Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Friday tea time (This post was written a few days ago…….photo insertion now sorted)

Yesterday (Thursday) was a good day. Washing of some sheets done and hung in the warm sunny garden to dry – tick (but nearly left them out all night as I got distracted putting the rotary dryer cover on :-)). Other washing chores done – tick. A bit of new bookcase filling and reorganising – tick. Small watercolour painting done from flowers in our garden and Facebook art sharing session – tick. I’m pleased with my new original painting but it looks botanical which is not really the look that I want. I will have to have another go with a concerted effort to produce a loose version, should be fun.

After a lovely email from one of my friends sharing with me what she’d been up to this week I was also inspired yesterday to check what provisions we have in our somewhat scattered ‘pantry’, and I use the word loosely because its a shelf here and there, a pull out drawer or two and the top of a cupboard. Dust, high in calorie, low in calorie? Its amazing what you find squirrelled away and how old it is…I had a rather suspicious puffed up looking tin of peaches that had started oozing (who knew they could even do that, right?) which went straight in the bin. I also came across three 1 litre unopened bottles of ‘Coffee Anise’, a brilliant concoction of Ouzo and coffee, made and sold in Rhodes. Anyway, I have now successfully divided and conquered our provisions and we know exactly or thereabouts what we have or not, and can shop accordingly…..result.

Today was not so good productively, but I have strung some more of my new beads, which does take a while. To string a set of beads I Bubble Sort them by diameter and shape in a long line then split them into groups, removing any good pairs that would be suitable for earring pairs first. I choose a good colour rocaille bead (seed bead) to go between the beads in the set (or look at previous similar sets) then get stringing. I’m pleased with the sets I assembled today, some repeat sets and some new lovely pink and pastel pink sets, and a few pairs. Enjoy your weekend at home.

Said Big Brother House stylie……… Well this is a first for the UK and has given a lot of people more quality and reflective time I hope. For me this Coronavirus pandemic hasn’t changed much for my day to day life really, apart from having Dickie DooDah at home full time (which started last Tuesday) and stopping me from popping out to the shops and for the rare coffee meet ups with friends.

But what a glorious sunny spring day to start our enforced stay home time. I’m sitting on our deck enjoying said sunshine. The birds are tweeting, I hear a dog barking and the sound of children playing outside, which has to be a good thing. and look, I’m blogging again!

So first things first, obviously the Big Bead Show won’t be going ahead this Saturday. It was cancelled 2 weeks ago to keep us all safe and I was so relieved as the uncertainty was stressing me out. I was however preparing for this show and have made a considerable stash of new beads, not as many as I would have by now, because as you know we’ve all been somewhat distracted this past couple of weeks.

I am continuing to trade while the posties are still doing a valiant job, so please feel free to pop along to my Etsy store where I’m endeavouring to keep a good supply of your favourite beads. I also hope to add some new stock at some point so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks. I will also announce here and on Facebook and Twitter as usual.

So that’s the formal stuff done, I’m hoping to keep this blog a light hearted place with just normal news of what we’re up to, I think it’s good to be positive and concentrate on other stuff when we can. Thanks for reading and stay safe everyone x

Post Script……..I should apologise for the late posting of this post…this is due to the lack of photos which is apparently down to WordPress. I did have one lined up but even DickieDooDah couldn’t manage to make it work.