In case you haven’t already twigged, I have new beads in my Etsy shop, yay! Some designs are completely new, others, like the Grass and Sky Jupiters have been waiting impatiently for me to take the time and make them into a lovely set, and now I have (although they are still new in regards to never having been seen in those colourways). I have another set (Terra Firma) inspired by the lovely work of American beadmaker Kim Neely, whose inspiring book of colour recipes I bought last year to help kick start my creativity and get me out of the rut I felt I was in. I have been exploring using silver glass (mainly Double Helix) and all the effects that I can get from it in simple beads but needed the push to take it all a bit further.

Here’s a peek at some of the new sets……

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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…..