It was easier to make another post with these photos of the Minoan necklace than to upload them in the way I wanted them to be published! Here they are (I really don't know why they can't be on the same line!):

Making Jewellery Week

I haven't realised that a week passed since my last blog! Well, there hasn't been much of bead making this week, but more of jewellery making. I needed to make pieces for galleries, and you can see examples of what I made on the photos. Typically, when I upload pix they always get in the wrong order - oh well, the first one is a bracelet with my "Celtic" beads, the other one is a "Minoan" necklace, the beads having goldstone insertions. Since I bought some goldstone about a month ago I can't stop using it! I've got so many new designs with it, and I just love the finished look, especially when light catches it.

Of course, the initial temptation was to make the "Minoan" set with copper beads and findings - they pick up the "copperness" of the goldstone beautifully, but I also had these lovely big (8mm!) fluted sterling silver beads that I bought specifically for this set, so my copper hearts had to wait till next time! If there is ever going to be a next time - almost always I only make one piece of a particular design.

I was going to write about dots... it has to be in the next blog now!

Weekend - Doing Nothing!

Hi! Saturday and Sunday were just a couple of lazy days! We went to Cambridge to see Toy Story 3 which was surprisingly good, and we also had a barbeque, which was... even better! (Sorry I like to eat nice food!). So not much bead making, I'm afraid!

Pink and Green

Hi everybody! Sorry I have been ignoring my blog, then I realised just how diligent Rod has been with his, so here I am again!

I thought that if I just post photos with my beads it would be a bit boring, as most of the people who would come across my blog would be able to make them anyway! But if I chat about things that I find difficult while making my beads, this would possibly be more interesting, AND people might want to leave comments, as they might have encountered the same.

So... I have been working on some new designs recently. I've managed to forget about my usual desire to make things deep, symmetrical and perfect, and for a change I tried some "surface painting" as I call it. I've also tried to use different colours to the ones I usually use. So these beads have a double-colour base of pink and green (212). Pink - Tuffnell have soooo many: Light Pink, Baby Pink, Powder Pink, Angel Pink, and some time ago I decided to try them all out. For some reason - by mistake! - I bought loads of Light Pink, possibly because I'd mixed it up with Baby Pink which is more expensive. So naturally this was the choice for the new colour combination - I am like this, totally pragmatic: if you've got lots of something, use it! (Even if you hate it!). The green started "leaking" into the pink, of course, BUT only at the beginning. Soon enough I twigged that I must not heat it too much, and it's better to have less green compared to the amount of pink. This is what I've managed to produce (the photos have been taken outside with no sun, it's really cloudy here today!). I'm still thinking about the name. First inclination was something like "Playground" accompanied by the ringing tone of the same title. I don't think I'll sell a lot though with this kind of name!

Next time: all these dots on the surface - they ain't as easy as they look!

Spring has come - at last, even to Norfolk!

Been busy editing the book, so no beads!

Enjoy the lovely wether!

I have been getting tired of something that just wouldn't come out the way I want it, so I decided to make something completely different. And this is what became a new bead: I still don't know how to call it, maybe something connected with space, but I am very pleased with the result. All it is is silverleaf on black base wrapped in Double Helix and then thickly encased. Easy-peasy, really. I obviously need to get bored more often!

Today started with me checking my ebay auctions - even if I say to myself that I must not go there (it always takes an enormous amount of time as I start looking at other people's work, admiring colours and ideas, so it never ends!) that's what happens when I have some beads for sale. Anyway, today, after looking at other people's auctions, I decided to try to upload some pix on my Me page - guess what, today it happened!!! After months of trying I wasn't prepared for this sort of good luck! So now I have a couple of pix there too, like all other normal people. So... what to do now? The weather in Norfolk is so awful that I won't be able to work in the garden as planned all week - really I HAVE TO spend some time there to tidy up etc, weeds are everywhere! - excellent as I would really like to go and melt glass!

Lots of things have happened: Flame Off came and gone, I only managed to come for a couple of hours this year and only on one day, but I saw lots of people including my dear friends Marlene, Gay, Becky, and Teresa and Diana, it was good to see them doing well. The most amazing thing was that Ray Skene (yes, the Ray Skene!) commended my beads in the Flame Off competition! I was ab-so-lute-ly thrilled; the only thing is, as I have never won anything and I was completely unprepared for such great luck, I don't even have a pic of these beads. Never mind, the good GBUK organisers have got one, so if you are interested you can view it on www.gbuk.org.