'Fiesta Flora'

These are put-your-sunglasses-on beads! Very bright and cheery.

I went to the hairdresser today. On Monday morning my hair did that thing where it lets you know it needs some sort of professional help. Do you know what I mean? You have days on end where you do your hair as per usual and it behaves itself and then all of a sudden one day ..... crazy 'do! There's bits sticking up everywhere and it looks like a bird of prey has tried to nest in it. No matter what you do, no amount of washing, combing, brushing and product application helps. You just know that it's time to call the hairdresser.

Anyway, while I was sat waiting for my appointment a magazine on the table caught my eye. It was the January copy of 'That's Life!' magazine (never ever heard of it) and the front cover gave me the impression it was like the Jeremy Kyle Show in magazine format. One particular heading on the cover read 'I laid a ham sandwich on his grave'. What? WHAT?? Half of me so wanted to pick up the magazine and find out why someone was leaving their lunch all over a cemetery but the other half of me couldn't quite bring myself to do so .....

'Strawberry Flora'

Even more Flora beads. If you hadn't already guessed, I'm enjoying making these .....

Cat Burglar

More Flora beads, this time in lavender and ink blue.

I came downstairs this morning to find my bag of caramelised milk chocolate drops scattered over the lounge floor next to a dozing and pretty smug-looking Buster who had obviously decided he'd help himself. The thing is, he can't have milk in any form otherwise he goes completely crazy. So not only did I have to throw the chocolate drops away (not very appetising when they've been licked by a cat and have tabby fur stuck to them) but I've had to put up with the cat acting like some kind of ninja today. Every time I came out of the shed he was there, lurking. At lunch I opened the shed door and as I walked out a paw swiped me across the head and this evening he chased me up the garden and bit my leg. Note to self - at night make sure chocolate is totally out of feline reach ......

'White Flora'

Clear beads with trailing vines and raised white flowers.

Quite pretty, methinks!

Have a nice weekend!

I thought I'd post these springtime flowery beads in an attempt to brighten up a pretty grey and gloomy Friday.

I'm off to Cambridge this afternoon so I shall see you all next week!

Funky Fungi

Lots of mushroomy loveliness! These beads really make me smile. Each time I opened the kiln door to put another one in to anneal, the sight of all these happy mushrooms made me grin to myself. I hope you like them as much as I do!

'Alpine'

It may just be the cold, frosty mornings we've been having but these pale blue and white beads remind me of snowy mountains, hence the name 'Alpine'. And yes, I know they're blue. Again. I'm trying to make a big effort to leave the blue glass alone but I keep getting drawn to it.

I've reactivated my Flickr account which is now acting as my bead gallery. If you like you can take a look at all my bead photos by clicking here.

And lastly, I keep getting lots of requests for toadstool beads! Well, you may be pleased to know that there are some in the pipeline. I'll keep you posted .....

You know it's cold when . . . . .

. . . . . you go into your shed and the kiln reads -6 and your water jug is frozen solid! Brrrrr.

It's nice and sunny, though. I'm off out to make beads as soon as the shed's warmed up a bit. I mentioned Weezer yesterday and I thought I'd share one of my favourite Weezer songs and videos with you. It's 'Island In The Sun' and if you've not seen the video before prepare to go 'Aw!'. I bet you can't help smiling at it :

Beads! Huzzah!

Yes indeedy - I have beads. I took delivery of a big glass order yesterday and I've got all my favourite glass colours to play with. I celebrated this fact by making a big set of beads with my two favourite shades of pink which when combined make this fab rosy colour. It was a lovely, if chilly, day today and I spent all morning melting glass with Weezer blaring out of my iPod and this afternoon I had Firefly on the DVD player. I've had a good bead day today!

I've been very busy this past week and I haven't really had time to post properly since last Thursday. I had a lovely weekend in Cambridge. Chris and I went to the cinema to see Cloverfield. Now, Chris has a Barry Norman-esque knowledge of film (actually, probably better than Barry because I don't think Barry Norman is as genned-up on sci-fi as Chris is!) and he usually knows the basic ins and outs of a movie before we see it. But no. Not this time. Had Chris known that Cloverfield contains the type of 'monster' that it does (don't want to give too much away but let's just say that some of the monsters have eight legs) I don't think he'd have taken me to see it. There were notices on the door of the cinema informing people about possible motion sickness due to the fact that the movie is filmed on hand-held video cameras. That wasn't a problem for me. No. It was the warped, horrid monster things that freaked me out. They really, really scared me! I went all odd - I never thought there would be a movie scene more disturbing than the Shelob one in LOTR but heck yes, there certainly is! It was a good film though. Definitely worth a watch.

Right - I'm off to dig into the fabulous package of delicious chocolatey loveliness that Chris sent me for Valentine's Day. I think the chocolate caramel drops are calling my name ..........

No new beads to show you today

This morning, after spending an hour pulling stringer, dipping mandrels and doing other beadmaking preparation stuff I settled down to make my first bead only to discover I'd run out of gas. Even getting a new bottle of propane went wrong - the man gave me a propane bottle with some random fitting on it which meant my regulator wouldn't fit. So back the bottle went to be swapped to one that would fit. Heffing a full 19KG propane bottle around is quite awkward - Dad can't lift it because of his back and shoulder so shifting it once was bad enough but twice was just plain rubbish. I have red paint and rust marks from the bottles all over my flipping jeans. By the time all that was sorted I didn't have much time to get any beads made.

Like I said earlier, it's been one of those weeks full of niggly things. Amongst other things, Marlene (the oldest remaining guinea pig) isn't very well. She's gone totally downhill since Tamzin died the other week and now Marlene is both blind and deaf and very doddery. She's a proper old biddy guinea pig.

I won't bore you with all the other naff things that have happened because you don't come here to read my moaning! You come here to read about my beadmaking shenanigans and hopefully I'll be posting about those over the weekend.

Now, on to a nice thing. Caroline from Uniqart has bestowed an award upon me! Thank you, Caroline! It's the 'You Make My Day Award' and I've added it to the right hand side of my blog. I now have to pass this award on to five other bloggers. They be :

1. Jennifer at The Art Of Curiosity
2. Nicky at Sparkly Treasures
3. Janine at Cherished Trinkets
4. Jo at Daisychain Designs
5. Mandie at Jewellery Craft

To pass the award on, here are the details :

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make me think and/or make my day.

2. Acknowledge the post of the award giver.

3. Display the “You Make My Day Award” logo.

4. Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news.

F-f-f-f-f-iddlesticks

In case you're wondering why I'm quiet, I'm busy having a hellish week. Since Tuesday afternoon everything that could have gone wrong has indeed gone wrong. I should have stayed in Cambridge .....

I'll post properly later tonight.

What's with all the blue?

I've just realised that I've made a heck of a lot of blue beads lately. I was just sorting out bead photos and there are loads of blue creations! Makes a change from purple, I guess ......

So in for a penny, in for a pound, here are some more blue beads - a heart trio named 'Blue Without You'. This heart is different for me in the fact that the bead hole runs horizontally as opposed to vertically.

I'm off to Cambridge to see my fella tomorrow so I shall see you next week. Have a good weekend, all!

Post 100 - Woohoo!

I can't believe I've done a whole hundred posts! I've not been blogging that long but I've found some really great people via my blog, some of which have become friends and customers. Blogging rocks!

These are my new 'Hibiscus' beads. I sold a set of round beads on my site last night featuring this pattern and I wanted to try and make lentils featuring the design. So after a bit of design tweakage and many practice runs I came up with these. Quite surfy, don't you think?

They're currently on eBay UK. Please click here if you'd like to take a look at the auction.

Virtual Re-decorating

I've just finished giving my website a little facelift. A few weeks ago I asked Mark at Fault 151 if he could design me a banner for my website and he came up with a fantastic spacey-looking one - the one that's at the top of this very blog. I love it! It's everything I like. It's spacey, sparkly, starry and shiny. Thanks Mark!

The website content is pretty much the same as it was - just a few small changes. I've added a 'Bead Forecast' to the homepage which is where I'll post details of upcoming beads sales and eBay auctions. I've also made the decision to stop selling jewellery. I may make the occasional piece for sale but I just don't have the time to create enough jewellery to warrant an entire webpage. I'll leave that to all you talented jewellery designers and I'll stick to making beads for you to turn into wearable loveliness!

The only things I have left to do with the site are the Bead Gallery and the Customer Gallery. I'll add the photos for those over the course of the next few days.

How do all you people who work at a computer all day do it?! I've been working on the site since 4pm this afternoon and my eyes feel all fuzzy and wrong. In fact, I think they need to go to sleep . . . . .

'Lots Of Love'

Glossy red heart-shaped beads. I enjoyed making these and I could have easily sat and made many more of them if I hadn't run out of red glass . . . . .