Artists Spotlight - Jill Egan

Jill is, quite literally, the most versatile and talented artist I know.  She creates beautiful jewellery from a broad range of materials including aluminium, silver, porcelain and her own lampwork beads and fused pendants. You will also find in Jill's Etsy store a large range of elegant homewares, innovative keepsakes and beautiful works of art. The most breathtaking of Jill's work in my opinion are her paintings.


 Jill is a fine artist, an overglaze painter who uses Porcelain as her canvas. Jill's stunning hand painted fern bowl above was recently featured on the U.S Etsy front page, a well deserved compliment indeed.

Jill is a superb blogger, check out Out of the fire - Kiln Fired Art Blog. Her blog contains autobiographic tales, collections of images of past work and posts documenting current works which give you a lovely insight into Jill's design processes. There are also two wonderful sections of tutorials on Fusing and Overglaze Painting including one for this stunning tiger!



I'll leave you now with this image of one of Jill's hammered sterling silver sheep charms. How cute is he! This post only really just scratches the surface of the visual delights on offer when you go for a mosey around Jill's world. Pop to Kiln Fired Art to find out more.....

Jolene x

Artists Spotlight - Mel Harding of Inkydoodlecrafts

The last time I blogged about Mel, way back in May last year, I left you with the prediction that one day I'd be able to say that I knew her before she was famous. It's very nice to be able to smugly say...and here she is in print. Mel was discovered on Etsy recently by a journalist from Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine and invited to be interviewed for a special feature!

Mel's beautiful blog is full of vibrant colour and photographs of her handmade cards and competition winning designs and she is also a member of the Jellypark design team so you can see her scrumptious designs regularly featured in the Jellypark e-zine.

This Dino card makes me smile every time I see it, so beautifully detailed and lovingly put together. I'd love to be in that little boys shoes :-D Rawrrrr

This cheeky little girl sums up just why Mel's cards are so very special. The main ingredient of Mel's Designs are beautifully and skillfully hand coloured toppers. Add to that hand stitched detail, mixed media embellishments and layers of texture with a side order of delicate punched detail and a real flair for choosing great colour combinations! Can you tell I am a fan?

I particularly love this card, a special hand coloured fairy commissioned by my lovely OH for his Mum for Mothers Day just gone. She's beautiful! Click the pic to go see Mels' blog post on how she was made.

And you can find toppers and more at Inkydoodlecrafts on Ebay

Jolene x

Artists Spotlight - Kayleigh Sexton

Today I'm blogging about Kayleigh Sexton, polymer clay artist and jewellery designer. Check out this journal, I absolutely adore it! This is Kayleigh's make for the New Year Journal Challenge on Craft Pimp Forum. It looks so tactile and softly shimmery that I kind of want to reach into the picture and touch it. Brilliant!

Kayleigh has just recently opened an online store called Polymer Clay Bits and Bobs where you can find a wide range of jewellery, cute and cool sculptural critters, custom options for cane slice covered photo frames and more!

To the right is a one of a kind beautifully detailed pendant, this one is made with my favourite colours, just my cup of tea! Click the image to visit Kayleigh's Flickr Photostream for a closer look.

If I had to describe Kayleigh's style in just three words they would be: vibrant, fun, tactile. I'm going to finish up with a diverse selection of Kayleigh's Craftyness to make you all smile.

You can see more online from Kayleigh on her blog Dizzy Kitten's Arty Farty Stuff and Kayleigh's Craftyness on Facebook.

Jolene x

Mini Mo' Febuary 2012 - Springtime and 'Shrooms

I'm celebrating the first signs of spring with my Springtime collection of glasswork for February and have used shades and tones that put me in mind of crocus petals and early spring flowers. This colourway uses Effetre Purple 272, Special Dark Lemon 412 and Periwinkle 220 with CiM Hades and Effetre 006 clear.

These zingy lime beads show the little yellow Flower murrini and twists of Dark Lellow ribbon twistie under encasement.

These are one of my most favourite kind of beads to make, clear core, ribbon twistie, encased. So pretty and effective.

Cloudbusting shards over CiM Dirty Martini and Reichenbach Antique Green 1012G

My second colourway for February is called 'Shrooms and uses rich colours in woodland tones. I've used CiM Sherwood, CiM Hades Effetre Crimson 432 and Effetre Dark Ivory 276.

A core of 432 with Woodland murrini and encased with Effetre 006. These beads show the murrini both under encasement and as surface embellishment.

'Shroom murrini over a core of Effetre grass green with twistie dots and swipes then encased.

This last little Mini Mo' beads that i have to show you are Red Riverrock shards over CiM Journey and CiM Sangre.

Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies and Kitzbitz Art Beads

Artists Spotlight - Laney Mead

Laney Mead is a class act and you can get an up close view of her literally wickedly sharp sense of humour right here on Etsy.


Laney's blog, Life with Izzybeads is a lovely place to visit. You'll quickly come to see that alongside her talent with glass Laney is also a natural wordsmith and story teller. I recommend that you settle yourself down with a nice cup of tea and let her cheer you right up with one of her warm and gently humerus anecdotal tales about life as a creative, an animal lover and Mother to teenagers!


Alongside her chorus of cute critters Laney also makes stunning sculptural floral beads and has recently had several images published in the Soda Lime Times, a fabulously cool monthly e-magazine for Lampworkers.

Laney exhibits regularly at well known craft events all over the country and will be right there in the thick of it at the Towcester Flame Off in April this year. She also keeps a well stocked shop on Ebay.

Jolene x

Open weekend (part one)........

It's been a good long while since I had an open house event here in my studio, about 3 years, and to be honest I was feeling a bit nervous and a tad shy. Well it turned out to be a terrific weekend, lots of laughs, glorious sunshine and a fair amount of glass melting fun interlaced with more cups of tea than you can shake a stick at and mountains of delicious cake and home baked treats!

Here are a few pictures of the weekend snapped by my lovely friend Michelle (as I forgot to take any!)

Left to right: Tish, Sue at the Mini CC, Sandy demoing how to make a tornado bead and me.

Sandy's tornado bead with a touch of green goldstone twistie that I did a demo for earlier in the day and some gorgeous silver glass.

Kat demoing how to make a bicarb bubble bead - I had my first try with this technique on Friday and picked up far too much bicarb and had air bubbles popping out of bead left right and centre - not a great success but very very fun.

A bubble bead in the flame, pretty!

me at the torch.........

A few of Friday's beads - these are all destined for Beads of Courage when they have been cleaned. I absolutely love Kat's goddess.

My pal Katie making her very first beads....and another glass melting fanatic was born!

Linda at the Mini CC and Katie on the Minor.

The Saturdays - left to right: Mich, Linda, Me, Jenny, Linda, Pat and Sue (hiding at the back)

Jo x

Mini Mo' January 2012 - Underwater World and Kiss Me Quick

I decided to work on an underwater theme for my first Mini Mo' for 2012 because one of my Mini Mo' ladies specially requested sea/water themed collection. Underwater World uses Effetre Coral, transparent light Grass Green and Petrol Green with CiM Hades and CiM Sherwood.

I have included a mix of “hollow” barnacles, silvered barnacle points and Tang tropical fish, murrini with Green Dreams silvered shards.

I've been itching for ages to try and make some little tropical fish murrini and so there are Tangs in amongst barnacles (these look like they are hollow when encased as the core is clear glass) and ivory and fine silver laced murrini that I have pulled in to points.

This chunky aquarium bead used the flat cane from Underwater World wrapped around a clear core and also as raised seaweed decoration on the surface. Here you can see the complex striped ribbon twistie cane and Tang murrini magnified under deep encasement.

This deep Green Ocean set shows what the barnacle murrini looks like pressed flat as surface decoration and my ""Green Dreams" shards both under and over encasement.

Kiss Me Quick is a cheeky little collection just right for Valentines beads. I used Effetre Dark Red 460, Baby Pink 260, White 204 and CiM Cranberry Pink and CiM Hades.

The murrini is a mix of red hearts and pink starbursts with shards made from a selection of pretty reds for Valentines Day.

Ahhhh, what a fabulous excuse to get out all of my pink glass for a play. I had forgotten all about this beautiful colour, Reichenbach Mystic Pink. Yum! I used the goldstone cored twistie from the Kiss Me Quick collection and Sweetheart murrini to make these sweet little beads.

A romantic set of florals useing swipes of flat cane to form the petals. I've teamed it up with some handmade goldstone stringer which adds a touch of glamour.

My first set of lentils in ever so long, each of these beads has a central clear window with elements of Kiss Me Quick cane visible underneath.

Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies and Kitzbitz Art Beads

Mini Mo' December 2011 - Big Top and Bejeweled

I wanted to play about a little with bold opaque primary colours for my first December collection, a circus themed glasswork pack called Big Top. I chose Effetre Dark Red 436, Light Lapis 240, CiM Pumpkin and combined the three in one gather to make “Circus Circus” patchwork shards.

This zany focal is very different from anything that I've ever made before with big bold flower petals swiped on with flat Big Top flat cane and a wrap of ribbon twistie along the base and a googly eyed ladybird!

The colours are so bright, bold and fun that I couldn't resist letting the colours do all the talking with this collection of funky beads, wacky shapes and rounds, showing the cane and twistie as surface decoration and under encasement too.

This *every so slightly* more grown up set shows all the different Big Top canes under clear encasement over a base of pastel baby blue with a few Big Top murrini on the surface of a couple of the beads.

My second colourway this month is based around the idea of gem toned glass, transparent secondary colours, including Effetre Light Topaz 012, Transparent Dark Purple 044, CiM Great Bluedini and Vetrofond Transparent Light Brown 084. I have completed this collection by making reactive "Tribal" shards using Ask Tribal Turquoise.

I stumbled across a thread on Lampwork Ect by Jacqueline Parkes advertising her new shard making tutorial and couldn't resist getting it to try. Tribal shards are my own glass recipe but have been created in the way that Jacqueline describes in her wonderful tutorial. I tested itsy-bitsy bits of the Tribal shards out on several base glasses.  There isn't much rhyme or reason to my choice of base colours here - just labelled shorts that I had close at hand at the time.

Here is a chintzy floral focal with an encased core of gem toned ribbon twistie and asymmetric sculptural floral decoration on the surface using flat cane.

Bejeweled canes over a base of CiM Mojito, encased with Effetre 006. These beads show how Bejeweled Murrini looks as surface decoration.

Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies and Kitzbitz Art Beads