Monday, August 22, 2011

Etsy treasury: South Sea Island Magic!

Connie made a very pretty local Team Hilo Etsy treasury and included one of my sea glass pendants:

'South Sea Island Magic!' by redemptionart

Has brought me the magic of you!A collection from Team Hilo Etsy!


Glasses Chain in Sh...
$30.00

Sea Beauties MERMAI...
$24.95

North Shore, Hawaii...
$50.00

Lime Sherbet-NOW ON...
$12.00

HILO Rain Pendant H...
$14.00

Glass, Lampwork, Be...
$28.00

Women's Mini Sk...
$60.00

Green heart shaped ...
$7.00

PolynesianFASHIONIS...
$12.80

Vintage 1980s Islan...
$22.00

leather hip bag wit...
$39.00

Plumeria Candle Fra...
$4.80

Pink Mother of Pear...
$40.00

Shell earrings ster...
$30.00

Children's Smal...
$16.00

Hawaiian puka shell...
$30.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

A walk around the Hawaii Islands - Artfire Collection

My brown Job's Tears were included in this beautiful Artfire collection:

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Clove seeds, clove seedlings and cloves


Those of you who follow my blog know that we have a clove tree. Unlike most years, it didn't bloom last year, but this year it started in January. After a while the clove buds look like this:


To illustrate the difference between cloves and clove seeds, in the top row on the left there are clove buds, on the right there are dried clove buds, which is what you get when you buy spice cloves

In the second row, on the left there are clove fruit (with pollinated seeds) and on the right clove seeds.

Clove seeds cannot be dried and be viable. A clove seed that turns brown is most likely dead (sorry to say).

Clove seedlings look like this after a while:

It is generally not a good idea to have more than one seedling in one planter because clove trees/seedlings positively hate to have their rootballs disturbed.

OK, clove plants are finicky, they really are. People have told me that it is close to impossible to transplant ohias. I got pretty good at that. Transplanting clove seedlings is yet a different level. But, if you put each seed into its own planter and transplant before they get root bound (and get the whole root ball out in one piece) you're pretty much home free.

Currently I have clove seeds available in my Etsy and Artfire shops and I have some seedlings available locally but I can't ship the seedlings (anywhere, including inter-island)

I hope to have cloves available to ship soon but I don't know yet to where I can do that without major paperwork.

Friday, August 5, 2011

My visit to the Brookhaven glass lab (last October)

Last October I went to a Software (EPICS) meeting at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (Long Island, NY), so this post is long overdue. While there, I had the opportunity, somebody on Lampwork Etc. gave me a tip, to visit the glass lab, and its 'owner' Barry Lafler.
This is bit of an overview, a lit torch, and a lot of glass on the bench:
Barry in front of part of the bench:
A bit more of the lab:
And Barry holding up a gas stirrer. He showed me that thing in operation and it is absolutely amazing.
If I was better at formatting these blog posts I'd put in more pictures, I have a few more.