Can you guess?

Can you guess what these are?

Just a little teaser...........

Well they are beads..............

They are representative of something that a lot of men in particular are fond of.........................................................

Some women like them too.....................

They were made at the request of a male aquaintance...........

Any ideas yet?...................................


Shall I tell you?..................................

Shall I show you?..............................         





OK, I'll show you.

I think we have various beers, lager and shandy tops there. Something for everyone.  Cheers!

Feeling the glow

I made this bead a while ago.  (I like the lighting I got with this one).

Taking my time

Here are the extra beads I have been making for the Beads of Courage programme. Taking my time over these.
A lot of lovely and generous people have been sponsoring me to make these beads, and I would like to say a big thank you to you all. As you can see they come in three styles - bubbles, faces and aliens.

What can you do in 24 hours?

Well, if you get a few dedicated lampworkers together, working in shifts around the clock, you can make 179 beads for children with cancer. I am proud to say that I was part of that team last weekend. And in spite of getting up at 3.30 am, and feeling less than bright 12 hours later, it was a whole lot of fun.

Check out the charity http://www.bechildcanceraware.org/

Here's a pic of one of the full kilns. How many mandrels can you see sticking out?

 Jo ( http://www.kitzbitzartglass.com ) donated her studio space, glass and practically everything else in her studio for us to use. Just look at that lovely full box of twisted glass canes.

Chainsaw + wood = ?

Art. Chainsaw art, all from one piece of a tree trunk.
The detail with such an unwieldy tool is quite incredible.

What do you find in Waukesha?

Giant guitars, celebrating the birthplace of  Les Paul, the inventor of the solid body electric guitar.

Waukesha is a real pretty town.

There is even a 50's style diner on the corner.

What do you find in the desert?

Cacti of course. Here they are in the desert eco-dome. I thought, well this will be a dry heat, which will be more comfortable than the tropical dome. Ha ha ha! The joke was on me. It must have been well over 100 degrees.

It was too hot to sit and relax on that bench.

Did I tell you the one about the domes?

I went to the Mitchell Domes in Wisconsin.

Each eco-dome has a different habitat. The day was a really hot one, the sun was shining down, and the temperature was somewhere up in the 90's farenheit.

We went into the tropical dome, which was gorgeous, but even hotter than outside, and very, very humid. It was beautiful, and very uncomfortable.

 



Beautiful iron work in this dome too.

Hmmmmmm, which one?

I have had a bit of a hiatus with making beads lately, so I went back to making lots of galaxy beads. I chose one to try to photograph for you (the one that has the best galaxy I think).