Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Thursday evening

What a difference a tidy up makes. We cleared the thing called a patio outside our back doors on Saturday, and the garden looks so much better. It’s taking a long time and lots of hard work but we’re gradually getting there. Unfortunately we had a lot of ivy growing there and when we removed it we displaced 4 frogs, a whole family! It was OK cos they all bounced off under the castor oil plant.

Not so good for the numerous snails and slugs…ah ha….they ain’t gotten anywhere to shelter near our pots now. I had a bit of a euwwww moment yesterday as a 5 inch long slug slimed it’s way over the steps, I just had to perform surgery. Yuk. It’s something I really don’t like doing but I can’t let the critters lay eggs. Next week I hope to go and get some pansies to plant and get a bit of colour out the back and on the doorstep.

It’s all go here at the moment, I’m mega busy getting ready for Harrow this Sunday. I have a new bead design which I really like and has the feel of the fabrics used in the dresses and tunics in the shops at the moment. I will have a couple of sets of these available at Harrow, together with my other new designs I launched at Lingfield. Off for my evening coffee now. Night all.

Monday evening

My new shop is almost here (at last), hurrah. After having read my bloggy whinge last week Rick has been mulling over how to produce shop pages, and he’s just about got it sorted. So this week I’m keeping away from the torch and among other things will be getting my first items of stock ready for the grand opening of my shop. I suppose I should choose a day for the event, but I like being flexible so I’m not going to. I hope to open it with some of my new beads, a selection of my lampwork bead jewellery and a few choice pieces of jewellery featuring glass beads from Europe. There will also be a few of my beautiful glass leaves that I’ve been having fun making, complete with matching spacers. So watch this space……..

Friday lunchtime

Aahh, it’s so peaceful here today. I’m home alone and enjoying not having a wingey kid, or music I’m not in the mood for. It’s so quiet, I don’t really want to spoil it with some washing. At last I’m starting to catch up on things, I’m having a real correspondence sesh this morning, which doesn’t include cleaning beads, but they are waiting in the pot for cleaning, rats, I hate that bit of the art.

My leaf set that I was going to put up for sale got split up by one of my friends who came round yesterday morning to choose some jewellery. We had a lovely morning together of glass, jewellery and gem stone appreciation. She loves gemstones and we had great fun choosing stones and beads that would partner each other beautifully for some new designs for her order. Along route one of the leaves made it’s way onto a chain as a pendant, it may miss it friends, but it has a very loving new owner!

Have a great weekend.

Tuesday afternoon

Another lovely day today, and wasn’t it gorgeous yesterday? It was 15.5 degC this morning when I turned on my kiln. As we move to the middle of Setember my thoughts are turned to the Autumn, and I’ve been having fun making leaves with my new leaf press from America. There’s certainly a knack to using it and manipulating the glass once it’s pressed so that your leaves look leaf like and not like squished lollipops. I hope to put some up for sale on my site this week…..are you getting this Rick?

Thursday afternoon

Well helloooo, I’m back and feeling way more mellow than I should do. I’ve had a corker of a couple of days even if I’m a bit tired at the mo. We got home at 3:30 this morning after finishing up on Lorens course at 11:30 last night. Loren has a reputation for working into the night and when we had to stop at the poultry time of 7:30pm the first night some of us were somewhat disappointed (we should have stopped at 4:30), although we were feeling rather for sorry for our lovely hosts Richard and Barbara at Plowden and Thompson. I hope Barbara managed to get some sleep after we knocked off.

So, here it is, I’ve had 4 1/2 hours sleep, and I’m feeling a bit shakey, but I’m very happy and keep grinning everytime I think about the fun I had. If you’re lucky I’ll post some pics of the canes I made, but that’ll have to be next week.

Thursday Night

Ahh…that’s much better. My second lampwork session this week, I had to take a break because of the intense heat, and haven’t torched for one month…eeek. I’m now spending time in the evenings topping up my bead levels in anticipation of the GBUK bead fair next weekend (Bank Holiday). I’ve made some more variations on the Hydraengea theme, some penguins and a few more dotty fish. My days are spent helping my daughter with her art projects, trying to tidy the house (bit of a no hoper that one) and trying to find time to design and make some new pieces of jewellery.

I’m also now starting to get excited about my course next week with the Michaelangelo of the bead world, Loren Stump. You can see his work at his website. I’m doing his 2 day Murrini course, which is face cane, and I can’t wait, even though I’d rather be doing the Sculpture course. After my experience with Kate Fowle earlier this year, I’ve learnt that there’s so much more to taking a class with a guru than the main subject. It’s facinating to see the way other glass artists manipulate the hot glass, and watch their individual techniques. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted and full of ideas when it’s over.

Tuesday morning

I’m having a cool day indoors today, not going to risk trying to make beads in this heat, at least I don’t have to this time. I’ve two lovely scars next to each other on my arm from the other weeks’ hotscapades (new word to describe foolish hot behaviour, similar to icescapades but not related to ice skating) – well if Will Shakespere can make up new words so can I.

Today I’m endeavouring to tidy my desk indoors, oh I hate this. It’s looking better but somehow I always end up with different size piles of BITS. They might be headpins mixed with odd beads, stray findings, business cards and other stuff, then piles of flyers I need to refer to, and various small stuff that I will forget about if I throw them away or put them away (only to be discovered 5 years later after clogging up yet another drawer, and been searched for voraciously several times in the interval to no avail). How do people get truely organised, do everything they need to do, and keep their pads tidy? This for me is like THE question, you know, the one about The meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything, it probably has an obscure answer like ’42’ and no one knows what on earth it means. Maybe I should just resign myself to the fact that I’ll never get a handle on it.

Anyway, they just said on the news that sunscreen doesn’t work effectively if it’s rubbed in, oh now what? Honestly, now they say it should stay in a thick layer on the skin to work properly. But you know what? Experts are also saying we’re suffereing from a lack of Vitamin D because of all the care we’re taking of our skin now…..you can’t win.

Saturday evening

hellooooo. a quick blog before I turn into bed, well, go to bed, not actually turn into a bed, that would just be silly. I’ve had a lovely day today teaching a new student, (Hi Julie) and I’m going to pop down to the studio in a minute to check on our dichroic beads, can’t wait to look and see.

Yesterday we took my daughter out of school and went to Art in Action again in Waterperry, just outside Oxford. We had a leisurely trip up, parked at my friends mums house in the village, then had a very civilised mug of tea and catch-up with old friends before walking up the road to the show. Such a lovely show to visit, loads of marquees specialising in different diciplines from woodworking to metalwork, jewellry making to textiles, asian arts and sculpture, painting, drawing, ceramics, performance arts, and of course glass. Everyone who is there demonstrates what they do, and are allowed to sell their work so you can just go around all day watching artists do their thing. There was also a craft market, a materials maquee where you could spend lots of lolly, and an exhibition of the Best of the Best. I do like days out like yesterday, but I’m absolutely shattered now, so night night.

Wednesday morning

Another day of mousework today. Woopee, not. I made a few beads yesterday and have to get them out of the kiln, they include a glass ring, oh yes. I decided to try one of the ring mandrels that Martin at Tuffnells has started to stock, it was difficult to get a thin coating of mandrel release, took ages to dry, then after I’d made my ring, it didn’t fit in the kiln! Well, it went in but I couldn’t close the bead flap. I had to turn the kiln around and use the side door, knocked all the other beads on mandrels sliding it in, then could only fill the kiln half full because it got in the way! lol. Can’t wait to see how it turned out, just off to see……..oh it’s cool. It came off the mandrel easily, but is a bit of a pig to clean – I won’t be using my diamond drill bit or I’ll mess the surface. I will however be cutting the mandrel handle down to a shorter length so it fits in the kiln sideways without hogging all the space.

Talking of hogs…did you know that the male hedgehog was called a boar and the female a sow? or that their young are called Hoglets? I helped my daughter with some homework yesterday and we found all sorts of interesting facts about hedehogs on t’internet. The most interesting (apart from being able to swim, climb almost vertical walls and run at 2 metres per sec!) was that they love to eat snails and slugs, and eat about 200g a night. Now I could do with one of those in my garden. Some plants are looking a bit lacy to say the least, but the hostas with crushed up egg shells do seem to be fairing better now, together with the hosta with a natural mulch (it was left under the holly tree in the corner of the garden). I may even start mulching other tasty plants with my free holly leaves.

Here’s a few pictures from Hampton Court Flower show last week, it was very hard to make a choice.

Thursday morning

Boy have I got a lot of gorgeous new beads for your consumption on Sunday at Lingfield. I’ve been slogging away in the heat this week to ensure a lovely display of my new range which hasn’t been seen on t’internet yet. Shades of blues, turquoise and teal blend together to produce the most yummy beads yet. I’m also working on some new fish designs today, as my newest ones sold the other weekend at Barton, just popped up for air and to do a quick blog entry (although this is my second attempt, the first disappeared). I’ve been far too busy lately, all the finer points of life seem to be passing me by, sob, sob. Still, it should be a bit easier next week…..all I have are orders for wedding jewellery and a couple of phone dangles….and making sure I get everything done for the GBUK bead fair before the school hols start……and all the other stuff involved in running a business. Hmmm…..easier next week?…..famous last words.

Tuesday evening

Cool at last, but boy hasn’t it been hot today. I was mad enough to make beads during the day again today, at least I got started earlier than normal, although it would have been earlier if I could have got my didymium specs over my normal glasses. It was absolutely sweltering and I think the heat must have made me careless cos I kept catching myself on hot stuff and burning myself. Would you believe it the first time I ever wear shorts to make beads I had lots of glass popping everywhere, and of course most landed on my legs even though they were under the bench. The last straw was with a bead that I’d parked in the kiln to answer the door, I caught my hand on the scorching mandrel (460 deg C) getting it back out of the kiln and then all the stringer popped off, most of making it’s way straight to me, and one bit even got my lips. Ouch ow and double drat.

I have to say the best bit of the day was when we had a 5 minute shower. I could tell it was raining because that lovely smell you get when it’s been hot and it’s just started raining, came wafting in on the only cool breeze (in fact the only breeze) of the day. It was a lovely feeling sitting melting my hot glass, with the smell of hot wet dust and a cooling breeze and the sound of rain on the plants and the studio roof. Bliss. Have a cool evening.

ps. here’s the new man in my life…..

Tuesday morning

Hi, just a quick one today, I dont know where the morning has gone, it’s just zipped by. Probably because I was up untill midnight making beads in my studio because the day was just so darn hot yesterday. But hey how gorgeous is the weather at the moment? I’d just prefer to save it for the school holidays. Last nights session was cooler but not that cool, I had jeans and a vest on, but felt like I was mozzie feast so I’m not sure that I want to do that again. Maybe I should have taken my pink critter splitter with me? Must dash, byeeee.

Friday morning

Here we are again, safely installed on the garden bench for another mornings thoughts. I say safely because it wasn’t safe five minutes ago. This corner seems to get sunnier and sunnier every day, now I’m not complaining, as many of you who know me will know I adore the sunshine, and have a hard time staying in the shade now they know all they do about the sun’s damaging effects. Anyway, here I was, just installed on my bench, turning up the brightness full pelt and I still couldn’t see my screen. Drastic action had to be taken, I trotted back to the house, collected the parasol from by the front door, poured myself a cup of Breakfast tea and gingerly walked back down the path with tea in one hand and parasol in the other. So far so good.

These are my thought processes:- Put tea down carefully, after all there is a laptop here and we don’t want to get it wet do we? So I think I’ll put my tea where I sit well away from my laptop. Now to put up the parasol without putting anything down, gotta be ambidextrous for this. mmmm, spikey bit goes down the hole, ah, I need to bend over and undo the clamp, OK, now put spike in hole and do clamp up again without dropping umbrella bit or swiping laptop off bench, yep done that. Now to put the umbrella in the spike, oo carefull, the base is on the edge of the paving slabs at a jaunty angle and will fall over with more height. Better push it onto the slabs with my foot while I hold the brolly. OK, put up the shade, ah, it’s caught on the shrub next to me, better move it to the left, and back a bit so it doesn’t fall over. Phew, that’s done, I’ve got me a nice bit of shade to work under now. I better sit down and get cracking………..noooooooooo, I sat on my tea.

Note to Rick – it’s OK only me, my undies, the bench and the slabs got wet.

Monday morning

Yay I’m back. What a gorgeous sunny day it is, I’ve eaten breakfast and had a lovely steaming mug of tea sitting on our new bench outside my studio. I’m raring to go, but think I may have to restrain myself from making beads today as I’ve lots of admin and other stuff to do for my business today, but I think I might crack and make beads anyway, yeah, why not. Oh and looking at my last entry it looks a bit like Bits and Boobs at a glance don’t you think? woops.

I’ve got such a mad 7 weeks ahead of me and lots of work to stuff in before the school summer break like summer fetes, the Lingfield Bead Fair, Rag Open Houses and various teaching dates, I’m also hoping to squeeze in a visit to the Hampton Court Flower Show with my parents and hopefully a trip to Art in Action where you can see GBUKs very own Di East at work, supported by Amanda Glanville and Dora Schubert. I think I’m going to have to do a project plan to shoehorn everything in and make sure I get some sleep some nights in the next couple of months. It’s a good job that my jewellery class has finished for another year as I don’t think I could fit that in as well, which reminds me I’ve organised a trip for the class to see the Tiffany exhibition at Somerset House also, and rats, I’ve just spotted an inset day on the calender for June also. Oh dear, it’s worse than I thought. Off to have a stiff drink and a lie down, but no, I haven’t got time!

Will she manage to recover from her faint? Will she get time to make beads? Will she persuade Rick to mow the lawn tonight (please?)? Will he also cook dinner, do all the washing, clean the house and do all the shopping for the next 8 weeks? Find out the answer to all these questions in the next installment…..coming to a blog near you.

Friday lunchtime

Another week almost over and the Whitsun half term is upon us. I’ll be taking a break from the computer and all things glassy to spend some quality time with our daughter, poor thing’s been rather neglected of late (and I think she gets a bit fed up of seeing me tapping away!) so I’m sorry I won’t be replying to any of your emails in the next week. Business will be resumed on Monday 6th June!
I’m really pleased to be able to add some more events, so please check out my events page for details, among them is the RAG Open Houses, but I’ll post more about that in June and The Beadwork Fair at Lingfield in July.

I thought I’d post my pictures of the beads I demonstrated last saturday, so just a quick snap of them, nothing fancy, and please excuse the bead poop. I’ve just been told (by Rick) that these don’t do me justice, but it’s hard to do great beads when you’re being watched and you have a shakey hand day.  I also just noticed I’m showing the shakey side of the star, rats.

Also here’s my frog for the GlassHarmony frog challenge

Sunday evening

Helloooooooooo. Wow, nearly the end of the weekend already, I’m wacked! I had a craft fair on Friday afternoon/teatime and came home to pack for one night in Dudley and the following day at the museum. Well, we got ready and arrived at midnight to stay at the Copthorne Hotel for the first time. I got a cracking internet deal, cos I wasn’t about to stay in the Travelodge again after the grotty room we had last summer (that’s yet another story). We arrived bright and early at the museum at 9:45 (well I’m very honest when I say I’m rubbish at early mornings, and we did get waylaid by a huge tray of food for breakfast delivered by room service) and helped Amanda finish setting out the display. The day zoomed by, it was such a lovely atmosphere, with lots of interested people eager to discuss beads and glass, and several locals who had popped in to see what it was all about, only to be overwhelmed by the beauty of the lampworked beads on display and for sale.

Our demonstrations were well received, I had a whale of a time making a raked star, a penguin, a fish and a slightly wonky red dotty bead and of course I had that very silly grin on my face when I finished. We were also joined by Kate Drew Wilkinson for the day who’d been teaching at Plowden and Thompsons the previous week.

After we’d all packed up and finished chatting in the car park we went our separate ways, us on a mission to find a campsite for the glass festival later on this year. 4 campsites later Read the rest of this entry »

Friday lunchtime

Just to remind you, I’m at the Broadfield House Glass Museum tommorrow at their beads day, demonstrating glass beadmaking together with Judith Johnston, Amanda Glanville and Roy Ayre. I’m planning to make Penguins, fish, stars and anything else that takes my fancy. I may even make some off mandrel heart and implossion pendants. We’ll also have 2 tables of lovely bead goodies for sale, beads, jewellery and accessories. The museum itself also has a range of glass beadmaking books for sale, and of course there’s Plowden and Thompson a couple of miles down the road in Stourbridge. There are also other stalls selling Vintage beads and other lovelies, and the museum itself is worth a look around.

Do swing by and say hello (after all, it’s free to get in!).

Monday morning

Oh I’m sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired……but happy…….and itching to get out to my studio and play with glass, and put into practise what I’ve learnt.

The course this weekend was brilliant. It was extremely intense, and consisted mainly of Kate doing demonstrations of different ways to use enamels, metals, ceramic overglazes, reduction glass and a weekend long demo of electroforming and all the information on how to do it. She also treated us to demos of various fancy canes and some of her most popular beads like her seashells, buxom goddesses, and fantasy bead (you can see two of these in Cindy Jenkins book, Making Glass Beads). We didn’t do much lampwork ourselves, but what we did was play with some of the materials she was demonstrating to see what effects we could achieve. Consequently my beads are not that wonderful to show here, which isn’t a problem at all. As Kate said in her introduction in the bound notes, the class was a techniques class, and not a production class, after all, we can go home and practise what we’ve seen…..can’t wait.

What can I say about Kate, she is such a fantastic artist, very inspirational, very generous with her knowledge and a very lovely lady. Thank you so much Kate.

I did take pictures, but will post them later, together with snaps of the 2 beads I bought.   See ya’ll.

Wednesday morning

Paperwork morning again! I’ve had 2 lovely days in my studio making dichroic beads, and now I’ve a shed load of stuff to clean, all of last weeks and 2 days this week, rats. I love making the beads, but the cleaning bit, well, anyone who knows me knows that I hate housework (cleaning you see, and dust (high in calorie, low in calorie?)). I have a tendancy to procrastinate with jobs I don’t like and consequently my ‘beads to clean’ pot of water is overflowing, just like the laundry basket I hear you say.

The good news is that the countdown to my course on Saturday has started, and I’m starting to get excited. I have to take my own favourite tools with me and am wondering just how I’m going to label them so I don’t end up with a sticky mess of chewed up sticky label or black marker pen that gets all over my hands. Now if that’s the least of my worries I’m a happy woman. (note to self…..must go and buy lurid colour nail polish.)
Other stuff that’s happening, well, if you’re eagerly awaiting my shop, I was poised the other day to open it, when Rick pointed out that I couldn’t take Paypal yet, rats. So a few more weeks delay I’m afraid while I get that sorted.

Friday morning

woo hoo. It’s a lovely day and I’m about to go outside to fire up the kiln and make beads. I’m feeling a bit nervous about the spark lighter…..but the good news is that all my beads from Tuesday were OK, no blips or notches on them from sticking to other beads, which they obviously didn’t.  Ooo and I should say that I DID manage to repair the pendant with the broken loop, so I’m well pleased.
I’m busy making beads to send to France for a gallery, so that should keep me occupied for a while. Also the Bead bazaar at Redworth in County Durham is looming so I’ve got that to prepare for too. And…..I’m going on a bead making course next weekend. This will be my first one since I learnt to put glass to mandrel 4 years ago. It’s an advanced class with Kate Fowle (I think I’m up to it) over at Creative Glass in Rochester, where I popped in a couple of months ago to stock up on glass. I’m really looking forward to this, and hope I’ll meet some new glass budies. Must scoot and get on. byeeeeeeee.