Jenelle Aubade-Caracas

One day I was surfing the net and bumped into SortaFlowering Designs featuring some great tutorials that instantly became a must have.

SortaFlowering Designs is run by Jenelle Aubade-Caracas and her husband Daniel Caracas.

The beads are gorgeous and the pdf tutorials are excellent! Pay them a visit. You definitely will not be sorry :)

Our Studio:

Susanne Clarke of Scarab Glass Works has been wonderful at hosting the teachers willing to come here.

So far Kim Osibin and her wonderful helper Toni Lutman have been here 4 times.

The KING OF HEAT ... Jim Smircich was here mid April. EVERY beginning lampworker should take Jim's class. After 3 years of making beads I now know the importance of HEAT CONTROL.

Our first crack at Boro with James Daschbach from Lily Rose Beads

Michael Barley Oh my gosh what can I say but SUPERB!

Then the fun interesting magnificent techniques taught to us by Sherry Bellamy of Orca Beads.

Then when you think you know it all along comes Trey Cornette. What a great teacher not to mention an all round nice guy.
We all LOVE his new brass tools!
An absolute must ... I kid you not.
All of us who bought the set from the class agree we can probably toss our forming tools because this will do the trick.

Visit the class gallery showing a bit of Trey at work in our class.

For those of you new to lampworking it is well worth your time to take these classes. There is no better way to get involved in a craft than seeking out the experts in the field.

Free Blogs for Fresno and surrounding area lampwork artists coming soon.
Visit our tips and trick page HERE

August 20, 2009

For those of you wondering what happened to the members area on this site. I have been buried all summer with web design work.

My husband says you have to pick the cherries when the cherries are ripe. I never considered myself a cherry picker (though I have done worse like maybe cotton).

The design work seems to be rolling in faster than time I have available. So this site has been dormant for the things I want to do here.

While doing my other work I also have been searching for a user friendly program that all of the area lampworkers can use on this site. I have settled on WordPress MU which is set up along the lines of the main WordPress Blog Network.

It only will belong to this group and will still have all of the SEO (search engine optimization) perks of the large WordPress network. I will not develop California Lampworkers until mid 2010.

For those of you not familiar with what this Internet techy mumbo jumbo means ... SEO is relative to how the world finds you.

For those of you that have your own domains do consider a WordPress Blog here also. It will help with your google and yahoo rank.

What is the best way to be found in all of those millions of search engine addresses?

Your own domain with a blog, a BLOG network and as many legitimate links back to your own domain.

I have searched and tried most of them and WordPress in my opinion is the best.

You will not have to worry about a design. I will be designing a number suitable for lampworkers and WordPress has many beautiful ready made designs from which you can choose.

My goal is to have that Software installed and ready to go after the first of the year.

Alas my own beads sit in a giant bowl waiting to be photographed and put on my own web site.

OH WELL! "Tomorrow is another day" according to Scarlett O'Hara.