Art Show Sunday, Glass and Garden

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Art Show this coming Sunday! Come if you are in the area. It’s in Neenah Wisconsin at The Bergstrom Mahler Museum which specializes in glass. Hmmmmm??? Glass??? So, I made some glass bracelets from Tammy Rae’s beautiful boro glass beads. Thanks Tammy for your speedy delivery and awesome colorful work!

Photo above is just a huge copper cuff with her bead on it, capped in copper and wrapped in silver. I did solder the silver to the copper cuff so the bead will never move. I used the silver as a ‘stop’ on each side of the bead. When you are soldering with glass it really helps to make sure it’s not soft glass which is the usual in lampwork beads. You can still solder near soft glass but you can easily break the glass or have it crack later – done that lots. Boro glass is different. Pyrex is Boro glass…it can take the heat without all the worry. It’s also more expensive to buy and more expensive to make the beads with ‘Hotter’ equipment. Tammy’s torch makes my torch look like it’s for babies and she burns through oxygen tanks larger than me – two per week when she’s torching.

Viking Knit is fun… YouTube DIY Viking Knit and you will get instructions. Buy the Viking Knit tools they come with instructions and the tool makes your rows of silver line up perfect. The bracelet in the back is a single knit. The other bracelets are a double knit which I prefer. It is more solid looking like a cable but twice as much material. Use 24G fine silver…about 50 feet!

Now the next pics are of my garden. I have Holly Hocks Gone Wild! They are 8 feet tall and amazing. I also found a little snake in my flower bed which is great because he is eating things I don’t want eating my plants…like slugs. Summer is really flying by so enjoy it. It will be winter before we know it. Coming up I still have my ring bending tool to show you and some custom orders that I am working and a huge bezel setting that is amazing and was really hard to do – I did not think that it would be but it was seriously time consuming.

The raccoon has been eating at our bird feeder every night. She finally brought the family…four almost grown baby raccoons.

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  1. Roxann Nys

    Hi Joy, How much are you asking for the bracelet with the copper and sterling? Teri asked, but she thinks she’d like it better if the cuff was silver. We both think it’s very cool, though! Rox

    1. Don’t have them priced yet. The cuff somewhere around 100$. I will make it in sterling as well with another bead. The viking knit bracelets are at least 150$ in sterling. Have not put them up for sale yet online but will next week!

  2. Janell

    Wonderful work. I absolutely love these glass bead bracelets. I’ll look for you on Sunday. I wear the sterling beaded bracelet I purchased from you last summer all the time. It is so attractive. I enjoy reading about your process of making this beautiful work. (And the hollyhocks are awesome!)

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