More hearts

I took this photo of a pile of heart beads and spacers this morning. They were having a little sunbathe during the seven minutes of sunshine that happened today. Anyway, I've made more 'Lub Dub' necklaces, heart sets and individual hearts. The hearts all went pretty fast last time so if you fancy any of these items, grab them whilst you can.

'Lub Dub'

'Lub Dub' is the term used in medical textbooks to describe the sound of a heartbeat. I decided to name these necklaces after it.

The bright red, glossy hearts are coated with enamel and each one is decorated with a tiny raised white heart. The necklaces are £17.00 each and would make super Valentine's Day gifts. They're available here.

If you fancy the idea of making your own wearable with the Lub Dub hearts, they are available loose, on their own (£6.50) or with a dozen matching red spacers (£9.50).

Thank you for all of the lovely comments on my last post. They're very much appreciated.

Enjoy the rest of your Friday!

Bright & Cheery

I've just made the bright and cheery  'Rainbow' spacers above and six colours of heart bead sets available for ordering. Each set costs £12.00 and you can place your order here. 

Small heart sets

I was surprised at how many of you liked the small heart set I had for sale the other night so I've made some more of those.  The sets contain ten enamelled spacers and a small heart.

Each set costs £12.00 and they're for sale in the usual place now.

Have a good afternoon!

'Strawberry'

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has left comments and sent emails and tweets about Buster.  Your kind words and thoughts are really appreciated.

I started making these red beads on Tuesday morning and I had to stop after the Buster news on Tuesday afternoon.  I carried on with them yesterday and they were really comforting to make.  I've told you before that I like making polka dot beads when my mind is preoccupied - their repetitiveness and regularity is quite soothing.  And of course you know how much I like red and white polka dots!

These three strands already have new homes but do check my Etsy shop tomorrow night as I'll be adding some beads to its virtual shelves then.

More Powder & Paint Lentils

Some striking grey, red and black ones .....

..... some soft yellow, peach, pink and purple ones .....

..... and some vibrant bright green ones.

Powder & Paint Lentils

I had a moment yesterday while I was melting glass where I just decided to go crazy and do something out of the ordinary. So I dusted off the lentil press and got some enamels out and I had a play about. I started doing some scrollwork but my mind just wasn't firing on all perfectionism cylinders and I eventually ended up making these pretty lentils which I'm calling my 'Powder & Paint' beads - powder because of the enamel and paint because of the splodgy, not-as-orderly-as-normal stringer.

These and more like them will be for sale on my website tonight at 8.30pm (UK time).

'Sakura' Focals

These are the first 'proper' beads I've made this year and I am SO pleased with them.

For almost four years (on and off) I've been trying to create a cherry blossom design on beads but I couldn't quite work out the best way to do it. This week I realised that I had been making things way more complicated than they needed to be. I've tried frit, encasing, enamelled stringers and more before but the effect always ended up muddy and blurred. I was aiming for a crisp, stylised but recognisable-as-cherry-blossom design and I've finally cracked it!

I wanted to give the beads a Japanese feel so I've used the traditional 'tombodama' olive-shaped bead that Japanese lampworkers favour and I've also given the beads the name 'Sakura' which is Japanese for, you guessed it, cherry blossom.

I'm chuffed to bits with them and I hope you like them too.

These focals will be for sale on my website at 8.30 pm (UK time) tomorrow night.

'Big Red Heart' Focal

It's big. It's red. It's a heart. Not just a clever name!

I'm going to have to make myself one of these. I quite fancy one on a long chain.

It's a very clean and simple-looking bead - one of those ones where the shape and colour does the talking as opposed to any surface design.

It'll be for sale in the normal place at 8.30pm tonight.

Whole Lotta Love

Gorgeously glossy little red heart-shaped beads. These were shaped by hand. Well, not literally with my bare hands. That would be both dangerous and very silly. What I mean is that I didn't use a bead press or a mould.

Glass Weirdness Afoot

Hmmm. I wanted these beads to be a soft, pale yellow. I'm all out of the pale yellow I would have normally used so I used a Vetrofond oddlot one that I've had for years. The first bead did indeed start off looking pale yellow, just like I intended, but there must have been some strange glass chemistry happening between the oddlot and the base colour because the more I worked on the bead the darker it got. It ended up this stone-like khaki colour which I actually quite like so I just went with what the glass wanted to do, kept on making beads and now I have this set of un-yellow lentils!

I've had so many lovely comments and emails about this particular style of bead. Thing is, the design has no name as yet. So I thought I'd ask for your comments and suggestions as to what I should call this particular type of bead. I'm not looking for a name for this particular set of lentils with regard to colour - I'm looking for a name for the design itself. Please click here to see more lentils like the ones above but in different colours. People have said that these lentils remind them of rose petals, rolled up fabric and coiled ribbon.

If you have any name ideas please jot them down in my comments section or if you prefer you can send me an email and I'll add your suggestions to the list. Please feel free to add as many names as you'd like and I'll pick my favourite one at 7.00pm on Thursday 22nd January. The person who provides the name I like most will get a lucky dip bag of my lampwork beads.

'Candy Floss' Lentils

Yes, yes, more of these. What can I say - I like making them! But if you're bored of seeing them, fear not - I have different beads to clean and photograph for sale later. Check back tonight for photos .....

'Nimbus' Lentils

I think I had grey on the brain when I made these. While I was looking at glass colours last night I was repeatedly drawn to shades of grey. I reckon it was the train journey home from Cambridge yesterday that was responsible for my colour choice, or lack thereof. It was a dismal day and the sky was full of rainclouds. It was pretty much the same today. Grey is nice for beads, though - a subtle hue that looks fab with silver and can be worn with anything.

'Unbelievably Blue' Lentils

These lentil lovelies are such a vibrant shade of blue. I kind of stumbled upon this particular colour by accident. I like it when that happens!

'Dreamy' Lentils

These are like the 'Neptune' ones in the last post but in purple and pink. Prettiness!

'Neptune' Lentils

I wish you could see these for real - the colours are just yum! These cased lentils contain swathes of light blue and a luscious kingfisher blue. Each bead has a smattering of blue-green enamel which I've left ever so slightly raised for a touchable texture.

'Cinnamon' Floratabs

Oh, how I love these! Magnolia base beads dusted with cinnamon-coloured enamel and decorated with a white flower design. Each one of these tab beads takes half an hour to make but I reckon they're worth the effort! It was just so nice to sit and make these. They're fiddly and complicated (my favourite kind of beads to make!) but such a welcome change from the simpler-therefore-cheaper-to-buy beads that I've been making recently due to the 'current financial climate'.

While I was making these Floratabs I thought 'I'm actually enjoying this!' and I haven't really felt that way about beadmaking for a good couple of months now. In fact, although the oxycon breaking last week was a pain it was also a bit of a relief because it resulted in me having a few days off. My creative batteries seem to have recharged a bit!

Christmas beads already?

I know, I know, it's only October but a whole bunch of you über-organised jewellery folk have been asking for Christmassy beads, so here you go! It felt a teeny bit wrong to be making yuletide-type beads in October but when I strung these lovelies together I must admit that I did have a bit of an 'Aw, Christmas!' moment. Bright red and green enamel beads with white polka dots and some textured 'snowball' beads. Ho, ho ho!

First Blogiversary

I've been wittering away on this here blog for exactly a year today. Now that's a lot of waffle!

Yesterday I was stuck for colour ideas so I texted my fella to see if he could think of any. Chris is good like that. He always comes up with great beady concepts when I'm having an I-can't-make-beads moment. Yesterday he sent me some links to underwater photographs which resulted in me spending ages trawling Flickr and Google looking at lots of pictures of vibrantly-coloured fish. A particularly groovy one gave me the idea for these 'Fiesta' beads. Nice and bright!

Love the lovely polka dots!

I'm a bit polka dot crazy at the moment. There's something quite soothing about making these beads. Must be the repetitive dot placement - I kind of get into a polka dot trance . . . . .

I went for a mooch around the shops in town on Saturday and a most excellent thing happened! The other week I had to buy new jeans because my old ones were too big. Yay! The no pudding thing is really paying off. So I had to buy one size smaller than I usually do. I thought that maybe that was a bit of a fluke and perhaps the size was wrong. But on Saturday I found a skirt that I really liked (yes, that might be shocking to you because you may know that I normally avoid dresses and skirts like the plague) and I instinctively picked up my normal size 14. I did have a quick look to see if there was a size 12, but no. I trotted off to the changing room and tried the skirt on . . . . . and it fell down! It just would not stay on my hips. I got changed and when the assistant said 'Any good?' I proudly replied 'No!' with a big grin on my face. I think she thought I was a bit loopy.

Could it actually be that after about a decade of size 14-ness I may actually be a size 12? It was a shame about the skirt because I liked it but to make it all better I bought new shoes instead!