Beady Potpourri

A bit of an eclectic bead mix today. Precise polka dots, pink patterns and tiger-esque treasures.

I'm in need of some bead inspiration. If you've got any colour combinations or pattern ideas please leave them in my comments section. I also like to work with a name and then tailor the beads to suit. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Totally random now, but are there any Eastenders watchers reading this? If so, I've noticed something and I wondered if you have too? I'm not letching - muscly men don't really light my candle - but Christian can't seem to keep his kit on! I reckon he must have had some kind of 'vest clause' written into his contract because for the past couple of months hardly an episode has gone by where we don't see him wearing one. He often starts an episode wearing a jumper or a jacket but within minutes he's whipped off any outerwear and ends up serving tea in the 'caff' in his vest. It's like Christian's allergic to shirts or something. Has anyone else noticed?

'Halloween' Boogaloobeads

I have absolutely no idea where this bead design came from. I just sat down at the torch, picked out some colours, pulled a bit of stringer and went with the flow and these 'Boogaloobeads' were the result. They're decorated with groovy squiggles and dots with raised-but-flattened bumps. Fun and funky!

I'm just about used to my new beadmaking set-up. I can't get over how warm it is in the conservatory. This time last year I was shivering away down the shed.

I did my first Oxford-to-Cambridge train journey at the weekend. It's so much nicer than the Southampton-to-Cambridge one! It's about twenty five minutes quicker, a fiver less and I'm now using Paddington station instead of Waterloo. Paddington is such a fab station - I love the architecture of it plus it's got a Paperchase, a Starbucks and an Eat. Brilliant! I've also realised that living here I'm only about a forty minute train journey from London so I may well have to do a spot of Christmas shopping in the Big Smoke this year .....

'Pure Glass'

Here are those plain and simple beads that I made yesterday. I photographed them in the kitchen as the sun was streaming in through the window. I know they're only undecorated lentils but aren't they lush?! They just show off the sheer beauty of coloured transparent glass so well.

I'll be selling them as one lot tonight on my website. Just imagine the jewellery that could be made from these pretties!

Remember me?!

Well hello!

We've landed! The move went well and we've spent the past week unpacking things and finding them new homes. It's quite difficult to go from a big house to a small one. Square peg, round hole and all that.

The new house is lovely, the area is nice and the neighbours are great. Everyone around here is just so friendly! It's also really fab being a ten minute bike ride away from my grandparents. It felt very odd popping over there for lunch the other day when it used to take an hour-and-a-bit in the car to go and visit them!

I haven't got lost yet. Mind you, Dad did draw me a map that I've been taking out with me when I venture out on my bike. Yes - I really am that bad. Buster could have done with a map the other day. He went out early one morning and stayed out for seventeen hours which is unheard of! I was so worried about him. I thought he'd tried to do that thing that you hear of when cats try and return to their old home. Thankfully his cat-nav was working and at ten o'clock at night he appeared at the back door. Phew!

Dad and I spent Monday setting up my new work space - see photo above. It's very swish. My propane is outside in a little shed, I've got great light and ventilation, the conservatory is warm and spider-free and I've got my 'office' space next to my workbench. Beads By Laura Central, or what? Please ignore the masking tape that's holding my propane and oxygen hoses in place. I've got to get some clips for those. My desks are both very tidy at the moment - give it a week and I'm sure they'll look a bit different!

I've made beads today and I'll post a photograph of them tomorrow. Don't get too excited - they're just plain and simple lentils. Pretty, though. I made plain and simple beads for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I haven't made beads for about a fortnight so I've got to get back into the swing of things. Secondly, because the conservatory is so light and bright compared to my shed I had terrible trouble seeing the flame properly. To do my usual stringerwork I need to see exactly where the edge of the flame is. The flame is mainly blue and it doesn't help that my workbench is blue too. So I nipped to B&Q this afternoon (for about the tenth time in the past week) and got some black ceramic tiles to put on the bench in front of the torch. The flame shows up lovely now so I'll hopefully get some more complex beads made tomorrow.

Big thanks to everyone who has sent me 'new home' emails and cards - I'm going to sit down and set about answering those tonight. Now I'm all sorted the beadmaking and blogging will hopefully get back to some sort of normality!

Follow Me!

You may have noticed the 'Follow Me' thing over on the right hand side of my blog. This new 'Follower' gadget allows you to keep track of blogs that you read. It also adds a thumbnail of your profile photo to my sidebar. I'm a nosy blogger and whenever I see one of those thumbnails on someone else's blog I'll click and have a read of their profile. This normally leads to me reading their blog. I've found some really good ones since Blogger introduced the Follower gadget!

When you log into the dashboard of your Blogger account there's a new panel titled 'Blogs I'm Following'. Just click the 'add' button and follow the instructions to make a list of all the blogs you like to keep up to date with. Blogs thrive on links and comments and the Follower gadget boosts that - we all join cyber-hands and create some blog traffic. Yeah!

Talking of links, I've cleaned up my links list and removed some blogs that haven't been updated for a long while. That's nothing against the writers of the blogs, it's just a tidying up thing. If you're one of those people and you get blogging again, give me a nudge and I'll stick you back on the list. I'm just trying to keep things organised. I'm going to be having a link clear-up on my actual website soon too.

I'll probably be quiet for the next few days. Lots going on. Packing to do. I've made my last beads in the shed and now I've got to empty it. *Sniff!*

Have a good weekend whatever you're up to!