'Petals'

These twisty petal-shaped beads make such a lovely twinkly noise as they knock against each other. I can imagine them as part of a really eyecatching necklace.

This weekend was a bit of a cinema weekend. Chris's parents were visiting and on Saturday we went to see The Dark Knight with them. Good film - Heath Ledger's Joker is an amazing character. On Sunday Chris and I saw WALL-E. I'm not a huge fan of totally animated CGI-type movies but I really enjoyed it. I particularly liked Hal, WALL-E's cute little cockroach friend!

And then of course yesterday I had the pleasure of travelling on the tube in that stifling heat. It was grim down in them there tunnels. No air. The bing-bong-announcey woman was even telling people to carry a bottle of water with them. How the heck do commuters and London dwellers cope with daily tube journeys, especially in hot weather?

Beads to match the weather

There's something ever-so tropical and sunshiny about this colour combination. These are the same as the 'Fiesta' beads I made last week but decorated with some proper old school Laurabead stringerwork.

How hot was it yesterday? Making beads was torture. I had to give up in the end as I had sweat running into my eyes and my hands were so slippery I couldn't grip the mandrel properly. Painting a nice picture of myself, there!

I don't cope with that kind of heat. And yes, I know that I'm moaning about hot weather after weeks of non-summery rain and cloud but come on, yesterday's mugginess was horrid. Give me crisp, chilly-but-sunny autumn weather over the hot, clammy and so-humid-my-hair's-fuzzed-up summer stuff any day!

That's it from me this week. I'm expecting a glass delivery next week which consists of loads of my favourite-to-work-with colours as well as some funky stuff so hopefully lots of new beads will be born.

I'm off to Cambridge this afternoon. Have yourself a fab weekend!

'Tranquility'

A few weeks back I sat and made a huge pile of these beads. They're very simple but I think they're really pretty. I sold half of them and kept the other half as I had plans to turn them into jewellery for yours truly. However, I just haven't had the time to make anything with them so I think it's time for them to go to a new home to be turned into wearable loveliness. These 'Tranquility' beads will be for sale on my website later on tonight.

Talking of simple beads, if you're wondering why there is a lack of my usual stringer-intensive creations please take a look at my latest Watch Me Create post which should explain all.

Impromptu

Sometimes you end up making beads you never set out to make. These 'Dalmatian' beads weren't planned. I made one and kind of liked it so I carried on and made a few more.

Monday Morning

Monday mornings. Never really great things and mine started in a bizarre way. I was getting dressed when I heard a noise at my bedroom window. Thinking it was yet another mental pigeon that had flown into it having been confused by the glass, I flung open the curtains to see if said pigeon had flown off with a headache or if it was in a crumpled, more-than-likely-dead heap on the garage roof. But no. Instead it was the window cleaner who gave me a big grin. I gave a short, sharp smile back and quickly shut the curtains because I was stood there in just my jeans and bra! Not good. I then wandered across the landing to the bathroom (still in just jeans and bra) to discover the window cleaner's brother cleaning the bathroom window! He shouted "Mornin'!" and waved at me through the (thankfully) frosted glass window. I shouted back "Alright?!" and scuttled back into my bedroom. Bad.

When the coast was clear and totally devoid of window cleaners I came downstairs to discover that Buster had left a pool of cat spit and grass next to my shoes. What is it with cats and eating grass? They eat it and then throw it up somewhere! But I tell you, I'm fed up of him doing things like that next to my belongings. I won't even tell you what he did to my beautiful, lovely, pink Sony Vaio laptop the other week but let's just say that it had to be cleaned to within an inch of its life and I didn't speak to Buster for two whole days afterwards.

I'm off to make beads now. Fingers crossed for a good day and I hope I don't have to kick seven shades of . . . oxygen out of my oxy-con like I did yesterday. It's so unreliable. Thank goodness that it's no longer used for medical purposes!