Time and Love

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.
- Peg Bracken

This past weekend, I spent some time on another batch of Christmas pendants. I made more of the snowflake pendants, experimenting with different types, textures and colors of glass. I also made more trees. I love playing around with these, seeing how many variations can be created on a theme. I did a few that were tack fused rather than doing a full fuse. This just means that I don't bring them all the way up to 1550 degrees, but rather hold them at a lower temperature. Tack fusing allows the glass to melt together, but it retains more texture and shape. You an see tack fusing in some of the pendants below.

Enchanting Snowflakes

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
- J.B. Priestly

Halloween Creations

I'm posting a few pendants created for Halloween for Kristin's Share Your Creations Party. Halloween brings back such wonderful memories for me! I love this time of year.

This is my booth at a local October evening art festival.

A Booth in Progress...

It seems like My booth is perpetually changing. I am still working on the display piece in the center of the table. I junked the paint trays and s hooks because the pendants were difficult to pick up. I figured out that I could use heavy duty foam core boards with thin strip "shelves" to hold the pendants. I glued dollar store chip clips to the back to attach the boards to the curtain rod suspended between the two metal folding shelves. The angle of the boards pretty much keeps the pendants from falling.

I really liked the chandelier I used the other night at the evening festival. It just added something to the booth, but I don't often need light at these things and so I can't see dragging it along all the time. But, I happened to run across a cool faux chandelier at Hobby Lobby. I combined it with some black and white paper lanterns that I already had in my stock. I thought it added a little whimsy to my booth.

Trees for the Forest

Here are a few more Christmas Pendants. I put another large batch in the kiln last night and can't wait to see how they turn out. I experimented with some new glass, and I hope it worked, but sometimes it just doesn't do exactly what I expect.

Christmas Baking in a Very Hot Oven

When I was a child, it seemed like Christmas took forever to arrive - not so much anymore! It really doesn't seem possible that another Christmas season is almost here. It is October!

Now, don't get me wrong, I adore Christmas...everything about it. I love that we have a time each year to pause and reflect on the birth of Christ so many years ago! I am so grateful that He chose to humble himself and become a man. It hurts my brain to consider His humility and the boundless love demonstrated in His death on the cross for me.

I know some people get upset by the slowly expanding length of the Christmas season, but I don't even mind that. More time to celebrate!

I have several shows and events scheduled for this time of year, one at the beginning of November is called the Mistletoe Market and is being held at the Anderson County Museum of Art. After that I have a few other smaller events and then I am doing Holiday Fair for the very first time. It's a big 3 day show at the beginning of December.

So, this weekend, I decided that I'd better get busy and start creating some of the Christmas pendants that I started a few years back. Working on them, kind of reminds me of baking trays of decorated Christmas cookies...cutting the shapes, deciding on the right decoration, putting them in the oven and waiting for the magic to happen.

Okay, the oven is 1550 degrees and the "cookies" are completely inedible...but it's kind of the same.

A Much Bigger Crowd at Night!

There were so many more people downtown last night for the Friday night special edition SLAM (Saturday Local Art Market). Of course, the nighttime version of SLAM required an added element to my booth setup - lighting.

I found a cool Chandelier at Hobby Lobby, and thankfully, it was 50% off this week. I also added one of those clip on lights that I picked up at Home Depot, a string of clear Christmas lights, some rechargeable tea lights, and some solar powered paper lanterns. I was really pleased with the way everything looked. Of course, it did take a good bit longer to setup than normal. I was grateful that my mom, dad and husband got there to help me!

I had also been tweaking my display a little bit, and it was mostly successful. I still need to work on it a bit. I replaced the paint trays and s-hooks with boards that have narrow wood strip ledges. The black paint was chipping off the boards a little too much, but the pendants stayed on the little ledges, and people were able to pick them up and put them back easily - much easier than the s-hook thing. Sp, I just need to use a different material for the boards and I think I will work fine.

Fashion on the Town

Tonight and tomorrow night The Saturday Local Art Market is participating in Fashion on the Town. I couldn't be there tonight, but will be one of the vendors tomorrow. I did make it by there a little bit later to check out the setup. I thought it looked great! Its a perfect night tonight, cool, but not cold, and perfectly clear. I thought SLAM had such a nice vibe at night. The lighted tents were beautiful. There was even a guy playing a steel kettle drum. I am looking forward to being a part of it tomorrow night!

Highfalutin Work

Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.
Ray Kroc

I've written before on how much fun it is to design a logo. I was looking at some old notebooks from work and found some initial sketches for a logo designed a couple of years ago. I thought it was interesting to see how closely the final logo matched the first scribbles.

October Eves!

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”
Humbert Wolfe

So, it's October! I love this time of year. I love cool days, blue skies, golden leaves, football, sweaters, and Halloween...everything that is fall.

Someone asked me if I had any Halloween pendants the other day. I hadn't made anything, so this past weekend I spent time working on a few. It was fun to do silly jack-o-lanterns, and black cats for a change.

It brought back memories of all the fun Halloween nights I had growing up. I spent weeks thinking about and preparing my costume for the night. One year I created an elaborate Raggedy Ann costume, complete with red yarn hair, and striped socks. This was back before costume stores came to be, at least in our small town. So, we had to come up with our costumes using things we had around the house. It really required a heap of imagination in those days.

We were always so excited. I clearly remember waiting impatiently for it to get dark so we could set out on our candy quest. I have wonderful, warm memories of cool nights, paper grocery sacks filled with candy loot, popcorn balls and caramel apples.