Worry Stones

When I was little I was a real worrier.  My innocent, over active imagination would worry up ridiculously impossible scenarios. So, one day I bought some 'worry dolls'.  Every night I would whisper my worries to them and tuck those fears tightly away under my pillow.  Admittedly,  I did worry that I had missed out some crucial information when passing on my worries but I liked having a quirky little way to settle my childhood anxieties before bed time.  It was this memory that led me to create worry stones.  I created five different coloured fused glass stones, each one for something different.  Green for health, yellow for happiness, pink for love, blue for protection and purple for harmony.  I got my mum to pen a cute little poem to go with them and they come in a little velvet pouch.  They have proved popular with kids or as a quirky little gift for a worrisome adults.  Check them out on my etsy page >here<

An update on the kerplunk! bowl

So I fused the strips together.  They fused nicely  and the thickness of the strips was just right but it looked a bit sparse.  I could have done with a few more strips of glass.

 I knew it wouldn't  look great after I saw the full fuse because it'd need more pieces to fill it out and make it look more bowl like but I slumped it anyway.  That's the thing with glass and kiln work, it's always a bit of an experiment and you never know for sure how things will turn out. 

I'm not completely disappointed with the outcome but its not as nice as I'd pictured it in my head.  I thought it'd be a bit larger and really edgy looking.  It's a nice bowl though with it's own little quirks.  It'd make a nice candleholder for a big church candle.  I've put it up on my etsy page so if you do fancy a charming little display bowl or candle holder, click here.  It could do with a loving home ;-)

World's Worst Blogger...

Yep, that award goes to me!
So I've been a bit absent on the blog front lately.  I aplogise to anyone on here who actually follows my blog.  I've been ill for about a month and so I've not got round to doing much and have neglected my poor little blog.  I promise to make more of an effort from now on!  An update for all you lovely people tho; with the help of my dad and boyfriend, I have managed to make progress with that damn mould that was proving rather difficult to make.  Pics coming soon! Yay!

A poor workman...

I'm well aware of the phrase 'a poor workman blames his tools' (or something to that effect), but I'm gonna go ahead and do that right now.  Today I  had to chuck out my shabby old wallpaper table I've been working on for months. It was in a terrible state. It was wonky and leaning backwards and the water from my bandsaw had ran down all the back of it, causing it to rot. It was gonna give way at any moment. I have today learnt the importance of the correct tools, especially in business.  I don't quite know how I have been working on it for so long after seeing the state of it today.  I now have the tedious task of sorting out my mountain of glass in my studio tomorrow.  Hmm, should be fun....

The kindness of strangers

A couple of weeks ago whilst at a craft fair I met a very nice man.  He makes walking sticks and attends the  fairs on a regular basis.   He is a wise and worldly man who was taken by my lovespoons and jewellery.  He talked to me about a coffee shop in Bute park, Cardiff named Pettigrew's Tea Rooms and said they have a gift shop that I should try and get my stuff into.  Well, last night I was taken aback when this man rang me telling me he had spoken to the owner of the tea rooms and told him about me and my products and the owner was interested.  I went to the coffee shop this morning with some samples of my work and they now want some of my spoons and necklaces for their shop!  I did not expect that lovely man to go out of his way to mention me and promote my stuff to somebody else and it's these simple acts in life that really restore my faith in the human race.  It was a small yet thoughtful gesture and I am very grateful to that kind gent.  It's true when they say 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'.

Getting there....

I'm advancing in my quest to make my mould.  I've made a plaster slip mould and I'm now onto the next stage of figuring out this slip casting business.  I've hit a bit of a wall at the moment as I'm struggling to get my clay to dry enough for me to get it out of my mould but I'm definately making steps in the right direction. Yay!

Just a little scratch....

I had a stall in Caerphilly Castle a little while back.  When you have a stall there you're allowed to drive your car on site to unload.  I used to like doing this cos it made me feel important.  I don't anymore!

It's a tight squeeze manoeuvring through the historic monument that was very obviously not built for cars.  At one point I had to do a three point turn to let another car out and that 's when disaster struck and I accidentally scraped my car on a low iron fence.  As I started reversing a heard a big 'eeeeeee' noise that left a real hideous scratch on my car.  It wasn't the best start to my weekend but luckily it wasn't an indicator to my time at the castle and I had a good time there.

A Latex-plosion

My latex mould worked out well.  I've made a couple of wax models out of it but I decided I wanted to make a model out of lead so it would be more solid.  My dad's a keen fisherman and makes his own lead weights so I enlisted his help in my mould making quest.

Off we went into the garage and melted the lead in an old battered saucepan over a tiny camp stove.  I set my mould down on the floor and watched as my dad poured the lead.  I don't know why I thought pouring molten lead into a latex mould would work, needless to say, it didn't!  The lead bubbled and spat as it melted away the latex leaving a shiny mirror like puddle on the garage floor.  I think this is what you may call an epic fail!

Spoon Update

So it turns out it wasn't the alcohol causing the marks.  I think it was caused by grinder markings and because I was rushing a bit, instead of giving them a proper wash I was just wiping with alcohol and not giving a good scrub which didn't clean them up as much as they needed to be.  But I've had a few come up clean nowvso, fingers crossed, I can salvage the others :)

Warning! Alcohol is bad for you!

I've been up and filling my kiln up at 6am most mornings this week.  I've got a couple of lovespoon orders to get through and things just seem to be going wrong.   I did a batch of six spoons that I wanted to get done as soon as possible.  I'd cut them all out and thought they were going to turn out good.  In my attempts to try and speed things up a bit I thought to myself  'alcohol is drying, I'll clean them up with that before I put them in the kiln' So I put a bit of isopropynol on them.  Big mistake. It left a residue on them that even after dremmelling it off and refiring twice again didn't get it off, wasted my time, effort and money and generally caused me a whole load of stress.  The moral of the story; don't use alcohol! It is bad for you!!