A little sneak peek into the studio today.

We have selected the top 10 names (wasn’t easy) of all those submitted for the new mottle shards naming contest. Now it is time for you all to decide what these shards will be named. The shard name that receives the most votes at the close of the poll will be the winner and that person will receive either a free .5 ounce bag of these fantastic new shards, or a set(2) of swizzle sticks!

The voting will end on Jan 20th 11:59pm (central).

Happy voting! Good luck to those who’s names have been chosen!

Lampwork Artist Sale and Giveaway

Start this new year off with a bang!

20% off the following items.
•Shards
•Streaky Stringers
•Veining Stringers

15% off the following items.
•104coe Dichro Strips
•96coe Dichro Strips

But thats not all…All orders over $35 will be entered into a drawing where one lucky person will be receiving one of the new 104coe Bundles of Color!

Sale Ends Saturday Jan. 9th 11:59pm central time

If you’ve ever been able to catch one of our live broadcasts, you know what kind of fun is to be had. If you haven’t been able to catch one, you are really missing out. We try to make them as fun as possible and somewhat educational and hope you all enjoy it. This past month we’ve been very busy and unable to do many live broadcasts, hopefully that will change soon. Now that the holiday craziness is behind us things can get back to normal.

Something new that we will be doing beyond the live broadcasts is offering downloadable (is that a word?) mini video tutorials. With this fancy fun little Flip video cam I got for Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad ) I will be able to quickly produce pretty decent quality videos. I’ve been testing it out for the last couple of days and have been having lots of fun with it. A lot of the tutorials will concentrate on using our shards and other supplies which of course will be free to view/download. We will probably also put up some actual “how to make this” video tutorials that will be a more in depth tutorial on how certain beads are made. The more structured videos will be available for purchase and download with some free ones here and there containing the more simple/common lessons.

If anyone has any suggestions on content they would like to see whether its on how a certain shard is used or a bead style that I make, send all your requests and suggestions my way.

As we say good bye to 2009 and hello to 2010 (and Happy Birthday to me ), I want to thank each and every one of our fans and customers. Thank you so much for a great year and your continued business. We are truly looking forward to what 2010 will bring.

Thank you all and see you next year!

Are you having a party and need something to really spice up those drinks? Or perhaps you will be tying the knot soon and need unique wedding favors for your guests.

Surprise and wow your guests with our unique handmade glass swizzle sticks. You won’t find these unique items offered anywhere else and your guests will be asking “where did you get these!?”. Around the holidays these are always a huge hit. Along with the normal New Years and Christmas family get togethers, these unique swizzle sticks also make excellent wedding favors. Whatever occasion you will be celebrating it will add that unique touch. Even if you are not celebrating anything you can still enjoy one of these swizzle sticks all by yourself, but remember its no fun drinking alone :).

Our most popular style of swizzle stick would be the “Marble Stix“. With this style of swizzle stick each one comes with a unique handmade beautiful marble topper. A new style that we introduced this year are what we call “Serpent Stix“, same beautiful colors in a squiggly like serpent design. Along with the swizzle sticks that are currently available, we will also gladly create custom orders in any length stick and any color in the swizzle stick styles that we make. If you have a gathering coming up and would like some unique swizzle sticks made especially for you, contact us with your requests and questions.

Who’s ready for another shard naming contest!?

Here’s the details/rules…

The naming contest will start now and expire Friday Jan. 8th 2010 at 11:59pm. There will be a limit of one name submission per person. Please post your name here in this thread. If there is more than one person with the same name submission, the person who posted the name first will be the one that counts. After the close of the submission process we will go through all the names and pick our favorite top 10 names. A post will be made here on this blog revealing the names along with a poll for voting. The poll will run from Jan. 11th thru Jan. 15th.

The shard name that receives the most votes at the close of the poll will be the winner and receive either a free .5 ounce bag of these fantastic new shards, or a set(2) of our Marble Stix unique glass swizzle sticks. I’ll post a photo of the set of swizzle sticks soon, but you can go to the following link and get an idea of what they look like. http://www.etsy.com/shop/AvenueBeads?section_id=6205965

Now that you’ve read the boring details. Here is the awesome new shard that’s just waiting for it’s new name.

Yet 2 B named - 104coe Mottle Shards
http://www.avenuebeads.com/index.php…roducts_id=483

If you would like to get in on this contest, please go to the following link to submit your name. http://lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148918

Having come down with a cold or flu, not sure what it was that I had but it was horrible. I was unable to work on the torch for over a week, yes I was going crazy! One reason being I knew the work load was piling up at a fast rate. But mostly because I hate just sitting there doing nothing. So I had to find something to do before I went nuts.

I had a bunch of sterling silver wire just sitting around from when I use to make a lot of wire wrapped focal beads turned pendants. Out of my boredom I decided to start making jewelry components, mainly clasps. The main reason for wanting to do the clasps was that I needed to come up with a necklace to sell with my disc pendants but didn’t know how I wanted to finish off the necklaces. So this actually worked out perfect. At least now I could keep my hands busy.

The first design I came up with was actually pretty neat, simple but still very appealing. Now I didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything but I think these have a bit of different touch compared with other clasps I have seen in this shape. I call this one the “Figure 8” hook clasp. I started making these for my own use but after the first couple I couldn’t stop and kept on going till I ran out of wire. So I decided to list these in our store in case others might find them usefull as well. These are all made with sturdy 14 gauge sterling silver wire and come with one jump ring.

The second clasp that was born from my boredom of daytime T.V., another hook clasp, is this one that has one side spiraled with part of it elongated giving plenty of room to secure to a necklace. The whole clasp is hammered flat giving it a nice reflective surface. This spiral hook clasp style has also be made available in our store and is made with a lighter 16 gauge sterling silver wire and comes with one jump ring. Both of these new clasps are well suited for both necklace and bracelet designs.

Now the whole reason I started making these in the first place, I needed an optional low cost necklace to go along with my disc pendants. Here is the final product, soft black satin cord with my handmade spiral clasps. I will also be offering these with the figure eight style clasp as well. I just have to get around to taking photos of that style yet.

These new low cost necklaces are available in our etsy store as well as our own website store. If you are buying one of my disc pendants which are all listed at etsy you can purchase the necklaces and the pendants at the same place. The disc pendants look really classy hanging from this black satin cord. However if you are just in the market for a nice new and very affordable handmade necklace and already have something to wear on it, you can purchase it directly off our website as well. These necklaces are made to order and can be made to any length that you desire. My disc pendants along with one of these satin necklaces would make a great gift for the fast approaching holiday season.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of these new items. Expect to see some new designs available soon!

This is a clip taken from the live broadcast so you may hear me talking to the viewers in the chat room. If I say something that doesn’t make sense, that’s why

Watch live video from Playing with fire! on Justin.tv

No we are not going to Australia sadly. But our bead making supply products are

Kerry at Affordableinspiration.com.au is now the Australian retailer of our unique handmade glass supplies product line. Along with our products there is also a great selection of other glass supplies and jewelry findings.

I hope that our international customers in that area of the world will find this as a great benefit to them.

Happy torching!