New Year, New Creative Endeavours

2016 has arrived and brought with it new creative opportunities and big changes in our family.  We are looking forward to becoming grandparents in February and a wedding is in our future in the Fall of 2016 so it will definitely be a busy time.
The New Year also set me on some new creative paths.  I took two workshops in blowing glass beads.  This gives the opportunity to work with some beautiful large beads that are hollow and so make the finished pieces much lighter.  It's definitely an art and I am finding that practice doesn't always make perfect but I'm getting there, very slowly.  The pipe we use is called a Carla Dona pipe and it's named after its creator.  Grace brought them in for us all the way from Murano.  They are a beautiful tool and I just hope that I can do it justice.

I am the first one on the right, closest to the camera.  We are working on our seed bubbles which is the foundation of the hollow bead.

Some of my first pieces:

I'm looking forward to all the New Year has to offer and looking forward to stretching my creative muscles.  Stay tuned!