Family growing

We have been busy with our furry family, which is becoming a zoo, and we love it!

We made a trip to Costa Rica for a little less than a week, and we had to have somebody stay at our house for the time, since it made it so much easier and probably cheaper too, than boarding two dogs and a cat. As it happens, since the trip, we decided to get another family member.

We have now three dogs, and a cat. Zubov the cat is not exuberantly happy about this, but he is dealing with it rather well. Nelli the 13 year old border terrier is relieved that we have a friend now for 1 year old Italian Greyhound Pixie. The new comer is also an Italian Greyhound that we adopted from the Texas Italian Greyhound Rescue, where I am a volunteer foster mom. So this is Louie, our new munchkin that has turned the house totally upside down, and we couldn't be more happy.

Some of my blown glass and pate de verre

Tutorial for Lampworkers: Murrini Cookbook, Silver and Reactive Glass

We have finally finished the exchange for silver and reactive murrini. The results are going to be seen in my new tutorial, where you can see the murrinis in beads, and also read the descriptions how to make them. It is right now on pre-sale for discounted price, and will be published on 9/11/11. I believe this is a great tool for anyone who uses murrini in their work, and wants to make them too.

Murrini soon on Etsy

I got such a great feedback for my murrini, that I have decided to start selling it on Etsy. I will spend some time working on my first murrinis in the next few days.I have decided on at least 3 different murrinis to start with. One of the first ones is going to be my latest murrini with blue center, I had some of it for sale in the garage sale section of the Lampworketc glass forum, and I was surprised by the interest in it. I had already decided that I would not be able to sell anymore there, since I will launch my murrini on Etsy, but I had no idea that it would go over as well as it did.
Hope to report soon how my kick start went.
Wish me luck!

Murrini mania!!!

I was so happy when few people received my murrini, and one of them, my friend Donna from ironmountainglass.com started a gallery thread about it. She wanted to see what everyone have gotten out of the murrini. Well, so far the posters are quite few, but she has posted few amazing beads showcasing my murrini. They are drop dead gorgeous, and I am so happy that she had so great success with it. The colors she is getting out of them are just amazing.
Here are some of the pictures, I will post later more, when others will start posting their images. At least, hopefully!

Murrini murrini murrini!

So I decided to sell some of my leftover murrini on the glass forum where I hang out most of my free time. I was surprised by the reception, and had to get back on my torch to make some more for the extra requests. I am not really crazy about making the murrini, but I really love to use them, and I want them to be made by me. Kinda shooting myself on a foot here, but I just gotta keep making it. And I do love trying new ideas, it is just the process of making it that I dont like too much. I can't even really explain why, I just think it takes way too long and is just annoying. But yet I keep making more. And I find it even difficult to do just one, I side track and make several different ones. So which is it, pain in a butt or obsession???

I just wish I had a furnace to make the murrini with, would be soooo much faster, and I actually like doing that kinda stuff in a big scale! Cutting the chips... not so much. I think I need to work on my attitude, and get excited about the murrini making, since I am going to be making it anyhow, I might as well enjoy the whole process, not just using the chips.
Weird, people are just weird sometimes...

And I used to love bamboo

What awfully stressfull and busy few weeks behind. We decided last year to pull out all our rose bushes on the side yard, which is about 140 feet long fence line. Well, so we pulled them, tossed them to the alley, and posted on Craig's list that there were free roses... like we did with our agaves. The roses were gone, and we planted some crap ton of bamboo for a nice hedge to keep the noise from the street little more muffled. It didn't seem to grow much last year, but when the March hit the Texas, the bamboo started to push several feet long shoots up in one day, all over the place. It was spreading like a wild fire, and I lost all my sleep over it. It had already spread by the time onto the alley, and onto the lawn. We decided to get a piece of mind, and hired someone to tear it down, while we dug it out from the alley, and what ever would shoot up at the lawn.
Oh boy, last nights storm with a ton of rain made the shoots pop up like mushrooms, right out of nowhere, there were nothing on the lawn when I left to work 12 hours earlier, but when I came back from work, I saw them all over the place. We knew immediately when the sun rose where all the missed rhizomes were. One here, another there, oh, these are not the same one, there's more than couple here. Oh, the joy of discovering.
In the morning, when the sun started to rise, and I got home from work, I dashed to the lawn still wearing my scrubs, and just started digging the roots up. I felt like I grew up a foot or two, I had so much clay and mud on the bottom of my clogs. But I got the ones from the lawn dug out. At least what ever shot up today, tomorrow there might be a whole new set of rhizomes.
Later on when I had woken up, and my DH had gotten off from his work, we left for a dinner, and when we came back, I wanted to, not caring that it was dark, to see if anything came out on the alley, where we already dug all of it out. Oh yeah, there it is still growing, not as bad as it was, but it defenitely is not gone. I think some more digging and Round Up is in our future.
Did this teach us anything? Yes, bamboo grows in the rain like a weed... oh, and... and... naaaah, I guess it was nothing important. Next week we will plant something else that will become really expensive to first plant, and then tear down the next year. Invasive is a good thing when you want some sound barriers.
Anyone know a good land scape designer?