it to the finished stage in glass. I'm sure I will make more of these but for the time being the artist is me is feeling satisfied. That is a happy place to be.

You can find these beads for sale in my Etsy Shop and my Artfire shop.