Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Tues afternoon

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.

Monday evening

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.

Wednesday tea time

Hellooo there, and welcome back. Open Studios are over for another year, and we had a very successful fortnight. Thank you to everyone who came to see me at Sedgwick Park and then at Angela’s in Pondtail Drive. I have to say I loved being at Sedgwick park, it was such a buzz, and a really lovely venue.

So now it’s back to normality and preparations for the Beadwork Fair at Ardingly on Sunday July 21st, I actually started today and also made beads to restock my Etsy shop, which got raided (in a nice way…lots of sales) and needed topping up. I have been preparing some new sets for your delection, so pop over and have a look-see. Here’s one to start you off.

Back on the topic of house and garden, I’m supposed to be sorting the gardens this year, but it’s already July, eeeek! I’m dying to visit Hampton Court Flower show again next week, but have to keep telling myself that my day (and money) would be better spent actually gardening and buying some plants/landscaping materials/someone else’s labour. You see the problem is, that I love the idea of having a designer garden to sit in, but find whenever I do garden, that it’s always the same….i.e. pulling out the weeds I pulled out 4 weeks ago. How dull is that? So what’s a girl to do? I obviously need a low maintenance design, and someone to do the boring stuff as I’m’ always so busy……..food for thought…..maybe I should go to the show and get some (more) inspiration …. now where did I put my RHS card?

Saturday evening
It’s Open Studios weekend 1 and this year we’ve kicked off with Horsham Artists in Action @ Sedgwick Park house, a beautiful private manor house in lovely gardens, which are open tomorrow as part of the National Garden Scheme.
We had a brilliant start to the weekend last night with a very lively and well attended Private View open by the Mayor of Horsham, fortunately the sun shone, the wine was flowing, canapés were consumed and we had wandering minstrels too (the playing type that is, not the choclit ones!) and a lovely June evening was had by all. Today we welcomed lots of visitors and look forward to many more tomorrow. There is an amazing amount of talent to be seen at this show, our first large show as a collective in Horsham, with many colourful paintings, ceramics, jewellery, photography, sculpture, glass, textiles and of course my original glass beads and jewellery.
Do come and see us tomorrow, we’re all really happy to be together! It makes a change from the isolation of Open Studios and means we can all get to enjoy each others art.

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.

You can download your guide here at the Horsham Artists Open Studios new website.

I look forward to welcoming you to one of these events.