Thursday 31 January 2008

'Purple Fusion'

Yep - more Fusion beads, this time in my favourite colour. Lovely, lovely purple. These ones are on eBay too.

My Fusion beads feature some really delicate stringerwork. I thought I'd post a photo to try and show exactly how thin that stringer is :

Normal glass rods are about 6-7mm in diameter. Pre-pulled stringers that you buy from glass suppliers are about 3mm diameter and the green stringer in the photo is one of those. Yes - those four thin white strands are my ridiculously thin stringer!

Tuesday 29 January 2008

'Blue Fusion'

These beads are currently up for auction on eBay. The annoying thing is I've just noticed a typo in the item listing and now there are bids on the beads I can't put it right. Gah! I hate spelling mistakes and things and it's sooooo annoying that I can't correct it.

Anyway, I hope you had a good weekend. Chris and I went to see Sweeney Todd which was just fab! We also popped into Cambridge Art & Craft Market to see Sue at Sooz Jewels. It's always nice to meet one of my customers! Sue's made a lovely bracelet with some of my Anemone beads which you can see by clicking here.

Thursday 24 January 2008

Something bright and cheery!

Yes, this is totally different to my usual beads but sometimes it's nice to go a little bit mad with the glass and make something out of the ordinary!

Why a fairytale-type toadstool?

Well, for Christmas, my friend Kerryn sent me a cute little purse made by Lyn of Florspace. I was looking at Lyn's blog the other day and she'd posted a photo of a whole batch of purses featuring bright and colourful mushrooms. They looked so vibrant and cheery I just had to have a go at making a glass one!

I'm off to Cambridge tomorrow so I'll see you next week. Have a great weekend!

Wednesday 23 January 2008

'Creme Caramel' Focal

An ivory tapered bicone decorated with caramel-coloured stringerwork.

Well, I had a sad start to the day - Tamzin, one of my guinea pigs died during the night. She was seven years old which is quite an age for a guinea pig. Tamzin was chief lawnmower so now I expect Marlene will take over bossing Brenda and Edith about. We do get so attached to our pets, don't we?

Tuesday 22 January 2008

Trying to be organised

'Anemone' beads in very delicate colours. This angle captures their feathery quality quite well.

I'm trying to be organised this year. I've promised myself that I will not get to two weeks before Christmas and start to panic again. So, I've bought my first Christmas present! It's gone into my Christmas Present Box and I intend to fill that box throughout the year. I'll keep you posted with my progress . . . . .

Monday 21 January 2008

Moonlight 'Anemones'

Even more implosions, this time in pale grey and periwinkle blue. Very delicate.

I was mid-bead this afternoon and all of a sudden a dirty great spider landed slap bang in front of me on my workbench! The thing was lucky as it only just missed my torch flame. It must have fallen from the ceiling - it gave me such a shock! I screamed a very high pitched scream, called it a six letter expletive, chucked my bead in the water jug and legged it out of the shed. Needless to say I didn't go back in the shed until Dad had removed the offending arachnid.

So much for the conkers . . . . . .

Sunday 20 January 2008

Flame 'Anemones'

More implosion beads, this time in fiery red, orange and yellow. Zingy!

Saturday 19 January 2008

Pink & Lilac 'Anemones'

I could photograph these beads until I'm blue in the face but I'll never capture the 3D-ness of what's happening inside them. They need to be seen in real life. It's like a tiny explosion of pink and lilac glass caught in an orb of crystal. So pretty!

All in all it's a quiet weekend here - I would have got more beads made today if I hadn't done a really stupid thing this morning. I went and put the heater and kiln on in the shed and an hour or so later I settled down and made my first bead but as I went to put it in the warm kiln I realised that although I'd switched the kiln on I hadn't pressed the start button. So the bead froze to death and I had to wait for the kiln to heat up. What a plank I am . . . . .

Thursday 17 January 2008

Amber Sands

Rich amber and creamy ivory always look nice together but the addition of fine silver seems to give them that little extra bit of loveliness.

My friend Nicky has posted some gorgeous jewellery on her blog. She's made an awesome necklace with my purple tab beads. And in case you're wondering why those particular beads made it onto my blog but never onto my site that's because Nicky came round that night for coffee and a chat and bought the tab beads before I could list them! Nicky's also made some beautiful chainmaille bracelets featuring my Wiggle beads. Click here to take a look.

Wednesday 16 January 2008

No electricity, no beads, but new boots!

Somewhere between 4.30 and 6.30 this morning we had a powercut and the power only came back on at 6.30 tonight! I was a tad peeved because that meant I couldn't make beads today.

So, I went shopping instead and I'm a happy Laura because after several weeks-worth of searching I've finally got a pair of jeans that fit nicely (thank you River Island!) and a new pair of boots. Surprisingly, I got my boots in the sale at Clarks. Now, if you're reading that and thinking 'What a fuddy duddy shop to buy shoes!' I don't blame you because up until today I thought the same thing. I haven't had Clarks shoes since I was about twelve but I was pleasantly surprised when I was mooching around in there today. I found several pairs of boots that I liked and the ones I finally chose are so comfy! I even bought the polish and spray they always try and flog you and tonight I was sat on the kitchen floor happily a-polishing and a-buffing my new boots. I felt like I was a kid again - Mum always made us polish our school shoes on a Sunday night!

Hopefully, Southern Electric permitting, I will be back tomorrow with some new beads!

Thursday 10 January 2008

Isn't this a little bit ridiculous?

I thought it was crazy when I saw Cadbury's Mini Eggs and Creme Eggs for sale in our local Tesco Express the day after Boxing Day, but tonight I couldn't believe my eyes when I walked down an aisle in Tesco that was full of proper normal-sized Easter Eggs! What?! We've only just finished with the Christmas festivities. Don't get me wrong, I like chocolate as much as the next chocoholic but this is just plain silly. I was that shocked I whipped my camera phone out and took this photo!

I've spent the last couple of days in the shed making a large set of tab beads which I'm auctioning on eBay. If you're interested you can take a look at the auction by clicking here. It's a larger set of the 'Chaotic Fusion' beads that I posted here the other day.

I'm off up to Cambridge tomorrow but I'll be back with new beads and waffle next week.

See you later!

Tuesday 8 January 2008

Ciao, Vittorio

I can't settle at making beads and it's because I'm a little bit sad that my beloved Vittorio Vespa is going tomorrow.

Since my Dad had his motorcycle accident last year I've lost my confidence with my Vespa. It's just every time I go out on Vittorio and every time I'm out in the car with Dad I see umpteen things that make me think 'I don't want to be on the roads'. You know that scary advert that's occasionally on television where the driver is sat at the junction and he pulls out without seeing the motorcyclist? Well, that scenario happens far too much in real life. I've had it happen to me several times and although I've managed to brake in time, it still shakes you up.

And it's not just unobservant drivers that have put me off, either. If I've been unfortunate enough to be riding past the local secondary school at home-time, there are often groups of deranged teenagers walking in the road, running across the road in a crazy lemming-type fashion or just mucking about at the side of the road lobbing things at passing vehicles. A lady at the bus stop the other week was telling me about how her son ended up in hospital after he smashed his bike into a lamppost when he swerved to avoid a teenage idiot who jumped in front of his bike 'for a laugh'.

Everyone that I've spoken to about this seems to totally understand and several people have said how scary the roads and driving have become over the last few years. Others have said 'Oh well maybe now you can get yourself a little car!'. No, I can't and I won't be. The only way I'll ever own a car is if I win the lottery and end up getting a chauffeur and seeing as that will never happen because I don't do the lottery I'll make do with buses and walking.

As much as I love my Vittorio it seems a shame to have him sat in the garage doing nothing. I've been deliberating about parting with Vittorio for several weeks now. When I was feeling particularly confident the other week I went to put my crash helmet on and the fastener on it was broken. I took that as a sign and decided that maybe I should sell him. So tomorrow a man is coming to collect him. I'll be very sorry to see him go.

Ciao, Vittorio - I will miss you.

Monday 7 January 2008

'Chaotic Fusion' Tabs

I was going to etch these clear tabs as I was a bit concerned about the detail on one side being seen from the other. But on reflection I quite like the hectic effect that this has. Busy beads!

Saturday 5 January 2008

'Appley Dappley Fusion' Tabs

I'm still enjoying making the tabs! I decided to get a bit more complicated with these ones, though. Here I've used enamels, hand-pulled murrini and ridiculously fine stringer.

On a not-at-all-bead-related note, I've just had the most scrumptious (such an Enid Blyton word) pudding. Marks & Spencer clotted cream rice pudding. Totally lovely!

Friday 4 January 2008

More tabs . . . . .

. . . . . including some pale pink and green ones as suggested by Mel.

Weather forecasters are fibbers!

According to about six different weather reports we were due to have snow yesterday. Did it happen? No. That annoying woman on BBC Breakfast yesterday said we'd have about four centimetres. Okay, I know that's not exactly loads of snow but it would have been enough to make me jump about and do an 'It's Snowing!' dance.

No snow today either. It's cold and the sky has that full-of-snow look to it, so here's hoping.

Thanks for your suggestions for colour combinations for the tab beads. I'll be trying some of those out later!

Wednesday 2 January 2008

First beads of 2008 . . . . .

. . . . . and yes, they're purple. Swirls of lovely, funky purple on beads which I've shaped into comfy-to-wear tabs. I like the two shades here but I can imagine these working with maybe three or four colours per bead. Any colour combination suggestions will be gratefully received!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you had a good Christmas. Mine was pretty quiet, really. Mind you, saying that I managed to travel to Cambridge, London, Oxford and Manchester in the space of about ten days. That's quite a lot of journeying!

Anyway, I'm back into a beadmaking routine now so I'll be back into the blogging swing-of-things too!