Another riveting post

Nothing has changed since I last blogged except for the fact we went to see Dawn French live. Her current show is called Dawn French is a Huge Twat and it's stories from times in her life when she's done daft stuff. It was SO funny and at several points I had to wipe away laughter tears. Wonderful woman.

But yep, Dawn French aside, it's just been beads and bracelets and bracelets and beads here. Oh hang on, I tell a lie; we did get a new kitchen bin because the lid broke off the old one. Very exciting times.

Anyway, here are some shimmy bracelets...

First up, 'Autumn' which is shades of amber, yellow-orange and terracotta with some bronze Czech glass rondelles:

Then 'Fall' which is light turquoise, teal, terracotta and light brown:

Next is 'Lavender' which was inspired by my actual lavender bush:

And the final shimmy is 'Berry' which is various purples with a dash of cranberry:

I've also made this 'Halloween' bracelet which is finished with a Jack-o'-lantern charm.

At the time of typing, 'Autumn', 'Lavender' and two 'Halloween's are available in my shop.

And yes, I'm fully aware that right now the beads in my bracelets are just plain spacers, except for the ones that are spacers with spots on, but I don't care. I'm enjoying the simplicity of them and playing about with colour combinations. Sometimes I like to make beads that are just about the glass rather than anything fancy. I don't know why I'm feeling the need to explain myself but explain myself I have.

I've not forgotten the next giveaway. I need to rethink how I do it because the winner of the last one still hasn't got in touch so I need to figure out a way round that and some kind of back-up plan with regards to potential non-claiming of the prize.

'Daydream' shimmy bracelet

There was going to be two bracelets today, one of them a gold one, but the gold chain I ordered is way too chunky for my liking and the beads don't sit nicely on it so I've sourced some other chain elsewhere and am now waiting for it to arrive, so it's just this 'Daydream' one instead.

The colours in this shimmy bracelet remind me of sweets, fizzy bath bombs, pink-toned sunrises and unicorn-related gubbins. The glasses I used for this one are CiM Douglas Aster and Dollhouse Milky, and Effetre EDP 254, Light Sky Blue 224 and Dark Lavender 081.

All metal is high quality silver plated base metal which is lead-free and nickel safe. The bracelet is in my shop as I type this. I've reduced the prices of a few jewellery items so do pop over there and have a look-see.

In other news, it was my birthday on Saturday. Chris and I had a quiet day but on the Sunday we met my littlest sister, Emily, and her fiancé, Adam, in London as they'd got me tickets to see Ash as my birthday present.

The gig was to celebrate the 21st anniversary of their album Free All Angels which means that it's been twenty-one years since I last saw them, which was in Cardiff when the album was new.

Em and her youthful glam face,
me and my aged un-glam one

The gig was at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town which is a lovely little venue. The show was great and a highlight for me was Ash playing A Life Less Ordinary which is, as Emily would say, a banger.

If you've not enetered my prize draw yet you've still got time; I'll be drawing the winner of the lonelies beads tomorrow. Head this way to add your name to the hat.

The humble plain spacer bead

One of the things I like about these shimmy bracelets is how they take the humble plain spacer bead to a new level. I have so many oddments of glass and of those some is glass that works best on its own without any decoration, or because it's fussy and doesn't play nicely with other glass. That's where spacer beads come in.

I'm trying to not buy glass (except for clear and a limited range of staples) so I can work through all my odds and ends, and making spacers is a great way of doing that, so expect lots more of these shimmy bracelets. Also, because the beads are small, simple and fast to make, I can keep the costs of the bracelets down. (I make my spacers one at a time, one per mandrel, though. I've never got on board with making loads of them on one mandrel.)

As I said a couple of posts back, sterling silver is becoming almost too expensive so this shimmy bracelet is made with high quality silver plated base metal findings. If I'd used sterling it would cost a huge amount and the weight would mean the bracelet would need to be hallmarked. I've never gone down that route and I don't intend to because I'm a beadmaker, not a silversmith.

I've got some gold plated findings arriving soon which I'm quite excited about because I've hardly ever paired my beads with gold metal. 

The beads in this 'Glacier' bracelet are made from a third of an unlabelled rod of CiM transparent aquamarine blue, a very skinny and therefore annoying to use rod of Effetre Antique Green 852 and some Effetre Light Turquoise filigrana.

I also made this pair of earrings the other day. Again, just two plain little spacers in glorious Double Helix Theia which, in my opinion, is the best and prettiest purple glass you can get right now.

The greenish-blue disc beads are tiny Czech glass ones that I've had in my bead stash for eons. All metal in these earrings is sterling silver. 

The bracelet and earrings are in my shop.

Thank you to everyone who has entered my prize draw so far. There are way more of you than I thought there'd be so that's fab.

If you haven't yet entered, please head this way for more details and to add your name to the draw.

Making a shimmy bracelet

I thought I'd show you how I make one of my shimmy bracelets. Obviously this is just a chain with beads attached to it so it's really nothing fancy or revolutionary but I've made many of these over the years and I wanted to show you how I've streamlined the process to make quite a long and repetitive task a little bit faster.

I've watched many Adam Savage videos and he's very methodical in his approach to making and assembling. Although I'm not creating movie prop replicas or costumes like Adam does, I have picked up many helpful tips and pieces of advice from watching him. For jewellery assembly I am a big fan of what Adam refers to as 'order of operations' which is working out the best and most efficient order of doing things to complete a task in the fastest and most logical way. If you want to learn more about this I highly recommend Adam's book 'Every Tool's A Hammer: Life Is What You Make It' which I reckon is a must for any maker.

For a shimmy bracelet I get all the components I need and set them out on my work surface.

First up, beads.

These are an assortment of simple lampwork spacers I made in four shades of pink.

Next, findings.

These are all antique copper-plated brass, except for the clasp which is lead-free pewter. I've gathered quite the collection of antique copper-plated findings and components over the years and now seems like a good time to use them because much like Lurpak butter, the price of sterling silver is getting ridiculous. Sure, brass costume jewellery may not weather as well as sterling silver wearables, but it still looks nice and enables me to charge lower prices. Besides, if Vivienne Westwood can sell brass jewellery (we bought Robyn a Vivienne Westwood bracelet for her 18th) then so can I.

My first job is making the bracelet base from a length of chain, some jump rings, a clasp and a bead dangle.

Next, I thread all of the beads on to headpins, topping each one with a copper round bead.

I then create the first bend of the wrapped loop.

I do this for all of the beads.

I then work through all the headpins again, this time making the loop.

By doing this one-task-at-a-time thing I'm not constantly threading beads, putting one pair of pliers down and picking another one up. The repetitive nature of each job also enables me to be consistent so that my bends, loops and the resulting wraps will all be even.

Next, I attach each headpin to the chain and wrap the loop. I trim off the excess wire and after all the beads are attached to the chain I work along the bracelet, tucking the wire ends in and straightening everything up.

I timed this whole bracelet assembly; from gathering all the parts to finishing the bracelet took me an hour and a quarter. Not bad going for all those wraps.

I don't know if any of what I've shown and written here will be of use to you. If you're already a fellow order-of-operations devotee then I'm giving you a knowing nod. If you're not, give it a go. It's amazing how much time you can save by calculating the most efficient way of doing something in order to become a one person factory-style production line.

If you like the look of this very pink 'Candyfloss' shimmy bracelet, it's in my shop.

I'm going to be doing a bead giveaway here on my blog in the very near future, so please do bookmark me or check back soon.

Jewellery. Beads. Hair.

I can see my blog post views slowly going up so that's pleasing to me. Hello to anyone out there reading (I'm actually waving at you) and thank you for popping by.

I spent most of Sunday making bracelets. I'd made a heap of simple spacer beads and a few spotty ones, all in whites and clear, and I had no particluar bracelet designs in mind for them so it was nice to sit and faff about. I ended up with what I've always referred to as a 'shimmy' bracelet.

These take quite a while to make due to all those wrapped loops but the end result is always worth the effort.

Shimmy bracelets feel so lovely when you're wearing them and they make an amazing glassy rattle as you move.

And I also made a very simple, quite dainty bracelet by stringing a few of my beads with some seed beads and Preciosa crystals. 

Both of these bracelets are in my shop.

I had a sort out of one of my lonelies jars and I've added a strand of those to the shop as well.

I do like a strand of lonelies because they make me put beads and colours together that I never normally would and this can often spark new bead and jewellery ideas.

In non-bead news, I had my hair cut last week. I last had it cut a year ago and it was far too long and was taking me an age to wash.

I'm going greyer and greyer and I love it. I've had greys since my early twenties and I dyed my hair for years to cover them but I stopped dyeing it about six years ago because I just couldn't be arsed. Two days after the mess and time of a dye job a grey hair would be sat there laughing at me, so I gave up. My hair is how it's supposed to be at this moment in time and that's fine by me.

In crochet news, I finished the doily I was making and I just need to block it. Chris is currently using the available floor space to take photos of Blake's 7 spaceships that he's made so I'll have to wait for when his photo set-up is away until I can deploy my blocking mats. Our house is very small, you see. Both of us are in making mode all the time so we take it in turns to clutter the lounge up with stuff.

Right, I'm off to make some mandrels and then beads. Have a good Monday!