Avenue Beads

Its marble madness!

Joe — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:06:07 +0000

I am seriously addicted to marbles, as if you couldn’t already tell I decided to break out he boro in last nights live broadcast. I only have a small selection of colors as I don’t use boro all that often. The first marble was a cork screwed green. Its a tad bland for how I wanted it to look, but I wasn’t planning on selling it anyway

Green Corkscrew Marble
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Now, this second marble couldn’t have came out any better! It is just gorgeous in person. The gold stripes shimmer nicely as you move the marble around. This one IS for sale, but you better buy it before Barry steals it out of my collection and hides it from you all I have no idea what two colors I used to make this, I just grabbed two shorty mystery rods. So I’ll probably never be able to do this again.

Gold Striped Marble
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Click here if you would like to go to this marbles listing and make a purchase.

Tonight we are going to play with shards. I want to make a marble(s) that had tons of shards layered up and see if it creates as much depth as I’m thinking it will. Now I just have to figure out which of my beautiful shards I would like to use tonight. Decisions decisions….

~Joe~

Webcast 12.22.08

Joe — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:59:05 +0000

Last night I had set out to make one marble and a couple sculptural holiday beads for presents. Well I started the night and ended the night with that marble . I really had no idea that marble was going to consume the whole broadcast, and hour and twenty minutes worth. All the twisting seemed like it wasn’t ever going end! The up side, this marble absolutely rocks!

Click on photo for full view

I should probably re-take the photos on a darker or black background as I think it would show off the design much better. But that will have to come at a later time. This beautiful marble is up for sale in my web store now. Click here to go to the listing.

I’m not sure if I will be broadcasting tonight or not. If I do not, I want to wish everyone the merriest of Christmas! If you are traveling (like me, darn weather ick!) be safe and see you next week!

~Joe~

Webcast 12.21.08

Joe — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 02:01:38 +0000

Well I didn’t get to make any beads or marbles yesterday, I needed some down time really bad. I don’t think I’ve sat down and done absolutely nothing for what feels like the last year. Always eat work sleep repeat I did however manage to bust out this really cool murrini yesterday afternoon. If you were watching, you saw how big it was when I was done. It give me a very nice amount of murrini chips to use and sell.

It has five red tubes encased in clear with an outer encasement of white and red in a stripped design.

Click on photo for full view

These along with the other available murrini chips are for sale in the web-store.

~Joe~

Webcast 12.19 - 12.20.08

Joe — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:34:22 +0000

OK, I’m officially addicted to making marbles I’ll have to go through the ones that I’ve made so far and decide which ones are good enough to put up for sale on the website.

Here are the marbles from the past two broadcasts.

This one didn’t turn out anything like I wanted. The purple on the outside was just spiraled on and it spread over the whole marble practically. You can still see the gorgeous blue dichro through the little peep hole though. You can also see the purple devited around the clear. Oh well, it will look nice on my shelf

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This marble turned out pretty good. Made with a marbled blue and white base with overlaid Silver Pomegranate shards. Reminds me of a planet.

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The last marble that I made Friday night was this interesting stripped black and grey one. Made by stacking the colors on top of each other and then turned into a marble.

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Saturday night we pulled a yummy green bullseye design murrini and then made a bead with those murrini. The murrini has about 7 layers of color and turned out just like I wanted. I plan on using them in one of my next marbles. I will also be selling the left over “chips” in the web-store for those that would like some of these yummy murrini chips.

Click on photo for full view

Here is the bead I made to see how they looked after being used. The green contrasts quite nicely against the brown.

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The two marbles that I made last night, both being something I’ve not tried before turned out decent. The “Vortex” marble has more bubbles in it than I would like (damn effetre!) but it was just an experiment anyway.

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Last but not lease is the blue twisted marble. This one I really like how it turned out.

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Not sure what I will be doing in the studio today but I’m sure I’ll find time to whip out a marble or two. Hope to see you in the chat room later!
~Joe~

Webcast 12.18.08

Joe — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:19:23 +0000

Well here is the marble from last night. It started out as a turd, used two colors that didn’t like each other. Then it preceded to fall off the punty and roll around the table for a bit. It just didn’t want to be made I guess. Well, when all else fails, cover your work with frit!

What started as an ugly marble turned into this beautiful confetti like design.

Click on photo for full view

And, we have a new 104coe Streaky Stinger color named “Aura” that will be available soon! If you watched the broadcast on Wednesday night, you saw this new one being created. Forgot to take a photo of it though for yesterdays blog post, so it’s on today’s post instead. This is a beautiful striking color that needs to be worked hot, cooled and then struck to achieve the gorgeous colors in the example paddle.

Click on photo for full view

I have to work early tomorrow morning so we won’t be able to work into the wee hours of the night like we usually do on Friday nights. I don’t think I have much to make in the way of shards or stringers so I’m hoping to make a couple more marbles tonight.

We should be on live probably around 7:30 central. Ordered a pizza so just waiting for dinner to get here

So you all later!
~Joe~

Webcast 12.17.08

Joe — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:25:38 +0000

Last night was another marble night. Now that I have this new marble mold, I’m sure you’ll see me making a whole lot of marbles in the webcasts to come. Both of the marbles that were made last night are made of soft glass 104coe. Due to how soft the glass is, they were not very easy to round out. The glass likes to move and mis-shape to easily. If I have time tonight I’m going to try either a 90 or another 96coe marble and see if that is easier to keep in its marble shape as I work.

I think this marble is my favorite out of the two. Looks like a big ball of fire.

Click on photo for full view

The second marble is kind of a caramel butterscotch color. The striations in it are really tasty

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Not sure what we are going to have time for in tonight’s broadcast, but I’ll try to squeeze another marble, or maybe a vessel in there somewhere. I’m really looking forward to the weekend!

~Joe~

Webcast 12.16.08

Joe — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:22:15 +0000

With the nasty weather we had last night I didn’t think I would ever get home from work. What normally takes me 25 minutes, took me almost 2 hours. I didn’t think I would have any energy at all to do a broadcast, but as soon as I got home I was ready to have some fun!

We are in for another nasty storm tomorrow. Suppose to get up to a 1/2″ of freezing rain! Followed by snow. Hopefully it holds off until I get home.

If you tuned in last night you saw me doing some experiments. Well they didn’t exactly turn out as I had imagined. But that is usually the way all new ventures usually go I guess. However the marble that I made at the end of last nights web-cast turned out superb!!

Click on photo for full view

Barry said that he would like to learn how to make marbles, so we’ll probably be making more of those tonight. I also have some orders to fill so we’ll be doing some shards and Streak Stringers in there somewhere.

Lastly, just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I am now selling strips of dichro. We have just a tiny selection of 104coe strips right now but it will grow over time and also include 96/90coe strips.

We’ll be starting the broadcast a little earlier tonight so be sure and check in early if you don’t want to miss anything

~Joe~

Webcast 12.12.08

Joe — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:41:22 +0000

Quick post tonight, have to get on the torch here quickly. Have a bunch of orders that need filling. This is the one and only bead from Friday nights broadcast. I wanted to see how the Silvered Pomegranate and Seafoam shards reacted towards each other. I really like how they compliment each other. Both are bold mixes and set the other off nicely.

Click here for full view and more info

OK, I’m off to the studio to get things going. See you all in a bit!

~Joe~

Webcast 12.10.08

Joe — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:55:16 +0000

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been pretty busy blowing shards all week. Thank you to all my great customers and for your orders! We did manage to squeeze one bead in at the end of last night however. Only one to show off but it sure is a beauty.

It has a black base with a creamy orange and yellow sunset with the slightly raised tree on one side. The tree is made with my hand pulled Woodland Brown Streak Stringers, which lend themselves really well at making realistic looking trees.

Click here for full view and more info

Tonight looks like I will be blowing more shards and pulling Streaky Stringers. So tune in tonight and lets have some more fun banter

~Joe~

Webcast 12.06 & 12.07.08

Joe — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:08:01 +0000

Haven’t made many beads the last two nights since I have been pulling glass stringers and rods, and blowing shards for orders. So I’ve combined the last two nights into one post.

Saturday I guess was experiment night. The two beads that I made were both “hey lets see what happens” type of beads. This first one started out as just a round tester bead for some yellow glass. Well as you see it didn’t want to be round

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This next bead was a grab and melt type of bead. It is made completely out of twisted ribbon cane. I grabbed whatever I saw first and this what came of it.

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Sunday night we only had time for one bead. Since it is winter and the ground is white I thought it appropriated we make a snowman Bundled up with a hat and scarf this guy turned out great.

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I hope to have time to make more beads tonight, but tonight might just be shards only. Guess we’ll see what we have time for. See you all in a bit!
~Joe~