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.
Watercolour Hellebore
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.
Newly strung beads
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!
Sunny garden
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.
Well hello to you. So much for blogging more. I did write one draft but didn’t publish, as you can see ;-). I have been busy over the last few months keeping my Etsy shop full of lovely spacer swirls and other sets, and fulfilling occasional commissions.
I’m pleased to say I have 1 space on a 2 day course available, and you’ll be pleased to hear that I have an air conditioning unit so no worries about roasting please! Here are the dates:-
Mon 17th to Tues 18th July.
This is a 2 day course, 10am to 5pm and gives a good grounding on setting up, supplies, the all important health and safety and covers the basics on day 1 and progresses to more detailed techniques on the second day. Please drop me an email if you fancy joining us. I’m always happy to take a booking for just the first day too if you’d like a one day course.
If you can’t make these dates but would like a lesson please contact me for my current availability as I take bookings to suit you and me.
So I’m sitting in my garden, on the deck (newly oiled and slip proofed), enjoying the last few rays of the summer sun, which of course have arrived as per usual once the kids have gone back to school. What can I do so I don’t waste working hours? I know, I’ll write on my blog. At last…….I know I’ve been rather slack for the last few years, down to all the ‘stuff’ that I’ve been through, it kinda puts you off your stride.
I’m actually wondering ‘does anyone blog anymore?’ Or is it all micro blogging like Twitter, Facebook and other things. Incidentally I’m now on Pinterest, having set that up a couple of weeks ago, I was busy setting up inspirational boards yesterday while sitting on the deck. You can follow me here ……….
Anyway, I don’t care if no one blogs anymore, I’m going to start again and see how I get along, so hopefully this will be the first of many more regular updates and musings on life, the universe and glass beads.
oh and in case you’re wondering, it’s not constant sunshine here, but naughty clouds too. Â Toodle loo for now.
Well the title gives it away somewhat, I am actually doing this fair, even though I wasn’t sure if I was, which explains why I haven’t put much on here already! whew, that was confusing.
After what feels like a long absence from making beads for the last few months I’ve been steadily re stocking your favourite designs, and making some new ones too. I’m almost ready for the fair this Sunday but will be popping out to the studio later to make some new lovely focal beads.
So what have I been doing you ask? It’s been manic, with Dorking bead fair in June followed very closely by 2 weekends of Horsham Artists Open Studios (thank you all for coming and making my event so lovely). We’ve had our daughters’ Japanese exchange student stay for 2 different weeks, an intensive few months while she prepared for and took her GCSEs this summer and then I helped her get ready for prom, you know, lots of shopping for all the accessories, dress alterations and hair, that kinda thang. Then our holiday, and lots of teaching mixed in where we could. It’s been an unusual summer so far as she’s been home so much and a bit of a distraction, but a nice one.
Of course results day was yesterday and I’m so proud of what she achieved, 11 GCSEs all grade A* to B with one C, and especially her Art in which she gained an A* with a score of what we found out to be full marks of 100%!
Here’s a look at some of my newer beads. And if you can’t make this Sunday I might be doing Dorking the following one, August 30. Have a great weekend whatever you find yourself doing. 🙂
Oh yes English comedy genius at it best. Is it a joke or isn’t it? Does she realise she looks totally naff or is it intentional? Some of you may know what I’m talking about, and I wouldn’t if I hadn’t happened to catch Britain’s Got Talent last Saturday evening. But I got it straight away and laughed so much and can’t get the catchy tune out of my head but I really don’t mind. I just hope that she can deliver on more nutty songs and wit to become another Victoria Wood.
Speaking of British Institutions, Chelsea Flower Show opens to the public today and I was fascinated to watch a fashion designer on last night’s show explaining how he gets inspiration for his designs and textiles from the displays. I’ll be watching as much as I can realistically this week, and hoping to get more inspiration myself as I always do for my beads.
So my beadmaking this week sees me working towards the next 2 events that I’m doing….. The Sussex Beadworks Fair is at Denbies Wine Estate again this year on June 7th. The venue is lovely, and wine’s rather excellent too. I’m also steadily making beads for some new jewellery designs and some of my popular designs ready for Horsham Artists Open Studios the following 2 weekends in June (13/14 and 20/21). Here’s my first bead bouquet for these events.
October 21, 2014 at 3:28 pm
· Filed under Glass Beads
Tuesday afternoon
I have a new tuition date available
***Thurs 6th November, 1 space on a 1 day beginners Glass Beadmaking, 10am – 5pm***
This is a great opportunity to have a go at beadmaking and my first day teaching after surgery!
So 12 weeks today, it’s been rather epic for me, and taken longer than I remember last time 6 years ago for the other hip. However it felt so fast last time as I’d come from a very bad place of being very disabled, even though I staunchly denied it to myself and everyone around me. It did take time to get strong and I guess it’s probably about the same amount of time, it maybe even took longer to really recover to being normal as I had such a long way to go. This time I’m very impatient and wanting to get moving as fast as possible in every sense of the word.
The dreaded hip precautions ended 2 weeks ago and make it easier to move without having to concentrate on not twisting on my hip, but they went on so long I’ve lost my flexibility, but I’m working on it. I can’t wait to be able to reach my feet again! So I’m not lounging around all day any more and made a gradual return to work in the run up to the Big Bead Show Saturday gone. We had a fab day meeting old friends again, but I do apologise that I was rather quiet compared to normal.
Here are some of the beads that were out for sale on Saturday.
Ahoy there. What a wonderful sunny summer we’re having so far! We’ve eventually installed our mini irrigation system in the garden again and I spent some time planting my petunias this evening too, or should I say ragged stalks with a few meagre flowers. honestly I’ve been keeping an eye on them, watering them until I had time to plant them and all of a sudden I go outside to shredded plants……dirty rotten snails and slugs strike again. They obviously thought it a veritable smorgasbord the way they ransacked it overnight. I have planted them anyway so we’ll see what happens, they might recover.
The latest beady news is that unfortunately another of the Beadworks Fairs has been cancelled, the July one at Ardingly. It seems strange but the snow last winter in January killed it. I may be attending the Hatfield fair but it depends how I am feeling…..cryptic eh! But watch this space…….
June 15, 2014 at 12:56 am
· Filed under Glass Beads
Sunday morning wee hours
At last, we’ve added a new gallery on my gallery page. This is so overdue but I’m really excited as I have linked to Flikr and also uploaded the first of my photos from this year. All the old photos are still there, found by scrolling down or clicking the link as before. It’s very easy to see how much I have improved over the years in every way, and also how much Dickie has grown with his photography.
Helllooooo. The sun is shining at the moment and I’m busy preparing for the bead fair at Denbies Wine Estate tomorrow, Sunday 8th June. This is the second year at this venue, but my first time here, and I can’t wait. The wine estate is a lovely place to visit from what I’ve heard, they have a couple of restaurants so breakfast, lunch and tea are catered for (Sunday roasts followed by cream tea in the afternoon, yum). Other attractions include a farm shop selling locally sourced produce, an Art Gallery with a regular series of exhibitions, a gift shop, and indoor and outdoor tours with wine tasting. So come along, buy beads and enjoy the surrounding location, make a day out of it.
I have been thinking about the sea during my preparations, and have made some gorgeous new focal beads which I have made up into sets with matching spacer beads and a pair of donut shaped beads suitable for earrings. I hope you like them. I’ve also made some sizzling orange and red sets (you will have seen the loose beads if you looked at Facebook this week) which will pair beautifully with the red/orange clothes in Monsoon, East and M&S. I’ve also made lots of blue themed beads as I read that blue is the new black this season. I will of course have my usual selection of beads, jewellery, rummage bowls and bargain beads.
See you there, after all, you won’t be able to mow the grass as it’ll still be too wet 😉
It’s that time of year again, the season of Open Studios. This weekend sees most of the members of Horsham Artists Open Studios group together again, this time at Roffey Park Institute in Forest Road. This is a lovely centre that we all drive past all the time and wonder what goes on in there. Well here’s your chance to have a snoop around and see the place! We are taking over several ‘pods’ and a lovely exhibition space at the back of the central building. I’m in the large room with huge glass doors and windows overlooking the gardens with loads of natural light.
I’m working like a mad thing this week to get everything made and ready, unfortunately I’ve had a couple of bad weeks, with an ill-timed cold last week, so I have lots of catching up to do. I’m very excited to have a new table top cabinet (arrived today) to display some of my jewellery, and I’m busy making more of my popular ‘Sparkle Nugget’ bead sets and some mini sets.
I will have a feast of lovely jewellery and new beads for you to look at and buy, including my simple ‘beads on cotton thongs’, un-cored Big Hole Bead sets to fill your charm bracelets, my credit crunch range of fun earrings, and my selection of exclusive jewellery designs. I will have sets of lovely new beads, some current favourites, my usual bargain bowls and of course my £1 rummage bowl, always popular and a good introduction to handmade lampwork beads.
With free entry, please do come and see me, enjoy the show, meet other local and guest artists, watch art and craft demonstrations in the marquee, take refreshment (they have drinks available), stroll the grounds, and buy some locally produced art. You can download your copy of our guide and brochure from the Horsham Artists Open Studios website here.
Please note that I am only doing this part of the event this year as the Open Houses weekend clashes with the Surrey Bead Fair at the Denbies Wine Estate on 8th June.
See you there.
Easter is fast looming into view…..and that can only mean one thing, or can it? Two things happen around Easter, the first one is Big Bead Show which is rapidly speeding towards me, Saturday April 5th, Sandown Park Racecourse. I’ve been working steadily towards this, trying to spend as much time as I can in the studio but I have to say I am being somewhat hampered by other stuff. It’s a delicate balance between making new styles, old favourites and of course leaving myself time for all the other important bits too, like my marketing, cleaning and string beads, packing for the show and all the sundries involved. I’ve been having loads more fun with my new and old frits, and there will be lots of lovely new simple designs in loads of gorgeous colours.
All my free tickets for this show have now gone, thank you for being so eager! I’m on stand 43 in my usual place near the entrance, the Bead magazine stand and up near the cafe area.
I’ll be taking card payments again with my new whizzy toy, or a Chip and Pin card reader as the Bankers like to call it. So going by our past use of it, payments will be much faster, yay.
Here’s a link to apply for your card reader and Worldpay account. Please apply using my unique URL below and you will get a £10 discount on the card reader and I get a little something too for referring you (you’ll have to copy and paste this). Sounds good to me.
http://wpzinc.me/yaK67Kq2mx
Here’s some photos to whet your appetite for Saturday, and don’t forget, the early birdies catch the best choice of beads.
Hello peeps, just swinging by to say I have one space available on a 2 hour Beadmaking Taster Session this Thursday 13th Feb. This would be an excellent early Valentine present to yourself or maybe you could persuade someone to buy this for you.
2 hour tasters are great because you can just fit them into a busy schedule easily, and they give you a chance to have a go at working hot glass without spending too much, always a bonus in this finance concious era we seem to be stuck in. Although you know they do say you have to spend money to get out of a recession….that’s what I’ve heard and I’m sticking to it! Well, so along that vein maybe you should come to a 1 day course or even a 2 day course ;-).
What a lovely day we had on Saturday at the Big Bead Show. It was so nice to meet you all again, and share the excitement of the day. Visit my Facebook page to see photos of me and my stall there, and a running commentary from Dickie (he was posting as me, I was way too busy working – oops, my little secret for the day).
Today I get back into my studio to start making new beads for the next show at Newmarket, on Sunday 17th November, so I’d better get my head down quickly as I’m reliably informed that it’s a very busy one, almost like Big Bead Show, eek. I thought you might be interested to see the studio fallout from the show this weekend gone, so I’ve popped a photo of my workstation below. I have to say I will be tidying it up, I struggle to keep working with that much mess. Oh and there isn’t even more mess behind my bench, that’s a mirror reflecting the other side of the studio.
I’ve also received a new batch of frits to try from Glass Diversions in America, and I can’t wait to dig in. I have 4 large pots of some of my favourites from Robin, including 2 colour-ways that I’m using loads more of at the moment so that’s a relief knowing I won’t run out, and a mixed set of 16 mini pots to try out too (these last ages, I bought my previous batch about 7 years ago 😮 ), so exciting. Oh and I forgot my 3 freebies in mini zip loc bags. Yay, I can’t wait.
As I’m sure you know by now I love this show, I get to see so many of you, my lovely customers, and it has a real buzz about it, probably because it’s so busy, and most of you are so excited to be there. I also get to see a lot of my bead making buddies too, especially when Tuffnells Glass are there. It’s always a good opportunity to stock up without having to pay postage and nothing beats looking at all the lovely glass colours and tools and frit and……
So today I’m putting the finishing touches to my brand new stock (that means pricing up, lol 😉 ), sorting out and reducing a few more bargains for my SALE bowl of focals and sets, checking my stationary quantities (boring), sorting yet more bargain single beads and having a general ‘surplus bead clearout’ (yipee) and lastly packing my boxes ready for the off tomorrow. I really hope that I get an earlier night tonight rather than the usual late one I always seem to have before a show. I must also make sure I pack my huge tub of celebrations, not really sure where that is going to go, but please make sure you get yours when you spend over £10……single chocy that is not whole tub 🙂
Here’s a pic of some spooky spooks and smashing pumpkins that I made for last years’ show……..I have made more and a few penguins with Santa hats and they’re soooooo cute.
Tuition date – one space still remaining for tomorrow, Weds 11th September 10 – 5pm, contact me now….go on, treat yourself, you know you want to.
What has happened to the weather, it’s been so good this summer, heatwave last week, and now it’s cold, damp and wet. I invested in a portable air conditioning unit for my studio during the summer and never got a chance to use it, but it’s now happily in place and we’ve had a mini swap around so I’m ready for anything the weird weather throws at me, heatwave or cold day tomorrow when I teach….bring it on!
It’s been a long summer break but I’m back with a vengeance and so are you by the looks of it, my Etsy sales went mad last week, and it was all I could do to keep up. My Etsy shop is restocked with my current best sellers and I’m planning to add some new sets. Unfortunately this depends on when DickieDooda can process the latest batch of photos, and I’ve kind of scuppered him temporarily by making him break down his current computer set up so we can decorate and reorganise the room he works in…oh dear, I didn’t think that one through did I? Anyway I have added one new mini set today, Islands in the Sea.
If you can’t visit tomorrow then we will all be in our separate venues around Horsham next weekend, 22nd and 23rd June for the artists trail. I’m at venue 5 with Angela Jenkinson, address in on my events page Of course you are very welcome to attend both venues, we have a new video of me creating glass beads tomorrow and next weekend, and you can see me actually working the hot glass next weekend at Venue 5.
The sun is shining, and at last I’m feeling excited about making beads again, so much so that I can’t stop smiling. Rick and our daughter are off in Brighton today, a trip we promised her in half term. Of course I’m running behind in my preparations as usual, this time due to the untimely loss of my brother, which took time out of my usual schedule to plan the funeral service and after ‘do’ and to generally try to come to terms with it. Stuff like this really does mess with your head, but also brings more questioning about life and ‘regrets’, and once again I’ve decided I must have more fun, more me time and more exercise.
I made the difficult decision this morning to stay home and work for Open Studios next weekend, and I’m so glad I did. I’m determined that whatever I do today I’m going to have fun, and I do believe I will. So I thought I’d pop on by here and do a quick post to say ‘yay’, and I can’t wait to get into my blue studio and make lovely beads!
Here’s a snap of some beads I’ve already made for my rummage pot.
Half term this week, yes, again! I’ve been sorting out the stuff we need to finish off our extension. Life passes so fast, and it can be hard to make time for some of things we need to do, so this week has been full of internet searches, phone calls to companies to help me solve some of the little problems, and various orders placed. As I type our floor is on it’s way from Sweden, so I’m getting excited now.
I’ve also been a busy bee restocking my Etsy shop, which for me is filling up nicely, I have 40 items for sale, so a really nice selection. The funny thing is every time I pop some green beads in they sell really fast, so the colour range has a bit of a gap in it. I will be on a green mission next week when I get into the studio again.
Of course Valentines day came and went last week, and I was so busy teaching that we made Saturday our Valentines day. I spent the afternoon preparing a lovely chocolate and raspberry cream cake from Nigellas’ ‘Feast’ recipe book. It was supposed to be the shape of a heart but instead I made it round, it still looked Valentiny because of the chocolate and raspberries on top, and the yummy pink cream and raspberry filling. Delish!
Thank you so much to the few of you who came to the Ardingly bead fair 2 weeks ago and bought my beadies. Even though I didn’t have many takers, I was very pleased to cover my pitch fee, so again, a huge thank you, you made my day :>). We had a lovely chilled (literally) and relaxed day out, watching the snow, enjoying Paul’s announcements over the tanoy, chatting to the other stallholders and quaffing coffee and tea. We packed up early and got home at about the time the show normally closes, even after stopping to take some snowy photos…must work out how to get them off my phone. The good news is I now have a lovely stock of new beads, and new posh photos, so I have started adding new stock to my Etsy shop.
On another strand (see what I did there?!) it’s done…my tax return was finished last Saturday, after a 7Â day long slog of accounts, losing receipts, finding receipts, and general agony! and now, please sit down before you read this…..I’ve made a start on this current years accounts…..I say every year that I’m going to do this, and don’t, but this time I have, although it remains to be seen just how far I get. Of course all the missing receipts (6 months worth) from the tax return I’ve just done, were discovered while going through my green plastic wallet of receipts…why I didn’t see them when I looked several times before I really don’t know. So they’re now checked off too and the ones that got missed are ready in the wings. This is far too efficient, and rather boring, so I’m going to stop there and pop in some eye candy.
