Portrait beads...

I have to say something about my portrait beads because I am so proud of them. I worked really hard to get an image transfer process that is usually used in glass fusing to work on my glass beads. I now can put images of loved ones onto a glass bead and the image is actually heated in by the flame and then coated with a layer of clear enamel... then decorated. They will be in an advertisement in a few beading magazines because I am now selling custom portrait beads to the public! This is something that no one else is doing... or no one that I know of anyway... unless they saw my work at the ISGB conference during bead bazaar and figured out my secrets as well ;) I just love being able to combine photography (a past focus of mine) with whatever medium I am working with at any given time... Let me know if you are interested in purchasing one of my fully hand crafted creations :)

I can't believe I won something...

So there is a wonderful company called Frantz Art Glass that sells lampworking/beadmaking supplies and they have the most unique glass of all places I have seen so far. They get odd lots (basically colors that were made by accident but still have potential) from Vetrofond (one of the major makers of soft glass rods) and they were having a contest to name the colors of the latest 14 new odd lots. I sent in my list... and they actually used one of them! I am amazed... granted it was the one that I thought was the lamest name of all I chose, but it seemed to fit it well. They didn't take oyster (which my husband and I actually nicknamed "lung oyster" and if you see the color you will know why... not one of my favorites) or aortic twist, nor did they like tuscan marble or ripe banana... but they did go for Tomato Soup:

If you want to see the other colors that were named you can go to www.frantznewsletter.com and click on the area where it says: "name the colors contest." Amazing how many variations of orange they can make, tehe.