Markets and Facebook

Tomorrow, Sunday 25th March, I will be at Victor Harbor Country Markets from 9am -4pm if you feel like a drive or already in the area pop in and say hi! 
I am sharing a stall with the lovely Bronwyn and her gems, rocks and Opals.

What do you know about Facebook??
I have a page for my personal use and a page for JoRaEl Designs  http://www.facebook.com/pages/JoRaEl-Designs/120566114666966?ref=ts

It's a great way of keeping in touch with Market Organisers and Customers.   If you are on Facebook why not "like" my page.   ;-)

Bronwyn has her page on there too http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brons-Sparkles/231739093590614

There is also a page for Victor Harbor Country Markets  http://www.facebook.com/VictorHarbourCountryMarkets

Flattened bottles are popular at Victor,  these can be used for "CheeseBoards", Candle Holders and Spoon rests. For only   $10 each.   Come and have a look, I have different sizes, shapes and colours.
If you have a favourite bottle, soak off the labels and bring it to me and I will flatten it for $5 each.

Market from the Heart sunday 18th March

Well have been a bit slack posting on this blog, time just runs away from me.

I had a fabulous time at MArkets from the Heart held in beautiful Glenelg South Australia.

I love meeting people and chatting about my glasswork with people and seeing the items they pick up and gravitate to, even if they don't buy, what draws peoples eye is exciting to see.

Although I didn't sell a plate/bowl today, lots of people looked at them and made lovely comments.

As usual the flattened wine bottles drew a lot of comments!

I forgot to take a photo of the stall :-(

SO will put a photo of some red pieces....

Silly blogger won't let me rotate the photo sorry....

Well it has been a while since I last blogged, I get a bit of blogfright....   like stagefright but for writing on blogs....   do people really care what I write? Will any one read it ? 

but who am i really writing for ??  well on this blog it is maily for showing photos of my glass creations  

so although I am not a great photographer I will put some up 

there will be a name and a price and if you'd like to buy anything drop me an email joraeldesigns@gmail.com

please feel free to give some feed back on the items 

The Iris plate is $50

the large flower  platter $40

the 3 bowls in the front are sushi plates the one on the left is checkerboard floral $25 the one on the right is floral stripey $25.

Building a Pyramid

 

To demonstrate and learn a little about simple casting we made “pyramid shaped paper weights.

we were very lucky to have setup for us the mold lined with kiln paper, and glass cut into triangles and resting in mold.

we then filled the mold with bits n pieces of glass, coloured  clear and dichroic.  I continued my blue, green theme with litle pieces of dichro.  we filled to a bit over the top and then laid a glass square over for the base.

My Pyramid in the kiln after firing. 

To make the edges nice and sharp we used the flat lap grinder with finer and finer diamond grit ending with a polishing wheel.   

till our pyramids were smooth and shiny with “sharp” corners and tip!

side viewbottom view

unfortunately the dichroic does not show very well but u can get the idea.   You can also see the small bubbles .

One of the others filled their pyramid with frit,  this created amazing tiny bubbles.

More New Things

RAKING!!!

 

I have long wanted to try raking glass, but didn’t know where to start!   and Patty showed us!!  we cut strips in the colours we liked and made a 15cm square with strips on their sides

then we pinned a dam around it.  as you can see I stuck with my favourite colours, blues, greens aqua and almond.  

Sorry the pic is blurry.

Once it was in the kiln and hot enough I donned gloves, “jacket” and eyewear, (kiln was at approx 900degrees C) I raked a metal stick through the molten glass.  I chose to do the classic up and down.

This is t out of the kiln.

 

Other students rakings, we all chose different colours and ways, some smarty (Anthony G) did a fabulous spiral!!!  

I t was interesting to note that some colours “took over” Yellow , Red and black were main culprits.

I learnt something about pinning dams……

make sure you don’t pin too close to glass!!!  sadly I could not just pull these  pins out (a few I could) but had to resort to slicing each side of a so as to not damage diamond grinding blades….

 

AH thankfully it still looks great ……and I learnt heaps!! 

Learning More

 

 

Last weekend I spent 3 days doing a course with the Amazing Patty Gray.

I learnt new techniques, refined a few old ones, and was inspired to get creating…

These are the items I came home with, but I also come home with a head full of knowledge.   I got to use a lap grinder, diamond  saw and vitrigraph kiln , i learnt how to dam a piece, and also what not to do!  lol …

 

First up was a Strip Bowl

we cut strips of glass , using a strip cutter, and having a go at using the Mortons cutting system.  We could chose any colour combo and lay them out in any pattern.  as this piece was going to be at least 1/2 inch thick we were encourage to think of ways of showing depth,  I chose to place 3 “windows” with streaky glass placed at different levels .  I love the colour combo of blue and green and have used it b4, i interspersed it with some almond and clear.

To provide some contrast and focal points i placed rectangles of orange,  and layed some black stringers that had been made with the vitrigraph.

 

 

THis was then fused, the edges ground and polished on the flat lap grinder and by hand, then slumped into a bowl mold.

 

I love the result ….

Wonder what you think!???

Rundle Street Markets

 

Hi to all the wonderful people I met today at the Rundle street markets.!

My email address is  joraeldesigns@gmail.com

If you have any questions or orders

 

Hope to see you again.

Will be on Rundle Street sunday 19th Dec 9-4

Also at Fullarton Markets saturday 18th  9 – ?

http://www.fullartonmarket.com.au/