Been off my game

I haven't done any crafting lately because we have been letting a friend stay in my craft room. I started a pot melt project tonight I hope I don't cook her out of her room. It does get kinda warm when I melt glass. 

I'm doing a pot melt. I've got some glass that is just being wasted because it didn't do what I wanted it to when I first slumped it. Now I'm melting it in a terracotta pot and on to some thin fire paper. It should turn out to be sort of a rectangle of melted glass. People do pot melts to mix beautiful colors and create lovely effects. I would like to do that, but I'm still just trying things out so I'm not going to waste good glass on the project.

I didn't take any pictures. I didn't think anything I did was picture worthy. First thing I did was cut my glass into smaller pieces. Next I loaded them up in my terracotta pot and put the pot on three kiln posts to lift it above my kiln shelf. I set the kiln at the levels that were recommended and hit start. 

About forty minutes into the project I realized that my set up wouldn't work for a pot melt and I went in to change it. I put on my heat resistant glove and laid the kiln posts on their sides and put the pot back on. I next realized that there was a chance that the glass would stick to the kiln post so I put some thin fire paper on top of them. Now I think the thin fire paper is too close to the pot, but I also learned that my kiln is at a level where my heat resistant gloves don't work so well. They work, I would hate to feel the heat from the pot without the glove, but it was warm enough that I'm going to leave well enough alone.

We'll see what happens, this guy is going to learn to fly or hit the ground. 

My Ramune Project

I think I talked about how the blue glass project didn't work out. I had it on a soft fuse program and it didn't slump down like I had hoped. I'm not going to post the the firing schedule, because it wasn't right. But when I do find the right schedule, I will post it.
Here is what they turned out to look like:

See, not what I had hoped for at all. The only thing that I can take away from this is that on the lighter blue one it did close up the broken hole and the glass kept it's color so it isn't just going to burn off.

I'm slumping a bottle tonight.
It is a Ramune bottle. For those of you not in the know, it is an Asian (I know how racist of me) drink with a marble sealing the soda. You use a plunger lid to pop the marble into the bottle's neck. It has a thick blue plastic top to hold the marble in.

It's a tasty soda and a unique bottle. I was eager to slump it.
First I pulled off the label, it was surprisingly easy and I was happy.
Next I moved onto the the plastic top. OMG, was that a bitch. I took at it with scissors, a screwdriver, and a knife. To no avail. Next I turned to the most potent tool of all, the internet.
I found a video that instructed me to thin out with a lighter and a knife. When it was thin enough, and that was left open, I was to go at it with needle nose pliers and just twist it off. Sounded easy enough. Except I didn't have a knife that was small enough and up to the task. The knife I was using before was a huge stabby knife you use to kill people with when you are wearing a hockey mask. I can't remember what it is called right now. So instead I used the scissors.
Several attempts I didn't get it thin enough, twice I got hot, melted plastic on my skin (yes, it blistered), and finally I was able to get it off. *insert triumphant music*
Here is what it looks like ready to fire:

You can't really see the marble in that pic, but you can see the unusual shape of the bottle.
I put it on a full fuse schedule. It is a hotter, longer one than I'm used to, so I guess I'll see how that turns out. It will take 17 hours, instead of the usual 8 hours.

Cutting and messing up

OK. I'm going to try some recycled glass bangles now. I have a blue vase/cup? that I picked up from a local thrift store for $0.50. I made sure that it was big enough to fit over my hand and now I'm cutting it into smaller pieces to make the bracelets from.
I got this new toy called the G2 Bottle Cutter. I'm trying it out for the first time.
I was able to make a nice even score, and I haven't been able to do that by hand.

It did scratch off a little of the paint, but I don't think that will end up being a big deal.
Sadly after doing the breaking process the cut didn't come out evenly. I don't know if it was my fault, or the glass's.

 The second try came out even worse, I'm not going to add a picture of that because I just don't feel like it, so bla.








I guess all there is left to see is how it will turn out after firing. I'm not going to cut the glass anymore because I don't want to go through the breaking process again and it is so uneven that it would just be a chore to cut it some more. I'm just going to see how it fires and decide what I'm going to do with the excess glass when I'm done.

Wow, that was hard work

I organized my craft room. It was hard work and it took me a long time.
I wish I had taken before pictures so you can see the chaos that it was, but here are some after pictures.

My craft space. Small but functional.

My Yudu all set up and ready to print and my toaster oven ready to cure resin.

My glass crafting space.

Lampworking and scrapbooking.

My Yourstory, glass grinder, and Pazzles


 The other third of the room is Ron's area and it still needs work to be organized. But happily I can get to work and start crafting again.

Nearly a year later

OK, I haven't been involved in my crafting for almost a year. I have been going through some mental problems.
This isn't the forum for me to complain about how I'm doing mentally, this is about my crafting and my selling.
I haven't sold anything for over a year. I have given away some of my jewelry to family and friends because they said they really liked it.
I'm starting a new project. I'm going to try and blog the results as I have them.
My project is reclaiming used glass. I know that a lot of people have done that in the warm glass community, but I'm doing my take on it.
I'm going to try and make some molds for slumping and glass carving, I'm going to try to find objects I can reuse that would otherwise be thrown away or that is being sold for cheep in the thrift shows.
I've gotten a huge amount of glass bottles given to me from SLC freecycle. It has been an awesome resource.
I have started to try and slump some recycled glass, but I haven't worked out the firing schedule yet. I'll continue to keep track of what I've done and what works.
I'm going to start tracking it here, I have to fix up my craft room first. It is a disaster area.
But the whole thing is I'm starting something new, and I'm going to try and keep this page updated with my progress.
Wish me luck!

Change of location

We've moved into our new house! it is smaller than the place we were renting from my mom, but it is better laid out, holds the temperature better, and it belongs to us. The cats are getting used to having less space, they are used to having a sun room, a dining room, a living room, an office, and a full basement with extra crawl spaces to explore. Because we want to use the office/craft room for a tax ride off, we are locking the door and not letting them in there so they only have the kitchen and living room to hang out in. Poor fuzzies.

This move has put a small damper on my crafting, I don't have an outlet for the kiln. I might start working on some more beads, though. I have some that need to be annealed but I don't have as many as I would like and I want to have a variety of beads to chose form.

I'm doing a Valentines Boutique to support victims of violent crime. I'm excited because I learned about Square and how I can use it to take credit cards at the shows. They take 2.75% pluse $0.15 as a fee, but it is less than buying a credit card machine and paying the monthly fee. We ran the numbers and I'd have to sell a lot of pendants to cover the cost of a traditional card reader and I really think this is the way things are going.

Trial and error

Well I learned something today. I've been trying out my Dicro Slide and I've figured out while it looks cute, but pale on the light colors, it looks beautiful and striking on dark colors. I tried it on a purple I bought the other day and it came out a wonderful chameleon color. From one angle it is a brilliant blue color and from another it is a golden green. I could have done better with the hole punches, but still, I like the results. I'm going to try it out on my dark red next, and maybe my clear green.

I'll post pictures of it on my Handmade Pendants and Crafts website when I get the chance to take pictures, I'm in the process of moving so I don't know if I'll have a chance anytime soon. I guess I could do it while I'm not able to sleep.

Trying new things

So I've been trying to branch out with my marketing. I'm planning to start tweeting again, I'm going to be focusing on my Facebook page, not my personal page but the Damik's Design page. I also started a Meylah page, I don't know much about Meylah, but it's free and I figure more exposure can't hurt, right?

I went to the glass store today and picked up a bunch of new glass. I'm excited to see how they turn out. One of the pieces I got is a deep purple that is supposed to turn a purpley-gold. I still need to get a blade for my saw, but I'm I'm learning how to better use my grinder. I'm also excited to see the kinds of effect I can get from my new dicro slide. I got dark and clear colors to try it on.

I'll be posting more pictures on Handmade Pendants and Crafts when I have more to show.

Am I wasting my time?

I'm not feeling good about my work right now. That's not true, I'm feeling great about my work, I'm not feeling good about selling it. Every time I post a new one I think I'm not going to sell it anyway. I feel like I'm lost in the internet. I know that I have to do something to get myself found. I'm not doing the SEO like I should and I'm not even sure that will be enough to get me noticed. My plan is to post a new pendant everyday, but I'm not being as consistent as I should.

I did post a new one today and you can see it on my Handmade Pendants and Crafts blog. I'm highlighting a fun butterfly pendent. I need to post more for sale, but I don't enjoy taking the pictures, editing the pictures, labeling the pictures, organizing the pictures, and anything else to do with the pictures. My camera isn't the best. I need to buy a new one, but I'm not sure which one does the best Macro pictures.

Back from the dead

I'm back from my break. I completed NaNo and survived the holidays. I'm back to working on my jewelry. I've been posting some fused glass pendants to Etsy and I've got many that I'm happy with how they turned out.

I participated in NAMI's Christmas boutique and sold a handful of my pendants there. I'm not sure how to generate more interest for my site, but I'm starting to search out more ideas. I think I'm going to start participating in giveaways.

There is a new pendant on Handmade Pendants and Crafts.

Its all falling apart!

I was looking in my kiln today and found that it is falling apart. The firebrick that lines the kiln is crumbling. I pulled off all the ruined brick and vacuumed it out and fount that I have large chunks missing from the sides. Some of the elements are exposed. I wanted to get a new kiln next payday but the one I had my eye on is gone. Did I write about it already? (Just checked, seems like I didn't.)

OK here it is. I got some glass to fuse. I had gotten a new pyrometer and I figured that I had tested the kiln enough to try some glass. I picked a bad day to do it, the neighborhood had the big dumpsters all about so that we could fill it up with household trash and yard debris. So my mother came over wanting to clean up the forest of a backyard. I was juggling my attention between the cleanup and the kiln. It was several hours into it that I realized that I was reading the pyrometer wrong and I was about 100 degrees off.

I thought maybe I was close enough that things would still work out, and I continued fusing the glass according to the schedule I found on the net. When it came time to anneal the glass I opened the kiln to quickly cool the temperature to 960 degrees. When I opened it, I noticed that I had not made nice, round, fused pendants, I had made a puddlely mess.

So I decided: bad kiln, need new kiln. I found a real nice one, never used, with the furniture, digital controller, all for the very reasonable price of $400.00. I was excited to get it and was willing to sell anything up to and including my soul to get it. But, when I called on it, I found that I was too late. Someone else got the killer deal.

I found a tiny one just $50.00 more than that one, but it is tiny and I couldn't use it for slumping when I'm ready to do that. I just couldn't bring myself to want to buy that one. So ever the problem solver I looked at what I could do to make my kiln work. I think if I buy a digital pyrometer I should be able to more accurately fuse my glass. Also if I diligently kiln sit I should have better luck. I found a resource that told me you can use a kiln with an infinity switch to fuse glass if you sat right by it with a good book and half an eye on it. So we'll see.

But that brings me around to the kiln falling apart again. Do I even want to buy a $75.00 digital pyrometer when the kiln is crumbling? There are ways to fix it. I can find a repairman here in Utah to clear out the bad firebrick and replace it with new ones. Or I can try to do it myself. It will cost me between $30-$80 to do it myself. I have no idea how much it would cost to have someone do it for me. Sadly I can't do anything until after payday.

A great find!

I'm trying hard to drive traffic to my etsy. I found a really great site walton.communications. I've been enjoying it as a resource. He has put out a really great ebook that is easy to read and full of good information and he has an awesome forum where he answers questions.

I was flattered to see that he used one of my questions for his blog.

So I'm going to make some Halloween pendants in hopes to sell for the season. The thing is I'm out of bails to glue on them. I used all of mine for the pendants I donated to a friend's garage sell. He was trying to raise money for his son's surgery. I hope he sells a lot, but I digress.

I went to the Hobby Lobby to buy some and I stumbled onto a wondrous sight; fuseworks! Glass ready to fuse and inexpensive enough for me to mess it up a few time. I am totally going to come back when I have money. I have to wait because my husband wouldn't let me hook for it.

Working this SEO thing

So I've started to work the SEO campaign and I have to admit it is very overwhelming. I don't think I'll have the results in two weeks, I don't think I'll have it fully up and running in the two weeks. But I'm giving it the ol' college try.

I've started a new blog on wordpress to highlight my work. That doesn't mean I won't highlight my work here to, but the wordpress site is more like my booth babe. It is tarted up to lure people in to see my wares. Or it will be when I get done with it. Right now it is basic and boring.

I'm still excited to start working on my fused glass. I need to buy glass and kiln liner paper to start. I'm selling my car, and if I get what I'm asking for it, I should be able to buy a metric assload of supplies.

I also asked at a farmers marked how I would get a booth for next year. That didn't go well. I think they are sort of like a private club. The people I asked seemed to give me the runaround and the person who finally had answers for me seemed like he was actively trying to discourage me from applying. I don't know, now I think I want to apply out of spite.