Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Friday lunchtime

Eek, it’s the Big Bead Show tomorrow at Sandown Park, Esher. It looks like it will be a biggie if last years stories are anything to go by, well, let’s hope so anyway, as numbers attending each bead fair do seem to be dwindling as there are so many to go to now. Of course I’m not ready, I never am for these things, and it’s not through lack of organisation but because as an artist there’s always more beads that could be made, you know, the ones in my head that haven’t made it on to the mandrel yet. It just doesn’t seem to matter how many beads you’ve made you always feel you could have and should have done more. It’s a dreadful feeling, and rather silly of course, but there we go. I do actually have lots of new beads, and a few more waiting to be cleaned and made up into sets today. I also have 99% of my extra stall bits ready, all of my packing and display ready, I just have to finish cleaning a few beads, wire up some more sets and sort some more of my popular bargain beads for you avid bargain hunters. Don’t forget that the very best new bead sets always get snaffled up very early on in the fair, so if you have anything particular in mind, come and see us first. Of course that doesn’t mean anything left after the first hour is not excellant! I believe every focal and bead set is perfect for someone special, they just haven’t necessarily come to see them yet.

So, I will have my usual mix of bead sets and focals in yummy colours, dichroic sets, silver foil lined bling sets (I think they’re gorge), dichroic pick ‘n’ mix, pots of bargain experiments and orphan beads priced from £1 to £3 each, cute pandas, penguin, snowmen and fish. I also have my supply of good quality sterling silver snake chains, sterling silver cables and beadable sterling silver bangles. I will also have some gold colour gift pillow boxes, perfect for giving away with your Christmas creations.

See you there!

P.S. My stand is Number 64, and it looks to be in the opposite corner from the main entrance and facing the back wall.

P.P.S.  I have Fruit Rocks from M&S in addition to my usual jelly beans!

Tues morning

Just a quick fly by to say hi (ooer that rhymes). I seem to be very busy, making beads for orders, teaching and getting ready for the Big Bead Show on the 1st Nov. Please note that this is a Saturday Bead Fair, not the usual Sunday affair. My personal targets for October seem to be slipping away without me achieving them, apart for one which was to try and master silver rich glass, which I’ve had a few hours at and have made wonderful progress, well, in one session at least.  I got all technical about it, went down to my studio armed with printed hints and tips and a tutorial, and a piece of paper to record my results and make notes on how I did it, where and what time it was put in the kiln….and guess what…no more poo on sticks! yay. Of course the second time I tried, but with a different technique and on ivory, all I got was tiny brown dots and very muted colours where I’d done a plunge dot. So now I need to work out how to get fabulous colours with encasing the stuff. Anyway, I must dash, I have a shed load of beads to make today, and they won’t make themselves you know…wags finger.

Thursday morning

How sad am I? I think I must be the geek here, actually I already know I’m a bit of a geek. The reason I know is because when I was sat watching Jamie’s Ministry of Food and he went down the mine for a look see, all I could do was try and see what gas detectors they were using! That would be because I used to be a design engineer working on mainly portable gas detectors in the dim and distant past, oh well, I suppose we all have one of those. Unfortunately I couldn’t see what they were using because everything was coated in a layer of black coal dust, even Jamie! and there was me thinking that he’d smeared it on his face for effect, so as he’d look the part. Actually come to think of it he did look rather different with his eyes peering out. But boy, what an awful place to work, I have so much admiration for those that do, and such sadness when I think about how things used to be hundreds of years ago when children were forced to work down there and other equally awful places.

We all whinge about Health and Safety, and how we’re getting wrapped in cotton wool, and I’d have to agree that it’s all gone way too far, but thank goodness that people started thinking about these things. Jobs and pastimes have got so much safer, the really nasty chemicals we could easily use are restricted, this in itself has to be a good thing, and many people work really hard on safety systems that come into play in an emergency, this is something else I was involved with, Emergency Shut Down systems (or ESD) for oil rigs and gas refineries. Actually I have to confess that most of my time in industry was spent working in Health and Safety, so I am a supporter, but not of the extreme silly stuff.

Kids should be kids, and grow up playing on the street, riding bikes around, and getting into silly scrapes, isn’t that what growing up is about? There’s going to be some pretty boring tales or lack of childhood tales to tell grandchildren if we carry on protecting everyone from what should be everyday experiances.

Ah well, I better get back to the grindstone, it was 6.9 deg C in my studio when I popped out to switch on the kiln, lets hope it warms up a bit today or I’ll have to get the union in….

Monday teatime

The start of another week and I really must have a day off! Unfortunately I’m actually having to cook dinner every night this week as Rick has swanned off to the other side of the world and left us to fend for ourselves. He’s been cooking almost every night for the last 4 months, initially because I was recouperating, and for the last month because I’ve been working so hard making beads, teaching and selling at shows, that I’ve been too tired in the evening to cook. I have to interject here that I haven’t been a complete lush recently as I’ve made my more than my fair share of lunches, and we’re not just talking sarnies here, but salads and stuff, and I cooked a little on holiday too.

So where has he gone and why? Well, he’s popped over to Minneapolis with a work colleague to meet with a bunch of other programmers and be geeky in a room together at this do called a geekfest…actually I lie, it’s called a Backnet Plugfest. They all sit in a room and make their controllers ‘talk’ to each other, then after a set time they get up, move around the room and start over with another geek…..woops, programmer. A bit like nerdy speedating. Don’t you just love it 😉

My day has been peachy, instead of going to class, I stayed home to see himself off then spent the morning cleaning my beads, I managed the handsome sum of 200 today, woo hoo, and you know how much I hate cleaning beads. Tomorrow I may just attack the wash pile, it may just be one of those weeks.

Wednesday teatime

Here we are again, a week later. Harrow was good, even though I was tired by the time I got there. I had been pushing it working everyday for the 2 weeks in the run up to the fair, and now I’m extremely pooped, but hey, I did it! Thank you to everyone who came to say hello and also those who bought my beads, especially to Elizabeth, my first customer of the day. So this week I’ve been trying to relax a bit which I’m finding difficult to do as there are so many jobs that I have at the moment, although that’s nothing new, there’s always something to do when you run your own business, and I thought October would be quiet. I have 2 days tuition this week and another hectic weekend ahead of me.