And the winner is:

Aww, this was so difficult to make a choice as I got to know some of you guys quite well here and on the glass forums. If I could, I would have loved to gift each and every one of you with a candle stick to play with, but alas, it is just not possible :-(

Anyway, to be fair I decided to do a random picking of the winner ...

So, a warm congratulations to Julie Haveland Beer.

I have contacted you already Julie, and will get the parcel out as soon as you have confirmed your address.

Thank your for everyone that took part in this and for visiting my blog!

Gift time!

I am so excited about my candle sticks, and want to share it with you wonderful guys! So, here is the deal:

Comment about the candle stick, what you plan to do with it, what colours your beads will be, what ever. I will keep this open for about 48 hours, and then make my choice of who gets it!

I will publish the winner in a new post, and request the winner to supply me with their postal information. Easy peasy, right?

Tea, anyone?

Helter skelter minds and a full week

These last few weeks have not been easy on me ... I do not want to bore you with the gory details, so let's just stick to me and my tears equaled the amount of rain we had in the same time frame here in the Western Cape, lol.

In between this there was lots of hours spent working as a RN at the various hospitals and clinics, and the new Candle Stick range that I started to play with.

These and some of my other glass and ceramics were submitted to a panel last week for consideration to partake in a Trade Exhibition, hosted by the Cape Craft and Design Institute. Gosh, I really love these people!

On Monday I got the E-mail telling me that my work has been selected for the show. I got word last week through the grapevine that over a 100 crafters applied for it, and they were only choosing 20 for the show. So, the selection was really tough and I know that there is a lot of art and craft happening in our city that is WAY better than me ...

The retail industry, media and other key role players is invited to the 3-day event. All is organised very professionally, with professional set builders that will assist us with the building of our stalls. Furthermore, I am expected to attend a workshop in Displaying and Styling next week with a local design guru, Leonard Shapiro (www.craftsouthafrica.co.za). Due to other obligations, I have been unable to attend a set of workshops lead by him during the previous weekends, so this is my opportunity to get some of his genius to rub off on me!

The down and out of this trade show is that I have the opportunity to make direct sales, but also have the chance to get orders from retailers! And if my stand is nice enough and sales worth mentioning, I could be lucky enough to win a spot at a huge trade Expo in 2010 in Johannesburg!

But this week is spent studying. It is the second month of our Entrepreneurial Marketing course, and the homework keeps me busy till the wee hours of the morning every day. The focus this week is on business practices and stuff like how to draft a good business plan. Horrible details about invoicing, quotes, pricing of your work got thrown on us today, ugh! Stuff that will give any decent artist nightmares for life!

I still have lots of homework to do tonight, so bye for now!

Candle Power!

In between a kiln that threw a tantrum and numerous ER shifts I have been able to make some beads and assemble them. I have shown some images of the one bead set in a previous post, here is it as I visualised it ...

Then a playful gather of bright coloured disks interspersed with tiny black disks. I made the beads on purpose slightly 'wonky' and added some dots to some of them to give it a bit of variety. My love for form and precision was seriously tested with this set! But I love the playfulness of it, and would assume that it would really look good with a candle lit in it.

Lastly a white set. I used a bit of the lightest grey transparent glass with it to create patterns on the beads. It is interspersed with transparent grey disks, giving it more dimension in the stark white colour range.

Bumpy jewels

I have been working way too many hours as a RN these past few weeks, but it was all done for a good reason, ;-)

Luckily I was able to squeeze some torch time in and gave up on a lot of sleep. The problem is that I have just too much ideas racing through my mind coupled with some other day to day issues. But when that torch is lit, a peace overcomes me and I can go into a sort of a hypnosis that is just glass and heat.

These are some images of my 'trance' beads. Please note, these are 'honkers'. I am talking easily 30 mm wide (hole to hole) and more width wise ... But what a ball these were to make! One set was just normal Moretti colours with lenses of the softest hues of corresponding transparent colours, the other set is a mix of silvered glass that was laying around my work table. the lenses on them were a very pale blue transparent. And a close-up of one of the silvered glass beads. I just love the way the dark Ivory went all crazy with little mosaic like patterns.

Enjoy! These are all for a submission next week to be part of an exhibition/sales opportunity, and will be converted into candle sticks ...

Something new

I have been quiet for a while, but believe me, I am busy!

Here is some images of my new design, I hope you like it! This one and it's mate will stay with me. The ceramic base and top part is hand build and a bit on the wonky side. I have since made some mould to be able to replicate the design evenly. I will add different coloured ceramic bits to future candle sticks to compliment the glass beads. I also plan on making them in different heights.