For Sale

I've just added the very berryish beads above ...

... and this flowery key bead ...

... to the Freshly Baked Beads page of my website.

Blue Sky Thinking

I do quite a bit of cloud gazing.

Whilst I sit in my shed and wait for glass to melt or beads to round up (because the key to this malarkey is all about the glass teaming up with gravity and them working together, you know) I sit and watch the clouds.

Daydreaming.

During the week I took the photo at the top of this post and the puffy cloud fluffs reminded me of some cloud beads that I made years ago.  I decided to revisit those and yesterday I made a bunch of cloudy glass gems.

These blue beads are decorated with delicate white 'clouds' and are encased with a thin layer of crystal clear for sparkle and depth.

The cloud beads will be for sale, along with some other glass lovelies, on my website at 8.00pm this evening.

Have a happy Saturday! 

Spotty

I'm in a spotty kind of mood and there will be a couple of spotty heart focals and some spotty beads for sale on the Freshly Baked Beads page at about 8.30pm (UK time) tonight.

Have a great Tuesday night!

'Autumn Berry'

Look!  I made some beads!

I know, I know, this is what I do but as you know I've been finding it tricky lately.  If you like these autumnal-looking pretties they can be found in the usual place.

Thank you to everyone who commented on and sent me emails and tweets regarding my last blog post.  I will address those all in another post very soon.

Best wishes

Thinking out loud

I figured that it's about time I wrote something here.

Something that explains my long blogging silences.

A few of you have written to me and asked me how I am because I'm quiet and you know that my brain is a little crazy and you worry for me and that is lovely.

I'm fine.  

That's a lie.  I'm not fine but I'm not sat here in a corner, rocking back and forth either.  If you follow me on Twitter you'll know that I'm here and I'm well.

I'm not fine with the beads.  I'm not.

I've been feeling very un-beady for a good few weeks now.  It's a mixture of things; Chris is working very very long hours at work and I am seeing him less and less.  I'm lonely.  I spend all day alone (except for Twitter which is the only thing that is keeping me sane right now) and I've been spending most of my evenings and weekends alone.  I have no friends round here and all my family are miles and miles away.

So I've been going into the shed every day and I've been making orders because I can't make my normal beads because my brain is not in a beady place but I have to make beads because if I don't make beads I don't make money but the orders put my brain in less of a beady place and I sit there hot, grumpy, shouting at the radio and making beads nonetheless.  

I'm rambling here.  Stay with me.

So yeah, beads.  Beads.  Beads By Laura.  That's me, isn't it?  Well, I won't fib - for the past few weeks I've been seriously considering chucking in the bead towel and getting a 'normal' job.  And I'm NOT writing this so you all go "Oh, Laura, you can't do that!  We love your beads.  Don't think such anti-bead thoughts!" and I know you like my beads.  I do too.  But right now we're not the best of friends.

I think what's happened is I've got stuck.  I'm in a bead rut and I can't get out of it.  And yes, I've done the make-a-different-kind-of-bead, use-glass-you-never-normally-use, try-a-new-technique approach but it just won't work.  I think I need some kind of Bead Guidance Counselling or something.

I am out of touch with the bead world.  Hell, I was hardly in touch with it but I've stopped reading anything beady, website or blog-wise.  I follow hardly any beady types on Twitter.  I told a stranger the other day that I make jewellery because I just couldn't be arsed with explaining the beadmakery thing.

And that's why I've not had much to say here.  Here on the Beads By Laura blog.  About beads.  I feel guilty and I feel bad because you're all so wonderfully supportive.  I feel like an utter bitch writing such a miserable post, I really do, but this is just the way it is at the moment.

So what now?  Well, I finish up my pending bead orders and I see if I can muster up any genuine love again for melting glass, I guess.  I'm thinking I'll see how I'm feeling by the end of the year and then I'll make a decision about my bead future.

I know that sounds dramatic but like I said, these words are my current thoughts all spilling into my ever-sickening-ever-baddening-ever-playing-up laptop.  I repeat, it is not for attention or compliment-fishing (someone anonymous always leaves me a charming comment about that whenever I write anything like this so yeah, my arse is covered) and it is just me being honest with you.  Because you deserve that.

In the meantime, if I have got beads for sale, I will tell you here.  If I don't say anything it's because I've got nothing to say.  That's all.

Now, please know that I'm okay; I'm not crying here or popping Prozac like Tic Tacs.  I'm alright.

Just explaining my blog silence, that's all.

Thanks for reading.