Southwest frit

After having spent a month touring the national parks of Arizona and Utah, I feel inspired to make beads and jewelry with a southwestern motif.  I've attempted to recreate the scenery of the winter landscape:  sagebrush and juniper against a background of red sandstone mesas.  I made my own frit mixture from commando (CIM 475), shrubbery (CIM 410), muskmelon (CIM426), pine tree (Effetre 344), light brown (Effetre 0444, spanish leather (Effetre 423), and brown rock (Effetre 654).  Here's what the frit mixture looks like:

Here are some of the beads I've made from it:

The three beads on the left were made by adding the frit to a base beads of commando, canyon de chelly (CIM 722) and stone ground (CIM 351), respectively plus periwinkle (Effetre 220) for the sky.  I melted in silver wire on the second bead from the left.  The bead on the right was made by adding frit to a base bead of red roof tile.

As usual, it's highly likely that these beads or ones like them will end up on my Etsy site:  etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss

New addition to my workshop

I'm back after an incredible vacation in Arizona, Utah and Colorado.

Before I got started making beads again, I decided to invest in a reconditioned oxygen concentrator, to avoid hubby having to cart heavy oxygen cylinders back and forth from the gas supplier (although the oxygen concentrator is heavy on its own).  The one below was purchased at Flametree Glass in Roswell, GA.

Here it is:

It doesn't deliver as high a flow of oxygen as an oxygen tank, but it is adequate for my torch (a minor burner).  So far, I haven't experienced any problems working with it.  Its flow rate is adequate for the size beads I usually make.  And its nice not to have to worry about running out of oxygen---it's there when you need it.