Rachelle Keller

Kelley Wenzel has better random thoughts on glass than I do because she includes pictures! Kelley is just awesome. I met with her when I was in Atlanta last year and she gave me fun glass stuff to play with. She's very helpful and is always willing to trade a hint or tip. Check out her famous "egg beads" and other great stuff by visiting the link here: Kelley's Bead Studio: My Random Thoughts for Today Check out more of her beads on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/kelleysbeads And she even has a separate shop with finished jewelry, also on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/kelleysbeadstudio

Three sets of beads are on their way to new homes today and two new sets are cooling now after being freshly-made this evening.  The newest thing, ladybug beads! I gave them a try after receiving a special request—ladybugs are relatively easy. I probably would have turned down a request for butterflies, or hornets. So I made a handful of red ladybug beads. They're really small and a little bit difficult to do because red glass turns black when it's hot. Black glass stays black when it's hot and it is really difficult to tell where the red ends and black begins when they're used together. Of course, over time the design will naturally evolve. The weirdest thing though, before I even had my beads completely cleaned and ready to go, someone had posted a picture of ladybug beads that were very similar to the ones I just made. This morning I saw even more ladybug beads posted that looked even MORE like mine. If I came up with the

Okay, yesterday's post had big plans to try out a wire-wrap ring tutorial. Unfortunately life had other plans for me. When I get all of life's straw spun into gold I can start that tutorial. Last night I pushed to make a bunch of beads because today is "kiln day". The happy little beads are all now toasting merrily at nearly a thousand degrees F. By the time I get back from The Office and The Grocery Store tonight, I will have cooled beads ready to clean. Yay me. One of the beads in yesterday's post pic had actually split in two. In my avocation, a glass bead split in half is from then on known as "two cabochons"— the bead merely transformed into a different jewelry element.