Bracelets by Joy & Debra

Joy Funnell made the fabulous 'Tutti Frutti' bracelet above. Isn't it just so bright and cheerful? Joy has used lots of my beads, Murano glass and Swarovski crystals. Yum!

The 'Dusky Dream' bracelet above is another Joy Funnell creation and I just love it. Pinks and purples teamed with Joy's wonderful silver work. Perfection. Please hop on over to Joy's website and also why not have a read of her blog too?

And here's another super-pretty charm bracelet. This berry-coloured beauty was made by Debra Farrell of Magical Creations. Debra has used a variety of my beads along with Murano glass, shell beads and Swarovski crystals.

This 'Berry' bracelet and matching earrings are available over in Debra's online shop. Debra has also just started blogging - please click here to have a read.

There are a few hours left for you to enter my Lonelies draw if you haven't already done so. The draw closes at 7.00pm (UK time) tonight and then I shall be drawing a winner. Thank you to everybody who has entered so far. I've loved reading your comments and visiting various blogs. One of you even decided to write a poem about my beads and I thought I'd publish it here on my blog :

An Ode To Lonelies by Ellie Pep

A string of beads we are, we are,
On this lovely blog you'll see...
We're looking for a brand new home
Where we'll make someone very happy.
Known simply as the "lonelies"
We're special, every one!
We're looking for a brand new home where we can have some fun!
Now we've had a conversation,
We've really thought this through
So listen to us Laura
For we'll share it now with you...
We've heard about a lovely place,
It really sounds like heaven.
We'd like to go there on June the 4th...
We'd like to live in Devon!!

Thanks Ellie. I'm honoured - I think that's the first time anyone has ever written a poem about my beads!

Please check back later tonight to see who is going to win those Lonelies .....

The Big Prize Draw

You know how I do my monthly prize draws? Well, I've been thinking about those and I decided that I'd try something a little different this year.

I've met some wonderful people through my website and the blogosphere. Some of them I've actually met face-to-face and others I 'speak' to via blogs and emails. When I was thinking about the giveaway I decided to see if any of these fab folk would like to join me in this prize draw thing and guess what? That's right, they did! Yeah!

So now I'm very pleased (and a tad excited) to present The Big Prize Draw. There are three - yes three - prizes up for grabs this month. That means that there will be three winners! And that's not a first, second and third prize. They're all pretty much the same value. Four talented people have donated prizes for the draw and there's also a chance to win some of my beads too.

Do you want to take a look at what you could win?

First off (and these prizes are listed in no particular order) we have some beautiful polymer clay beads made by the very clever Zuleykha. She has donated a set of four flowery focal beads ranging from 25-50mm diameter.

Aren't they pretty? To see more of Zuleykha's wonderful polymer clay work please visit her Etsy shop and click here to have a read of her blog.

Lyn from Florspace has donated three of her super-handy and very cute handmade MiniZ purses. There are two Everyday Cupcake ones and one Metro Dots one. These little purses are great for keeping all your odds and ends in. I have about five of them myself and I love them!

To see more of Lyn's amazing handcrafted bags and purses please head on over to her Etsy shop. Lyn has a blog too.

Next up is this exclusive Alice In Wonderland necklace by the lovely Janine Byrom of Cherished Trinkets. This gorgeous pendant features a classic illustration of Alice and the 'Drink Me' bottle. It's perfectly finished with a blue satin ribbon. The chain measures approximately 18 inches.

Janine has a whole range of Alice jewellery on her newly re-vamped and very swish website. Please click here to visit her online emporium and click here for her blog.

Senior Art Clay Silver Instructor Joy Funnell has donated a seven gram pack of Art Clay Silver. This wonderful stuff can be used to make fine silver beads, pendants, findings and much more.

Joy has lots more information about Art Clay Silver on her website and her online shop contains lots of Art Clay Silver products. She also blogs here.

And finally we have some lampwork bead dangles made by moi. There is a cupcake (naturally), a sweet little mushroom and a pretty scrollwork bead. These dangles are great for prettying up your mobile phone, camera or bag zipper pull.

So, that's the prizes. I've split them up into three lots and these are as follows :

Prize One

Zuleykha's four flower beads, my mushroom dangle and one of Lyn's cupcake MiniZs.

Prize Two

Janine's Alice necklace, one of Lyn's cupcake MiniZs and my scrollwork dangle.

Prize Three

Joy's pack of Art Clay Silver, my cupcake dangle and Lyn's dotty MiniZ.

How To Enter

All you have to do to enter the draw is leave a comment on this post.

Usually I take email entries too but from now on all draw entries have to be made by blog comment. This will make it easier to keep track of and it will make the drawing of the winners simpler too. Over time my prize draws have become so popular that the poor Lego Tombola can't take any more! The winners will be picked by a random number generator instead. Each comment will be assigned a number (number one being the first comment posted) and I will use random.org to choose the three winners.

If you normally enter my giveaways by email, please don't let the blog commenting put you off. It's really simple and you don't need a Blogger account to comment. Just leave your name in your comment and check back at the end of the month to see if you've won!

The draw is open to anyone anywhere in the world but it's only one entry per person please.

I will draw the three winners on the evening of February 28th.

I'd like to say huge massive 'thank yous' to Zuleykha, Lyn, Janine and Joy for being so generous with their prizes. Please take a moment to visit their websites and blogs and add yourself as followers so you can keep up with all their goings-on!

I'm hoping to do more of these Big Prize Draws so please bookmark or follow my blog for news of when they will take place. If you're at all interested in donating a prize for upcoming giveaways please send me an email.

Best of luck for the draw!

Gifts From Joy

I taught my last lampworking lesson of the year today and it was very fitting that my last student was also the first of the year. Joy Funnell came back (obviously I can't be that bad!) for more glass melting fun and she brought me some lovely gifts - a fab book about knitting and crocheting with wire and beads, some Art Clay Silver and a totally gorgeous fine silver button made by Joy herself.

Isn't it great? I need to create something that will show off its true shiny beauty.

Joy is an Art Clay Silver Jedi Master and if you've never had a look at her work I urge you to do so for it is utterly fabulous. Her enamel work is pretty dang spectacular too. Joy also teaches so if you fancy trying your hand at some Art Clay Silver why not book yourself a lesson with her?

I have no idea what I'm going to make with my Art Clay Silver. I've only ever had one go with it before (longtime readers may remember my Darth Vader earrings) but Joy told me how to make some simple beads so I may have a go at that. I'll make sure that I keep you posted and let you know how it goes .....

Another Bracelet of Joy

(See what I did there with the title of this post?)

Anyway ..... Joy Funnell sent me a photo of another one of her marvellous bracelets. This one uses some of my pale grey Roly Poly lentils and Joy has made some silver lentils of her own that echo the design of mine. How clever is that? I think the bracelet is really lovely - it reminds me of moonlight. Make sure you check out Joy's blog and website for more jewellery goodness.

I'll be back later - I've got two more posts for you today but right now, Come Dine With Me is on and I have to watch. I'm a major CDWM addict .....

Joy's Beautiful Bracelets

Okay, I know I said I was going to do this yesterday but I never got around to it so here I am now. Better late than never, I guess.

These photos are from Joy Funnell and they are of some gorgeous bracelets that she's made with my beads. The one up there is called 'Pretty In Pink' and I just love it!

The one below is also mighty amazing. I do adore polka dots.

And finally here is a bracelet featuring some of my Luminobeads. Lush or what?!

I do love charm bracelets - they show off lampwork beads so beautifully. They're also wonderfully tactile which is great for those people who like to twiddle and fidget with their jewellery. And of course they make the most amazing twinkly-jangly sound.

Joy has even more bracelets over on her blog along with photos of her magnificent enamelling and silver clay work. Head on over there and have a look and while you're at it make sure you give her virtual hamster something to eat!

I'll post again later with sock photos .....

Ginger & Lemon

Sally, Paul and the children are visiting today so I did my usual cake-baking thing. These ones are ginger and lemon and I have to say that they are really nice - I had one for breakfast! The recipe is from Kate Shirazi's fabulous Cupcake Magic book. I've topped the cakes with lemon cream cheese frosting and decorated them with slivers of candied ginger and tiny lemon jelly wedges.

I'll post again later today as I have photos of some wonderful jewellery creations by Joy Funnell to show you.

I look like Alan Davies in drag

I was in Cambridge at the weekend and when I got home today I switched on my computer to find a huge wodge of emails, some bead-related and some not. There was also an absolute shedload of spam. Emails from banks where I don't even hold an account and super-duper deals from Vista Flippin' Print along with offers aplenty of cheap bead imports, medicine, hot girls that are ready to chat to me now and patches that will do miraculously wondrous things to pieces of anatomy that I don't even possess. I love the internet, I really do, but I hate spam!

One of the nice and normal bead-related emails I received was from Joy who sent me this photo of a bracelet that she made with her first beads. Isn't it fab?!

You may have gathered from the title of this post that I'm currently in the midst of a hair crisis. This happens every now and again. As you might know I'm 'blessed' with curly hair which annoyingly has a mind of its own. I need to find a new hairdresser but in my experience hairdressers that can cut curly hair well seem to be few and far between. Sam, my hairdresser back in Southampton, was wonderful and she knew exactly how my hair 'works'. My mop could really do with some sort of professional help right now but I'm nervous about trying a new salon. My hair looks enough of a mess as it is and I don't want to risk trying somewhere new and then walking out looking like Brian May. That would be bad. Last week I discovered a wonderful website - Naturally Curly - which is full of advice and information for us curly girlies and it has a really well-stocked shop full of interesting-looking hair products. Thing is, it's a US-based site and the financial mess our country is in makes buying things from America pretty dang expensive at the moment. Rubbish. Anyway, by looking at the Naturally Curly website I've discovered that my curls are type 3A. I didn't even know that there was some kind of Curly Locks Classification System, but now I do.

So I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go find me a salon and I think I'm going to have to do that walk-in-and-speak-to-someone thing. I hate that. I've never been a girly girl and hairdressing salons make me feel uneasy. It's all the technical hair language, forced conversation, girly chit-chat and staring at yourself in the mirror with your hair in some crazy pinned-up mess while wearing a back-to-front-cape-and-a-rubber-car-mat-thing that puts me off. Plus all the other ladies in the salon always seem to be having interesting and complicated colouring and cutting done - things that involve spacey-looking swimming caps and tin foil. I always feel a bit of a frump just having a trim and a few layers done. Going to the hairdresser is quite a stressful thing. Am I alone in thinking that or does anyone else feel that way too?

Okay, I'm going to stop droning on about my 'do (it's more like a 'don't, actually) and instead I'm off to work out what colour beads I fancy making tomorrow. But before I go I'm going to say two words - 'Slumdog Millionaire'. Go see it. It's an awesome (as Chris would say) movie. Definitely one of the best films I've seen in a very long while.

Joy's First Beads

Yesterday was my first beadmaking lesson of the year and it was brilliant. My student was Joy who is a Senior Certified Art Clay Instructor. You can take a look at her wonderful website by clicking here. Joy also makes beautiful enamelled jewellery but she'd never had a go at glass beadmaking before.

The picture above shows all the beads that Joy created in her seven hour beadmaking lesson. I've strung them in the order that she made them. Her first one was the plain blue one at the top and if you follow the strand round from there you'll see Joy's progression from plain round beads to frit beads, to dotty beads, then stringer beads, a squashed tab bead and finally a bubbledot bead.

How impressive is that?!

Joy sent me a lovely email last night which ended with :

"Please put in your blog that I think you are a great teacher and loved my day!!!"

Aw, thank you, Joy! I really enjoyed our day of glass melting too.

I have a couple of lessons left if you fancy having a go at lampwork. Please click here for more information about tuition.