playing with fire

I am primarily posting to share that the Flame I class that I took at Beadology today was a lot of fun.  I've learned all of my bead weaving and button techniques through books and the Internet.  I hadn't taken any sort of art class in a very long time.  I have been fascinated with the process of making lamp work beads ever since I joined Etsy and started "meeting" people who make their own beads.  I have seen how fused glass pieces as made, but I had never seen, much less worked with, lamp work glass techniques.  I now have a much greater appreciation for the precision, patience, and amazing creativity that goes into the amazing lamp work that some of my favorite Etsy sellers like Jen (blueseraphim) do.

I had a good group of classmates and a very nice instructor.  Everything was very low pressure.  I certainly learned a lot.  I'll get to pick up my annealed beads tomorrow.  Once I see how they've turned out, I can decide whether or not I want to share them here haha.  I'm hoping that there will be at least a couple simple beads that I'll be pretty proud of.  For a first effort, I think that I did pretty well.  Beadology offers Flame II, which will have a session this summer, so I'm going to do that.  I signed up today.  Now that I've taken Flame I, I can use some of their equipment (for a fee) during open studio time, which is pretty cool.  I'm not sure that I feel totally qualified to do that haha, but it's still cool.  I certainly don't have the time or the money to pursue it seriously, but it was a very neat experience.  I'm sure that Flame II will be, too.

The class was four hours today, and it FLEW by.  I did make one piece at home this afternoon: a simple remake of one of my earliest designs.  I sold the original over a year ago and will now have new pictures for the listing.  I'm really hoping that between new pictures, the Christmas in July sale, my new newsletter, and launching a couple patterns I will start seeing some more sales on Etsy.  I will hang in there with Etsy one way or another because I love the community and I continue to gain a lot from it regardless of my sales, but I'm determined to get some more sales, too.

Tomorrow is already filling up quickly.  Hopefully I'll find some time to get outside and take some more pictures in the natural daylight, though!