Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Friday lunchtime

I’m feeling very surburban housewifey at the moment. I didn’t get that feeling 2 weeks ago when I tidied downstairs for my daughters party and assembled finger food for the tea.

Today sees me baking of all things, that’s unusual for me. I’ve got 2 nice round pavlovas in the oven (ah, did you think I was going to say something else?) and the smell of roasted peppers is pervading the house. You could say I’m getting nekid in the kitchen with Jamie Oliver, however before you get too excited I should tell you that he’s not here but his books are….you can heave a sigh of relief Rick. The only thing that’s stopping me from being a real Desperate Housewife and that shatters my urban story is that to make the vinegrette I have to retreave one of my many jam jars with lids that I keep stashed in my studio, ready to hold glass or some other work item.
Next on the agenda is my lunch and my usual sado viewing of Neighbours, I won’t apologise to anyone who thinks it’s naff, I see it as one of the perks of working from home……

Monday evening

Monday again already. I had a fun but short sesh in my studio today, sometimes I find it really hard to get going, but that silly grin always comes to my face when I sit down at the torch. I do need to get a good session in tommorrow as it’s the Easter holiday next week and Tuesday is the only other day I get to torch this week.

I made some interesting dichroic beads today, using a silver dichroic and my new glass I bought from Creative Glass in the half term.  They turned out good, kinda rainbowesque stylie on acid.

This week we’re all getting reved up for my parents golden wedding party at the weekend.  I shall probably be knee deep in salads on Friday and have various trips to the shops for ingredients this week.  Oh well, lots of nice deserts to look forward to, yum yum.

Tuesday eve

Hi there. I’ve just come indoors from freezing my butt off outside, it suddenly got cold at 7pm. I had to go out to my studio and make some beads, couldn’t resist.

I had a lovely day at Spellcast Stained Glass Studio in Horsham today, with the group of Fusing beginners. I was only going to stay for a couple of hours but found myself there for the best part of the school day. Thank you very much Juli for letting me sit in, and hi to everyone I met today, especially Jo! (you know you want to melt glass!)

Late Wednesday evening

Phew, we just got home half an hour ago after a fun filled day at the Mastering suite in Rochester (Cyclone Music Productions). We spent most of the day (10 hours) working on mastering the recording that Rick and I have been working on, and are still amazed at how much difference can be made to a recording at the mastering stage. It now sounds really lush and sweet!

Fortunately me for me (but not my purse), Creative Glass was around the corner and of course I had to go and spend some dosh………

The day has also given me the opportunity to work on course notes and details, while listening very intently to the music, so I will put more info up in the next couple of days.

Weds morning

Hi there, another week has passed and I’m still stuck indoors!  I’m definately going to be good and do my accounts as I go along this year.  I’ve had a real procrastination problem this last couple of weeks, there’s always something more interesting to do than my accounts (of course).  At least my virus is practically gone, I’m almost feeling like myself again.

I made the mistake of changing my screensaver yesterday to my own pictures slideshow.  Now I’m distracted by a marvelous array of my own memories – trips to Hampton Court flower show, jewellery and ancient glass beads at the British Museum and the Ashmolean in Oxford, my own glass beads, Chihully at Kew, and the list goes on.  Of course it’s making it even harder to get on with the job in hand! 

Monday evening

I think I have post Christmas blues.  I’m dying to get out to my torch and make some beads, but alas there’s so much else to do at the moment.  I spent the day tidying up for my sparkie friend, and researching ventilation and other bits on the net.  I’ve found this superdooper site called The Art Glass Forums where they appear to specialise in safety, or at least they have several of the well informed safety bods here.  Very useful and of special interest to me having worked in Health and Safety for several years with Gas Detection and Safety Systems.

Thursday evening

Isn’t technology marvelous!  I’ve just finished doing my grocery shopping from the comfort of my armchair in front of the telly – and who said I can’t multitask?  It’s so cool being able to sit wireless and cableless, and be able to print documents, surf the net and do ones shopping.  It beats trawling around the supermarket, especially at the moment when I’m sooooooo busy.  All I have to do is sit back and wait for it to arrive (and put it away obviously).  I just hope I don’t get any daft substitutions, they sure don’t think about them very well, that’s my only complaint.  For example, once I ordered 2 different variations of a breakfast cereal, one wasn’t available, but hey, they didn’t give me 2 of the one of my choices that was available, no, they chose something completely different!  Maybe the shopper thought I needed a new taste experience and what I’d chosen was too boring.

I do most of my glass shopping on the net.  Lots of good glass, frit and tools are availalable from the States, so I just have to do it that way.  I love getting my parcels through the post, especially when it’s dinky jars of frit (crushed glass) individually wrapped in pink or orange tissue paper, although one order I did with a sample pack of 18 jars had 3 or 4 pieces of sticky tape on each jar and took forever to unpack (you do the maths!).  I must admit I was getting a tad impatient to see all my purchses as the minutes ticked away and the pile of sticky tape strips grew.

I’m off to get another mug of coffee now and look at my Chihuly tome.  TTFN.

Found another cool site, literally,  Snowdays hours of fun.  Make sure to enter your name and location, or you’ll never find it again.

Talking of snow (it’s the weather chat again – well, I am in England) and all things Christmasy, they’ve been filming an Argos advert in Horsham town today and yesterday, lots of people wandering around with boxes made to look like Christmas pressies, no sign of Richard E Grant though.  It will be interesting to see the finished thing.  Photo courtesy of Rick.

 I think it’s time for more Chihuly photos today………..

Oh wow, I’ve just watched Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart performing, njhhhhhhhhh.
Perfect end to a perfect day.

click on the photos to enlarge them.
Oh yes, we managed to get to Kew Gardens to the Chihuly Exhibition today. What a stunning show of jaw dropping glass. The colours and forms collected into his installations were beautiful and breathtaking. I wanted to see his Persian chandalier, this was suspended in the Temperate House and lit up. We were able to walk below and admire the twirling lines that radiate from the centre of each form which looked rather like masses of lily pads. My other favourite was his grouping of Macchia (Italian for spotted). They were as beautiful in life as the photos you see in his books. Incidentally they are for sale at Kew for the small sum of six thousand pounds. I think I’ll nip back next week and get one.
More pickies another day…ahhh, I’ve saved the best!