Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Friday morning

It’s done, it’s dusted, it’s over for another year and now I can do what I want, yay. Yes my tax submission is done, thank you Mel, you’re a star. Now I’m planning to get as much done for this current year as I can in the next couple of weeks, but we’ll see how that goes. I expect once the initial enthusiasm has worn off nothing much will happen.

Unfortunately even though I was getting better I seem to have now come down with another cold, which is giving me my usual face ache symptoms, so I don’t feel like doing much at all today really. I should probably to go and see if I can buy a little florists wire for a project that I’m doing at the youth club tonight, and get the refreshments, but apart from that I could take it easy I suppose.

I have new beads in my Etsy shop, not restocked old designs but some new styles of dotties and a couple of Valentine themed sets. I’ll be putting more up today but for now here’s a taster of what is new…..p.s. I have a couple of tuition dates available, the first one is 1 space on a one day Beginners class on Tuesday 1st Feb coming next week. Contact me now to book your place on this fab lesson.

Friday morning

Wow what a week, I was going to post earlier than today but I’ve been a bit busy, again. This week I had the pleasure of attending another course, this time with the marvellous Andrea Guarino who came over from America to teach at Creative Glass. She has now gone to Zurich to their Swiss head office to teach a couple more classes. We had a fabulous 2 days with Andrea, who showed us how to make several of her bead designs, mainly to teach the techniques she uses to alter the appearance of the simple Effetre glass palate. We learnt some reactive  twistie recipes and some neat tricks for colour reactions. We also got to play with some of Jim Moores’ fabulous tools, something I’ve been intrigued by for a long time, and we loved them so much that we had to have a tool lottery to fairly decide who could buy what tool. I fortunately got second or third dibs and got the tool I was desperate to own, a large one and a half inch lentil masher. I was seen stroking this tool at some point and there is a photo of me doing this lurking on t’interweb somewhere. Andrea is great fun and a very generous teacher, and I’d thoroughly recommend going on one of her courses if the opportunity arises.

The course was also made very memorable by my friends who attended it. We had a real blast, and all got on very well with each other and Andrea, the guys at Creative Glass haven’t ever heard so much laughter at one of their courses before. Unfortunately the down side of all this is that I’m rather weary again, having had 2 intense days of tuition, a late night out for a meal with the lasses and 2 days manic driving back and forth to Rochester. Oh well, it was so worth it.

Today I’m catching up with stuff, listing more goodies on Etsy …. keep an eye out for new stuff during the day……and getting really stuck in to sorting my work for the Bank Gallery Exhibition that we set up in 11 days time. Oh and I have to check how my laminate floor will look when put in my studio.

Some photos of the course with Andrea

Monday lunchtime

I’m procrastinating again….can you believe it? And this time it’s not tax or accounts, oh no, it’s sorting out my insulation and lining for my studio. I hate planning stuff when I’m not totally sure what I’m doing, or when I have too many design issues to resolve before I can do it, one reason why we still haven’t decked out the back yet (I want to get too many things out of the project). So what’s the hold up this time? I’m not sure, but I can tell you I’m feeling absolutely drained of enthusiasm or energy. I want to curl up into a little ball and snooze right now. But I can’t, I have to get this stuff ordered, especially as there’s a pesky bank holiday this Friday. Also the sooner I get this ordered, the sooner I can get back to play (sorry, work) at bead making. I’m sure that will be tomorrow now, and if that’s not incentive enough I don’t know what is!

I have a couple of places on glass beadmaking courses to fill again

1 place on a 1 Day Beginners Course Thurs 1st April……yes, that’s this Thursday!!!!!

…..1 place on a 2 Day Beginners Course Tues 25th to Weds 26th May……

contact me now to book your place

And I have also put yet more beads in my Etsy shop, here’s a taster….I know, I still can’t get over how regularly I’m doing this.

Friday afternoon

Life. It never goes to plan. It’s always unexpected. Wa hay, it’s fun isn’t it? Never knowing what’s around the corner, be it good or bad? I’m one of those people who likes a challenge, and I like problem solving, and I believe I’m flexible too. I’m saying this because today I had lots planned, but haven’t been able to do much of it because my poor daughter is home with a little sick bug. Fortunately she seems to be over the worst of it and is now feeling hungry, so that’s probably a good sign. I was thinking of taking the morning off, moseying into town to get my new spectacles adjusted….you know you’re getting older when you get your first varifocals, I couldn’t bear the thought of visible bi-focals making me look older than I am! I was then maybe going to treat myself to a coffee in Costa, then go home and leisurely make beads this afternoon.

But instead I’ve been updating my website, adding new events, writing news for my front page, answering contact forms and getting up to date with little tasks that suddenly seem to have piled up. I’ve been so intent on getting my Etsy shop up and running, and updating it on a regular basis that I seem to have let other stuff slip. I can’t win! Speaking of Etsy, I have added more new beads this week! And I have had my first ever sale to America, so exciting (for me anyway, I’m easily pleased). I really will have to go and lie down in a dark room if I keep this up…which I am doing! Look, there’s photos below of the new beads!

I have also 1 new place on a course, One Day Beginners Beadmaking on Thurs 13th May. Drop me an email to book this place. Have a great weekend.

Thursday morning

How many musicians can you fit in a cluttered lounge?….lets see…..2 violinists, 1 cellist/guitarist, 1 keyboard player, 1 saxophonist, 1 flautist, 1 trumpeter, 1 bass player (that’s me) and 1 on Bodhran (to be full drums on Saturday)…yay 9! Ok so Rick didn’t have drums out but we were pretty full and enjoyed playing live music last night to practice for Saturday. I wonder what our neighbours thought! It’s OK though as we kept the volume down like last year. tee hee. We all gelled really well and it sounded great. It’ll be fun on Saturday when we have our visiting instrumentalist join us and they play through our stops and quiet bits, lol.

I know you’re amazed, and so am I, but I have yet more new beads for sale, they’re in my Etsy store and here’s a teaser….

I hope you like them, and there will be more to come in the next few weeks. Don’t forget you can click the link on the left to get there speedy fast.

Wednesday morning

It’s all change here I tell you! I had my Grand Etsy shop opening last Thursday, well I say grand but what really happened was I put 4 items up for sale and did a tiny bit of promotion. And guess what…..I’ve already made 2 sales…..and I have restocked the shop again too…..phew, I think I need a lie down now, the excitement is getting too much! lol. And have you noticed more changes here? You can now find a link straight to my Etsy shop in the left hand toolbar of my blog and shop. This has a few sneaky peeks of what is on offer over there, so do have a mosey on down and see what’s occurring. Also you’ll notice a link to Twitter, where I will be announcing when I have new pieces in my Etsy shop and this website shop. So if you want to keep up with my latest work, you can become a follower.

As well as this I have also restocked my shop here with some new bead sets, perfect for a Valentine present, and here’s a peek……

Today the kiln is heating up as I write, I’ve sort of made Wednesday my main bead making day, with another day thrown in each week if I can. Of course this will be subject to change as my teaching schedule is very varied from week to week. I still have a space for one person on Wednesday 17th March on a One Day Beginners Course and if you’re wanting to learn but this date doesn’t suit then I still have days available in my diary to pick from. Contact me for more details or if you want this date. Life is certainly never predictable or dull here.

I’m going to put a photo here of my favourite set at the moment, which sold from Etsy, but I’m planning to make some more so keep a look out for them. This set is called Silver Waters and has dreamy transparent shades of blue, turquoise and teal with a pastel spiral inside and a slight golden glow when you view the beads from the side.

Toodles……..I’m off to play with my hot glass (in the snow)(It’s snowing here)(slightly)(ish).

Tuesday morning

This blog post is coming to you from my new super doopa shiney laptop…..and it’s taken me all morning just to get to this point…..gah! So after weeks of looking and waiting I finally took the plunge and got the one we’d settled on before Christmas, which had gone up £20 over the new year (they said it was the VAT increase but it was way more than it should have been) but then suddenly came down by £70, so I’m well pleased I waited. Dickie Doo Dah very patiently spent all last evening laboriously transfering all my files from the old one to this (thank you!) and warned me this morning that I might struggle to find stuff….ha ha…that’s the understatement of the new year….and where’s my spellcheck for this blog gone? Please excuse any extraenous letters (or missing ones) that may pop up in your face. At least I don’t appear to have stickey keys again, you know (or maybe you don’t), ones you press but don’t appear to leave a letter on the screen! These new ones are just very clicky, but I think I like that.

We had a fab day at Ardingly last Sunday, thank you all for coming to say hello and buying my beads, meeting you guys is what makes our day at these events. Unfortunately the preparation and the day itself left me absolutely exhausted again, so much so that I was really flaked out for most of last week. The bad news was that Dickie managed to break our new Pump Pot before the show even began, and we’d only had the pleasure of using it on two occasions before Ardingly. Do they do spare glass flasks for these?  It’s looking very much like they don’t. BUT The good news is that I did manage to get my accounts and tax sorted out in time, and I’m sat indoors today in my new bid to be a good girl and do all things admin at least one day a week. Although the rate I’m progressing with this new pooter I will be here all week before I get anywhere…lol. I’m planning to get some more new pieces in my shop or my new Etsy shop this week, but I will let you know when I do. Toodles.

Thursday evening

If you have come here via Bead Magazine welcome! and welcome also if you’ve arrived via my advert in the Making Jewellery courses supplement. I have new course vacancies on my tuition page and these are currently changing daily.

I’m very pleased to be featured in Bead magazine in the ‘Makers Profile’ slot this month, and if you’ve read the article you’ll know that my objectives for this year are to direct my business to be a more web- based one. To that end we’ve been working really hard the last week to bring my web site up to date and give it a bit of a makeover. I’m very pleased with how it’s looking now. I have a lovely fresh gallery with lots of lovely photos, and an updated front page (thank you Dickie). I’ve also re-stocked my bead shop at last, the first of many re-stocks this year. I have other changes to make but I’m not going to bore you with that, it’s for me to do and you to find when I’ve done it!

I’ve also been very busy this week getting ready for the bead fair at Ardingly this Sunday. I will have my usual mix of colourful beads, some new silver chains suitable for my Cloud Beads and I’m having a bit of a spring clear out so will have some reduced price sets and of course I’m refilling my popular bargain pots. Do come and say hello.

Here’s a peek at the new beads in my shop

Friday Morning

New beads are in my shop! I know, only one month after the last restock, that’s very good going for me, you see I can stick to my new year resolutions if I try. There’s a taster below to tempt you, so go shopping in my bead shop and grab yourselves your favourites before they go!

Ooooh, I nearly forgot, 2 more bits of news, firstly The Tempest Exhibition has started touring Europe, and is at Creative Glass in Zurich until 29th March, with further venues to be announced. Ten new artists work has been added and a new catalogue with these extra photos has been produced.

Second bit of news and the most exciting is that at last I have some beads published in one of the new Bead magazines available from newsagents and bead shops. The photo is my entry that I was designing last December for the competition in Beads & Beyond, and I’m really pleased to have it shown on Page 62 of the current April issue. I really don’t care if I win or not, although it would be nice to win, but my main reason for entering was to help increase awareness of our British Handmade Glass Beads, and also hopefully have my set in print and get a bit of free advertising, which it is, so woo hoo.

Here’s a taster of what’s new in my shop…

Thursday evening

I have restocked my shop! There are 8 new beautiful sets of beads for you to buy, 4 with a distinct pink Valentines theme going on, especially the dotty heart set. You can email me to buy and I’ll send you a Paypal invoice in return, and the good news is that you don’t need to have a Paypal account to shop this way. I also opened a Flickr account this week and have already started uploading my hugely ginormous back catalogue of sold and unsold bead photos to my album. There’s lots of work to do there as I only have a measly 9 photos in so far, but I may well get his geekness involved in helping me here since he loves doing this sorta thang so much.

As for the photos of snow on my mobile that I was going to upload here on Monday, well, it’s official, it’s not techno-fear. Rick tried for several hours to get them off my phone card but to no avail, they’s really gotten stuck! It would appear to be a problem with Picasa so we now have that to fix also. Honestly there’s so many things here that need doing or fixing, but at least I’m starting to succeed a little way with my new years resolutions, one of those was to update my shop more regularly, and ta da, I’ve done it once this year! Another was to put more photos in my beadlog here, well you can’t say I haven’t tried.  So to make up for the lack of snow pics I’ll stuff in a couple of bead pics instead to give you a taster of what’s new in my shop.

Monday lunchtime

I’m stuck at home, well, not really stuck, but I decided to stay in today instead of venturing around the M25 on this very snowy day. Maybe I would have got to my destination, but would I have made it home again,  especially since traffic has been brought to a standstill today slap bang along the section that I would be coming home along? So I’ve had a leisurely morning, pottering around in my lovely new snugly pink fleece dressing gown (I’m dressed now BTW) and generally getting over the weekend. I have to admit to being rather distracted today, probably because I’m shattered again, and maybe because of the snow. I was expecting to get a call from school to go and collect my daughter, but they’ve obviously got enough teachers in today, what a shame, I think they should have been let off to enjoy the snow! I couldn’t really keep her home because of the weather as we only live 5 minutes walk away, I think they’d have twigged what was going on.

I was about to upload a couple of quick snow snaps but I was challenged by that awful red error box that came up twice as I tried to put them on Picassa, so you’ll have to wait until Rick gets home, so there you will. Also I hope to be updating my shop in the next few days, adding a few Valentine themed beads and some gorgeous blue Double Helix sets. We’re meant to be practising music this evening with some friends, but if the weather gets in the way of this then it may well be sooner rather than later 😉

Thursday lunchtime

At last, I have restocked my shop with some of my handmade glass beads, and I hope to add some jewellery later to the jewellery and pendants sections. Please do go and take a look see. To order just drop me an email and I’ll send a Paypal request unless you tell me otherwise.

2 deg C, that’s what it was in my studio yesterday, brrrrr, and it was soooo cold that I decided to have the heater up full blast.  That was a huge mistake, as halfway through my session something went click and I was plunged into darkness and silence as the light went off and my radio, oxygen concentrator and fan heater came to an abrupt stop. Oh dear, my first thought was that we had just had a power cut, but a quick whizz up to the house to inspect the many clocks and appliances told me otherwise. An hour later and I had pulled myself together and found the blown fuse in my new Wattmeter, removed it from the circuit and managed to have lunch too.

So today, I just can’t bear to be outside again, its been really cold this week, and even with my thermals head to toe I’ve been feeling it. Let’s hope it warms up a bit next week, a bit of rain would help……tee hee. I’m hoping to make some icicles (glass ones, not ice ones, I know I’ve been complaining about the cold snap), some big holed beads for my lovely Pandora bracelet that Rick gave me for my birthday (which reminds me I need to order some larger silver tubing), and some whopper beads to adorn some of the many beadable winestoppers I had Rick bring back from the States in October.  I’m hoping to make some of these to put in my shop, and I’m planning to make a new section for my big holed silver core beads that I made to fit the Troll System. I’m still trying to think of a suitable name for them, I wish the names came as easily as the designs.

Hi there…Richard here again…

Just a quite note to let you know the Sarah will now not be sharing a stall at the Essex bead fair this Sunday due to still being in Hospital with our daughter… But… Judith Johnston will still be going, and will have a whole stall full of her luscious beads !!!

Sarah is not wasting the time in hospital, but is coming up with several new designs and colours for beads… so the time has not been completely wasted !!!

Watch this space for some new beads in the shop in the next few weeks… (daughters health permitting of course).

Thursday evening (late)

I’m sat here propping my eyelids open with a couple of matchsticks (not really, but I am suddenly feeling very tired) so I can let you know that I have a few new beads in my shop tonight, which include Bubbles the fish, kindly named by Sooz on Frit Happens, a seasonal heart focal bead and a spring set inspired by the roof tops of the St Basil Cathedral in St Petersburg.

You may also notice a few little changes here and there, we’re having a bit of a tweak evening which should result in me being able to update some of the other pages a bit easier and adding more eye candy. Anyway I don’t really want to bore you with website waffle so I’m going to shut up now and toddle off to bed. Ta ta.

Wednesday lunchtime

I love making beads I do. I’m having a great time this morning, and just popped indoors to make a mug of coffee. I’m making huge beads today, with a view to submitting them for a couple of exhibitions, deadlines looming. So must dash.

Also I need to get some more beads in my shop, there’s been a real flurry of sales this week and I now need to restock. Thank you to everyone whose bought something this week whether in the shop or by request. There will be some lurve stuff coming in a couple of days as I’m getting in the Valentine mood and have been making hearts and lots of pink beads in general. TTFN, deadlines, you know.

Monday morning

Ho Ho HO. Less than a week to go…..I should be doing other stuff not writing my blog, but this is more fun. I’ve updated my news on the front page, so don’t forget to visit the exhibition in the Guildford House Gallery if you get a chance (one week remaining).

We popped down to the Guild gallery at Millford on Friday to top up my cabinet with yet more jewellery and a selection of my fun phone dangles. It really is selling like hot cakes at the moment which is why I’ve concentrated on keeping it restocked and you haven’t seen any fundangles or new jewellery here. I had every intention to stock my shop with more goodies before Christmas but we’ve been ridiculously busy this season with our sales and the Guild exhibitions, that most of what I’ve made and is unsold, is on display in Guildford or Millford so my apologies if you’ve been eagerly waiting for them. This is the problem with being self employed…you only have one pair of hands and a spare set in the evening if you’re fortunate to have a friend/partner who can help.

After saying all that, if you are familiar with my work and have seen something over the past few weeks that you’d really like for Christmas, please don’t hesitate to drop me an email and I’ll see what I can do, but you’ll have to be quick or we’ll miss the Christmas post.

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!

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……..