Chinese Tiger Tapestry, May 4, 2013

I discovered this beautiful pattern from my favorite beader Sigrid Wynne-Evans last year.
Her patterns are available at http://beadedbear.com/

Last Christmas, during my parents' visit here, they wanted me to make them a bead tapestry and I fell in love with this pattern.
I've started beading this on January 17, 2013 and took me 107 days to finish this. During the 3.5 month period, I learned glass blowing, stained glass and my last passion: lampworking, so I wasn't always beading this.

This lucky Tiger tapestry will go to Indonesia this Summer, where my parents live and hopefully will brighten their days, as much as brighten my days knowing it'll be in good hand.

This tapestry measures 9.3 x 15.20 inches (23.6 x 38.6 cm). It uses 39 colors. done in Peyote stitch, for the total of 42,408 delica 11/0 beads.

Chinese Tiger tapestry, May 4, 2013

Beads made on May 2, 2013

I was experimenting with brickwood color glass rod from Bullseye (brown one) and it turned out beautiful. Someday I'll make bunch of these and make it into necklace or something.

I also tried the light pink with dark pink pattern on top which turned out beautiful (ofcourse it's because I love pink). The 2 blacks are not doing so well. The plain black was supposed to be shiny black with AB colors showing up, but I didn't do it right so it turned into just plain black.
The other black I put flower patterns and encased it with clear, but I ran out of propane, so this one was just half way done.. oh well..

Beads made on May 2, 2013

Pastel Pink and Purple Beads, May 1, 2013

I wanted to learn making perfect donut-shaped beads last night, also I want to try different kind of pink color rods. So, I made 5 different pink-color rods and put few white dots on all of them.

This morning, when all beads are annealed, I tried to take them off the mandrels. Out of 5 beads, 3 of them shattered when I pulled them off. I found out that I forgot to put the tip of the mandrels on the flame so the bead release didn't crumbled. :(  It's ok. It's part of learning curve.

So, here they are: 1 pink and 1 purple pastel beads.

Pastel Pink and Purple Beads, May 1, 2013

Beads made on April 29, 2013

Because my son chose to go to his archery class the next day, I was able to do some torching last night.

I wanted to experience with black background, white dots and then cover the dots with transparent colors. Turned out not bad. I also made black base with aventurine rod and turned out ok. 

I tried transparent blue with dichroic frit, but didn't want to stick to the glass too much.

And finally, clear with white stripes and frit. The clear could never melt because it was too stiff.

But, all in all, the beads turned out good.

Beads made on April 29, 2013

First Beads Made by my HotHead Torch

I was very very happy when I got my torch bracket in the mail on my birthday.
As soon as I got home, I fired up my kiln, screwed my bracket on the table and started torching.
It was harder than I thought and I was too nervous, especially how to start the torch.
I made a couple of beads (which by the way 1 cracked, 2 shattered and 1 was ok but lost the lustered color because I worked on it too much in the flame).

1st batch from left to right: lost its luster, cracked, the last 2 on the right: shattered :(, made Apr25,13

2nd Batch: much better, Apr26,13

3rd batch made on Apr27,13.. even better

Lampwork preparation place almost completed

This weekend, we've set up the lampwork area where I'll be working at (my basement/family room), right beside the table where I'm doing my stained glass. I've got all the basic kit, mostly from Devardi glass and Bead Annealing kiln Paragon Bluebird Jr. So, we fireproofed the desk by getting few metal sheets and tile to put under the bead warmer, screws, and 2 bottles of propane to start.

The only problem was, I bought the wrong torch bracket. The one that came was to use with hose propane, while I decided not to use any hose or bulk propane. I'll just be using 1 lb propane each time.

So, little more delay because I need to exchange the brackets. But, I'll be patience.

The lampwork table right beside the stained glass table

My lampwork table all fireproofed

The bead kiln has been moved to inside the fireplace

The Beginning of Lampworking studio at home

After I took 2 classes using torch at my favorite glass place: Live Laugh Love Glass, I fell in love with lampworking. I started gathering information, researching, and finding great websites and books to learn more and more. I decided to do it at home but my house is not cut out for torch that uses Oxygen and Propane. So, I decided to do the lampworking using the most economical way of Hot Head torch, which only uses propane; in this case I'll only use 1 lb propane, which is the safest way.

I started gathering beginner's kits and kiln and this weekend we'll start fireproofing the area where I'll be working at. For now, the only ventilation I'll have is 3 open windows: 2 in front of me and 1 from across the room, so it'll do for now until we'll get the better ventilation system.

I'm so excited, though a little bit nervous of starting another new hobby. I love glass, I love torches, I love beads and I love detailed work, so this hobby is such a perfect combination for me.

So, here are the things that I gathered so far:

Paragon Bluebird Jr. Kiln

Glass Rods warmer, Hot Head torch, Tools (from Devardi glass)

Glass rods (from Devardi glass)

Beads made by torch

I went to second torch class for making beads last Tuesday. It was so much fun although little bit overwhelming with so many technicality, angles, name of tools, glass rods.. etc. WOW!!
I experienced how I let the glass too long away from the torch and got little bit too cool so when I tried to put stringer on it, little glasses jumped all over. Pheww!!
At the end, these 4 beads are what I made. Not so bad for the first time bead-making me.
Can't wait to make more beads. I think they will start renting the studio hour so I can make my own beads.

Beads made by torch, Mar26,13

Pink glass flower pendant made by torch

I've learned something new!! This time I learned to use torch to make glass pendants.
I went to the class for the first time last Wednesday and just got the result today. It turned out really really nice. I wanted to make some kind of  flowers and played around with so many different colors of glass: pink, white, red, green, grey, clear lavender and clear glass.

Here is the result:

Pink flower glass pendant, Mar 22,13

Close up pink flower glass pendant, Mar22,13

Landscape Stained Glass, March 21, 2013

When I was going to university in San Francisco, I used to live in the city called San Bruno, about 20 minutes away  from San Francisco city. I lived there for a year or so. During my stay in that apartment, I met a very nice neighbor. He was few years older from my Dad and we became close friend. We went to the same church and hung out sometimes.
Now, over 20 years later, we still keeping in touch and still communicating through emails often. His health is ailing and he's having hard time walking. He kept falling down and stuck in his apartment for months now, because his apartment is on 3rd floor and he's not strong enough to even go down the stairs.

Today is his 79th Birthday. Since he can't see any beautiful view from his apartment, except the view of noisy highway, I thought I would make him a landscape stained glass to brighten his moods and view.
Keep fighting and get stronger soon, my dear friend!!

Landscape stained glass foiling, March 20, 2013

Landscape stained glass is done, March 21, 2013

Pink Glass Paperweight, Mar9,13

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Clownfish Stained Glass suncatcher

My dearest brother loves saltwater aquarium and owns a big tank of saltwater aquarium with a lot of beautiful corrals in it. I wanted to make him something and decided to make clown fish suncatcher for him.

This has 16 pieces of glass, including the yellow eye. The black colored eye I painted on.

Clownfish foiling, Mar5,13

Clownfish, Mar7,13

Teddy Bear Stained Glass

My friend is going to have a baby boy in 2 weeks or so. I thought I'd make her something special for a gift for her and the baby. I learned to cut and grind almost U shaped for the bear's nose and decided to paint the bear's eyes instead because I want the whole bear's head to be a full piece of glass.
I hope she likes it.

Teddy Bear, foiling, Mar2,13

Final Teddy Bear, Mar2,13

Duckling Stained Glass

My parents own a duck restaurant in Indonesia. My Dad is a great artist and made so many handmade ducks accessories all over the restaurant and replica of the foods they serve.
As a gift for my parents, I decided to make stained glass of duckling so they can put it on the restaurant.

Duckling, after foiling, Feb 16, 2013

Final Duckling, Feb 18, 2013

Red Dragonfly Stained Glass

I know I've been making more of glasswork than beading. I'm still beading my parents' tapestry, but for the last 2 weeks I've been practicing stained glass.
My backyard has a nickname "dragonfly forest" because there are so many dragonflies during Summer time.
Also, my Chinese family name means forest, so that's where the "dragonfly forest" nickname came from.

I thought it would be nice to make something with dragonfly, so I found this pattern using 25 pieces.
Although not perfectly round, here it is.. my red dragonfly.

During foiling, Feb 5,13

Final, Feb 7, 13

Orange Glass Blowing Bowl

I decided to use the coupon to make big glass bowl, so I can have "something new" for Chinese New Year.
I planned to use red color bowl with stripe of yellow. But it turned out that red is a color that's stubborn and likes to merge with other colors. So, guess what happened? My planned of having red and yellow bowl turned out to be orange bowl. Oopsie!!
But, I love it. I called it the blessing in the mistake. :)

Tulip Stained Glass

This is my first solo project after I finished my stained glass class. No more teachers guide me through and fixed my mistakes. But I made it. I wanted something simple and has less than 15 pieces, so here it is.. my pink tulip.

Pink tulip foiling, Jan30,2013

Final pink tulip, with silver, Jan31,13

Final pink tulip with light behind it, Jan31,13

Final result of Landscape Stained Glass

Today was my last class (4th class) of beginning stained glass. It was an intense class: soldering, putting frame, patina, putting ring on and finally waxing it. WOW!!
But, it was all worth it because the end result was so beautiful.
Now, I'm hoping that I can pursue this on my own at home, after buying a bunch of tools and machines for stained glass making last week.

Stained Glass week 3, Copper Foiling

Today was my third week (third class) of stained glass class.
We did a lot of fine grinding to make sure all the pieces fit perfectly.
After that, we put copper foils on each piece for the solder to be able to joint them together next week.

It was fun. I really enjoyed copper foiling each piece.

Before copper foiling, last week, Jan15,13

Landscape after copper foiling, Jan22,13

White Tiger

I love CATS, big or small. That includes white tigers.

Some facts about white tiger: they're somewhat bigger than original tigers. There are only several hundred white tigers worldwide, mostly found in India.

So, here is my newest members of the animal tapestry family. It measures  5.75 x  6.63   inches
( 14.61  x 16.84   cm), using  39 colors of 11/0 delica beads. The pattern was made by Sandot Designs.

White Tiger, Jan 16,13

Stained Glass - Landscape (2nd class)

I've decided to learn new craft this year. I've taking my son to archery lessons for the last 2 years and every time I passed by a stained glass little place. I love stained glass and how the light goes through it and wanted to stop by, but didn't have the courage to do it.

During my Christmas break, I decided to visit 2 glass places.
The first place was Glass blowing store and I took 2 classes (see my previous posts).
The second place I visited was the Stained glass store and I decided to join beginner's 4-week course.

The first week, I picked the easy pattern, picked the glass colors and finally cut up the patterns and glued them to the glass that I picked.

Last night, my second class, we learned how to score (or scratched), cut and grind all the pieces.
After it's done, we put them onto our patterns.
Can't wait what I'll learn next week from this class.

Landscape, Jan15,13

Glass Blowing - Float

Since I loved making the small bowl and I found more coupons, I decided to take another class making glass float. Got my fingers little bit burned from hot pipe, but it was all worthwhile because the float turned out to be beautiful.
This time, instead of swirl, I learned how to make it looks like marble.

Float and small bowl together

Glass Blowing - Small Bowl

I had few days of vacation after Christmas. I had nothing to do or planned.
Then I thought of stopping by the glass store that I've looked online and interested to see once before.
So, I drove there and decided to jump into an opportunity to learn how to do glass blowing.
I registered for small bowl class. It was so much fun. I even loved the heat.

Here is the result. It's a lot more beautiful than what I thought it would turn out.

The Good Earth

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I found this pattern "The Good Earth" from JaValle beads few months ago and bought it because I want to make it  for my best friend, who loves earth, moon and all the planets. I thought I would not even make it until sometime next year.

But in late October, after I finished beading my son's Three Winter bird tapestry and elephant,
we decided to not buying Christmas gifts this year, instead we'll give each other one small inexpensive gift.
Then I want to make something that's meaningful instead and decided to bead this.
With my busy schedule, usually it takes 3 months or so to bead something this big, but I use my spare time to bead every chance I got and I was able to finish this in 48 days (started on October 26, finished December 13, 2012).

This patterns measured 12x12 inches, using 40 colors of 11/0 delica beads. It's using peyote stitch.

I wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year ahead.

The Good Earth

White Horse

While I was beading the elephant tapestry, I was listening to audiobook during my commute to work called "Chosen by a horse" and at the same time, I was reading a book about a white horse called "The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman".

I love horses although few years ago my youngest son had an accident while riding on a horse for the first time. He was thrown off the horse,  fell on the rock hitting his head. Fortunately, he was fine, only had concussion. With the books I'm reading/listening and with the bitter-sweet memory of the horse riding, I decided to bead this white horse small tapestry.

This tapestry I got from maddiethekat.com.

White Horse, Dec 15, 12

Fused Glass Ornaments

I took Fused glass Ornaments class on November 28, 2012.
It was supposed to be only a snowflake ornament class, but we were given a free project making wreath ornament.

Here they are.. so pretty to add ornaments on my Christmas tree

Fused Glass Snowflake Ornament

Fused Glass Wreath Ornament