I’ve been on the hollow band wagon for a while now and I’m really loving making them.  Since watching Italian glass artist Andrea Guibelli make his blown hollows in Murano, I’ve been making them since! I don’t think I’ll be stopping any time soon either. (I have to say, the cubed hollows are my favourite!)

Sarah has obviously done some research on it’s history and make-up, and also experimented on Rubino Oro extensively to include it in her book to save you from searching the internet yourself. I think it’s a great resource written by a lampworker for lampworkers.

There are loads of pictures of beads for ideas and drool-worthy inspiration, tips on using Rubino Oro and other colours such as EDP, Leaky Pen and dichroic, 2 step-by-step pictured tutorials, and included are some great Sarah secrets that you usually only get to learn in her classes! Well worth the US$22.50 price, in my opinion. Definitely get a book for yourself. Just make sure you’ve got some Rubino Oro to play with, too!

You can also send her photos of any beads that you made with her tutorial to put up in her gallery! Cool! Watch it, I’ll be sure to get a bead up on that page.

Oh btw, does anyone else see this? But I reckon the way Sarah describes Rubino Oro on page 4 (2nd paragraph), sounds like RO is a Cancerian.

I just had to have a quick look into my diary to find out what my lame excuse for not writing will be. I’m glad to announce that I have proof that I was too busy to sit and write a post. Let me provide the evidence, your honour:

The downstairs part of our house is now officially a construction zone. We are building in downstairs, adding in a couple of bedrooms and an art room for Ced & I to get creative and messy in. Of course, before any major renovation job you have to run around like a chook without it’s head first. Run to the hardware store, the window place, the timber floor place, the tile place - all with a pen behind the ear, a clipboard and a measuring tape. Then it’s meeting with the builder, lighting people and floor people, and plus all the phonecalls that have to be made. The major preparation part is over now and the work has begun, thankfully. Renovating your house = no weekend play time.

But I mustn’t complain too much. The builder is going to do one very, very important job for me. He’s going to build me a work studio, including the ventilation. Yesss! I had to work out all the specifications, the measurements of the desk and hood, phone fan and ventilation experts and work out the maths required to ventilate the room. Whew. It was hard at first but once I got it, it was easy. Any other Australian glass bead makers setting up their ventilation? Get in touch with Fantech as well as read up at Mike’s site..

Then the really fun stuff started. Sarah Hornik came to Brisbane to teach classes. Yay, it was so cool to see Sarah again. It was great to show her Australia and watch her take photos of the funny stuff we take for normal everyday things. Like biscuit packets :\ . It was also really cool to meet all the glass bead makers that made it up to Brisbane to do her classes. I was heading up to Redcliffe and Virginia some nights to join the class for dinner. I met so many glass people - it was fun meeting my on-line glass friends in the flesh.

Me, Sally and Sharon took Sarah out to as many scenic places as humanly possible. We took her to the zoo, to the Gold Coast, to Eumundi on the north coast and to the city and the valley. And then after her teaching work, Sarah came to stay with me for a bit. It was fun having her in the house, though I had to work so I couldn’t hang out with her like we did in Murano. But it was still cool hanging out with Sarah

After a sad goodbye at the airport, Sarah left Aus to go home. Ced and I then worked really hard to move all our belongings from downstairs, upstairs. We finished it all in one day - boy were we knackered after that. But it was good to get it done as we ended up taking a truck load of rubbish to the dump too. Oh how cleansing that felt. And the reason why we had to get it done in one day was because the builders started work on our house the very next morning! :@ Lucky Sarah had left when she did as the builders started jack hammering at 7am!

I also have done two lots of glass classes. One set with Peter Minson and the other with Bernard Stonor. Peter’s classes were first and they were excellent. I got lots of pro tips from him, like holding yourself and how to hold the glass, and how to move yourself so you conserve energy. I got a few “a-ha” moments in the class too which is always good :). We got to play with boroscilicate glass and blowing beads! That was loads of fun. I would like to try that again sometime.

Bernard Stonor’s classes were also excellent, as we worked through some advanced techniques in soft glass. We made murrini, marbles, blown vessels and sculpture. It was masses of fun. There were loads of cool people in the class, a great mix of some I’d never met before and some old friends. And Bernie was good fun too. Thanks to Tracy “Wildlight” Brown for organising it. I think the most fun day was the marble day. Even though the marbles I made are perfectly round (Okay, more like dried prunes than round :p) it was just brilliant to extend myself and try something completely different than I’d do at home. Peter’s boro class was like that too. It was great fun and I can’t wait to see what I make after this.

So there you have it, all my excuses Now things have calmed down around here I can focus on friends, family and beads. Hopefully I‘ll have some photos to show soon.

So we’re like one big happy family downstairs. George and Mildred sit behind me, Mildred making the most noise out of the two but I just tune her out after awhile, and Bazza and I keeping each other warm Dawww it’s so cute! (Don’t tell my boyf though! LoL!)

I’ve also been distracted by big sparkly new things around the house.  I’ll take a photo and post it up soon so you can see what I’ve been distracted by.

Okay, I’m off to look at more templates.  Wish me luck!

-A