Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Wednesday lunchtime

I love making beads I do. I’m having a great time this morning, and just popped indoors to make a mug of coffee. I’m making huge beads today, with a view to submitting them for a couple of exhibitions, deadlines looming. So must dash.

Also I need to get some more beads in my shop, there’s been a real flurry of sales this week and I now need to restock. Thank you to everyone whose bought something this week whether in the shop or by request. There will be some lurve stuff coming in a couple of days as I’m getting in the Valentine mood and have been making hearts and lots of pink beads in general. TTFN, deadlines, you know.

Monday morning

I forgot to say…I’m in the County Times that came out Friday. Back page of section 1. There is a picture of me holding some of my jewellery made with glass beads, although I have to add that those pieces aren’t in the exhibition but I do have about 12 different pieces in the cabinet. The exhibition the Jewellers Craft is on at Horsham Museum and details and a link to their website can be reached from my events page.

Monday morning

At last…I’ve finished. Well, my tax form isn’t filled in yet, but hopefully my MIL will be helping me with that bit. I’ve got all my info logged on spreadsheets ready to go. Woopeeeeeee.
So that means I can at last get back to doing what I love most and that’s making beads. Can you tell I’m excited? Unfortunately I appear to be suffering with another cold that snuck up on me Friday, and I’m not sure whether to venture out and try lampworking today, being under the weather can be dodgy when playing with fire….but shhhhh, don’t tell Rick, it’ll be our secret.

It’s been a really lovely week and a bit (even with my tax stuff looming overhead). I’ve had the privaleadge to meet and teach 5 students in the last 8 days which was fab. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the thrill of helping new flame workers make their first beads. Needless to say they were all really pleased with the selection of beads they each took home, I just wonder if they all dreamed of making beads in their sleep afterwards, like I did. I remember my beginners course very well. We set off to Plymouth and stayed in a B&B for 2 nights. The second night (after my first day) I dreamt I was melting glass and rotating mandrels all night, I was very restless, but in a good way. There was just something about it that grabbed at my soul and still does, which is why I think I’m going to have to go and get some torching therapy. see ya.

Wednesday evening

I was going to blog this morning but we had naff connection all day, so here it is now, trouble is I’m absolutely shattered……..it must be all the thinking……I’m doing my business accounts…..yes, I know, I said I wasn’t going to be doing it last minute again. I really must work out a reliable way to achieve this, I can’t bear being away from my torch and not melting glass for so long.

I was womaning the Surrey Guild shop yesterday, after my usual lovely woodland drive, which was very different yesterday – I’ve never seen so many broken branches and ripped trees before, all debris from last weeks strong winds. I even saw a tree trunk freshly split in 2 down the middle lengthways (top to bottom). Of course strong winds are natures way of pruning the trees and bushes.

Today we awoke to a fresh blanket of snow, and of course it looked beautiful. Rick took several pictures, but I haven’t downloaded them from the camera yet because my hard drive is stuffed full to the gunels, needless to say computer speed is not very good at the moment. I was so pleased that I was at the shop yesterday and didn’t have to cope with driving up remote lanes in the snow. Ooo that reminds me…..

I have new stock in the Surrey Guild Gallery including some heart pendants perfect for Valentines Day.

I must go an get me some zzzzds now, I’m getting desperate to finish my paperwork and need to be fresh if I’m going to get most finished tommorrow. The problem is I’ll be so glad to see the back of it that I won’t want to sort how I’m going to tackle next years (which is this current year). maybe I’ll go through and do what I can while it’s all in my head, like I considered doing last January but didn’t….nah…too easy.

Monday evening

Today, 22nd January, has been officially described by scientists as the most depressing day. But hey, I had a good one, hope you did too. It was lovely to leave my class at 4pm and be able to walk to my car in daylight…..spring is on it’s way….even if they are forecasting snow to kill all the confused flowers that are coming out so early.

Friday morning

Just a quick update on the fence wars…….I was about to ring Rick and tell him not to worry about popping home to move the fences, when a huge (yer, even more huge than before) gusto of wind picked up the second fence panel, put it vertical, through the uprights and into next doors garden, then a few minutes later flattened it back into ours, wrecking all chances of just a mend job. Oh well, we lost 3 panels yesterday (bringing the total to 5), all newish (1-3 years old) compared with the 15 year old existing panels. Also the fence down the side of the house nearly took off but fortunately I hadn’t cut back the ivy this year so it was strapped down even though it did look like a sinusoidal wave generator. lol.

Also we nearly lost the cold frame, the barbeque and several prized architectural plants which we moved to safety, so there, wind. What a pain having to spend money on the fence panels we’d already replaced, we were hoping to invest in some garden restructuring this year and decorating the house. I have to say though, after watching the news and hearing other peoples stories, we are now counting our blessings that it wasn’t worse, like loosing the roof or having an accident.

Now all I need is some beadmaking therapy, although I won’t get any until I finish my accounts for the year. I really must work out how to actually do the hard bit on a regular basis for the future

Thursday morning

What was that I said about the weather forecast on Monday? If I’d listened hard enough I’d have known that it would be ‘unsettled towards the end of the week’. All I know now is that the wind is systematically and willfully destroying our garden boundaries as I type. Before Christmas 2 fence panels on the right hand side of our patch blew down, and today a further 2 have come crashing down next to the kitchen window (yep, another one down Rick). That means the barbeque is flat on it’s side (haven’t dared try to move this on my own, couldn’t anyway because fence panel is on top) with all it’s pretend coal things adrift I expect. Also our beloved tree fern got blown over, this was righted before Rick went to work. I just hope no more panels go, or if they do, it happens before he comes back to help me move said fence panels.

While all this is happening in our back garden, our lovely neighbour across the road who stupidly left his open top basket of newspapers outside, still hasn’t bothered to move it and consequently the road and all our gardens are being littered with rosettes of scrunched up sodden newspaper, beautiful. I suppose it makes a change from daffodils!

It’s all a bit deja vu this rubbish flying around the gardens and wheelie bins coming to life and chasing residents down the road. The same thing happened last week when our bin people were due to come round, only then it wasn’t newspapers but cans and plastics like milk cartons and cat ‘fud’ tins.

Monday tea time

What is it about weather forecasts? It doesn’t seem to make any difference how hard I try to concentrate I always switch off. Take last night, they did a forecast for Sunday up to Tuesday evening, I think I made it to Sunday evening before I drifted off and it was Tuesday morning before I realised that I’d gone again (not literally….lol). I found my self watching the new graphics and pondering the bumpy bits called Exmoor and Dartmoor. I noticed that it was rather flat where I live and that there was a blob of blue that is probably a reservoir. Then I got to thinking that the new graphics could make you a tad seasick the way they twist and turn and woosh from one side to the other at jaunty angles, and maybe they were a bit distracting rather than helpful. It was at that point I noticed that yet again I’d missed what the weather would do.

Don’t get me wrong, I know discussing the weather is a national pastime here in the UK, but I am actually quite interested in it. So much so that I requested a book about clouds for Christmas so that I could identify them when I’m out, you know, what are the Simpsons clouds called, and what does it mean when the sky looks like it’s full of delicate orange coloured fish bones? So what’s my problem with weather forecasts? Maybe I should try and study my new book hard so that I understand what they’re going on about and can try my hand at predicting the local weather for the next hour or so?

Friday morning

I was hoping to sneak out to my studio for a little play today (oops I mean work), but my thermals are in the wash, maybe I don’t need them, it is still very mild. I think procrastination city has set in, I’m doing everything but my tax. I’ve updated my events page to show the bookings I have so far this year but you need to go to the bottom as we still have to shift last years stuff.

Yesterday saw me going to the museum again, this time to have my photo taken for the County Times about the exhibition they have put on. It should be in next Fridays edition. The exhibition opened yesterday afternoon and finishes 24th March, more details and a link are on my events page.

Tuesday evening

Pooped again! It was one of those lovely day out days today where I drove to Guildford and back. I had an appointment to meet the lovely ladies who run Aluisa Beads, Guildfords’ first and new bead shop. It’s a lovely shop selling everything you need to start making your own bead jewellery, and they also stock a selection of my beads now! So pop along and have a look if you’re nearby, then take time out to explore the other shops in Guildford.

It was a truely beautiful drive across Surrey Hills, and I have to say the countryside made my heart sing once more. I think Surrey is a really nice county, and reminds me of Dorset, even though it’s so close to London. I have driven through winding lanes and caught views along valleys that so evoke the feeling of glaciers cutting though the land to carve out the curving shapes. Put that with some of the nicest architecture around and now I need to come up with some bead designs that complement those thoughts.

Monday evening

I’m pooped. Don’t know why, but I’m going to make this quick…famous last words.

You’ll be pleased to know that after my Christmas clean up of my desk I’m now trying to keep it tidy, and so far it’s working. We did a trip to Ikea on Saturday and I treated myself to a plywood desk tidy that has space for the odd bits of paper that end up floating all over my desk and piling up on every available space. The problem is that I have to do my tax now, and that means showers of paper and receipts all over the place. So my desk is ‘organised chaos’ at the moment, with everything coming out and going away very fast.

I did try to keep on top of it this year, but all I’ve achieved is filing most of the receipts and entering most but not all of the purchases. I did buy a program to help me cost things and keep track of inventory, but so far haven’t had time to even start entering details. maybe I need a input clerk…….that takes me back to when I was a student. Everyone was scared of computers and I wasn’t, so I got loads of jobs during University holidays doing computer input. How things have changed.

It has been a busy day, with a quick trek to Horsham museum to deliver my jewellery and a few rods of glass and some twisties for the exhibition that they’re putting on. More details will follow here and on my news and events page probably. TTFN.

Thursday morning

Ah I had a laugh last night, then a really insane idea. I watched this chef acting like a scientist and trying to recreate the perfect pizza, as he’d eaten and had a go at making in Napoli I think it was. One of the most crucial parts of cooking said pizza was the oven temperature of 550 deg C. He tried various ways to raise the temp of his oven, including cooking the pizza on a stone with the grill on (not marvelous but the stone retains a bit more energy than a tray), cooking it on a stone in a circular coal barbeque – the inside reached over 600 when he put a fan underneath to add more air to the burning coals – unfortunately the base cooked and the top didn’t, which was very evident when he lifted one edge to show us the base and the topping slid off.

He achieved his goal by heating a cast iron frying pan for 20mins on a hotplate, then putting it upside down i.e. base upwards under a hot grill in a small oven that had been preheated as high as he could get it. He then assembled the pizza on a peel as quickly as possible and slid the pizza onto the base of the already positioned frying pan. The pizza cooked to his perfection in 2 minutes (which was his goal).

Now a girl can’t help wondering……hmmmmm, I love pizza…….and I also have an appliance that can go up to 550 deg C and higher……..I wonder if I could try this…..how would I get it in?……what shape would it have to be?……would it get covered in kiln brick dust?……what would I cook it on?…..more absurdly, would it be a bit silly to buy a round hobby kiln to cook pizzas?………………………….hmmmm………..pizza

Wednesday evening

Hello there, a quick pop in to say hi and I hope you have a very happy new year.

I’ve been away from the helm for 2 weeks now, I couldn’t do the Christmas prep and run my business and entertain my daughter off from school over the last couple of weeks. I’ve had a good long rest after Christmas and hope the new year will bring lots of opportunities and work. I now have the job of replying to all your emails, so expect a reply soon and then…..oh the joys of tax.

I also have to prepare some jewellery for an exhibition that Horsham Museum are putting on over the next month, so watch this space for details. The display will be showing pieces of jewellery from the museum collection and comparing and contrasting them with the various materials used to make jewellery today.