'Marzipan Fancies'

Yep - that's the name I went for in the end, as suggested by Mary. Mary - please email me with your full name and address and I'll get your lucky dip bag of beads in the post to you!

Thanks very much to everyone who entered the naming competition. There were some brilliant ideas there! I'll do another contest soon.

These 'Marzipan Fancies' beads will be for sale on my website tomorrow evening along with some Torus beads in the same colours.

These beads need a name

I'm back from my mini-holiday in Cambridge which was great. It was very odd to have nothing to do! I know I said that I was going to blog while I was away and I tried but while I was in the middle of drafting a post there was a power cut in Chris's flat. He was at work and I had no idea how to get the power back. This happens occasionally and normally Chris goes out to some wooden hut place out the back of the flats and twiddles some switches and the magic of electricity is restored. But I don't possess any magical-electricity-restoring-switch-twiddling knowledge and therefore my blogging plans went out of the window.

We went to see Star Wars : The Clone Wars on Monday. Oh dear. So bad. So very, very bad. I mean, I watched all three prequels with an open mind. I put up with the terrible scripts and dialogue, Ewan McGregor looking like Noel Edmonds, Anakin's constant whining, Boss Nass and the CG Yoda. I didn't even hate Jar Jar Binks half as much as most SW fans do. Because I love Star Wars. I've loved it since I was six years old. I spent every breaktime running around the school playground with Trevor, Tim, Paul and Mark (who were Luke, Han, Chewie and a Stormtrooper/Vader respectively) with my hair in side buns, firing my imaginary blaster (with terrible sound effects - try as we might, us girls will never be able to make proper gun noises like boys can) generally really wishing I could be Princess Leia. But The Clone Wars - aarggh! George Lucas, what have you done?! More bad dialogue, more annoying characters, more totally pointless stuff but most of all - most of all - Ziro The Hutt. Chris and I laughed out loud when he appeared on the screen, and not in a good way. We knew of Ziro and his make-up wearing ways but nothing could have prepared us for the sheer ridiculousness of him. Seriously, George Lucas needs to be stopped. Enough is enough! I said to myself that I wasn't going to mention The Clone Wars on my blog but I feel I have to because it's narked me so much. Actually, this morning I found the cinema ticket stubs from the movie in the back pocket of my jeans. They'd been through the wash. Those Star Wars ticket stubs - in pieces, tattered, scrumpled up and broken - summed up my feelings regarding Lucas's latest offering. *Sob!*

Anyway, enough of my Star Wars anguish. You want bead talk, right?!

On Saturday morning I posted the 'Psychedelic Peacock' beads to their new owner, Jennifer Borek, in Texas. Less than a week later they've reached their destination and have already been turned into wearable loveliness! Jenn has done a wonderful job with them and she's also written a lovely blog entry about my beads.

I didn't get many beads made today. Those five up there at the top of this post are the result of today's glass melting action. I reckon it's about time for a bead giveaway so if you can think of a name for these then please post your suggestions in my comments section. The person who picks the name I like the most will get a lucky dip bag of my lampwork beads. You've got until 8.00pm on Sunday night and then I'll announce the chosen name on my blog. Get naming!

'Psychedelic Peacock'

These have to be some of my favourite beads to date. The gorgeous green and pinky purple just seem to sing. They look so good together. Super duper! That's nice! (Excuse me - I watched Anchorman today.)

Well, the big hole beads certainly seem to be a bit of a hit. They're now called 'Torus' beads thanks to Jo Sacker's excellent name suggestion and they sold out in minutes. Big thank you to all of you who bought them and also to those who tried to buy them but missed out. Fear not, there will be more .....

My bread turned out good! The kitchen smelt like a brewery what with the brown ale and the yeast doing their thing, but Dad seems to like the bread. Well, half a loaf has gone already so he must do!

I'm off up to Cambridge tomorrow and I won't be back until Thursday but I may well blog in between then. Have a great bank holiday weekend!

Big Hole Beads

A rather ungracious name but it describes these perfectly!

These beads don't have a silver core and they're not going to get one either. That way I save time and stress (accidentally bashing up beads is quite disheartening) and in return that means that they won't be too pricey. Also, because of the lack of a silver core I can take the surface design right to the edges of the bead. The bead holes are 5mm diameter and the beads fit onto a Pandora bracelet, as shown, and will therefore fit all other collect-a-bead/charm bracelet systems.

But of course, they don't have to go onto charm bracelets. I'm sure you jewellery makers could find some interesting ways of incorporating them into your designs.

So what do you think? Should I make more?

Oh, and if you can think of a better name for them than 'Big Hole Beads' then please leave your name suggestions in my comments section!

'Violet Sunset'

Deep purple with a fabulous orangey pink, or is it a pinky orange? Nice!

I'm off to make some bread now. Dad watched The Hairy Bakers earlier in the week and seemed to fancy the idea of the brown ale and cheese bread that they made so I've got the recipe and I'm going to make it for him. Hopefully. I haven't made bread since I was fourteen!

When the bread's made I'll settle down and write some long overdue emails .....