'Mediterranean'

I reckon my new site and blog colour scheme has got lodged in my head because when I sat down to make beads yesterday these beachy blue and seafoamy green ones happened.

Sorry for the quick post; I've got to get back down the shed. Those beads won't make themselves!

Have a good afternoon,

Giveaway

I'm offering this set of encased blue frit beads as a giveaway prize. WOO!

There are seven 11mm beads here and to have a chance at winning them all you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post. Please leave a full name, a Twitter username or a website link in your comment so that I can easily contact you if you're the winner.

The giveaway is open to anyone anywhere in the universe.

You might also want to sign up to my mailing list to be informed of any future giveaways, along with bead news, special offers and the like.

On Friday 3rd May at 7:00pm (UK time) I'll draw a name at random from the comments and that person will be the winner of the beads.

Good luck!

Two things to tell you

I'm still tweaking my website and blog, making everything just right and in doing so I've added a couple of new things here.

First up, I've added a link to my Instagram feed over there on the right hand sidebar under 'Laura Links'. I use Instagram quite a lot and apart from the bead photographs I post on there, all my Instagram pictures are taken with my iPhone.

The photographs in this post are all from my Instagram feed. I bought myself those red tulips up there a couple of weeks ago (and yes, that's an empty Canderel jar prettied up with a ribbon; I'm not posh) and below is my Cath Kidston ladybird brooch that I bought when my friend Jenni came to stay a couple of months back. Probably the cheapest thing in Cath Kidston, that brooch. Two for about £6.00. Jenni's got the other one. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of Cath Kidston stuff but blimeyheck, it's not cheap, is it?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Instagram. That was the first thing I had to tell you and the second one was about pinning photographs. I've added a nifty Pinterest 'pin it' button to my blog photographs. You see this photograph of my new favourite Tunnock's Caramel mug? Well, hover your pointer over it ...

... and ta-da! You should see a little Pinterest logo appear in the top right. If you click that you'll be able to pin the photo to your Pinterest board. There is also a 'Pin on Pinterest' button in the right hand sidebar. Clicking on it will bring up all the pinnable images on the current screen and you can then select which ones you'd like to pin.

I don't actually do Pinterest. I've tried it and I never got into it but I know a heck of a lot of you love to pin stuff so I thought I'd make it easier for you.

I will leave you with this photograph of the late afternoon sun shining upon some Cambridge daffodils. I took this on Thursday on my way to see Iron Man 3 at the cinema. My goodness, I love the Iron Man films (especially Robert Downey Jr) and Iron Man 3 is a triumph. I loved every second of it.

Oh, there's a very grumpy-looking grey cloud floating over the garden and my washing is out on the line so if you'll excuse me I'm going to go and get said washing in.

Have a lovely evening and don't forget to have a look at my new website if you've not done so already.

Cheerio!

All Change

I've finally finished building my new website. Yayhurray!

I've worked on it solidly for the past two days and I've just finished adjusting the blog to match and I'm really pleased with the way everything looks.

The new website means that I can update it very easily; I no longer have to use two lots of software and an array of swearwords to change anything. (My old website really was very tired and very old-fashioned.)  It also means that you no longer have to email me to buy beads because there is a shopping cart that does PayPal payments. In the very near future you will also be able to buy my PDF tutorials and they will be sent to you straight away automatically.

The annoyingly annoying thing about my recent techno-breakdown is the fact that my mailing list was on my laptop. Which is dead. So very very dead. And I have no idea if I can recover any data from it. So I've set up a proper mailing list with MailChimp which you can sign up to via my website. Even if you were on my mailing list you will need to sign up to this one to be kept informed about beads. I know, I know, I'm sorry and it's awfully irksome but these technical accidents happen. So yes, please sign up to my shiny new mailing list here.

My website has a slideshow and images which require Flash so if you look at it on an iPhone or iPad it might not display correctly. You can get around this by using a browser such as Puffin which does allow you to view Flash on Apple products. Bonus!

So yep, I think that's enough website waffle for now.

To summarise:

• All beads will now be sold in my website shop, not Folksy
• You'll need to re-sign up to my mailing list
• I'll still notify you of new beads via emails and my blog
• Thank you for putting up with me

Now, please do head on over to the new-look Beads By Laura and have a look around!

Bestest wishes,

'Springtime' Droplets

I've just stocked my Folksy shop with two of these strands of 'Springtime' Droplet beads.

They are made in pretty pinks and fresh greens and they remind me of the beautiful apple and cherry blossom that is all over the place at the moment.

In other news, my new website is coming along nicely. It's all a bit swanky and posh and I can't wait to show it to you. Might just be ready this weekend ...

Have a lovely evening,