Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Wednesday lunchtime

Happy new year to everyone, and in the words of John Lennon….let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear…goodness knows I could do with it this year! I’ve just scooted to check the words and for some reason in my head I was singing ‘without any tear’ and ‘with plenty of cheer’, that would make more sense for how I’m feeling today. OOOO and it looks like I’m back to blog titles using song lyrics, yippee.

I’ve had a lovely Christmas with family, my dad came and stayed with us for a few days, and we had a good time getting to know him better. It’s very interesting the things that can come out of difficult times, and important (I think) to try and find positives when chaos or problems arise. I’ve always been one to explore new avenues that open up when life throws me a curve ball or wallops me off my road and into the ditch or even over the hedge and into the field next to me. Life has to constantly change or we can stagnate, and it’s important to go with this, whether it’s about what we do for a living, or how we feel about our friends and family or the stuff that happens to us.

Last summer was probably one of the most important things that ever happened to rock my world. I really felt that I’d been booted with great force into the field by the road, and I’ve been reassessing my life ever since. I’ve been considering my priorities, my family, my work, how I spend my day, the many mistakes I’ve made and more importantly I’ve been trying to work out how I can improve the things I’m not doing so well. I’ve also looked at my successes and all the wonderful things and family that I’m privileged to have.

So what does the new year bring? Hopefully a happier year than the last one, and more time to do the things I want to, like going out with my dad and getting the house tidy and keeping it that way (this is going to be very hard as any student who has visited for a lesson will tell you!). I will have to get more organised in the way I run my beadmaking business if I am to have more time off………taps chin and wonders how I am going to fit even more stuff in my week.

Have a great week and make some realistic resolutions.

Saturday evening.

I have some new dates for tuition with 1 space remaining. If you’ve been meaning to have a go why not grab the bead by the mandrel and contact me now!

***Fri 18th November, 1 day Beginners Course, 10am – 5pm***

***Fri 25th November, 1 day Beginners Course, 10am – 5pm***

***Tues 29th to Weds 30th November, 2 day Beginners Course, 10am – 5pm, 1 place remaining***

***Friday 2nd December Silver Glass Special 1 day Course, 10am – 5pm, 1 place remaining***

***Thurs 8th December Silver Glass Special 1 day Course, 10am – 5pm, 1 place remaining***

Contact me now to book your place and come and have a lesson making glass beads

Tuesday tea time

When I started this blog several years ago, I made a promise to myself not to get too personal about me. That has been impossible to do sometimes, firstly when I had time off for my hip replacement, and just recently, when my lovely mum died so suddenly and unexpectedly.

So I thought I’d pop on here and explain my huge absences, well, I think it’s probably obvious. I have wanted to come here several times and write, but just didn’t have the heart to do so. I’ve always tried to do up beat posts, and don’t if I can’t be jolly, but as you can see it’s been a while. So I’ve resigned myself to letting you know that my heart is aching, and I’m doing my best, but I have a huge gaping hole in my life where she used to be. I had no idea it would hit me this hard and be so painful. I’m also still staggered that she died looking so young and being so active and busy. She drove to Birmingham and back from Kent 3 days before the day, and was doing a big shop in Sainsbury the morning of her stroke.

So please bare with me (is it spelled like that?), I’m making beads when I feel like it, but seem to be making lots of wonkies, (hurrah for the £1 bargain pot) and the inspiration comes and goes. Some days I just sit and think about her, what happened on that awful day and my life now. It’s a time of great reflection for me and reassessment of how I live my life.

Looking at this again after publishing it, I see it’s 4 months to the day when she had her fatal stroke. I have stopped counting every day now, it’s just a monthly thing. I promise to have a more cheery post next time, I hope.

I am pleased to announce that my exhibition of work is in the Art Gallery in The Capitol, Horsham. I have invited my friend Katherine Haynes of Popped Bubble Designs to join me and we share the 5 cabinets upstairs in the gallery. The exhibition started Tuesday 6th September and runs until Sunday 9th October, and is open during the Capitol opening times. Please enquire at the box office if you wish to purchase anything on display.

Saturday 15th October sees the return of the Big Bead Show at Sandown Park, which is fast approaching. I’m busy getting ready for this event and look forward to welcoming you to my stall on the day. Please look out for my show newsletter when I hope to be able to offer some free tickets and show specials.

and a big woops…….this post was supposed to be my news on the front page and as such is rather formal, but never mind. The next blog post should be more fun.

Friday afternoon

The Beadwork Fair – Sunday 28th August, The de Havilland Campus, University of Hertfordshire, AL10 9EU  10am to 4pm

I have been persuaded (thank you Paul), to do this bead fair this Bank Holiday Sunday. As you know I normally do the Stourbridge Bead Fair, but decided to take a break from it this year and enjoy the summer, but due to one thing and another and not attending the Ardingly summer fair in July due to my mums’ sudden death, I thought maybe I should take the plunge.

So I will be at this event, this Sunday, with my usual mix of handmade lampworked glass beads, sterling silver chains, New Designs of Cloud Beads and my range of contemporary jewellery. There are many new £1 bargain beads to be had, together with some old favourites.

I hope you will come and say hello and make the effort to attend this fair, being a Bank Holiday Sunday of course means the traffic will be minimal for a Sunday. Go on, you know you want to!

Saturday afternoon

It’s been a while, and I was going to update you with all the exciting news of what we’ve been doing here.

But……here I am writing something I didn’t expect for a few years. My lovely mum passed away this morning at 4:35, just after the sun rise. It was all very sudden and I think I’m a bit in shock and wanted to write and tell everyone how lovely she was, what an amazing selfless woman she was, how she cared so much about me, my brothers, my dad and all her grandchildren. She’ll be sorely missed and I was so privileged to be her daughter and to be with her during her final hours…..To my lovely mum. xxxxxx

Monday 20th June

Hello peeps. It’s a been a long time hasn’t it? I’ve been really busy over the last few months doing a City and Guilds course, and I’m now eagerly awaiting my letter to tell me I’ve passed. I was really surprised how long all the homework and class preparation took, especially towards the end of the course. Anyway, that’s over now, and I have got my life back, sort of.

Horsham Open Studios started this weekend, and we have had a lovely first couple of days with so many visitors that we didn’t get time to eat lunch until 3:30pm on Saturday. Thank you to everyone who came this weekend, you made it really special for us, and we look forward to welcoming more of you next weekend. I have a cabinet full of colourful jewellery, with some new designs, lots of beads to choose from, my fun earrings (using sterling silver) and lots of big hole beads starting at just £3 each to put on your Pandora style bracelets (they don’t have silver in them). I also have other small bits and bobs to choose from, including my ever popular £1 rummage dish. Here’s a couple of photos to tease you.

I have several new tuition dates listed on my tuition page. The next available date is a 1 day Beginners course, Weds 29th June, 10am to3pm. Special rate of £79, class size of 2. Contact me to book your place now.
As always I have other availability if these dates do not suit, drop me a line for my list of dates to choose from.

I have one new listing on Etsy and will be adding more during the day, just follow the link on the left.

Saturday evening

Hey there, I am still alive. So Big Bead came and went in a haze of work, then Flame Off, and then the school Easter hols, followed by THE wedding of the decade. Thank you to everyone who came to say hello at the Big Bead show, we had a fantastic day and were so busy that we were still serving customers 40 minutes after the show closed and I didn’t get a proper chance to go shopping myself, apart from the odd snatched minute or two before was summoned back to my stall.

Enough of that though, today the most bizarre and freaky thing happened. We almost had a re-enactment of Hitchcocks’  ‘The Birds’. I saw movement outside the back door, a couple of minutes later I opened it to cool down and noticed a pair of birds hovering around a shrub and squawking really loudly.  I looked down to see a cat holding down a bird on our lovely gravel sitting area, shooed it away and the bird fortunately flew up into the tree above. The cat scampered off and jumped the 6 foot fence nearby. Sounds OK so far? I kept watching while the 2 starlings kept chirping alarm calls and flying from tree to tree to next doors roof and then back again, all the while followed by a little Coal Tit. So far so good. Well, this went on for a while, and I kept watch to see if the bird was injured and make sure the cat didn’t come back. After a while of this, the birds moved to the holly tree over my studio, directly in front of the kitchen, and some blackbirds and blue tits joined them, still chirping alarm calls. Very sweet, they were acting like a pack, and sticking together.

Then, one of the starlings did a loop down at my eye level, from the tree towards me standing in the doorway, and then back again. I thought it was maybe sort of coming to thank me. How sweet. Yer right. A few minutes later the same bird came storming out of the tree, straight at me in the door, and hovered, flapping it’s wings and  squawking very angrily at me for a few seconds. Ah, OK then. Then a couple of minutes later it did it again. OK, so now I’m getting worried, this is no lovely thank you, but a full on hate campaign. eeeeeeek. Rick’s also in the kitchen watching this, and decides that it’s time to shut the door in case we end up with a bird in the house.

He then ventures out after a bit to see if it’s OK, and nothing happens, but when I try opening the door and standing there the bird twitter campaign starts again. I thought maybe I would be stuck indoors all day, but I stayed in and away from the door for about an hour, while Rick decided to placate them with some food. Phew, and there I was thinking it might end up like the day we were chased indoors by marauding bees when we attempted a honey glaze on the barbecue several years ago. Now there’s another story. They we all banging against the windows trying to get in, hundreds of ‘em!

OOO, and I have a few new beads in my Etsy store, including these…….ciao.

Tuesday evening

Big news today…….I have booked my space at the spring Big Bead Show at Sandown Park, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9AJ. This huge show is on Saturday 2nd April and is well worth a visit. I’d be resisting booking, but the lovely Maria at Bead magazine said she’d squeeze me in if I wanted to come. So here we are, all of a sudden getting revved up for the big one. It’s great news for my mojo as all of a sudden lots of ideas for new beads are flooding in at last. Long may it continue. I hope you will all come and see me here, I will have some free tickets up for grabs later too.

Here’s a little sneaky peek at what I’ve been up to lately. At last I’ve had time to practice the skills I learnt last April at Flame Off with the hugely amusing and talented Sharon Peters, and have found some time to design some of my own characters. Here’s a green one…..

Friday lunchtime

Lampwork Classes – I have one new space on a 1 day Beginners  Beadmaking course, Tuesday 3rd May, contact me now for more information and to book your place.

I’ve popped some repeat sets on Etsy and a new whopper set of amber, ivory, black and brown beads. Here’s a taster including some of my new ‘Didy sets’.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks as I’ve enrolled on a 10 week course down in Goring and so went to have lunch on the beach after the session this week. After my food I had a walk along the path down to where we often go in the summer with friends. It was very different with the mist and cool spring breeze, and people wearing coats to walk their dogs. The sun was shinning very brightly and dazzling my eyes as it reflected off the pools of water on the sands where the sea had receded away from the shore. It was very peaceful and energising although a bit windy, my hair was a complete state by the time I got back in the car to come home.  It was a treat to have a change of scenery and a chance to reflect on the mornings’ proceedings and life in general. Here’s a few snaps that I took with my new Canon Ixus 130, including the ones I shot after I had rolled backwards onto my back through trying to crouch so low….I meant to do that.

Tuesday lunchtime

More new beads on Etsy.

What to do on a train journey? Normal people play games like ‘I spy’ but we had fun on our way home from London on Saturday messing around with my new camera…Oh I didn’t tell you I eventually got a new one in January (for my birthday in November). I am the proud owner of a Canon Ixus 130 in Shocking pink.

OK so here’s my list so far…….

1. Play ‘I Spy’
2. Play Noughts and Crosses
3. Read something
4. Eat…mmmmmm
5. Drink…..glug
6. Talk quietly so as not to disturb anyone
7. Sleep…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
8. Play hangman
9. Play join the dots to make boxes – remember that from school?
10. Listen to music
11. Play with I phone/Blackberry/HTC Desire/ insert your phone here
12. Take silly photos with said phone or small camera and see how many different silly effects you can get.

and here’s some of the photos we took…….

Friday afternoon

Valentines day has been and gone, and now we have the first half term of the new year upon us and Pancake day yet to come. We celebrated in style with a romantic candle lit dinner for 3 on Monday, which included using the chocolate fondue set I bought last year, and I made Nigella Lawson’s ‘Love Buns’ as a surprise. I couldn’t get the heart sprinkles she shows in  the book but bought some red edible glitter to use instead. The theory is that I can use it for Christmas decorating too. The only downside was that the icing was rather sickly, so I think I’ll stick to making a royal icing with freshly squeezed lemon juice again like I did last Friday. I’m so into baking at the moment, which is rather unfortunate as I just want to eat everything I’ve made, so I have to pace myself somewhat. I really wish I didn’t like cakes and puddings so much, but I won’t be hypnotising myself to give them up, like I did with crisps last June….I haven’t eaten a single real crisp, which is no loss really….empty calories.

I have yet more neads on Etsy (that should be beads, but well, maybe I should stick with neads as bead addicts need beads). I had another new set to put up for sale and went through the whole process until at the last moment I realised they were different from the photo I was using! I think Rick will have to do some more photography for me, especially as I have a real surprise of some really new beads that I’ve had in mind to make for ages and got my first chance to play with the designs this week. All will be unveiled later.

I have another new tuition date, a Beginners 4 hour taster session on Thursday 10th March, 10am to 2pm. There is one place available on this course. Contact me now to book your place, and come and have a lesson making glass beads.

Oh and here’s a photo of my Glitter Love Buns, I swirled in some red food colouring to some of the icing (I only made half the quantity and that was plenty), and unfortunately the whipped topping never set as it was supposed to.

Friday afternoon

Phew, feeling a bit jaded but very happy. Anyone heard of Zumba? (links to You Tube)  Cos that’s where I’ve been this morning. All my life I’ve hated exercise classes, especially aerobics, but I think I may have actually found some exercise that I like. I adore dancing and have been given the all go by my hip specialist to do Latin American dancing so I thought Zumba might be right up my street. I was so excited yesterday when I booked it, and fortunately I was not disappointed. I’m definitely going again, and need to buy some new jogging pants as my existing ones are 3 sizes too big, yay!

More sets on Etsy, some are new designs, others are repeats and variations on a theme.

I’m off to do more washing (boo hiss boo) and make some cup cakes for tomorrow (yay).

Thursday evening

Here’s a couple of photos of some of the new beads I put on Etsy yesterday. I had a mega blitz and went mad putting 5 sets up for sale on Etsy in a sitting, and then uploading bead photos to Flickr and joining lots of groups there. I also madly ordered a brand new oxygen concentrator that I’ve had my eye on for several months…since last April to be precise.

Today I’ve been having a bit of a paper clear out. Very boring, extremely tedious, and unfortunately necessary every so often. I’ve managed to get rid of a 2 foot pile of paper from my work area, and while going through the oddments came across a major task list from 2 years ago. It was brilliant! I was able to cross off every single job except one, I had actually achieved all I planned back in 2009. Ok so it took 2 years but I’d done them. The main and exciting reason I stayed indoors today, was because I needed to welcome the courier with my new super doopah wizzy powerful oxycon that should have enough wellie to power the bigger Nortel Midrange torch that I’m hoping to get in April, or even just give my existing torches more power, hopefully like using tanked oxygen. It arrived successfully and is sat on the carpet in front of me waiting to be carried down to the studio tomorrow.

I should also announce that I have responded to several requests to sell pairs of beads suitable for earrings so I have a new section in my Etsy shop called Didy Sets. This is my new range of mini bead sets, these contain 2 or 3 beads and are small enough to be used for matching earrings and a pendant or simply to add to a charm dangly type bracelet or similar.

Here’s what I have for sale so far

Friday morning

It’s done, it’s dusted, it’s over for another year and now I can do what I want, yay. Yes my tax submission is done, thank you Mel, you’re a star. Now I’m planning to get as much done for this current year as I can in the next couple of weeks, but we’ll see how that goes. I expect once the initial enthusiasm has worn off nothing much will happen.

Unfortunately even though I was getting better I seem to have now come down with another cold, which is giving me my usual face ache symptoms, so I don’t feel like doing much at all today really. I should probably to go and see if I can buy a little florists wire for a project that I’m doing at the youth club tonight, and get the refreshments, but apart from that I could take it easy I suppose.

I have new beads in my Etsy shop, not restocked old designs but some new styles of dotties and a couple of Valentine themed sets. I’ll be putting more up today but for now here’s a taster of what is new…..p.s. I have a couple of tuition dates available, the first one is 1 space on a one day Beginners class on Tuesday 1st Feb coming next week. Contact me now to book your place on this fab lesson.

Monday evening

Hellooooo there, thank you to all my friends, customers and students who came to say hello yesterday at the bead fair. You all make my bead fair days so special, it’s great to catch up with you all and share news and coo over beautiful beads and bits.  I’ve spent the day recovering from all my preparation efforts from the fair, as I had 4 full days bead making and spent all Saturday stringing up sets, pricing stuff and packing up. Of course we celebrated the day with a lovely curry when we got home, yum yum.

So now all I have to do is finish my accounts (ha ha) and get my tax out of the way, then I can start on my new efforts for this years business. I’m hoping to spend some time developing some new designs and hopefully some new colour combinations, although I will be continuing my favourites, as they are so lovely. I’m looking forward to spending time playing with new ideas without the pressure to stock up for an event, I just hope my mojo doesn’t go go.

Here’s some snaps of the bead fair from my stall, and ‘the boys’, sorry Jim, you’re out of focus….

Thursday morning

A couple of weeks back I talked about my disappointment as I got up one morning, started making loads of jewellery, then woke up and had to start  again. I’ve been dreaming loads lately, mainly because I’m still under the weather with this weird virus that seems to make me sleep loads. I have one day when I feel much better, and then the next day I feel poopy. This is not helping me get my accounts done swiftly and on to making beads for the next bead fair on the 23rd of this month.

I’ve been in a mega dream state these past 2 1/2 weeks, and on that vein we sat down and watched the film Inception. This was an eagerly awaited treat for Dickie and I, and it was with expectancy that we sat down to watch at last on Sunday evening. The film started and had us hooked in fairly swiftly but it got a bit boring at one point and I found my attention drifting and missed what was being discussed. I think the problem was that it was jumping around in a bit of a disjointed way, one minute you’d be in one place and the next you were watching another scene. This was probably to emulate what a dream state can be like, which was in keeping with the premise of the film, but at times rather confusing for me. I held on in there and was rewarded with an action packed story that unfolded on several levels and all the while had me questioning if there would be a twist at the end and what it would be. I was disappointed that the dreamlike special effects they made a big thing of in the trailers weren’t very much in evidence through the main story, I would have liked more weird wowness, but then that wouldn’t have been appropriate to the story. The main theme was about stealing some information from a businessman by planting an idea in his head, and also discovering why our main character had so much angst. On the whole I liked the film and would like to watch it again to get more information and to better understand ‘the rules’ of invading peoples dreams. I always like a film that gets me thinking about it for days afterwards (as this one has), in this case I’ve been trying to work out what was reality and what wasn’t, and how the rules fit (if indeed they do) with what happened. So if I had to give this a star rating (like they do in the Radio Times) I think this would get a 4 out of 5 for me.

Monday lunchtime

More new beads on Etsy! OK., so I’ve only listed repeat sets of my most popular designs, but hey, that’s what I planned to use Etsy for. To get to my shop click on my name in the widget on the left or click  here.

Also I have another new teaching date on my tuition page, Tuesday 1st February is a one day beginners course. Just drop me a line now to book the last place and learn a new skill for a new year.

I’ve been thinking for a while about adding another category to my blog, one where I review what film, TV series or more exciting, the latest book I’ve read. I’m not sure how good I’ll be at reviewing something without giving the bulk of the plot away, but it could be fun to try. Just recently I’ve actually started reading books again. It’s been a long time coming as I used to read like a mad thing when I was at school (I had oodles of time then) and when I commuted on the train to work, but since I bought my first car and moved away from home (that would be around 1985 I think) I have let my fiction reading slip completely. I’ve read at least one book a year on holiday and that is all for the past few years, conveniently the new Harry Potter books came out in the summer, but since picking up Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series I’ve gone potty for her books and reading in general. So much so, that I’ve made a new year resolution to keep reading fiction throughout the year, and also to try to take up some of the others things I used to do before lampwork glass bead making took over my life. I was going to start with my first review today, but I’ve already written enough and my accounts (yuk) are calling. Toodles.

Wednesday lunchtime

Happy New Year to all my friends, customers and family.

Ooh my! almost a month since my last post. It always happens when I’m really busy, too busy really. The last 30 days have gone in a haze of exhibition preparations, stewarding trips to Guildford, Christmas shopping trips, Christmas day itself, then …the inevitable illness that always seems to follow. Oh yes, just when you think you have survived, you (well me) get struck down with something seasonal. I managed to hold out until Boxing Day, when I was home caring for our little one, when I started the inevitable sniffle, then masses of sneezes. I’ve now been unwell for 9 days, I’m feeling much better but I’m still struggling with feeling giddy, especially now as I type, and I’m also struggling to breathe properly.

But of course with a new year, those pesky resolutions come to mind. I think I managed to do most of the ones I made regarding my business last year, all except one….wannna guess which? ha ha, you know already! That would be the one where I keep up to date with my accounts, which I didn’t, of course. Actually I did make a decision this last year about 4 months in, that I wouldn’t try, and that I wouldn’t beat myself up about it either. And here’s why.

I think it actually uses more time up to do accounts once a week, as you have to get everything out, get into the mindset, then do your task. You also have to remember what you did before and not replicate the task. I believe it’s better to save it up to do in one hit or a few smaller ones, so that is what I plan to do this year. Although things are easier again as I did all my filing and tidying up for this years accounts after I did last years work, always a good idea that, and I had a mega filing session half way through the year too, so invoices and receipts only need sorting from January to April. It also helps to be more organised with the paperwork, and I’ve been far more disciplined this past year with where I put my papers and printing out relevant paperwork. So I’m not going to get disappointed with myself, but pat myself on the back and hope that I can get through my accounts as quickly as possible. Here’s hoping.

Tuesday morning

Dreams. We all have them. But I’m not talking hopes and dreams, I’m talking of gently coming out of a deep slumber type dreaming here. I get loads, so many that it’s unusual for me not to have one in the morning. They often have recurring themes, and I often visit the same places regularly. I wasn’t going to divulge what I dream, but I may as well tell you that one of my regular haunts is a very big modern house with lots of rooms and a massive garden that stretches off into the distance. We don’t have the real luxury of that but at least I get to enjoy one of my dream properties regularly, including the joy of rediscovering a room that I had forgotten existed. We wouldn’t mind that here in our real house, although several months after we moved in our present house we rediscovered the cupboard under the stairs.

Dreams can often confuse and disappoint. Take this Saturday, when I had to get up early and continue with my preparations for the exhibitions I have to set up this week. I got up and ploughed on with my work really well, feeling relaxed and on top of things, enjoying the early morning weekend peace downstairs,  only to wake up at 10:30 and find that I’d seriously overslept and had to remake all the stuff I’d already done that morning. Oh that sucked.

Still, I successfully prepared my pieces for the Winter Exhibition at the Bank Gallery at Chobham, and now have today and tomorrow to prepare for the Surrey Guild Guildford Exhibition ‘Unique’. I’m feeling very jaded but also optimistic. Let’s hope the snow stays away so I can get stuck in. Here’s some more snowy photos to get you even more in the Christmas mood. Please excuse the dodgy photos, my camera is on it’s way out and Picasa isn’t playing ball either, it keeps changing the photo next to the one I’m trying to tweak. Bye y’all.