Kilnforming Glass Coasters, Sept 25, 2013

My friend and I took kilnforming glass coaster class at Bullseye Resource Center in Portland.
We made 4x4 inches (four coasters) each. The technique was using pre-exposed screens and powdered glasses in range of colors.
I picked my base colors white for all 4 coasters. Then I picked the screen pattern shaped like cherry blossom branch and used different color powder glass for each coasters : Dark blue, light blue, green and red.

Here is before picture:

4 cherry blossom branch coasters, Sept25,13

The template that I used

Finished Coasters, Sept 30,2 013

Penguins practices, Sept29,13

I wanted to practice making more penguins so I spent my rainy day yesterday: 6 of them plus 1 more lady bug with brighter red (the bottom one).

Some of the penguins turned out cute, some were bleh...

7 penguins, Sept29,13

Lady bugs, Sept29,13

Dolphin Stained Glass

I made this dolphin stained glass for my close friend Alexa, who loves dolphin. Or maybe it was her daughter who loves dolphin. Either way, I thought it would be a nice addition to her house.
I made this project earlier with the rabbit stained glass, but last night, I decided to finish it together with the rabbit. This is posted on September 28, 2013, although I finish this on August 16, 2013 (because I know she reads this blog so I post this later).

Happy Birthday, Alexa!!!!

Alexa's Dolphin Stained Glass, August 15, 2013

Glass Blowing Pumpkins, Sept 21, 2013

I went to Live Laugh Love Glass, my favorite glass studio to take Pumpkin Palooza class last Thursday, Sept 19, 2013. I had a great time as always, making 2 bigger pumpkins and 1 smaller one, to welcome the beginning of Autumn.

I picked them up today and here they are... my pumpkin glass fest!!

Glassblowing Pumpkins, Sept 21, 2013

4 Flower Beads made this week, Sep13,13

I had so much fun making the flower beads last week so I decided to make some more in different colors.
I'm not sure what rod color I used for the greenish/brownish flower but it turned out to be cute.
Can't wait to make so many other colors of flowers.

4 flower beads, Sept13,13

Beads I made yesterday, Sep7,13

I decided to make a couple of flower beads yesterday. I haven't done any torching for the last few weeks because of big stained glass project. Now that that's done (I'll post it on December before I will go on vacation to Indonesia), I was able to relax and practice torching beads again. Yeay!!

I made 2 of flower beads, a snowman with pink scarf (ofcourse.. I love pink), and a tiny lentil bead with flower pattern bead press.

So, here are the beads I made yesterday.

2 flower beads, pink scarf snowman and flower bead-press bead, Sept7,13

White kitty Stained Glass Suncatcher, July 25, 2013

I made this special white kitty stained glass suncatcher for my friend, who will have her birthday in early September. I know it's way too early to make this, but I saw this little kitty pattern and got too excited, so I started and finished early. Now that it's done, I can relax a bit.

My friend has a white cat at her home so I chose white as the cat's color. And she loves orange color, so the ribbon has some orange in it.
I hope she likes the gift I made for her.

Happy Birthday, Atsuko..

White cat stained Glass Suncatcher, Jul25,13

Atsuko with the white cat, Sep1,13

Beads made on August 21, 2013

I wanted to play around with dichroic, so I made a bead with dichroic strips around it.
I also used reduction frit cobalt blue bead and finally played around trying to make flower, but didn't look too good. Love the pink though.

Beads made on August 21, 2013

2 snowmen and beads I made on August 15, 2013

I made a couple more snowmen beads for fun last night, plus few beads using stringers.
Tried to make flowers and feather look..

Beads made on Aug15,13

Rabbit Stained Glass suncatcher

We are invited to house warming of my ex-next door neighbor's new house next weekend.
I didn't know what to give or bring. Since I know they love rabbit and collecting rabbit things,
I decided to make rabbit stained glass for them.

I hope they like the rabbit. I tried not to make it too "girly", so I put blue ribbon on him :)

Rabbit stained glass, August 15,2013

Snowman with matching hats, Aug 10, 2013

I thought I would try making snowman's hats by myself. So I played around yesterday.
But, somehow although the hat matches with the scarf, I don't really like it as much.
But, surely it was fun and I'm so loving these little snowmen..

Snowmen with matching hats, Aug 10, 2013

Beads made on August 7, 2013

I got very excited because I wanted to try making snowman beads, which I plan to make it as Christmas gifts. Since I've never done that before, I decided to practice from last night.

Here are the beads I made last night: 2 snowman (1 is better than the first one), clear blue bead with feather murrini made by John Rizzi, pink bead base with California poppy frit made by ValCrox frits, and finally heart shaped bead.

Beads made on August 7, 2013

And one of the snowman bead dressed up with his hat. I only have this color "flower bead" which I turned it upside down. I can get different color hat, maybe red to make it more "Christmas-y".

Snowman bead, August 7, 2013

Beads made on July 24, 2013

These are the beads I made yesterday. I had trouble with mapp gas and hothead so I had to stop during the torching and kept trying to restart it.

I wanted to practice using stringers so here they are:

Played with stringers, beads made on Jul 24, 2013

Lotus Stained Glass Fan Lamp

I really enjoy working on fan lamp stained glass. It's unique and I decided to make one for my small office room. I chose to make Lotus flower and tried to use copper patina for the first time.

Lotus Fan Lamp Stained Glass, Jul23,13

And here how it looks like with light on, together with my rose fan lamp.

Lotus and Rose Fan Lamp Stained Glass, Jul23,13

Lotus Stianed glass fan lamp made it to new home at my work, Jul 24,13

Beads made on July 19, 2013

After few weeks of not torching, because I was focusing on beading Chinese Phoenix Robe. I will put up the blog about that at the end once I finish the whole costume. I finished the front side robe 5 days ago (70 days total) and now working on the back side.

I missed torching so much so last night I decided to make few beads to practice.
I used black bead and raku frit swirl on the first bead, adding blue on both tips.
On the second bead, I leaned how to use dichroic strip. Third bead I used bullseye green transparent rod and bullseye green heart murrini. And finally, I learned to use stringer to draw some flowers, although they don't look like roses yet.

Beads made on July 19, 2013

2 Rose Stained Glass

I decided to make 2 stained glass projects at once. Never done that before but I thought it would save me time to do them together.

I was requested to make a rose theme simple stained glass for my friend few months back, for her husband's birthday. So, here is the result of it, only used 10 pieces of glass.

Stained glass for Denny's birthday, Jul7,13

Then I've always wanted to make another fan lamp stained glass for myself, also rose theme. So, here is the one I made for myself. It uses 32 pieces of glass and a lot more tedious and a very long process, but I love how soft and romantic it looks.

Rose stained glass fan lamp for myself, Jul7,13

Beads made on July 5, 2013

I practiced making flower bead again and a lot better this time, although discoloration occur during torching.
I also tried to make "dragonfly" on a bead, turned out not so bad.. although kind of "drunk" looking dragonfly.

Here they are:

Dragonfly, flower and rose beads, July 5, 13

Beads made on July 4, 2013

Update for the tray'n go giveaway result: I won the competition. Thank you so much for all of your votes and supports.

After a week of not torching due to having asthma, I practiced again yesterday and made 4 beads.

I practiced using murrini on the first 2 beads, adding aventurine and stringer decoration on second bead.

The third bead I used raku frit and also aventurine on both ends of the bead. And finally, I used stringer and raked it on the last blue bead then add cobalt blue rod color on one end of the bead.

I love how the beads turned out.. 

On that note, HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!

Beads made Jul4,13

Vote for me, please

If you are on Facebook, I submitted an entry to win Bead N' Go tray at bead-patterns page.
Could you vote me by clicking "Like" on Facebook,  please? The "likes" will be counted by June 29, 2013.

Here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151435665126765&set=a.10151435124311765.1073741829.208019666764&type=3&theater

Thank you

Heart and triangle beads

I wanted to practice more with heart beads, so yesterday I made another one of black-yellow striped heart bead, and purplish twisted heart off mandrel bead, using stringer made dots and then cut it into heart-shaped, and finally triangle bead with clear encasing. Still not perfect, but slowly I'm learning to do better and better encasing technique.

Twisted, stringer, regular hearts and triangle beads, June22,13

Glass Flowers, June 20, 2013

I took another learning opportunity at my favorite place Live Laugh Love glass to make glass flowers for the last Tuesdays after work.
I made the first two flowers (Pink and Red) with straight stems last week and two days ago I made the other two (Yellow and Blue) with twisty stems.
Such a fun experience. Jessie, the instructor, even let me do my own gather.

4 glass flowers, Jun20,13

Heart and frit beads, June 18, 13

Last night I decided to try another heart-shaped beads. I tried with bi-color pink rod from Devardi glass and Effetre glass in blue. They turned out better than I thought.
I also played around with Effetre earth color mixed with frit, which turned into silvery color, very pretty.
And finally I used Val-cox frit (groovy swirl) on white bead.

Heart and frit beads, June18,13

Beads made on June 16, 2013

The learning continues.
I wanted to keep practicing encasing bead inside clear rod and this time for the first time, I did it.
I also wanted to do different sculpted beads so I made heart shaped bead and flower. I was too afraid to put more than 4 petals because I thought it would touch each other, so I only made 4 petals. Next time I'll try slowly to make bigger and more petals as I feel more and more comfortable.
And finally, I put murrini into clear bead.

Flower, heart, encased and murrini beads, June16,13

Learned to encase and flower beads

I wanted to practice to encase beads with clear coating of glass, so I practiced 3 beads last night.
They turned out little better than previous ones, but I still need A LOT of practice.
I also wanted to practice to put raised flowers on the bead and it turned out ok; still need to control dots on the bead to make it universal size. And finally, I practiced to make flower. I plan to practice this more and more because I like how it looks, just I pushed it too hard on the mandrel when I tried to take it off and the petals came off.

Encasing and flower beads, Jun14,13

Eyes and murrini beads, Jun9,13

I practiced making dots because I wanted to learn to make eyes.
So this morning, I made with yellow transparent and green transparent beads. Still not perfect, but will practiced some more.

I also practiced putting murrini into bead again and it went well. I used transparent orange bead base and orange murrini. Also, black and white bead base color with blue flower murrini.
And finally, I used the same transparent green rod for base color bead and used devardi blue frit reduction.
Didn't show the color very well.

Beads made on June 9, 2013

Beads made on June 8, 2013 (Saturday)

Since it's Saturday, I had more time to play around making beads.

I learned to use pink whilrwind murrini (bottom bead), making dots with aventurine stringers,

put gold pixie dust on pink and red rod and finally making flower on the bead. 

Felt really happy with the result.

Beads torched on June 6, 2013

More practicing after busy week with boys' activities last night.
Here are the beads I made (from left to right):

1. White base bead and I put dots and wave line using stringers
2. I used bullseye green copper rod in the middle and added white on each side of the bead,
    and made some swirl
3. I learned to put murrinis on the white bead, put dots and swirled the dots to create wavy flower.
4. I encased the same bullseye green copper rod with clear glass
5. I learned to make flowers using stringers on dark brown base bead.

Frit beads, June 1, 2013

I wanted to learn to use frits on my beads. I used 2 blends of frits from that Frit girl called "Peacocks in full bloom" (blue ones) and "Kalera's Romance Blend 3" (brownish ones).

I put frits on white rod. I swirl the first bead on the left, then added white on either side of it.
The second bead, after putting the frit bead on the mandrel, I encased it with clear rod.
The third bead I put the frit on, then twist it. And finally, I swirl the frit on the bead.

Peacocks and Kalera's frit, June1,13

Bamboo Fan Light Stained Glass

This is bamboo pattern stained glass that I made for my friend's birthday, today. I bought a lighted fan based for it.
It's my first stained glass project that uses the most pieces : 32 pieces. I want it to look soothing, so I didn't use so many colors on this lamp.

Bamboo Fan after foiling, April 30, 2013

Bamboo Fan Light, May 2, 2013

Few black and Green Beads, May 30, 2013

I practiced making different shapes of beads last night. Donut, round, barrel and square shape beads.
I also practiced using frit and stringers. I used the rods from Devardi Glass, frit from "That Frit Girl" called Kalera's Romance blend, Aventurine rod from Devardi glass for the dots and stringer from Avenue Beads.

Here are the results.. need to do more practicing.

Black, Green beads, May 30, 13