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.