Fire and Friends

Last weekend I got to experience the best of both fire and friends!  I "painted with fire" and was thrilled to meet up with some of my wonderful beady-world friends while working with Barbara Lewis last weekend in Annapolis.  This was a more advanced class working with different types of enamels and glazes on beads and pendants.  I made quite a few uglies, but that's the whole point of experimenting.  We got to see a copy of her new book and it is gorgeous!!!  I can't wait to have my own copy so I can ooooh and aaaah over the pictures and dig into the projects.  

While the fire was hot and the crafting was good, the most fun part of the class was getting to meet and chat with lots of blogging friends!  Elisabeth of Beads for Busy Gals is an Air Force bud of mine and we were planning to meet there.  But, it was a total bonus day because I finally met Laura Twiford of Souvenirs From Life and Melissa Meman from Melissa Meman...Art, Life, & Love!  It was an absolutely great group of folks in the class...lots of laughing, sharing, and encouragement.  Laura posted a bunch of action shots in a recent post.  We were happy to finally meet because we determined a few weeks ago that we had been in a class together at Art & Soul but never put two and two together and realize that we kinda know each other!  Melissa, Elisabeth, and I went to lunch and had lots of non-stop conversation...balancing art, family, work, life...there's always something to laugh about!  It's amazing how much we all end up having in common.

Here are a couple of shots of my goodies...it's a late night shot tonight so forgive the shading.  I didn't get out of work tonight until around 2030 (that's 8:30 pm for you civilians) because I've been trying to catch up on work that's still hanging around since I went on leave a few weeks ago.  I planned for a late night, though, so I took comfy clothes and some supper along.  Got tons done but that doesn't allow for good photography on the homefront!  These purple pendants are mixes of various translucent and opaque purples and raspberries.  I was just looking for interesting combinations.  I tried to make two that matched and sort of succeeded.

This orange round with the white design is my favorite of the liquid enamel experiments.  That was one of the main portions of the class:  liquids.  I was a wee bit frustrated, though, trying to get them to work the way I wanted.  But, I ended up with some interesting effects even if they didn't go the way I thought they would.   

That's about all I have time for tonight.  It's already time for bed...I'm glad I was productive at the office but I miss having some normal time.  Maybe tomorrow!