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home of the original CGBeadroller. Graphite cavity marvers
for the lampwork industry. Don't settle for cheap knockoffs. Made with superior optical grade graphite. Machine finished with diamonds. I am also a self representing artist. All beads are hand made by me from soft (soda lime) glass, kiln annealed for strength and durability. |
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~~~~Home~~~~ Catalog News Catalog CGBeadrollers findings glass etc Classes Info tutorials information gift certificates misc other pages everything else |
3/6/2014 I've just added a new category, Metal Sheets. If you you work with metal, this is an awesome category. Just like the metal blanks, these sheets are 'raw' metals and only come in quantity of one while we are stocking the line. Lots of different textures in three metals and two sizes: brass, copper and nickel silver - (on the plus size of:) 2" x 3" and 2" x 6".    3/1/2014 Free shipping weekend. Starts today and ends Sunday midnight. Domestic free shipping Canada $2 International $7 Time for another contest. See my CGBeads Facebook Business Page for details (click here) New CGBeadroller T-Shirt is up for sale!! 2/20/2014 What's new? Metal blanks! For the present, there is only one quantity (one package of 3) per item while we are gearing up this new category. These are raw metal blanks used for enameling and metal smithing. Kara's pretty excited to be adding to her findings section. Please bear with us while she expand the line. I'm working on listing the sterling silver blanks, sheet metal and bezel metal. 2/14/2014 Happy Valentines Day! I'm back from the Tucson show. It's wasn't a very good experience, I wasn't happy with To Bead True Blue so I'll be applying for different show next year. This one will be all glass people, that will be awesome. It's a new show being put on my Lewis Wilson, and will be a mix of "glass art, marbles, pendants, beads, murinni, sculptures". Here's a link to Glassland facebook if you are interested in following it. On to tools - - Two new ones are out, these are something I should have done two years ago. #69 Baroque has some sizes missing, which is fine is you want a sampling of the shape. Well if you want a more complete graduating of sizes, we now have them. 11 sizes ranging from 11x15.5mm up to 21x25.5mm.
2/3/2014 It's been an amazing 5 years of inventing, manufacturing and selling the CGBeadrollers. Thank you everyone for making it such a success. The winners of the Anniversary Drawing tool are: Patty Miller, Debra Bartshe Jennings, Carole Hughes, Gisela Rautenberg, and Sharon Driscol. May the next 5 years of the CGBeadroller be as good as the first 5. Now I'm off to Tucson, and will have a booth at To Bead True Blue this year, please stop by. SHIPPING WILL BE CLOSED FEB 6-12 1/19/2014 CGBeads is celebrating! It's the 5th Anniversary of the CGBeadrollers. Where did the time go? I want to thank all my loyal customers for making what I thought was a helpful tool into the success it is today, and here's how I'm celebrating (all specials end Feb 2nd): 1) For the 5th Anniversary
of the
CGBeadrollers, and I'm marking it with another sampler version tool.
This one is a Fancy
Sampler. It included some of the (wait for it) - - fancier
shapes. The catch is that Feb 3rd, the Fancy Sampler will go on hiatus
until the Gathering in Houston this coming July.
2) Specials, I guess we need those for the sellebration, too. The other samplers will be 50% off. 3) 50 % off shipping (no need to explain this one). 4) I'm going to start teaching a 'tool class' and have designed a specific tool to teach from. It's a nice little mix and can be purchased after taking the class. But that's no fun, so lets have a 5th Anniversary drawing and I'll give away 5 of them. (mental note for the back of your mind, I'll be teaching a workshop at the ISGB Gathering in July. Class schedule to be taught in my own CGBeads studio to be announce soon.) To enter the drawing, go to my facebook page and share the post (pinned to the top of the page). If you're not on facebook, just send me an email saying you would like to be entered. I'll pick 5 people at random and announce it on Superbowl Sunday evening (Feb 2nd).
1/6/2014 Here are the example beads from the newest CGBeadrollers, teardrops & olives. I pay a lot attention to the latest jewelry fads, and things dangling from a single chain necklace are in lately. Not to mention the classic teardrop on a chain, and don't forget earrings....
Here is what the smallest 7 and the largest olive beads look like smashed, they make a pretty nice round 'flat' surface, and I'm imagining they will be a pretty good 'pre-shape' to use for lentil presses, too.  1/4/2014 4 new tools to kick off the new year with. See 'Catalog New' page for details. 12/22/13 FRIT!!! I've just doubled the frit selections. 12/8/13 These may be the last new tools for 2013, ribbed donuts in the larger sizes. Imagine these as encased beads, yum. I've been waiting for these to get done so I can encase a simple dicroic base, I think it will give a LOT of added punch to a very simple bead. In the mean time, I wanted to get them released for the Christmas gift season.
12/4/13 I started beading for our booth at the Bead True Blue Show at Tucson Gem & Mineral in February. So far I have a little over 200 sets of 6-beads sets, with another 20 sets in the kiln. I will also have the beadrollers, and Kara with have her metal blanks etc.   11/19/13 I just finished listing the other two Christmas CGBeadrollers. I've designed these so they can also be used the whole year around. Think of animal bodies, and the Angel can be used as a basic body, like maybe an Uncle Sam for the 4th of July. Actually, I think the angel/dolls would just make nice odd plain beads the way they are. FYI, the largest two beads are 1-1/2" long. 
11/4/13 My husband can find the
dandiest things. His latest bazaar item
is Chicken Diapers! And I found this one with flames! So apropos
for me. Who know, a chicken would need a diaper, but why can't
they be in the house? After all they are just birds, and don't
some people have Cockatoos and Macaws indoors? (see how cleverly
I justified letting Stewey into the office?) Now you may ask "How
do you measure a chicken for a diaper?" or "How do you put a diaper on
a chicken?" Well, there's a video
for that. Unfortunately Stewey isn't tame enough yet to sit and
let me put a diaper on him, but I'll let you know when he is. Oh
ya, I'm gonna try, you know I will. I caught a picture of him
perched on the cat tree one day, he hasn't done it again - but he eye's
every now and then. He's also taken up sitting at my feet when
I'm in the teaching studio torching.
  10/26/13 [don't forget the free
shipping domestic and reduce international, good till Sunday midnight,
see 10/24/13
post for details]
Kara & I have a booth at To Bead True Blue in Tucson in Feb. Since
this is a bead show I've started making beads again. Yes
it's like riding a bike, you don't forget, but you do wobble at first,
so I've taken to making simple beads to get back into practice of
making beads for hours at a time. I love raku frit but I'm not
fond of raku rods so I tried it using a ribbed CGBeadroller, now these
I'm ok with. I also decided to use up some of my extinct
Vetrofond glass, these are Blueberry and Fossils. I've also made
a bunch of encased Double Helix to familiarize myself with how to get
color from some of the glass. This also gave me the chance to try
out my new light boxes from Doug
Baldwin Photography. These are my first two pictures
with the setup and I'll have to play with it a bit more, but I'm pretty
happy with how they defuse the light and don't have hot spots, much
like
a professional photo shoot wouldn't have them either. I'm sure
there's more of a knack to it that I'll catch onto, also.  10/24/13 It's been a while since I've had free shipping, so lets do that this weekend. Starts today and ends Sunday midnight. Domestic free shipping Canada $2 International $7 Upcoming class: Twisties, Vine Cane, Murrini 10/17/13 The ultimate frit marvers are here. I had a customer write me about a marver she purchases many many years ago and could no longer find available to purchase a second one. She loved the long rolling space it provides, so she contacted me with the idea and I fell in love with the concept. It's a 6" long paddle with a shallow tray for frit, shards, silver leaf, murinni, etc, but the narrow design (2-1/8") makes it much lighter than other paddle of this length. I decided to take it one step farther and make a second version half the size that is open ended. Both double as a traditional flat marver on the back. They can be found on either the 'MISC' page or the 'FRIT' page.  
10/6/13 Three tools to round out the 'long' bicone shape. 10/6/13 Just a few pictures of our trip and a short blog. Hearing about someone else's vacation can be boring, but I wanted to hit the highlights. First stop was Philadelphia. I love colonial America, so seeing Independence Hall again after I was there as a teenager was a real thrill. We also walked down to Ben Franklin's house and his first post office.   Next was NYC. It's so big the best way to see it is to just give in an be a tourist and took the tour busses. One wound up at Times Square, good grief, the skyscrapers never ended! I didn't know the New Years Eve ball is now permanent so we got to see it and didn't have to fight the New Years Eve crowd. Spend a few days with a grandson, refreshing him in how to cook Texas BBQ. Cooked on a rooftop in SoHo, it was close enough.  Last we decided to lighten our wallets in Atlantic City. The boardwalk is virtually empty in September - nice....  10/3/13 Back from vacation so I'll be doing shipping & catching up today and tomorrow. I'll blog pictures later. 9/23/13 The first class of the new teaching studio is on the books now, it was a fabulous one and I'm sorry if you missed it, but there will be more. Here's a picture of a few of the hollows, vessels and blown vessels that were made. Christi is an awesome lampworker with a bubbly personality and it spills over into her teaching. After I return from vacation Oct 3 we'll get her some more classes scheduled, oh wait until you see what she's going to teach... In the mean time, please have a look at what Ginny has scheduled. Class schedule link is on the left hand of the page.  9/12/13 Three new tools are up (click here for the links).
9/9/13 Snake chain necklace sale ! ! Ends 9/15 or while quantities last.
9/4/13 Time to expand the catalog again, custom blended frit is now available, along side of the raku frit, which will be expanding soon as well. Blending is a bit tougher than it looks, you can't just throw some colors together and call it good. The proportions have to be right, and the contrast has to be palatable. We're starting off with 8 blends and will grow as the seasons change, and our knowledge of blending grows.  8/31/13 We are up and running, the 'Maiden Voyage of the CGBeads Lampwork Studio" will be Sept 21st. Click on the "Classes" link on the left of the page for details. If you're wanting to come to a class: Dallas, Ft Worth and Denton make a triangle, with Denton being at the top, Sanger is 10 miles north of Denton up I-35. There is a map on the classes page. 8/27/13 Three New Tools. See the Catalog News page for details or find them under Catalog > Barrels. This strand is #39 along with 2 of the 3 new sizes #120 and #121. I haven't made the Jumbo barrels yet.  8/25/13 Last week I held a caption contest via my newsletter. Here is the page with the picture and the captions. I figure now that I am selling Double Helix glass in my catalog I had better start making beads with it. This is a test batch I bought at the Gathering, so I don't have this particular one for sale.  8/18/13 Glinter is back in stock. * * NEW CATEGORY * * DOUBLE HELIX GLASS Permanent home is under the ~Catelog~ tab
8/7/13 Finally - pictures from the Gathering in Rochester NY in July. We had a great time, not just blogging that, we really did. We were busy almost the whole time. A couple of presenters took president over people wanting to visit the tech vendor room, go figure, but we got them back on breaks. Unfortunately one of my boxes never showed up. It's still lost in the postal system black hole and I have to wait 30 day for them to tag it as lost so it can be looked for. First off, the booth. See all the pretty flame handles you missed if you didn't go this year? Well not to worry, next year is in Houston. I can drive to this one so I'll have Plenty of inventory.    Kara has had her metal blanks at a few shows. We're ready to put some of them up on the website now, so look for those in the 'findings' section soon.   8/3/13 Just a few pictures from Kara's & my pre-Gathering trip to Niagara Falls. It was one of the most moving experience either of us has ever had. I have always wanted to see the Pyramids, but after seeing Niagara, I don't think even they could out do the experience. I'm a HUGE waterfall fan. The river runs along wide and raging, them all of a sudden it falls off into the earth.    Maid of the Mist boat headed for the Horseshoe Falls, followed by views from the boat. The ride takes you up into the spray of the Horseshoe Falls and parks there for 5-10 minutes. The spray is pretty heavy so I didn't want to use my camera, but looking up into the water coming over the cliff is unbelievable.      If you stare at a spot of water and watch it as it falls, the water freezes in space. I can't put my finger on it, but I'm sure there's a glass out there somewhere that is the same color - and I want it!!!  Lastly, flowers on Luna Island, which separates Bridal Veil Falls from the American Falls. Here's a link to a great Niagara Fall website with some awesome pictures. You can get a much better sense of the fall taken from the helicopter, and view of where the Maid of the Mist parks.  7/10/13 I'm having a contest. The rules are simple. Send me a picture (only one please) of a bead (or set of beads) that you have made using a CGBeadroller. I'll post them on this page. Contest starts now, picture sending ends Sunday night (July 14th). I'll send out a newsletter after that requesting votes. The top vote getter will win their choice of any CGBeadroller, runner up will receive a beadroller base. You'll need to be signed up to my newsletter to be able to participate. 6/28/13 CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO SEE DETAILS ON THE NEW TOOLS  6/25/13  Ahh, the perfect bicone. So beautiful, so elegant. Can anyone make a perfect bicone? Given enough time, sure you can! And each time you do they get more perfect and take less time. So why don't you make them? Because you make 'dozens' of shapes, and don't have time to concentrate on just one. Well, that's what tools are for, and that's why I developed the line of CGBeadrollers s 6/16/13 I still haven't introduced our little new guy, so here's Fred, hanging out with Stewey. Fred showed up as a stray about two weeks before we lost Bruce, so he's been here 6 weeks. The 'herd' tried to chase him off but he was having non of it. It took him about a week to find the cat door and the food dish in the kitchen, there was no turning back then, he found his home. That makes 3 all black cats and 1 very black based Tortie. There must be a sign on the door that only cats can read and says "black cats are welcome here". Over half of the cats we have had are either black or black & white or black based. He's the most 'cat' cat we've ever had, everyone else has been 'odd'. Fred likes to sleep in the bathroom sink, loves people and runs to see who is visiting, tips my glass of water off the end table, doesn't mind being held for more than 10 seconds, even meow's (ya, we have a bit of a silent oddball bunch). He seems to have some Siamese in him, which is great, the long legs helps us tell the 3 black one apart in the dark.  I'm back home from Bead & Button. SHIPPING IS BACK ON TRACK - LET THE BUYING RESUME ! ! ! Thank you everyone who stopped by, we had a blast! TWO NEW TOOLS AVAILABLE 5/28/13 The winner of my Cross-Promo Giveaway is Lisa Cook. Thank you everyone for participating. Check Lori's blog for her winner, and Zoozii's blog for her winner. 5/20/13 CROSS-PROMO GIVEAWAY Lori Bergmann, Zoozii's and CGBeads are teaming up with a giveaway. Lori wrote a tutorial on the making of her awesome Zebra beads for Bead Style Magazine, April 2013 issue. In the article she explained using the Small Round beadroller to judge the size of glass needed to press a perfect lentil from a Zoozii's lentil presses. Each of us is having a
giveaway, so you have three chances to win. Here's how to enter:
1). For a chance to win a
Small Round CGBeadroller:
send me an email at donna@cgbeads.com with 'CROSS-PROMO GIVEAWAY' in the subject line. 2). For a chance to win the Bead Style Magazine containing the Zebra Bead Tutorial and the set of beads featured: goto Lori Bergmann's Blog for details. 3). For a chance to win your choice of either a Zoozii Straight Sided Lentil Trio Small or Large: goto to Zoozii's Blog for details. Giveaways will end Monday May 27th @ Midnigh-ish. I'll announce my winner here, Lori & Amy will announce their winners on their blogs.    5/8/13 I HATE DAYS LIKE TODAY!!! I had to put Bruce to sleep. He was injured so I rushed him to the closes vet. She said his back was broken, there was no apparent pain. He was my fluffy rag doll, and I miss him terribly. I'll close out his life with a little montage tribute.        4/15/13 We have this 'weed' in our lawn that flowers every year, then we mow the yard and I don't get to see it again till the next spring. When it comes to plants I'm as dumb as a box of rocks, so when I discovered last year that it was primrose I decided to try and transplant it this year. This is a picture of it in the lawn and one a week after I transplanted it and it flowered again. I am thrilled I didn't kill it! so I went and hunted down a couple more plants and transplanted them, too. I know it needs to go dormant, but I'm hoping to bring it in this winter to see if it will flower inside.
4/4/13 Kara & I have decided to do some shows this year so I launched into a project of making sample beads from every CGBeadroller cavity. I was a bit surprised, I estimate I used around 8-9 pounds of glass (not including the marble molds). Speaking of shows, our first one will be in Lynnwood WA on May 3-5. If you'd like to see a larger picture, just click on the image.          3/3/13 I've always thought there were enough marble molds on the market, that I wouldn't need to add anymore to the mix - apparently I was wrong. Over the past year I have gotten a lot of requests for smaller marble cavities, and it seems the 1mm cavity increment increases are very popular as well. Introducing the Marble Mold line of CGBeadrollers. Five paddles, with a total of 24 cavities, ranging from 8mm (1/3") up to 34mm (1-1/3"). I may be wrong, but I don't think there is a marble cavity that small on the market. I've also added a bundle package, buy all 5 and get a stringer tray bonus.  2/28/13 Stewey the chicken update: I got to hold him today! He was sitting in the corner of the shed with no where to run and I picked him up. Needless to say he's not happy with me right now, but he still comes running when I dump feed out for him. Fickle fellow. He's getting pretty big so we're guessing he was just a spring chicken when he got loose from the farmer coming through town. It was fun to hold him, can't wait to corner him again. Bwhaaaa  2/18/13 Went to a bead meeting Saturday night. I dropped out of attending for a while (while I was fighting my health), but now I'm ready to get back into the swing. I got to do the demo. A while back Tammy Whitham from Australia made a tutorial making tops with beadrollers and allowed me to post the pdf on my website, so that's what I demo'd. I forgot to take a baroque tool (BR-6901) with me, but that's another awesome top shape to do, and the ribbed tools give another dimension, too. Then I brought out the new beadcap beadroller. We played with it a bit then spent time 'thinking outside the box' with all the other things to do with the beadcaps. A dress for a little girl with her legs dangling out the bottom would be awesome, bells, earring tassels... Spinning Top Tutorial by Tammy Whitham  2/6/13 February is my Anniversary month, these first 4 years have really flown by. In the past I've made a special Anniversary tool, this year I'm doing something a little different. Check here for details. 1/20/13 I want to thank Double Helix for making the best clear glass on the market. I have been playing with their silvered glass since they first came out with. I could never get the intense colors everyone else could get. I did a bit better by encasing, but they would almost always break, so I caved and bought some their clear Zephyr. Now as if by magic, I have stunning color and confidence the bead will not break after it's sold. As you can see from the picture, it was consistent over and over, not just a one time fluke. Considering how many I've thrown away, at $40 a pound the price is saving me money - and time - and my hair. What the heck took me so long? Beads made with BR-8601 Graduated Drops and BR-5601 Chunky Donut Pandora Style   1/7/13 Random thoughts of my grandmother - I think she would be appalled at the amount of plastic bags I throw away. |
ETSY STORE eBay AUCTIONS MY CATS How To Arrange 5 Cats JOKES MISC BLOG ARCHIVES 2005-20011 2012 Bead Review 2005 The Wedding (Mr. & Mrs. Whitney) _____________________ Dancing at the Movies someone close my mouth for me, this pool trick shot left me speechless 360 degree panorama pix Paris by Night Evolution of Dance amazing, note the language fishy card trick Telemarketer Nightmare audio Chris Bliss the Beatles juggler The Godfather: scammer upsets the Mafia are you a Star Wars fan? Emperor Palpatine get a phone call from Vader This has been around a while, I just found it again How to Fold a T-Shirt David Hasselhoff's "Jump In My Car" German Coast Guard John Walshes Family Watchdog find registered sex offenders near you David Hasselhoff is hooked on a fealing this kid is too cute Fat Kid Gay Dance my husband found this (yes, it's clean) Men In Coats Vidio Tom Cruise Is Nuts John Titor time traveler click on 'John's story' left hand column Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii January 2006 short version - 32 pix long version - 337 pix my Seattle Sep/2005 trip my Seattle June/2008 trip _____________________  TRIBUTE TO MY MOTHER My Aunt Ruth's poem If Tomorrow Starts Without Me |
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