Organizing 10 minutes at a time

The month has slowly been improving, or at least not getting worse.  I have been spending at least 10 minutes each day doing daily organizing tasks suggested by Peter Walsh, starting on Jan 1.  I have been keeping up with it and even added some jobs of my own.  It has made me feel like I am accomplishing something each day, instead of focusing on the sad events of earlier this month.  Only 10 minutes a day is not bad, and it really adds up!  I made a commitment to stick with it for the 31 days in Jan, and then I will start working in my studio again with a clear conscience.  Hopefully the weather will warm up- it gets cold in my dungeon and I can't work longer than a hour or so.  When my knees start feeling numb, I know it is time to go upstairs.

Tough start to the year

It has not been a good new year so far.  Two dear friends have passed away, and my much loved 17 year old kitty is now gone.  My mood has matched the gray and drizzly skies.  I have been trying to keep myself occupied, and found 31days2organize by Peter Walsh on facebook.  He posts a 10 minute task for each day in January and I decided I could manage that.  It has given me a sense of accomplishment each day when I finish the task, and bags of things have been taken out to the trash, donated, recycled, etc.

January is a month of cleaning and organizing for me, a purging and renewal.  When Feb gets here, I will start working in my studio again with a clear conscience.

Resolutions 2013

Resolution time.  This year I have so many things I should do that I can't decide on which ones to focus on.  I have been working on simplifying my life, but for each step toward that goal, it seems like life takes me two steps back.  Maybe I should work on not stressing over the little things- that seems more manageable.  Life is too short to wear tight shoes!

Bead room clean-up

With family coming for the holidays, I had to clean off the sofa in my bead room so someone can sleep there.  Usually it is piled with boxes, display items, and lots of miscellaneous stuff, but now someone could actually sit on it.  It was a good reason to spend some time organizing all the stuff that has been piled up for the last few months.  I even ran the vacuum and heard lots of little click, click, clicks.  I know the sofa won't stay cleaned off, but it feels good to have at least that part of my bead room all spiffed up! 

Santas are out!

Over the years my Santa collection has grown.  It wasn't planned, it just happened all by itself!  They are very special to me because they are all handmade and I know the artists who created each one.  The tallest one is very special.  It was created by Silvia Hendershott, and she has retired as a craftswoman. 

This is just a small portion of my collection.  I don't plan on adding more because I am running out of space! 

My kilns

 To make lampwork beads that will last, they must be annealed in a kiln. Most bead kilns have a bead door that you can open and insert your beads still on their mandrels, which is ideal. Think about what you are going to use your kiln for most of the time and buy the kiln based on that need. I am a fan of buying a kiln for beads and a different one for fusing or PMC. Sometimes trying to get one that will do all these things results in none of them being done well.

Think about whether you want (or need) a digital controller. They raise the cost considerably, but are very helpful in following your annealing schedule. For beads, the firing schedule is relatively simple, but for complicated schedules for fusing or casting glass, a digital controller makes it much easier. If you happen to come across a really good deal on a bead kiln that doesn't have a digital controller, you can buy one and install it yourself, which is usually pretty simple.  An important consideration is the electric requirement. Most bead kilns can be simply plugged into a household outlet, but larger kilns may need a dedicated 200 amp outlet, so be sure to check the requirement of any kiln you are considering. Generally, the bigger the kiln, the more amps it requires to operate.

Another consideration is the type of insulation in the kiln. Ones built with firebrick (these look sort of like white bricks) will take longer to heat up to your working temperature, and then will take longer to cool down to room temperature- not necessarily a bad thing. A kiln lined with fiber blanket heats up and cools off much faster. It cools off fast enough that usually you must fire down (control the heat when coming down to room temps) or your beads can crack. Many firebrick kilns cool off slow enough that they can simply be turned off after an initial soak. A firebrick kiln is more fragile and not very portable. Usually you set them up and leave them there. Most of the toolbox type kilns use fiber blanket, making them much lighter and easy to carry around. These are ideal for beads, since you can easily put your beads in the kiln with the mandrels sticking out, but they don't work too well for fusing or PMC. After a lot of use, the fiber blanket will get mashed down and may need replaced at some point. I have one I have used for over 10 years, and while the blanket is much thinner than it was originally, it still does its job just fine.

My first kiln was a large one I used for fusing glass. It is a top loading kiln with elements in the sides and top and has a 36” diameter. I tried using this to anneal my beads, but it didn't work because the kiln lost too much heat every time I opened the door to put a bead in. I could have used it for batch annealing- making a bead, putting it in vermiculite or fiber blanket to slow down its cooling, and then putting the room temperature beads in the kiln and running a schedule. But there was a risk of beads cracking, so I bought my first toolbox kiln from Don McKinny, pictured at the top.  Unfortunately he no longer makes them- it is my favorite kiln, hands down! It is for annealing beads only, but I can get piles of beads in it. 

Then I decided I wanted to try some casting, and I found a great deal on a firebrick kiln that was for beads also. I thought that was a good idea- I would have a back-up kiln for beads in case my toolbox kiln went down. There was no digital controller on that kiln so I bought that separately. I simply stuck the probe in the peephole in the kiln, and programmed some schedules into the box. However I was having some beads crack, and it finally occurred to me that the probe reading the temps was 6-8 inches above the floor of the kiln. Since heat rises, I thought maybe the floor of the kiln was too cool, and sure enough, the floor of the kiln was 100 degrees cooler! So I added 100 to the numbers in the firing schedule, and then it worked fine.

 The most common problem with kilns is the elements burning out, and if you are at all handy, they are not difficult to replace yourself. Don't fire your kiln over the temperature it is rated for, because that greatly shortens the life of the elements. With a little care, your kiln will work for many years!

Workshop on electroforming

I had a great workshop last weekend!  It was hard taking the time out of my studio, but well worth it.  The instructor was Kate Fowle Meleney (http://www.katefowle.com/) and the subject was enamels and metals on glass beads, and most importantly, electroforming beads. I have wanted to try that for a long time, and I think this will be the kick I need to actually do it!  The process deposits copper on the glass, and the results can be very organic or very controlled.  I haven't seen Kate for quite a while, so it was fun to catch up with her, and her beads are awesome!  My head is full of so many ideas now I just need some time to work on them.