Another 'Grrrrr' Heart

After the website technoglitch I had the other night I had an awful lot of sorry-it's-gone emails to write to people who had asked if they could buy the 'Glitter Grrrrr' heart focal I had for sale. So I've made a similar one. At 24mm high it's slightly smaller than the other one. I'm not going to put it on the website for sale - too much website mucking about for one bead. So I'm selling it here. It's £15.00 including postage. This bead is now sold.

I popped to Marks & Spencer this afternoon. I went to get a top and came out with a top . . . . and a lemon cheescake! When I came out of the shop there was a really bright rainbow in the sky. I took this photo with my mobile :

I'm going to Oxford tomorrow to see my grandparents as they're celebrating their Diamond Wedding Anniversary. Sixty whole years of being married! Isn't that fab?!

Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you all next week!

A 'Eureka!' Moment

Last night I was quite annoyed with my bead photos as they had terrible reflections on them from my lighting. Years ago I bought a light tent, gave it a go and was disappointed with the resulting photos so it's languished behind the sofa ever since.

Tonight I thought I'd give the light tent another try so I fished it out from behind the sofa, dusted it off and set it up. I was so pleased with the results! I now think it was my old camera that was the problem and not the light tent at all. These 'Crocodile Swirls' lentils were photographed in the tent and although they still have reflections they're not half as harsh or distracting as they were. I'm glad I only threw the light tent behind the sofa and not in the dustbin now!

Apologies

I said that last night I'd have beads for sale at 8.30pm but when the time came for me to upload the Freshly Baked Beads page I got an annoying message to say that the server was down. So I was fifteen minutes late with the new beads and then I had a barrage of emails from people all wanting the same beads as one another. I'm sorry if you didn't get the one/s you wanted.

'Pure & Simple' Heart Focal

A heart bead with emphasis on colour and shape. Very glossy it is too!

These last few days I really haven't been in the mood for making beads and I can't quite put my finger on why. Hopefully normal bead service will resume shortly.

Oh, and while I'm here don't forget to send me your photos and copy for the My Beads, Your Work page. It's looking quite bare methinks.

My new assistant

Buster never gets up on my desk so I was quite surprised to walk into the room to find him staring intently at my monitor. He looks quite studious. My apologies now for any cat fur in your bead packages. Blame him.

I hope you've had a good Easter despite the crazy weather! What is that all about? This weekend we've had every flavour of weather except thunder and lightning. Mad! Robyn came over yesterday and I did a chocolate rabbit hunt for her inside the house due to the inclement weather. And, get this, chocoholic me never received one iota of chocolate yesterday! Zilch. Nada. Not so much as a Mini Egg. I must be getting too old for Easter eggs! Or maybe I'm just getting fat and people are trying to tell me something . . . . .

And the winners are .....

I've just drawn the names out of the hat for the Virtual Easter Egg Hunt Prize Draw - there were loads of you who took part!

The winner of the Easter Focal bead is ...

Mandy Davidson

Second prize of a Lonelies Lucky Dip Bag goes to ...

Melissa Chowdhury

And the third prize of a Lonelies Lucky Dip Bag belongs to ...

Jane Wyatt

Thanks to everyone who entered the draw!

Virtual Easter Egg Hunt

How do you fancy winning one of my 'Easter' focal beads similar to the one pictured above?

Well, I'm giving one away as a prize in my 'Virtual Easter Egg Hunt'!

Lurking somewhere on my website is an Easter Egg. All you have to do is find it and click on the 'I found it!' link underneath it which will open an email screen. Just click the send button and I will enter your name into the draw to win the bead.

You have until 7.00pm (GMT) on Saturday 22nd March to enter. I will do the draw that evening and I'll announce the winner of the focal bead here on my blog. There will also be second and third prizes consisting of 'lucky dip' bags of my Lonelies.

The competition is open to anyone anywhere in the world.

Happy hunting!

Red Tulips

It would have been my Mum's birthday today so I bought this lovely bunch of red tulips to stand in her arbour in the garden.

I'm sure she would have liked them.

'Blissful Glimmer'

There's something about purple and teal together. This colour combination seems so calming and relaxing. In this case I've added oodles of fine silver to give a delicious glimmer to the beads.

I'll tell you what's not blissful or relaxing, though. My next door neighbours have bought their son a drum kit. A flipping drum kit! I was trying to read earlier (I say read - I was actually sniffing the Davidoff sample in my copy of Cosmo thinking 'Aaaahhh, so that's what Ewan McGregor smells like!') and all I could concentrate on was the repetitive 'thud-thud-thud-cymbal-crash-thud' coming from next door.

Thankfully he's stopped doing his Taylor Hawkins impersonation now (actually, it's more like Meg White) so I'll be able to watch 'Gavin & Stacey' in peace . . . . .

Customer Gallery

All the Starburst beads from last night posing nicely for a photo!

Now for my new Customer Gallery idea. As you know, I recently updated my website and the one page I haven’t got around to re-doing yet is the ‘My Beads, Your Work’ page.

I’ve been thinking about it and I want to do something different to what I had last time. Instead of a wall of photos I’d like to make the page into a ‘deluxe’ links page.

Each jewellery artist listed will have one photo of a piece of their work featuring my beads plus a few lines about them and their jewellery. There will also be a link to either the jewellery artist’s website, blog or Facebook/MySpace/Flickr page. If you don’t sell your work or if you don't have any work online but would still like to be featured then that’s absolutely fine!

So, if you’ve made jewellery with my beads and would like to be featured (note to self, repetition of 'featured', find alternative word) on the new-look ‘My Beads, Your Work’ page then please email me a good, clear photo of one of your pieces featuring my beads (the larger the file, the better), a few words about you and your work and the webpage address that you’d like me to link to.

'Electric Blue Starburst'

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my Starburst beads. It's nice to know that you like them. And yes, there are lots more in the pipeline. I have so many colour combinations for them in my mind! These blue ones, along with some others, will be for sale on my website later today.

'Crystal Starburst'

These ones are a bit of a different shape for me - olive-shaped beads.

The wind is whistling away here and it was really blustery all night. I half expected to open the curtains this morning and see tree debris everywhere, but no. It's just a lovely sunny, windy day!

Have a good'un!

More polka dot beads - I'm slightly taken with polka dots at the moment!

I'm off up to Cambridge now so I shall see you all next week. Have a lovely weekend!

Lots of 'Lonelies'

Total change of plan this afternoon. Sally came round with Robyn and the minute she walked through the door I could see that Robyn wasn't right. She looked pale and kept saying 'I'm freezing cold, Auntie Laura!' with a very sad look on her face. Sally took her temperature which was quite high so unfortunately we didn't go on our walk. She'd even brought Baby Annabell and Baby Chog (crazy name, but that's what Robyn calls her boy doll) who were going to come along with us in their pushchair. Robyn was so disappointed that she had to go home. So I told her we'd go next week and we'd take a picnic with us which seemed to please her. Shame - I was looking forward to an afternoon out!

So instead I spent this afternoon going through my 'Lonelies' jar and cleaning and stringing the contents together. Most beadmakers call their leftover beads 'orphan' beads. But you know me, I like to be a bit different so I call mine 'Lonelies'! This little lot can currently be found on eBay UK. Please click here if you'd like to take a closer look.

'Storm' Beads

I haven't blogged for a couple of days. Not much to say, really. March isn't a very good month for me so I've been a bit quiet.

I did go over and see my little sister's new house on Saturday. I say 'little' sister - she's six foot tall. Both my sisters are younger than me but infinitely more 'grown up' than me! Emily has just moved into a lovely house with her two best friends. While I was there we played tenpin bowling on the Nintendo Wii. I can't believe that I can be as rubbish at playing a computer game version of bowling as I am in real life. Just goes to show how good the Wii is, I guess!

I've got Robyn this afternoon. She does pre-school now so I haven't looked after her for what seems like an age! We're going to go for a walk down the woods or along the beach - whatever the weather allows us to do. I can't believe I'll soon have another niece or nephew. Sally looks pretty much fit to burst already and she's still got a month to go!