Some new beads

I've just been taking advantage of the bright sunny weather and I've been out in the back garden photographing yesterday's beads.

The ones at the top of the post are made from CiM Pink Champagne, a glass that begs to be photographed in natural light in order to show off its wonderful pinkness. The beads have a core of CiM Heffalump cased in the Pink Champagne and the spots and spacers are CiM Lapis which is actually a gorgeous indigo. Such a girly set of beads!

The lentil beads below are a rich warm gold-yellow with metallic accents and subtle pink touches. They have a brilliant glossy shine to them.

Both of these bead sets and more will be available to buy on my website at 8.30pm (UK time) tomorrow evening.

Laura Random Giveaway

*** THIS RANDOM GIVEAWAY PENDANT HAS BEEN CLAIMED ***

And the winner of it is Cheryl from North Carolina, USA.

Keep your eyes open for more Random Giveaways in the future .....

Note : For all of the details regarding my Laura Random Giveaways please click here.

Jewellery by Beady Pool

Veryan Parker of Beady Pool has emailed me some photos of jewellery that she's made with my beads. The beautiful 'Seaspray' earrings above and matching bracelet below are currently available in Veryan's Folksy shop.

The super-pretty 'Cosmos' earrings below were available but alas, they've been snapped up already.

I just had to post the photo of them though because I think they're so lovely and I wanted you to see them.

If you've got photos of jewellery that you've made with my beads do send me an email as I would love to see your work and I may well feature it here on my blog.

Em's 21st Birthday

Today Dad and I travelled down to Bournemouth to see Emily, my littlest sister, for her twenty-first birthday. I cannot believe she's twenty one. That makes me feel quite old! That's Em up there with her birthday cake that I made for her.

I was chuffed with the cake. It turned out really well and it's SO chocolatey! The recipe is a Nigella one from her book Feast. The recipe can be found by clicking here.

We had a nice day - the weather was beautiful. We had lunch at a great restaurant called WestBeach and we sat and ate outside on the deck that overlooks the seafront. So nice! I had some of the best fish and chips I've ever had.

I've had a busy couple of weeks, hence the lack of beads and blogging but I have a free weekend coming up and I'll be melting some glass. Stay tuned for new beads .....

Clearing Up Confusion

I know this post might sound a little bit snotty but I would hate to mislead people with regard to the glass that I use to make my beads. As a result of some recent confusion, I'd just like to point out that any names I give a bead or beads are not necessarily related to or indicative of the glass used to make them. For example, my 'Blush' beads are made from Effetre Rose 082 and not CiM Blush. I called them 'Blush' because they are a soft pink and it was the first name that came into my head for them. Similarly, my 'Champagne' beads are an oddlot of Effetre Light Brown 018 and are not CiM Pink Champagne. They're not even pink.

I love CiM glass and I normally refer to the specific shades of it that I've used whenever I post bead photos on my blog. I also love Effetre glass too and no, I don't always post exactly what colours I've used because I do like to keep a few glassy colour recipes to myself. Surely that's okay?

I don't like writing moany blog posts because I hate reading other people's moany blog posts but I feel I need to clear this matter up. Just because I call a set of beads 'Sky' it doesn't mean that they're made from Effetre Light Sky Blue 224.

While I'm here I'd also like to talk about my bead photos. You are more than welcome to use any images from my blog, my Flickr gallery or my website for personal reference, linking purposes and so on - please feel free to right click and save away! But if you would like to use my images for other reasons such as blog articles or inclusion in magazines and the like, please email me for permission to do so. This is only to avoid any incorrect description of my work. It is not because I am a mean and miserable bead diva.

There we go. End of moany blog post. Again, my apologies for any confusion caused.