Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Monday evening

Hello. It’s nice to have a bit of time to blog again, but oh dear, I didn’t realise it had been nearly one week, eek. I’ve been spending the past week designing a few new pieces of jewellery to put in my cabinet at the Surrey Guild gallery in Milford, and generally making up new pieces and organising everything I need to do for this. I hope to get this set up this Thursday, so look out for details later this week. I’ve also been preparing for 2 days of selling this week at the Bromley Adult Education Centre where I attend a class one afternoon a week. It’s lovely to have a day focused on jewellery making, which was how I got started on this lampworking obsession, and time with other people who love designing and making jewellery, and going to similar exhibitions and events. It’s very easy to become insular when doing any type of work or craft alone at home every day, although my joining a few groups has been very good with making new friends locally who love all things arty.

Anyways, this evening I’m taking a bit of a rest and am sitting on the settee with my feet up. I know things are going to get more frantic as my local craft fairs start this Saturday, and I have to start restocking my jewellery for sale by the weekend and want to have my batteries recharged at least a bit so I can work efficiently. I’m resisting the urge to go and clean all the beads that my last 4 students have made. I’ll do them tommorrow, hee hee, honest govner. Evening all.

Tuesday evening

Well hello there, at last a few minutes time to blog. We had so much to do to get the studio ready to accommodate 2 students, which included changing a worktop, buying under bench storage frames, sorting shelves for them, reorganising tools, glass, and generally moving everything, that poor Richard didn’t really get to celebrate his birthday properly yesterday. Added to that I was teaching all day Saturday, and we were out all day Sunday, and I was out all day yesterday so we’ve only just stopped. I think that may be why a migrane is threatening to rear it’s ugly head. Mind you, at least the floor got a quick wizz of the hoover this morning (cheers rick).

So the good news is that we had a lovely day today, we all fitted in the studio nicely, my students made some fab beads and were really pleased with themselves. My studio looks great without the shelves and now needs a lick of paint to make the remaining section of wall white, and a bit of time to cut lengths of waste pipe and glue them to the shelves to make a posh rod storage thingy-ma-jig. While tomorrow my next panic starts, ho hum….I really know how to get snowed under with stuff to do. Night all.

Saturday evening

Brrrrrrrrrrr. It’s definately cooling down for winter. It was 0.5 deg C in my studio yesterday morning and 5 deg C today, although Rick had put the heater on to warm it up before we went out there. I’ve had the joy of teaching several beginner beadmakers lately and have 2 more coming together next week, so it’s a relief to finally get my spare oxygen concentrator and second torch hooked up and working. Rick changed part of the worktop last week so we can accommodate a second student, and I’ve been buying the bits to furnish a second workstation and to posh up my glass storage, which at the moment consists of long cardboard boxes stowed on the shelves in the studio. Those are coming out to make room for 3 people at once in the studio (2 students and little ole’ me). Oh it’s so exciting, I love changes, especially when it’s for the better.

Of course I will be sticking to my one to one lessons, so if you book on your own, that booking is one to one, unless of course you want to bring a friend to learn with you. I will never add another person to a one to one booking that has already been made, but I’ve had so many requests for 2 friends together lately that we felt we needed to do something. I’m off to put me feet up with a coffee now, have a good weekend.

Thursday afternoon

Oh it feels good to be alive. I’ve had another one of my days out, well it feels like it, even though I was technically working. I had another lovely drive this time through the leafy Sussex countryside over to Haslemere, were I was manning the Surrey Guild exhibiton this morning. My route there took me through Petworth and Midhurst and various other beautiful villages, and up and along an amazing tree covered hill will stunning views over the woods and fields below, with the occassional glint of sun reflecting on pools of water. There were various tree lined lanes and really dark wooded parts along the way and the buidings en route were gorgeous.

Haslemere itself is a lovely town, I popped out to grab a sandwich and caught a very quick look up the High Street. I came home via the villages on a more direct route that I discussed with a couple of the volunteers at the museum. With the sun shinning and the autumn hues surrounding me, I have to say my heart was singing all the way.

It’s so good to get out of the house and explore this glorious countryside, and I hope this is the start of lots of good trips out from being a member of the Guild….I think it is.

Tuesday evening

I’m very pleased to tell you that my application to join the Surrey Guild of Craftsmen was accepted the other week, and that I’ve already started my first exhibition with a few of the other guild members (no point hanging around). The exhibition is at Haslemere Educational museum in Surrey, it started today and continues until 18th November. For more details please visit my events page.

The really good news about this is that it brings various opportunities to exhibit and sell throughout the year in addition to having a place in the Guild gallery in Milford, near Godalming, and of course a whole new group of artists to meet and share with. I’m really looking forward to what this will bring in the coming year, so please keep checking back to stay in touch with where I will be exhibiting next.

Friday evening

I’m so glad that week’s over, I’m champing at the bit to get on and make my new pieces of jewellery for my Christmas events and can’t wait for next week when I get the house back to myself and I can go back to my studio and make some beads. Today saw the end of the holiday club, isn’t it funny how long it takes to prepare for these things and decorate a room, compared to how long it takes to dismantle it and chuck the rubbish in the bin. Actually it’s a bit sad really. Anyway the kids all enjoyed it and their parents got a well deserved break every day even if we didn’t!

We also went into Horsham this afternoon with friends to have fun at the steam fair which comes to the Carfax every autumn half term. And yipee, Hawkins Bazaar have returned again, probably until mid January if the last couple of years are anything to go by. I love the stuff in their shop, it’s crammed full of all those daft things any self respecting kid had in their stocking at Christmas, Sea Monkeys, whirly things, widgets and all sorts. Paradise.

Wednesday evening….

…..already, and half term is supposed to be a break! I’m helping run a holiday club for kids every morning this week and it’s very difficult finding time to blog and fit in bits of work…suffice it to say this is the first chance I feel I’ve had to blog. Of course this time last year we were recording songs for an album, and getting choir sounds with 4 people. That must mean my blog is over 1 year old, so woo hoo, and happy birthday (belated) blog. There’s lots of stuff happening that relates to my business at the moment (even though I can’t sit and make beads or jewellery at the moment), and I hope to reveal all soon.

On another note Rick and I had a good laugh watching one of Fanny Craddocks old cookery programmes last night. You don’t realise how far things have come until you watch the old stuff. She was very chatty in her delivery, and constantly mentioned saving money and being economical with ingredients. All the food looked grey (black and white) and it was soooo hard to be inspired by anything she presented. But the funniest of all was the way she kept coughing into her hands in turn, then handling the food she was preparing and had prepared! She was a smoker by what I gleened watching the wonderful Julia Davies in ‘Frightened of Fanny’ the other night. Classic TV.

Friday evening

Well my head down effort this week and last has paid off, and I have exciting news. But I’m not going to let you in on that yet, suffice it to say I now have a champers headache, ouch, I need to make a coffee.

I had a real panic hour or so today, as I felt I was swimmimg in treacle with all the jobs I’ve given myself to do, so I went to my trusty ‘jobs to do list’ that I started in March this year, and haven’t updated since May. I’ve updated it, and even though it’s still just as long, it was great to see I had actually completed several of my objectives this year, and had great pleasure deleting them to replace them with different jobs. Now I’ve written what I need to do in a proper list I feel I can tackle jobs one by one and make progress. I must be a real sado. Off now to get me coffee.

Tuesday evening

I thought I’d better pop in and say hi. I’ve had my head down again, desperately trying to get an important project done (not telling you what that is, in case it all goes wrong). Of course it involves glass beads and a bit of silver, isn’t it great to realise you need a particular colour glass bead and be able to pop out to the studio and knock a few out? The only drawback is that you have to wait for the kiln to heat up and then wait for your beads while it goes through the anneal cycle.

I have several jobs on the go as usual, my favourite at the moment has to be organising a batch of 30 T shirts which I’m having printed, actually this year it’s a full colour iron on motif. Previous years have been screen printed.

The bad news is that my daughter finishes school tommorrow for half term, so I shouldn’t really be working for the next 11 days, but I will be fitting in stuff as and when I can. Night all.

Friday afternoon

What a beautiful country England is. I’ve had the most lovely day today, driving through some of the nicest countryside, mainly woods from Horsham to Farnham. I thought I’d take a day off working to go to a couple of galleries I’ve wanted to visit for a long time now, and to see how long it would take to get there. It was an incredible drive though gorgeous woods most of the way, which is unusual, couple that with the season being Autumn and you have a great combination. Parts of the road cut through high tree lined banks where old knarled roots twisted over the mud and had a really old feel to them. The drive there was among patches of fog which wafted mysteriously between the trees, while the journey home saw lots of sunshine pouring through the leaves and dappling the ground in light. Awesome.

The great thing about a day out like today, is that it lifts my spirits. I feel so happy inside and really refreshed and relaxed after my hard slog of the last couple of months, especially Sunday. I came home ready to pick up my daughter from school and felt so different, like I’d been on holiday. Even the walk to school felt different, it’s so wierd, but good what 3 or 4 hours doing something you really love with no pressure can do.

Wednesday morning
Morning all. I got told off Monday for bad spelling, grammer, punctuation and all, so lets hope today’s entry is more coherant, it should be, I’m feeling a bit more with it but not completely yet.

I now have the pre-Christmas lull ahead of me, it’s the calm before the storm, and although I have my job targets set for the week my thoughts are also turning towards my Christmas panic which I always get into because of the fairs and orders I get last minute. Somehow the cards never get sent until after the last posting day, and we’re always up at 2am Christmas day finishing off the pressie wrapping. Now this isn’t because we’re greedy and give each other bucket loads of presents, but because we’re both very fortunate to have huge families on each side who all get along well.

So this year I’m thinking very seriously about what I can do now to ease the stress and prevent my Christmas day migraine that’s occured 3 times now (and boy they were real humdingers). Trouble is it feels very strange doing stuff like writting cards and buying presents so early, especially since I set myself the rule when I was younger about not starting to think about Christmas until after my birthday near the end of November.

So here’s something to change the subject back to Autumn, a picture or 2 of the Virginia Creeper that grows so voraciously on the fence at the end of our garden. I took these on Saturday morning, and they have a real rich colour tapestry feel to them.  Today, 5 days on, the mass of leaves are now more  golden yellow and orange, with hardly any dark green and only acid green shades remaining.

Monday morning

I’m back. I haven’t really been away but it feels like it, having had my head down getting ready for Harrow. It was manic last week, spending every hour possible in my studio making new beads (yipee), cleaning them (yuk) and then Saturday photographing them (thank you Rick) and pricing them up (boring). I made several new favourites last week, and it was lovely to see them sell early on in the day, always reassuring that but also a bit sad that I can’t enjoy looking at them this week. Oh well, I do have my photos. Or should I say we’ll always have photos…….we watched Red Dwarf when we got home last night, the episode called Camille where Kryton falls in love with what turns out to be a blob, then they go on to reenact Cassablanca. Sorry, rambling, but I would recommend Red Dwarf (series 4 episode 1). I’ll be putting the new boxed set All the Shows 5 to whatever it is on my Christmas list. Although I didn’t like the last one so much cos it got all posh with film type production instead of the low budget, wobbly set, naff sound I loved at the start. Not at all like Blake 7 wobbly sets that they took so seriously….but oh, I’m starting to sound like a sci fi geek.

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.

Tuesday Morning

Oh yes, I’m still a bit shakey after having an unexpected dental hygene appointment. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s someone mucking around in my mouth, I even hate me mucking around in there. It was all a rush job really, cos I missed my last one and forgot this one and had to rush full pelt after they so kindly rang and reminded me! nnngggh.

Oh well, I tried thought diversion therapy this morning as I sat back in the chair, and imagined the process of lampworking. I was struggling to make a bead so imagined that I was sculpting a beautiful off mandrel autumnal leaf a bit like the one in my NEW SHOP! and it worked, to an extent. So now I’m home, and calming down (still a bit shakey – don’t like dentists) I don’t want to eat or drink anything cos I don’t want to mess up my nice clean gob. Oooo, this could be a good way to diet.

ps. 8.5 deg C in studio toady at 11am, definately cooling down now.

Sunday evening

I’m sat here at last (while Rick watches the last 2 LOST episodes – for the 3rd time (am I going to miss Sawyers character!)) bringing you news that at long last I have a shop on my site. And not only that but there are actually things in there to buy. Woohoo. Not many things but a small selection to tempt your tastebuds, after all I do have the Harrow bead fair next Sunday. So please follow the link to my shop and have a wander around, dont forget to charge your glass on the way and please come back regularly to see what’s new, now I have the shop it will be stocked regularly.  Ooh, Ricks just added the shop link at the top so we’re ready to roll.  3…..2……1……open

Friday evening

At last we can stop worrying because the roof leaks no more. We used to have a hole the size of a football in the sofit at the back, where birds would fly in and nest. Of course everytime they flapped in the hole it got a little bit bigger. The roof guy cleared out several nests front, back and sides as well as the wasp nest and we are now bird and wasp proof woopee. There are now several very confused and disgruntled birds in the back garden, Rick saw 2 this evening, one was hanging onto the wall for dear life just below where the hole used to be and was tweeting up to his matee on the gutter who was looking very quizickly down at where the hole used to be and tweeting back angrily. Very funny. I hope to bird watch from the lawn tommorrow and see if word has spread! It’s OK though, just in case anyone’s concerned about eggs and stuff, we made sure that nesting and the like was over before we had the work done.

I’ve been working like mad all day taking pictures, editing them and writing information for my new shop which is opening extremely soon, like in the next few days. So please watch this space, or rather the menu bar across the top. Don’t forget to bring your glass of champers for the grand reveal!

Have a great weekend!

Wednesday night

I’m exhausted.  The seminar in the Arts Centre in Horsham today was excellent.  We had 4 different 55 minute long sessions on various art promotion subjects, and each session managed to pack in masses of information and tips.  Now I have to let this sink in and work out how I’m going to use my new found ideas.  It was lovely to see a few familiar faces of artists I met during the RAG Open Houses, and to meet other artists ranging from painters to actors and musicians.

While I was out cavorting with the struggling artists (lol) we had the sofit at the back of the house replaced.  They removed loads of birds nests and a beautiful old wasps nest.  It’s such a relief to know that the hole has gone and no bidies (oops, typo, that should be birdies) or waspies can get in the roof anymore, and that the structure of the roof is sound.

Tuesday evening

Oh that’s too funny. The last 2 episodes of this season of Lost, and more questions! lol. Although I have to say that several questions were answered and my suspisions regarding the cause of the plane crash were confirmed, that is if anything on the show is to be believed. I can’t believe it’s all over again! Now I have to go and do a packed lunch and toddle off to bed. I’m attending a seminar for artists tommorrow about making art work (as a business that is, not making ‘artwork’) so I need to get some zzzzzzds. Poor Rick has to work from home to make tea for the roof people, although I think he’s relieved. He was hoping to tweek the TV arial this week, but chickened out this evening after he viewed the street from the eaves! lol.

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……..

Thursday evening

Well I managed it yesterday. I took some brill pictures of a jewellery commission for my friend who came round last Thursday and I actualy cleaned 3 pots full of beads. Hurrah! I tried using a different bit in my cordless whizzy thang and it sped up the operation no end.

And what about the weather? Hasn’t it been fab yesterday and today. I had a lovely day making beads in my garden studio today, and thought I’d carry on into the evening since Rick’s cooking, but I ended up being chased out by several wasps and being tickled by numerous Crane flies who then committed harakiri one by one. I have to say it’s the wasps that really suck, we have a wasps nest in the tree 3 metres from the door of my studio, and they love the airflow made by the torch and the fan, unfortunately it draws them in rather than away. They also seem to be attracted by the light in the darkness. rats. So here I am blogging instead of beading. Oh well.