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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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…….

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

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.

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….

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.