Postage changes for UK customers

"Flipping Royal Mail. What can you do?" said Pat

Royal Mail have changed the compensation level for its Tracked 24 and 48 services. Before Monday 6th October, packages sent via these services were insured for up to £150.00 and now they have halved that to £75.00. The next compensation level is £750.00 via Special Delivery but this is a heck of a price jump postage-wise. 

My new UK (not including Northern Ireland) P&P rates are:

• Order value up to £20.00 = £2.00 P&P via RM Second Class
• Order value £20.01 to £75.00 = £3.50 P&P via RM Tracked 48
• Order value over £75.00 = £9.00 P&P via RM Special Delivery

All I can suggest is if your order is multiple items with a combined value of over £75.00, maybe place two separate orders? Example: a £20.00 necklace and a £60.00 bracelet totalling £80.00 would be £9.00 P&P as one order but as two orders it would be one at £2.00 and one at £3.50 totalling £5.50 meaning a saving of £3.50.

I know this is annoying - blame Royal Mail and their pricing and trying to compete with Evri and the like - and I do apologise for any extra faffing or inconvenience but I refuse to send anything uninsured because I don't want you or I to be out of pocket if anything gets lost, damaged or stolen in transit.

October means acorns

September came and went in the blink of an eye, and I never blogged once.

At the start of September I went down to Southampton to celebrate my niece Robyn's 21st birthday (21!) and I was I picked up from the railway station by my nephew Dylan who is now driving and about four inches taller than me. Honestly, every time I see them I feel more and more like an aged old aunt.

We had a lovely weekend with pub shenanigans, a barbecue, cake and lots of laughter.

Obligatory sisters photo of me, Sal and Em

Robyn lifting Em

Smudgy lens photo of Dylan and me

Enca, Sally's beautiful pussycat

It was also my birthday in September which passed without fanfare or much ado. I struggle a bit with birthdays as I get closer to the age my mum was when she died. I woke up on my 48th birthday thinking "When Mum was 48 she didn't know she had just five years left" which I realise is a very morose and morbid thought but I am an eternal pessimist so it's pretty standard thinking material for me. I keep telling myself that when I make it to 53 years and ten days I'll have conquered this ridiculous mental barrier I've erected for myself which I know is no way to think about life but I just can't seem to help it. From what I can gather this is a pretty common thing in people who have lost parents or older siblings so if anyone else out there can relate – solidarity.

In glassy news...

I've been making acorns and oak leaves. I've made these on and off over the years, iterating and tweaking the design as I go and I think I reached peak faff with them this time. They are a true labour of love.

The glass components are shaped by hand, by which I mean I don't use a press or mould for them. Each oak leaf shape is painstakingly sculpted by building up the leaf one blob of molten glass at a time and shifting everything into place with a graphite paddle, a brass shaping knife, a razor blade and gravity.

In the past I've made my acorns and oak leaf headpins straight onto copper wire. For ages I've wanted to be able to make sterling silver ones but the amount of heat and reheating required to make the glass components means that sterling silver wire would melt in the flame, so for these ones I made the acorns and leaves on the end of a very thin mandrel which results in a glass channel in each piece. This is thoroughly cleaned and dried and then I use a very high-quality epoxy glue to firmly fix the sterling silver wires in place. Once everything is cured, cleaned up and polished, I assemble the necklaces.

Each necklace has a brown acorn and a transparent oak leaf the colour of caramelised sugar. These glass components are affixed to a soldered ring which is threaded onto an 18 inch (45cm) sterling silver belcher chain. All metal is sterling silver apart from the acorn cup bead cap which is high-quality .999 fine silver plated lead-free brass.

The acorn and oak leaf necklaces can be purchased in my shop.

And there's good news for my American customers - I can post things to you again. Hurrah! All you have to do is place your order as usual and the checkout will add the 10% import tax to your order. There is also a £1.20 handling fee per US order which is also added at checkout. In effect, you are paying the tax to me, which I then forward to the Royal Mail when I pay them for the postage for your order, and then Royal Mail will pass that on to Donny Trump's Postage Tax People further down the line. In effect, that should be it and you should have nothing else to pay and your parcel will hopefully reach you in a timely and smooth fashion. I have asked the two US customers I've posted to since the taxes came in to report back to me to let me know how the process went but alas, I've heard nothing back from them, so I'm hoping no news is good news.

In knitting news...

Fat chunky big knitting! Robyn asked me if I could knit her a blanket (aged old aunt skills) in really big chenille yarn. 

It's like knitting with broom handles

The needles are 25mm (ten times the size of sock knitting needles) and the yarn is like dressing gown cord and knitting with them makes me feel like a Borrower. It's coming on very quickly, though. I don't quite know how I'm going to deliver it to Robyn when it's done. I might have to pack it in one of those sucky-out-the-air vacuum bags? I'll worry about that later.

I think that's it for now. I'm flying to Belfast tomorrow to visit Emily for the weekend. I'm saying that like I'm really cool and blasé with travel but inside I'm nervous as heck. I'm getting the train to Gatwick (never been there before) and then I'm flying on my own (not done that for nineteen years) so I keep getting a flurry of butterflies every time I think about it but it'll be fine, won't it? I don't actually hate flying - it's all the getting there and the security and the waiting and all that guff that I stress about. It'll be fine. It will.

Have a good weekend and I shall see you soon.

Ever decreasing bead market

Alright?

Bead-wise, I've been quiet. We had Covid a couple of weeks back and then more heatwave happened which made the shed far too warm for work but I was back in there this week and I got a few beads made. I think the summer is slowly fading now, much like my pot marigolds, so give it a couple of months and I'll be wanging on about how cold my shed is instead.

The beads I made were these black and white 'Dapple' ones:

These are Effetre white 204, black 064 and light red 428. Encasing is Effetre super clear 006, as always.

The customer who purchased them asked me to turn them into a bracelet and earrings for her.

I also got my Whirly-Go-Round on and made these teal and blue ones: 

They're Effetre white 204, light teal 026, dark periwinkle 222 and super clear 006.

At the time of blogging, the Whirly-Go-Rounds are in my shop and a bracelet upgrade is available.

A note to my American customers:

I'm sure you're probably aware by now that the de minimis exemption will be no more as of the end of this month. This rule allowed you to receive parcels under the value of $800.00 without having to pay any tariffs or suchlike. 

Because of this, and because it's happened much sooner than people were expecting, I am unable to post beads to you for the foreseeable future. This is because there will be inevitable customs delays and potentially very high import charges that the buyer is responsible for. It seems nobody quite knows or understands exactly what the outcome will be but apparently things will be uncertain for the next few months, and platforms like Etsy are advising people not to send orders via Royal Mail. To say this is a bit of a bummer is an understatement. You Americans make up about 70% of my customer base. At the start of the year I lost all my EU customers due to their new postage and import rules, and now I've lost you too. A few years ago I could post packages to pretty much anywhere in the world and now I'm down to England, Scotland, Wales and Canada.

I've seen so much talk of Etsy shops shutting and people giving up their little craft businesses because of this and I totally understand why. I've not yet ruled out doing so myself but I'm going to hang on until I find out if this de minimis thing can be fixed in a way that works for me and my customers.

I think I just wanted to say "thank you" to my American customers for all your past orders and support and also that I'm sorry I can't send my makings to you right now. And I'm sorry too for anyone who is going to have to give up their businesses because of all this.

Who knows what my bead future will bring? Maybe I'll end up with so much bead stock I'll do an actual craft fair (URGH! and ARGH!) or something? Perhaps the US will sort its mind out with regards to import duties and tariffs? Or could it be that my time as a beadmaker is coming to an end? Who can say? What will be will be. In the meantime I shall just plod on.

Enjoy your day and if you're Bank Holiday Mondaying, I hope you have a nice one. Personally, I'm heading shedwards.

See you soon!

Giveaway winner

I've drawn the winner of the 'Hydrangea' Spotties pair giveaway and that person is Vicky W. Nice one, Vicky! I’ve sent you an email.

Thank you to everyone who entered the draw - I'll do another giveaway soon. Whenever I say that, 'soon' normally ends up being months and months but I'll try and sort a draw for September.

Beads, bracelet and a little giveaway

I can't quite capture the real-life sunshiny vibrancy of this orangey-yellow glass in a photo. It's a very summery colour and I've paired it with lavender-blue here. There's no encasing which always makes me feel a bit weird because the thing I love most about glass beads is the way the light shines through it but sometimes it's good to keep things really simple. Also, a lot of yellow glasses do not tolerate encasing and they can crack. I'm unsure if this particular yellow is a fussy bugger one and obviously an easy way to find out would be to actually make an encased bead with it, but it's been too hot in the shed to squander limited torch time on making 'risky' beads that might crack - that's a cooler weather task.

These are Effetre pastel yellow 418 and lavender blue/pastel ink blue 247. The beads are currently available in my shop and I can etch them and/or make them into a bracelet for you if you like. All details can be found here.

I made another batch of 'Hydrangea' spotties:

One of my customers opted for a bracelet upgrade for these which is great because now I have some photographs to show you exactly what these beads look like made wearable.

If you fancy your own 'Hydrangea' spotties bracelet you can order one here. The beads can also be purchased loose so you can do your own thing with them

I had a couple of leftover lavender ones from this batch and I thought I'd offer them as a giveaway here on my blog. I've not done a giveaway for donkey's yonks!

To have a shot at winning this pair of beads with coordinating spacers you need to do the following:

• Entries for the giveaway are now closed. The winner has been announced here.

I will put all the names in a hat and draw a winner on the evening of Friday 1st August. I won't be using your email address or details for anything else and your message will be deleted once the draw is over and done with.

Good luck!

Where there are scrolls there are spots

Crafting beads with scrolls on involves pulling a fair amount of stringer and the application of it produces many stray ends that aren't long enough to do anything useful with. Instead of throwing all these stringer oddments away I use some of them for applying spots to beads.

Making spotty beads is always a nice 'effort break' from scrolly ones, not that both don't take effort, but scrolls are way more intensive and go-wrongable than random spots.

'Summer Blues' Scrolls

These 'Summer Blues' scrolly beads are Effetre dark periwinkle 222 encased with Effetre pale aquamarine 038 with scrolls in Effetre light turquoise 232 and spacers in CiM Peacock Feather.

I then used some of the light turquoise stringer for spots on these 'Hydrangea' spotties.

'Hydrangea' Spotties

These are Effetre white 204 encased with Effetre dark lavender 081, and Effetre light turquoise 232 encased with Effetre pale aquamarine 038 with spots in Effetre lavender blue 247.

'Steel Grey' Scrolls

These 'Steel Grey' scroll beads are Effetre white 204 encased with Effetre dark steel grey 088 with scrolls in Effetre white 204.

'Serene' Spotties

I used leftover white stringer on these 'Serene' spotties which have Effetre white 204 cores encased with Effetre pale aquamarine 038 and pale emerald green 031.

Whew! That was a lot of glass numbers but I know some of you like to know exactly what I use for my beads. It's always a handy reminder for myself too.

At the time of typing, the 'Steel Grey' scrolls and the 'Hydrangea' spotties are in my shop with tumble-etching and/or bracelet upgrades available for both.

It's raining here today which means it's quite cool so hopefully I'll get a few hours of shed time in.

Have a good Thursday and I'll see you soon!

Iced Tea

This is CiM Burnt Sugar which is a transparent brown that has a warm rosy tint to it. It catches the light in such a pretty way. I've used it over CiM Foam here (I'm almost out of this and I will really miss it when it's gone) and the scrolls are Effetre White 204.

I can tumble-etch these 'Iced Tea' beads, although I think they look best left shiny. There's also the option of a bracelet upgrade if you'd like me to make them wearable for you. All the details can be found here.

Talking of bracelet upgrades, one of my customers asked if I could turn a set of the Bubblebumps beads into a bracelet for her.

I made some pink spacers and strung the beads with turquoise seed beads and sterling silver.

The result was a very juicy-fruity and utterly summery bracelet. I hope my customer likes it and enjoys wearing it.

In knitting news...

I have got some pairs that aren't striped in the Pile-o-Socks but yeah, here are some more striped ones.

These are Yarnsmiths Merino Sock in 2K172 Duckling and 2K045 Off White.

I was going for a custard cream thing and now custard creams are all I think of whenever I look at them.

Apparently it's going to be another warm day today so I'd better go and water the garden plants before I head off to the foodbank for a hot and sweaty morning hefting crates of food about in the warehouse.

Have a good Friday and enjoy your weekend!

Seaweed, Socks & Knots

This green is CiM Peat Moss and it's one of my favourite greens. It reminds me of so many things - moss, olives, ferns - but today it's reminding me of seaweed so that's what I've called these beads.

A classic Laurabeads quintet with spacers. These would look great tumble-etched. The strand is currently available in my shop.

In knitting news...

Another pair from the sock pile, this time stripes.

Cuff down, five row stripes, slip stitch heel, job's a good'un.

These were knitted in Yarnsmiths Merino Sock in shades 2K060 Parchment and 2K201 Moss Green

And in other news...

I recently bought a tiny little silver inch plant; I fell in love with his glittery silvery green and purple leaves and I just had to take him home. He's grown so fast and started trailing and I wanted to get a macramé pot hanger for him. When I looked them up online I was like "I'm not paying that plus delivery when I'm pretty sure I can buy some cord and make my own!" so that's exactly what I did.

The only macramé I've done before is friendship bracelets when I was a kid, and basic square knot bead bracelets over the last few years. I got a roll of 3mm cord, watched a few YouTube videos and got to knotty work and a couple of hours later I had a pot hanger.

I'm so chuffed with it. I'm going to make another, larger one for one of my golden pothos plants and I might knot in a few beads too. I've just got to decide what colour beads to make for it now.