The green and yellow that's NOT going to Estrella, or Pennsic....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

 Colors of glass in greens primarily because it was done as a

Hauksgar$r  prize piece. Bottom bead on this part of the

strand was work with specifially  applied stringer. 3rd

 from bottom was a failed englobing attempt and there are

4 different designs using dots.

 Lately I've been watching the You Tube and learning how other people do things and buying a great deal of Mapp-Pro bottles and burning the flame to wind that glass around thos steel mandrels to see what I can come up with.

 More dots! bead on top was tri-corner folded. The

next down was an attempt at a bicone bead. Then my

 first attempt at a mosaic bead. A folded and patterned

bead with stringer work. A bead with stringer work. A

dragon stamped focal bead. A folded bead, a folded and

patterned bead.

  I've made a few necklaces in the past that I've been okay, happy with and am now working on specific techniques.

This necklace combines quite a few of those techniques into a pleasing whole and adds a few new twists.  It was a donation to our Canton's fundraising coffers.



This side of the necklace contains the other mosaic I learned to do
while making this  necklace. The bicone, two cylinder beads
with multiple stringer and bicolored glass  overlaying or side to side.
Eye-beads.



Eye beads. A cylindrical bead for practice

 using side by side  laying techniques, raking

techniques to simulate techniques of actual

rocks and gems. a standard eyebead, a square

 eyebead,  a standard bead, 2 raked beads.

 polka dotted bead



My daughter did some "I wonder" type checking after I started making these donations and discovered that each glass, lampwoven bead in a necklace like this ran between $0.50-$5.00 in supplies alone depending on the color used and the time it takes to make (how much gas you are burning and how many steps there are in the process of what you are creating...and that doesn't include electric kiln cooldown time or any of that if it's available, or REALLY expensive glass. ;D She just wanted to ball park what we were handing away just in materials, minus our time.  There are about 35 glass beads in this necklace... so lets say about 12 are easy,  $ 0.50; about 8 are so-so $1.00;  about 6, are medium $ 2.50; 4 above average. $4.00, 4 really unusual $5.00, and one focus bead, $6-$10    igore the beading wire, findings, crimps, covers, jump rings,  $1.50,

metal spacer beads 6- 2 @ $.90 4@$.50

THIS particular necklace, cost wise, in materials alone, ran about $79-$90.  Supplies alone. Then you add my time and labor. :} I don't think the world is ready for this. It works out to roughly 8 1/4 hours.  So you've got another $43-85 added to that for actual labor costs.

In the bag raffle in netted about $27 worth of tickets. Excellent deal wasn't it? LOL The winning bidder put about $6 or $8 into that item I believe. Woot! I hope she likes it. We now have been told, only silent auctions from here on in. So....

I guess I'm always just amazed when I sit down and really put a 'price' or 'cost' on our SCA hobbies. LOL Now I know why I can't afford to buy other people's stuff, I'm too busy buying materials to make mine!
as always a goddess truly amazed by reality...





Video games for eye surgeons...I swear to God...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

I made this eye bead necklace for my eye surgeon. Dr Rebecca Armour at Casey Eye Institute. She's great. Gave me back most of my vision. Eye beads have been used in history as talisman's to protect from the "evil eye" which is why the theme is so common in beads. ;D

So many cultures thought that you could illwish through the evil eye. Also, beads in the representation of a body type are thought to protect that body type. So this is a double whammy. ;D

The only bead that I actually burned in my torch was the eye bead itself. The rest are store bought glass and mineral on polycoated tigertail with brass accents. But I strung it!

My lampworking teacher, Epona, taught me how to make the eye beads to look so realistic! They are almost scarry. So now I'm having to figure out uses for spotted white beads. ;D

LOL. I had the final YAG surgery for the eye. I was concerned because my little black dot friends from my uveitus in all levels of my depth perception were disappearing from my vision and I couldn't see small text as well with that eye.

I got ahold of the doctor on their cool internet contact system at OHSU and Casey Eye, very neat to be able to just leave an email for a non-emergency and wait for a non-emergency response. I asked, "Do you want to see me this week, or should I just wait until my surgery that is scheduled for June 2nd?" 2 days later they called with an appointment time on my phone. She worries as much about my retina as I do.



I was worried needlessly, It was flatter and less swollen then it has been in 2 years. YAY! So, she was like, "Let's just go ahead and do the surgery now."

???? Eeek!

It was like asteroids for eye surgeons. She gets to point a laser into a mirror and blast it through the new lens and cut the cloudy layer left at the back of the lens pocket in a circle around the pupil so that the light can clearly focus to my retina. There was this little popcorn popping feeling with each laser shot and kind of a small sting....they add up by the way and eventually the little excized circle was going to drift to the bottom of my eye and dissolve over time. Weird stuff.

I told her that she just liked playing asteroids...she laughed.

My eye is now at 20/25 plus2 whatever that means, when it is corrected. That is what it will be for the future at best. This is so much better then the white wall of doom!

from the goddess of two eyes who can see the periphery again when she's not passing out...and that's another story...