More berries

[AlaskaBarb]

After making the blackberry and leaf necklace last week, I decided to try more fruit. Here are some of the Alaskan wild berries from yesterday.

blackberries, raspberries, nagoonberries/cloudberries, blueberries.

Still experimenting with the rose hips and currants. Rosehip needs a better calyx, and the currant seeds sort of melted when I tried to encase them -- going to try them again today.

Made with Bullseye glass.

Barb

[Leevite]

Great job!

Those berries are mouth-watering.

[BabsW]

Excellent Barb.

Let's see some more.

Barbara

[Jinx.Garza]

Wow! Very nice.

Jinx

p.s. Are you really in Morocco (as indicated by your flag)?

[AlaskaBarb]

Originally Posted by Jinx.Garza

Wow! Very nice.

Jinx

p.s. Are you really in Morocco (as indicated by your flag)?

Thanks. I've some more in the annealer. I hope the rosehips are improved.


No, I'm not in Morocco -- I was born there, in Casablanca. My dad was stationed at Nouasseur AFB, after the war.

Sorry, a little off-topic.

B

[tigerlil]

Hey Barb,

nice job!

those are pretty damn realistic. I thought the blueberries were real when the picture was downloading (before the holes showed up) and that you'd placed them there for comparison.

[bluhealer]

You're making me homesick and hungry!
Yellow salmonberries....

Carolyn

[AlaskaBarb]

Hey, Liza. Funny you should mention that. I had them drying on a paper towel, next to a bowl with the real ones I'd used for models. DH came in and scooped up a couple -- of course, he realized they were glass when he touched them, but had him fooled for a minute!

Might try the yellow salmon berries today -- just got some new rods. The nagoon berries were made with some of the streaky-freaky Bullseye. Sort of amber-orange-pinky colored.

The blueberries (going to share my now-not-so-secret recipe,here) were made with black Bullseye glass, rolled in Bullseye Egyptian Blue powdered frit, and then acid-etched for about 20 seconds. The calyx stringer was made with a mix of cobalt, egyptian blue and black.

Barb

[Jinx.Garza]

Originally Posted by AlaskaBarb

I was born there, in Casablanca.

Cool!

[Beadsomine]

I really like your berries! They do look good enough to eat! I am a newbie lampworker, and I have been attempting to make a grape cluster. I live in a wine-grape-growing area of Northern California and thought that grapes would be very marketable! And my best friends hubby is growing grapevines in his backyard. So anyway, I am rambling. Any good tips on forming a grape cluster? So far I either get mush or something that looks more like a raspberry!
Kristen

[AlaskaBarb]

How big do you want to make them?

Are they free-standing, or on a bead?

You could even do individual life-sized ones and wire them together.

I'm sure there are tons of grape-motif items you could market down there. Mixed-media napkin rings, wineglass-keepers (don't really know what they're called -- you put on on your wineglass to tell it apart from someone else's.)

Candle holders with wired-on grape clusters.

I think individual grapes wired together have tons of possibilities, because they would be more flexible. The tiny little calyx at the end of the grape could be a tiny dark brown seed bead, that holds the wire in place.

I'll bet that the pale green opalino would make pretty green grapes -- has that translucency.

Quickly acid-etching (dip 'n etch) makes a much more realistic surface. The opals etch much quicker than transparent, at least with Bullseye. Try it for one or two seconds, and then rinse. You can always etch more, but can't go backwards. Too much, and they develop whitish spots that aren't attractive. (The exception is dark ivory, which looks fab deeply etched, IMHO.)

Show us your grapes!

[Becky Mason]

Barb,

These are so realistic and so yummy looking. You should find out where the berry festivals are each year and contact the festival comittees. The festival queen should be wearing a bracelet, necklace and earrings made from your berry beads to support the berry growers. Then the committee could auction off the set of jewelry to raise money for the year's following festival. I bet you could make a bunch of money selling berry jewelry.

Becky

[AlaskaBarb]

Thanks, Becky. I think Elizabeth Johnson has the market cornered on produce.

---
That's a cute idea, though. There is a blueberry festival down in Girdwood, Alaska. Don't know if they have a queen.
B

edited for typo.