Beachy wearables and new Strike excitement

There's a definite change in the light. I noticed it on Saturday; the morning sun had a mellow glow to it, rather than the bright peak-of-summer glare. I do so love the end of the summer and that gradual slide into autumn in late September.

I made a batch of beachy beads on Sunday and yesterday I spent a few hours turning them into jewellery.

The resulting 'Seaside' bracelet is very similar to the 'Seashore' one that's in my shop but this time I've used antique copper baeds and findings instead of sterling silver.

I also made a long necklace with some of the beads.

I used pearly ivory-coloured seed beads and oval sterling silver spacers for this 'Beach' necklace.

It measures thirty-three inches long and could also double up as a wrap bracelet.

Both the necklace and bracelet can be found in my shop.

I'm off down to the shed now where and I will lose myself in beads and the new Strike book.

The first thing I did this morning was download the audiobook of The Ink Black Heart and devour chapter one. I was like a child on Christmas morning! It's so good to have a new Cormoran and Robin story.

Even more bracelets

Cutting down on my Instagram usage is doing wonders for my beadmaking. It's been ages since I've been eager to get into the shed in the mornings but this past week I've really enjoyed myself in there, planning out bracelets in my head and then making them a reality.

'Petal Pink'

'Dragonfly'

I've just put these two in my shop. I've also put a second 'Seashore' bracelet in there too.

On the walk to my foodbank shift this morning I listened to a YouTube video by Julia Bausenhardt. Julia is an illustrator who quit social media and her reasons for doing so really resonated with me, especially as far as Instagram is concerned. Click here to watch the video but if you prefer reading words, Julia has also written about turning her back on social media on her blog.

I'm off to continue working on a crochet doily now. It's been far too hot for working on the two crochet blankets I've got on the go and I finished knitting a pair of socks last week and making those was hard work in the heatwave. I've not made a doily for a couple of months but Draiguna released a new pattern called 'Sunvale' and it's so pretty I just couldn't resist crocheting it.

This'll be another one for my ever-growing doily stack but I don't care because I get so much pleasure and satisfaction from making them. Making stuff for the fun of it is fun.

Yes, more bracelets

Oh, I am enjoying myself making all these bracelets. Bracelets are my favourite item of jewellery to make and wear. I think it's because you can see and admire a bracelet when you're wearing it. You can't do that with earrings, can you?

After I turned the grey beads into a bracelet the other day, these orange and blue 'Summertime' ones that had been sat with them in the beads-for-sale bowl looked forlorn so I made them into this bright and cheery one.

The spotty beads and orange spacers are strung with green-blue seed beads and a few antique copper rounds.

The bracelet fastens with a copper-plated pewter button that features a pretty flower design. 

I had quite a bit of silvered ivory stringer left over from the 'Seashore' bracelet beads the other day so I used some of it to make some beads for this 'Strata' bracelet.

The streakiness of dark ivory glass has always reminded me of golden syrup stirred through Ambroisa rice pudding. I've wrapped a band of silvered ivory around the middle of each ivory bead for a geological, strata-like effect.

I've kept this bracelet mighty simple, just adding some plain sterling silver rounds between the beads.

Both of these bracelets can be found in my shop.

I said on Sunday that I wanted to add a jewellery repair service page to my wesbite and this afternoon I did just that. If you've got an item of jewellery that needs mending do have a look here for further information and maybe I'll be able to help you.

New bracelet, old bracelet

I've had a set of grey beads languishing in my beads-for-sale bowl for a few weeks now and for some reason I woke up and decided that I wanted to make them into a bracelet, so that is what I did.

I put the lampwork beads with some Czech crystal rondelles in a beautiful misty blue-grey colour, and some ever so pretty pale grey Swarovski glass pearls which have a very subtle shimmer.

The resulting bracelet reminds me of stormy skies so I've named this one 'Cumulonimbus' which is the proper term for a thundercloud.

The bracelet is in my shop as I type.

You know that sunflower-inspired bracelet I made the other day? Well, the charm on it reminded me of a bracelet that I've had in my jewellery box for twenty-five years but that I never wear. It was a gift from my mum and she brought it back for me from a holiday in France. Mum, Dad and my two sisters went camping there and I stayed at home because I was nearly twenty and I hated the idea of camping (I still do and I intend to avoid it forever) plus we'd not long had our cat Buster (bless his stripy heart; I still miss him and think of him every day) so I stayed at home to look after him and the house. I can recall all this very well because it was 1997 and Princess Diana died on the day everyone was coming back from France.

Anyway, the bracelet. It's a very simple metal one made up of sunflower-shaped links. I don't know what the metal is but it's definitely not silver and it's quite heavy. It's got a tiny little bit of blue-green tarnish in a couple of places.

After I fished the bracelet out the other day I replaced its flimsy jump rings with sturdy stainless steel ones and I gave it a new clasp too. Maybe I'll get a bit of wear out of it now I know it's not going to fall apart.
 

I do enjoy a bit of jewellery renovation. I've repaired and renovated quite a few bits of jewellery for other people over the years and the pieces have never been expensive or lavish. So often the jewellery pieces we love are from our youth, or were gifts from people who are no longer here. They might not be worth a lot money-wise but they are priceless nonetheless. I've often considered offering a jewellery repair service. Maybe I should sort a page out for the website? Yes, I'm going to add it to my to do list.

Speaking of sunflowers, I'll leave you with this photo of my 'micro' sunflowers.

The plants just keep blooming and one of my three currently has nine flowers open on it. Joyful!

In a bracelet groove

My sunflowers are out! I normally plant about a dozen bog standard, tall sunflowers but this year I went for a couple of the smaller, bushier ones that have multiple flowers and I'm pleased I did, what with the lack of rain and all. Sunflowers are thirsty buggers so now me is thanking past me for not doing the big tall sunflower thing.

I adore sunflowers. I'm sure I've droned on about them on the blog before but honestly, they are just things of wonder. I can look at them for ages. The bees and other insects like them too.

I've never rendered a sunflower in glass because I know I would never in a million years be happy with it, so I've not bothered. However, I decided to use the sunflower colour scheme to create this simple spacer bead bracelet.

The bracelet is finished off with a little sunflower charm.

I've also made a seaside-inspired bracelet this week.

This one is made up of ivory, turquoise and pale aquamarine beads, with just a touch of silvered ivory here and there. Some beads are shiny and some are tumble-etched.

I threw in a few aquamarine Czech crystal rondelles for a bit of sparkle and the bracelet is finished with two seashell charms.

Both of these bracelets are in my shop as I type.

I'm still a bit sporadic with the beadmaking at the moment because of the heat. It's looking like next week's weather will allow me to work mornings in the shed. If I can get more than two bracelets' worth of beads made I'll give you advance notice of when they'll be for sale. That will be either here on my blog or via my mailing list.

I've come to an Instagram compromise with myself and at the suggestion of a couple of followers there I'm going to post-and-run. Basically, it'll just be a photo along with whatever name I've given the beads or piece of jewellery. Any mildly-interesting stuff I have to say about the thing in the photo will be posted here, away from the Instagram madness. Also, you get other assorted waffle here. Lucky you, eh?

Thunbergia appreciation post

I grew some Thunbergia alata – also known as black-eyed Susan vine – from seed this year. My Nannie used to grow these and she let them trail whereas I've got them as climbers in containers.

The simple orange flowers with their black middles really zing against the bright green of the foliage and on a bright and sunny day they are just glorious to look at.

The bees love these flowers too. They crawl right into the flower to get at the pollen.

I wanted to make a bracelet in the same colours as the black-eyed Susans which meant I got to use some of my treasured Vetrofond Parrot Green – that's the opaque lime green which has transparent green streaks. I'm down to three quarters of a rod of this gorgeous glass so I use it very sparingly.

The resulting bracelet is so bright and summery and I feel like it should smell of citrus fruits.

The 'Thunbergia' bracelet is in my shop as I type.

I've got a foodbank shift tomorrow and I can't see me making any beads over the weekend because of the hot weather so there'll be no new beads from me until some time next week.

It's not me, Instagram, it's you

Where the heck is time draining away to? I've never known time fly by so fast as it has these past couple of years. It feels like 2020 and 2021 didn't really happen.

As is usual in summer, my bead production has slowed down. On hot days I can only manage a couple of hours in the shed before it becomes unbearable and on very hot days I don't even attempt lampwork. I've been adding the occasional set of beads or piece of jewellery to my shop as and when I make them.

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen me mention that I'm easing up on using that platform. I'm far from the only Instagram user who is disgruntled with the direction in which Instagram are heading. I've used that platform since it was brand new and I've adjusted to all the changes they've made to it over the years but I don't like what it's become. They now refer to still photographs as 'legacy media' which is modernspeak for 'outdated' and they're very much all about pushing the video content. I don't want to be bombarded with videos every time I open the app. If I wanted that I'd sign up for TikTok - an app that I think should be outlawed for the damage it's doing to young people and society as a whole. I'm not a content creator. I make beads. I don't want to have to think up, film and foist videos on everyone. I'm seeing small business people I follow making reels about things that have zero to do with what they make and sell and it's clearly to try and appease the algorithm and keep their account and posts visible to others. Well, no. NO. I'm not doing that. No 'free' app is free; we pay with our data, time and engagement and frankly I've given Instagram - and Facebook, or Meta or whatever they now call themselves - enough of all three things.

I've decided I'm going back to basics. This is probably a daft move but something in my gut is telling me to sack off Instagram. It no longer feels fun and although I've always known I'm being played by Big Tech whenever I use it, now it feels blatant.

I have my website, this blog and a mailing list - three things I've had for almost as long as I've been making beads. I'm going to try and blog more (the stuff I used to put on Instagram has to go somewhere) and I'm going to try and send out maybe a weekly email with news of new work for sale.

You can sign up to my mailing list here and if you're looking at the web version of this very blog (if you're on a mobile or tablet scroll right down to the end of this post and tap 'view web version') on the right hand sidebar you can sign up to my blog feed via RSS or Atom by using a feed reader. I use and recommend Feedly for this which is available for desktop, iOS and Android.

When I can I will try and give advance notice of bead sales. Bead sales are a weird thing right now, though, what with the Cost Of Living Crisis (I'm guessing we'll be able to rename that 'The Recession' soon) and I have noticed my sales slowing down. Of course that could just be because people no longer like my beads (or me) but I'm going to bumble on through and just do what I do. I have noticed that the sales of a few other beadmakers have slowed too so I guess I'm not alone in this.

At the time of typing the beads and jewellery I've dotted throughout this post are available in my shop.

I'm now off to do myself a cup soup which I know is weird for a hot sunny day but I had a filling in a wisdom tooth replaced this morning and my lip, chin and left hand side of my mouth are still numb so I need a slurpable lunch that doesn't carry a risk of accidental tongue-chomp.