Bead hoein' and color sharin'

Hey y'all! I hope everyone had a safe 4th of July holiday. I most certainly did. Tyler, my little one, is afraid of loud noises so we stayed in. Poor kid doesn't know what he's missing. Oh well. At least I got some much needed torch time. I signed up to do a twistie exchange on LE, so I decided to make a bunch of those. Well, I used some really cool combinations and I liked them so much that I ended up using them all, lol. I'm such a knucklehead, sometimes. The focal over there <----, which is called Dreamscape, by the way, is made with a couple of them. Actually 3, I think. And some Light Iris Gold stringer on a Vetrofond Dark Ivory base with Vetrofond 927 Sea Green ends and accent beads. Yeah, I know. You didn't ask, but so what. I feel like sharing today. I also made another great set using Effetre Light Brown and Vetrofond Fish Pink. Everyone hates the Fish Pink, but I love it. I think it's one of the most underappreciated color in the Vetrofond palette. Take a gander:




Now, the set on the left (Caramel Delight because it reminds me of dark carmel, which I absolutely LOVE. I'd sacrifice a tooth to caramel any day!) is made with Effetre Light Brown and drizzled with Vetrofond Fish Pink. I think it looks really nice and I like the slight reaction between the 2 glasses. The bead on the left is a base of Fish Pink rolled in silver powder. Silver turns it brown, but I like the effect. The bead was supposed to be a peacock feather, but it reminds me more of a blue comet.

The Vetrofond ODD pinks are also underappreciated. The Dark Pink is awesome, but people don't really take the time to figure it out because the rods are a pale lavender color. Well guess what? It works up to a nice pink. Pink Pink. Not Purple Pink. I made this set a while ago:





At one point it was a quite lovely set. And then one day I, being the genius that I am, decided to etch it. What's wrong with etching, you ask? Nothing. Just don't be a dumbass like I was and forget about your beads. I left them in the solution for 2 days! Now they're all rough and yuckala to the touch. They still look nice but they feel like ick. Ick, I say!

So anyway, that's about all I have to say today. Did I mention that I don't even like pink? I am starting to enjoy working with it, though. So everybody run out and buy some Vetrofond Dark Pink 956. Bill (islandglass!!!) has some in his eBay store (Moretti & More) for $16lb.

Oh, and don't forget to check out my auctions on Justbeads.com. You could be the first to ever purchase one of my beads! (heheheheh. More pimpin'! )

See ya!!

Pimpin' my wares!

So, after much hemming and hawing, I've finally bitten the bullet and listed a "set" of beads for sale. Yeah, I know it's only 3 beads, but hey, the focal is gorgeous. It's prettier in person. Can you tell I'm proud? I'm like a mom on her baby's first day of kindergarten. Happy, yet sad at the same time. I've been hearing how I really need to sell my beads for quite a while, but I've never really felt like I was ready. Or maybe it was just laziness. Probably the latter... So anyway, here's my my auction (<---click and bid) listed at www.justbeads.com. My seller id is glassgoodies.

I finally got around to taking pictures of more of my beads and since it's obvious that I've been too busy (read "lazy") to add a gallery to my site (http://www.glassgoodies.com, I put up a gallery at a cool little site called beadartists.org. It's a great site to look at lots and lots of bead porn! there are a lot of talented artists there. I'm so jealous. I really wish I could torch for hours at a time, but I guess I should be happy with the time that I have and make the best of it. And I do. I really do. I just like to bitch and moan sometimes. Doesn't it feel good to whine sometimes? (Pass the cheese, please.)

Oh. And major vent time:

A few weeks ago I did a little write up on a really nice pink that came out, Light Pink 260-BP aka Bubblegum Pink. I really liked this color because it's actually PINK and it isn't 40 damned $$ a pound, which is a totally ridiculous price for pink anyway because it is almost always washed out and barely discernible from white.

So anyway, I mentioned how a couple of sellers were selling the new Light Pink Bubblegum version as Dark Pink (scroll down to see the original post in May). The BP is actually a lot darker than the DP, but it's $25 cheaper so they were majorly ripping people off. Well, I recently found tha a big supplier, and when I say big I mean a major playor in the glass industry, is doing the exact same thing. He has flip-flopped the 2 pinks and is selling what was previously BP as the new DP and selling the new DP as BP. Now how effin shady is that? Ugh!! I am totally disgusted! At the time I noticed this, I was about to place a $400 order with said distributor. I know that's chickenfeed to some of you, but to me, that's a lot of money. Well, that's $400 that I will be spending elsewhere. I'll never do business with someone so unscrupulous as to blatantly rip off their customers and act like it's no big deal. Kind of makes me wonder how many other times it's been done...

I know that what I think doesn't matter to a lot of people and this post will probably piss several of you off, but hey, you've been warned of the goings on (twice now) so if you get taken it's your own damned fault. We make our own choices as to who we deal with and what kind of bullshit (yes bullshit) we'll put up with. If we keep taking it, they'll keep dealing it. He is a major player, but not the only one, so I for one will no longer be on his list of customers. If enough people say "I'm not going to stand for this," maybe things will change. At least a little, but until then, it's going to be the same ol' same ol'.

Ok, I'm coming down off my soapbox now. Here's some new eyecandy (Bead Porn alert):



This was my first attempt at a mask, but my "vision" turned into a Tiki about halfway through. I swear I have the attention span of a goldfish. And you wonder why I don't do sets...

I'm out folks! Don't forget to bid on my auctions! (Just a little last minute bead pimping )