Driia's Dreams

Holiday Jingle Fair in Sterling

carrie — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 13:23:11 +0000

Today I’ll be selling my shiny glass pendants at:

Park View Choral Department’s
Craft/Vendor Fair
Saturday November 12, 2011
10:00am – 2:00pm
Park View High School Cafeteria
400 West Laurel Ave
Sterling, Va. 20164

I’ll be at Sterling Fest 2011

carrie — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:20:55 +0000

Well.
That’s the news this week since I only just found out that I will in fact be one of the participating vendors at Sterling Fest 2011 Sat, Oct 8th. from 11 am – 5 pm. I will be there selling my pendants.

This event is in Sterling Va, 20164 – near Dulles Airport.

Just in case you don’t see links – here is the url: http://www.sterlingfoundation.org/SterlingFest.html

Oh My! Excitement and last minute prep work. A busy busy week for me – which is good.
Glad I have all my pendants re-carded and labeled. Now I just need to re-work the layout and get the sign-age done by Friday. Possibly get a few more pieces done by Wed so that I have time to price and catalog them too.

Thankfully I have a friend helping to keep me on track, and Craig will be helping me the day of the event. Then I just need to relax and sell pretty shiny things to people.

Fun at Maker Faire NC

carrie — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:30:20 +0000

This past weekend, I went down to Raleigh, NC for Maker Faire NC on June 18th. It was my second time there and lots of fun. People who make all sorts of things were there of course. Among them were several clubs from all over the Raleigh-Durham area. There were electronics, robotics, science experiments, chicken farmers, several artisans who work with textiles, woodworkers, tinkerers, and of course several people selling jewelry.

It was fun to see the newest Shopbot machine. It’s a bench top model that we saw as a prototype last year at the the Shopbot Jamboree. Craig and I still want to get one of those, if we can carve out some space to have it set up.

It was a larger venue this time around and Craig has his Chaos Machine running with our friend Tony’s help. Now that’s a child magnet. And chaos rules the day, with the help of the chaos wranglers that is!

I was able to reconnect with an artist I met last year, Cyn Mallard. She was having fun exploring others’ perceptions of GREEN, and plans to use what she learned during her explorations in an upcoming art series.

The event went well and everyone seemed to be having a good time. I know I did. Last year was good, this year was even better. Kudos to Jon Danforth the organizer and all the volunteers.

Pendant – PFD_0609_017

carrie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:28:26 +0000

Here I again used multiple layers of fused clear, black and dichroic glass with mica powders.

This is “Soul Stone II” – another item from a commissioned series. It’s my personal favorite from the series – however the buyer chose another larger piece instead. This one was cold worked on the glass grinder in addition to [...]

Pendant – PFD_0609_018

carrie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:08:35 +0000

This is “Soul Stone III” – it was part of a series I did for a commission. Commission pieces are done as a series with the buyer choosing their final purchase.

Pendant – PF_0606_012

carrie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:29:04 +0000

A very tailored shape with an attractive mix of blue-green color on a white base. I was thinking of the sea when I made this one. To give this one the tailored look I wanted – I used my glass grinder to shape and smooth the sides into a longer leaner looking shape.

Pendant – PF_0709_020

carrie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:20:21 +0000

This is a dainty light blue swirled glass with mixed blue accents.

Pendant – PF_0606_011

carrie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:12:55 +0000

A small rounded fused glass pendant with a sprinkle of red (almost cranberry) and black frit on a white base.

Clear Glass and new torch work

carrie — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:59:21 +0000

As discussed earlier – I have recently taken a workshop involving Boro glass and torch work. It was not jewelry specific – but I learned a couple of things and I’ll be using the pieces I made in some form of jewelry. I’m still working out my plans. However here is one picture I’ve taken of a couple of the “raw” pieces before they become finished products.

I’ll most likely be doing a wire wrap for each one. Though a couple may evolve into a complete necklace. Not sure yet – especially since I do seem to favor pendants over necklaces.

The one in the middle I was attempting a sea shell – since I have a series of sea side inspired jewelry I wanted to make. While the one on the left is a flutter heart for Valentines Day. I do have about 8 or 9 usable pieces…. but these were the best to photograph at this stage.

Valentines Date Night

carrie — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:48:03 +0000

This year in lieu of chocolates, flowers or silly stuffed animals….. my very favorite person (who also happens to be my husband), bought us tickets to a “date night” at the The Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton , VA. This involved Ballroom dancing, snacks and a bar….. plus the good part… a 2 hour couples Glass Class which allowed us to choose either fused glass or torch work glass.

Decisions – decisions…. I’ve had a couple of fusing classes and I use my own kiln to make fused glass jewelry, however I also know how to make lamp work beads using a hot head torch and map gas. After a brief bit of pondering I chose torch work glass as this was an opportunity to see how torch work was done on a Carlisle mini cc surface mix bench burner.

Using a two part fuel source (propane and oxygen) is a little different than using map gas. You have to remember the correct order to turn on and off the two gases. POOP is how you remember that…. you start by turning on the Propane (and lighting it with a match or striker) set your flame and then add in the Oxygen. Now reset your flame for thickness and candle height; melt glass – until you are tired or done for a while. Turn off your burner by shutting down your Oxygen before you turn the Propane off. POOP = (Propane on, Oxygen on & Oxygen off, Propane off) nice and simple.

I had a chance to talk to Rick Sherbert (the glass center’s director), got the pricing for use of open torch time. They also had a nice kiln room and cold working room. He however did the kiln class. Our instructor was Lisa St. Martin and while she does teach bead work classes – this class was using boro rods and free form sculpting. I’ll post pictures of some of my pieces soon. I didn’t really get the glass to where I wanted most of the time – but I had fun, learned a little bit…. and have a couple of pieces I may be able to turn into jewelry.

All in all I can highly recommend this type of activity for couples – especially if one or both of you is into the artsy stuff. Craig got to play with fire and ask technical questions, an I got to make stuff. So I’m happy, and I know my husband still loves me – because he does things like this with me. Hope you all had as much fun as I did on V-day!