A bracelet and some beads

I've spent all weekend in the shed. I know. I'm a crazywild party machine and I need to calm the flip-heck down.

I made the 'Auburn & Amber' bracelet up there which consists of glass of just two colours - a red-brown and a medium amber. I kept the beads simple and the mini baubles are headpins*. The piece is finished with an acorn and oak leaf charm dangle at the clasp. All findings are copper and 'antique' copper plated. The bracelet looks absolutely gorgeous when the sun shines through it ...

There's only one of these bracelets available and it's for sale in my shop.

I also got my Halloween on and made two sets of beads in classic spookytime colour combinations; black and orange and purple and green.

Each strand of beads contains nine encased rounds, ten droplets and eight spacers. Again, there's only one set of each up for grabs so if you like them, grab them. 

I must do a boring what-is-going-on-in-my-life-that-is-not-about-beads post. I know that a couple of you like those. I will get on that as soon as I can. It won't be tonight as Monday nights are Slimming World nights. I still go even though I'm at my target weight. Those weekly weigh-ins keep me and my arse/pudding belly/thighs in check.

Have a marvellous Monday!

*Headpins. Remember how I was going to send folk lampwork headpins to test? Well, I asked for ten people and I got forty. I said yes to half of those. I then sent the first lot of headpins out to half of those and only had feedback from one person. So I've not sent any more headpins out because I can't afford to spend time, glass and postage giving stuff away and getting nothing back. So if you were in the batch of people who didn't receive a headpin bundle from me, that is the reason why. My apologies but I hope you understand.

Stuff & Things

I have had a busy fortnight. When I say 'busy', I've not done anything interesting, noteworthy or exciting but the hours and days seem to have disappeared up the big old time hoover. Gone. 

Now, before you read on, there are rants ahead. Skip the next few paragraphs if you don't want to experience my grump ... 

Last week I had big stress over my website domain transfer. Honestly, on Thursday I was ready to give up. I mean totally. Things got shouted, threats about selling my lampworking kit got made and I had a massive strop. Sometimes, this self-employment thing gets to you. In Evita, Madonna sings "Sometimes it's very difficult to keep momentum if it's you that you are following" and she's not wrong. Team the nightmare domain transfer with a load of other niggly bead-related stuff including an email telling me that my "work is very nice and everything but far too expensive" and yeah, you've got a recipe for Bad Mood Laura going on. (And to the woman who emailed me and told me my work is too expensive - no, no it's not, and in future please refrain from telling people who make stuff for a living that their work is too expensive because you probably don't quite get what goes into making it and your words are confidence-knocking and insulting, thank you very much.)

So yeah, I had a wobble and then I gave myself a good old talking-to and told myself to woman up and get on with things. 

Tell you what, though, I managed to retrieve half of my old mailing list. Okay, so it was only half of it but half is better than nothing at all. This meant I was able to import the list into MailChimp and send out a "Hello, remember me?!" email to folk. So that was good. 

Whilst I'm on the subject of mailing lists, and this isn't a moan or a whinge, have you ever marked a mailing list email as spam? And I don't mean unsolicited emails; I mean ones that you personally signed up to or agreed to receive when you made a purchase. By marking that email (that you asked for) as spam, you can get the company's list suspended. Now for a one person outfit, that can be quite the hindrance. So, instead of hitting the 'mark as spam' button, scroll down and use the 'unsubscribe' link instead. 

Okay, I think that's my narkiness all typed out. Thanks for reading all that. 

Tell you what, though; A Very Excellent Thing happened, people. I finally reached my Slimming World target weight!

In ten months I have lost three stone four pounds, dropped from a size 16 to a size 10-12 and I feel a bazillion times healthier for it. I reached target a couple of weeks ago and now I'm trying to maintain that weight. I still go to my Slimming World group every week to get weighed plus I'd miss everyone if I didn't go. Doing Slimming World has made me think differently about food and I cannot recommend it enough. 

I've got to have a wardrobe sort-out. Such a textbook look-I-lost-weight pose but these were the shorts that I used to wear in the shed last summer and also the garment that made me go "Laura, you need to lose weight, woman!" Height of fashion, right? Fiver from Tesco. Size sixteen and the buggers used to dig right into my thighs when I sat down, even with the buttony side legs bits unbuttoned. I put these on the day after I reached target and they literally, actually fell straight off. So yes, I need to get new shed shorts and new dresses.

I'm going to stop typing now because I have beads to make and packages to post but I'll be back later today with another (less moany) post. I know right?! Two posts in one day!

Have a fab Wednesday,

'Eton Mess'

The rich reds and bright whites of this Droplets bracelet remind me of strawberries, raspberries, meringue and cream which is why I've named it 'Eton Mess'. The bracelet is priced at £28.00 and is available in my shop.

Talking of Eton Mess, I've been satisfying my pudding cravings (yep, still doing Slimming World) with a version of it. Somebody on Twitter named it 'Eaten Less' which is a great name for it. I stir fresh strawberries or raspberries into a bowl of fat free fromage frais or fat free natural yoghurt (sweetened with a little artificial sweetener) and if I have some in stock, I break up a meringue nest and add that to the mix too and ooooh, it's yum!

Have a super duper Friday night,

Slimming World

I'm now going to waffle on about dieting. I totally understand if you don't want to read it but I figured that some of you might like to know about how my weight loss is going.

I received my Yay-I've-Lost-A-Stone-And-A-Half! certificate and sticker at Slimming World last night. I was mighty chuffed. I've only been doing the diet for ten weeks and I've shed twenty-two pounds in total.

A few months ago I decided that I wanted to shift some weight. I was a size sixteen and I was feeling unhealthy. I got overly-hot and out of puff walking to the shop and back and doing housework proper knackered me out. I also didn't like the way my jeans were so very tight around my thighs (they looked like when you clingfilm biscuit dough into a sausage shape) and I felt big and sluggish and generally meh.

I've tried calorie counting in the past and I lost a bit of weight doing so, but I never kept it off. I also became fixated with adding up calories and numbers and it wasn't healthy and I got tired of it very quickly. I needed to do something that I would stick to and a couple of friends had lost weight successfully with Slimming World. So I bought a copy of the Slimming World magazine, read it, searched for my nearest group on the old internet and the following Monday I went along and enrolled. You can do the programme entirely online which was tempting but I felt that actually physically going to a group would work better for me

I was SO nervous about going. I had visions of Little Britain's 'Fat Fighters' in my mind but within ten minutes of being there I realised that Slimming World was going to be nothing like that.

"Dust?"

I lost four-and-a-half pounds in my first week. And I've lost weight every week since, sometimes only half a pound but still, I've not gained weight.

And you know what? I'm NEVER hungry. That's the joy of this diet. (I'm totally aware that I sound like an infomercial here.) You can eat as much of what Slimming World calls 'Free Food' as often as you like. The Free Food list includes rice, pasta and potatoes. And - get this - you can still eat crisps and chocolate! Obviously you can't yum eighteen Mars bars a day, but I have about three Curly Wurlys a week.

There's no calorie counting, next-to-no food weighing, no complex points systems and you can do the diet with minimum disruption to the rest of the family. The Slimming World recipes and cook books are wonderful. I can't say enough good words about the whole thing.

Weight loss aside, I actually enjoy going to Slimming World on Monday nights. I like seeing everyone. I like hearing how people are getting on. The place is full of lovelypeopleness.

And I FEEL better. I feel healthier. I don't get as hot and flustered walking about the place. I'm nearing a size twelve now and I've got to go and buy new clothes because nothing fits me properly anymore. I bloody hate clothes shopping but the fact I've GOT to go makes me smiley.

So yeah, in short, if you've ever considered joining a slimming club but have thought "Nope, I just can't do it!" then shush up and go do it. I've got about another stone to shed and then I'll be in healthy BMI territory. I'll see what I look like and how I feel when I reach my target and then I'll decide if I need to lose a bit more.

And American readers, if you're thinking "Why haven't WE got Slimming World?! It sounds AWESOME!" then you may be interested to know that Slimming World is now over there in Unitedstatesland and right now you can get four months' enrollment for just $40.00. Have a look right here for more details.

So that's that. Diet blog post done. I'm off for lunch now. The homemade pea and ham soup is calling me ...