A little sneak peek into the studio today.

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

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

Have you seen the new pendants in our Artfire store? These new faceted pendants are a very unique one of kind piece of jewelry. The idea came from seeing polished agate with its multiple layers of color inside, something that can be gazed at for hours with the depth and colors keeping you in trance. We have carried that look over to glass with stunning results.

The whole process starts with making the pendant itself, working from the inside out adding layer upon layer. After the piece has annealed in the kiln the pendant is put through the cold working process of grinding away the layers of glass (and sometimes skin lol) taking about an hour or more. As you will see though from the end result, the sore fingers and messy work is all worth it.

Each of the pendants come with a large sterling silver jump ring allowing the pendant to be strung on any necklace of your choosing. Looks great on satin cord as well as sterling silver. Imagine the compliments and questions you will get when wearing one of these very unique glass art pendants.

Last night was nothing but problems for our broadcast. First, where we normally broadcast (justin.tv) started locking up on us. So then we moved over to Ustream, which was going really good. But then my computer started crawling like a snail so that video went down as well. On top of all that, the base glass that I used in the one and only bead I had time to make last night scummed up on me. ::sigh:: Just wasn’t a good night all around.

Even though the bead did scum up on me, it turned out pretty decent. This bead is showcasing our new black cluster stamen cane, as well as some tiny little yellow bell flowers, and nile green vine cane.

Hopefully by the time of our next broadcast we will have all the kinks worked out so we can have some fun again.

Now that you’ve seen how these were made live on camera. Here are the pieces all in their crystal clear detailed photos

First off, here is the set of marbles that I made for a gift. Had I more time I would have made these a bit more elaborate, but their birthday is tomorrow lol. So I had to settle for quick and simple Either way the colors in these are very nice. And lucky for me they all came out of the kiln the same color. These are for a marble game and the set needs to look the same so the player knows which ones are their marbles. And if your wondering it’s a game called Aggravation

We also had a request to show how glass is fumed. This bead at your right is a dark ivory base overlaid with silvered ivory shards and a couple murrini chips. We then fumed it with silver giving this bead a really nice warm golden wheat color. You can’t see it in the photo, but the murrini chips also have goldstone in them, but due to the fuming it sort of hid the sparkle.

And now the bead you all couldn’t wait to see Now mind you, this is not my best encased floral. I messed up the petals on two of the flowers, but hey nature isn’t perfect either right? I used two different stamen canes in this bead along with nile green vine cane, and leaf cane.

Both of the beads from last night are now up for purchase in our online store. I hope that everyone enjoyed the show last night and will be back for the next broadcast!

Use this gallery for inspiration and see just what kind of beads can be made with our unique premium shards. Or just spend a couple hours drooling over all the pretty beads :). Each bead in this gallery has been made using our Dark Silver Plum (DSP) shards. Check back often as new beads will be added to the gallery on a regular basis. Please feel free to leave your comments, questions, or suggestions.

If you have any beads that you made using these shards and would like them included in the gallery, please let me know.

I’ve started listing focal beads on eBay again as of a couple weeks ago. Most of them have been selling for acceptable dollar amounts. Lost a couple to really low bids but it all evens out in the end I figure.

Well today I put up a risky auction I have been tempted to put up on of my blown hanging decorative vessels/jars ever since I started making them. It won’t be a huge risk due to the fact I started the bidding at $30 instead of my usual .99cents. Still has me nervous though. These blown pieces take a minimum of an hour to make. I figure if it sells for $30 I will get at least a little money from it.

Well here it is, your chance to get this gorgeous piece at wholesale price!

Royal Green
Click here to view the auction

Depending on how this auction ends up, I may be listing more of these on eBay in the future. Guess we shall see in seven days

Happy bidding!

~Joe~

After another week of not being able to broadcast, we were ready for some Friday night fun. I was really tired but didn’t care, I had to say hello to everyone! Missed you guys.

This first bead is actually the last one that I made last night. It is a base of bright lime green rolled three times in the fine size Sea Breeze Fusion Frit. Love the contrast between the base glass and frit colors.

The other focal bead that I made last night was made using our new 104coe Raku Milli chips. These are so much fun and add an interesting element to any bead. They are rather unsuspecting in chip form but after they are placed into the bead they explode with their gorgeous rainbow of colors. The shards that were used on this bead were the Aurea shards.

And of course I had to make another one of my decorative hanging window jars. This one came out much different that I had envisioned. The base was iris gold which usually turns into a really pretty deep avocado green tone, however this time it changed to a really pretty blueish green opaque. This newest jar is currently available in my etsy store.

Lastly, this is the conch shell that I made last night. These are very fussy things to make. Keeping the whole thing from cracking while your working is not an easy task. This one did crack but I only made it for demonstration purposes anyway, had no intention of selling this one.

During tonight’s broadcast we will be playing with some new shards, the Motley shards that we took over production for from Janet’s Glass. I’ve made a paddle with them last week and this is a gorgeous shard! Looking forward to getting them on a bead and seeing where it goes from there. These shards should be available for purchase soon. I also haven’t made a tree bead in a long time so I will probably make another one of those and incorporate some other things into it like the raku milli chips for something new. Guess we’ll see, tune in and find out

~Joe~

Here is what is new with my eBay auctions. Three more unique and gorgeous focal beads have just been uploaded. Again, all starting at just .99 cents!

I will be listing the majority of my beads in an effort to move the large mass of beads I seem to have started stock piling Most of these beads I retail for $30-$60 so this is an excellent chance for everyone to possibly get them at greatly reduced prices.

See these and and my other auctions by going to http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/avenuebeads

~Joe~