Realistic or Pretty?

Sunday morning... Usually there is lots to do, and I never get to the computer until about 11 o'clock, but yesterday it was my daughter's eighteenth birthday party, and Rod and I went away; now we are back, but people aren't up yet, so what a perfect chance to do one's blog!

I've always wanted to write about photography. Everybody knows how important it is, especially to show your beads to people who want to buy them. The beads should look good but realistic. A lot of bead artists use very strong lighting for their shots, or take photos with a flash. What I found is that all this changes the colours a lot - or is it just my camera? So I usually opt for either very soft and "peaceful" (as I call them) shots of beads on my window sill, or in the sunlight - for a much stronger sparkly effect.

For example, when I was preparing this shot for my book, which in the end didn't make it, I laid out this "Mermaids' Eyes" bracelet on the window sill and just had to wait for the right light. It happened in the end, but this was one of the most difficult shots I'd ever taken. The reduced Double Helix Triton dots have a lot of colour in them, and it changes depending on the angle at which you look at them. It was important to capture this incredible change.

This other photo shows more amazing colours you can get from Double Helix. It was taken in the open, but not in the sun, as I was worried about "overcooking" the colours - you can get a whole rainbow effect from these, but I always leave this to the customer: when they open the parcel and discover beads which look even better in real life than on the photo, I should imagine they are going to be very pleased!

Etching, Etching

As I have been unable to make beads, I have been looking at the ones I made long ago. The truth is, I love etching. The effect of this unusual matte finish on glass fascinates me. Of course, you can "get rid" of the shine and sparkle if you put some baking soda on your creation at the end, but while I'm making a bead I never actually know exactly what I'd like it to be. So there is always a choice when you get them out of the kiln: to etch or not to etch.

Full etching is easy. But, of course, now I like the idea of combining the matte and the shine, and this is where it becomes extremely time consuming. I remember, several years ago, when I was only starting, Clare Scott wrote about a set on her website how it took her ages to create this effect covering the dots with nail varnish and etching the background. Now not only I cover things, then, when they dry, I go round with a magnifying glass (no, not really, only kidding!), inspecting all the areas I want etched, cleaning the bits which were accidentally covered with varnish, or adding more nail varnish on the tiny spots and lines if I want them left shiny. Ridiculous, I say to myself. But what can I do - I'm addicted to it!

This bead is only just over an inch long (28mm), with Effetre Cobalt Blue transparent base and various stringers and twisties made with Double Helix Triton (I believe, as I made it literally ages ago!). Not a difficult bead to make, just takes time to prepare :) The "ribbon" effect in the middle is a simple twistie of white and Periwinkle Blue. I liked the "ribbon" being uneven, it adds a certain character to this pattern, it also echoes the asymmetrical effect the mirrored Triton twisties turned into. Here is a close-up. I have to say I am very pleased with the result.

I've got this very dotty bead which I now decided to etch too, so I'll show what happened later!

Becky's Blog, 111 stars and Taking Photos in the Rain :)

Becky Fairclough of Chameleon Designs, being an amazing glass artist and making amazingly beautiful beads and things, also is a truly beautiful person. Whenever I see her at fairs and meetings, she always smiles, always happy, always has a chat with her numerous friends and acquaintances. I was really happy when she told me that she ordered my book; now she received it and wrote a whole blog about it! :) You can read it on http://www.chameleonsdesigns.blogspot.com/ . I am feeling so fluffy inside! :) :) :)

Yesterday I realized that now I have 111 feedback stars on ebay! I thought it was a pretty cool number. It shows that you are not a novice, and you have sold a considerable amount of stuff, and that customers care to leave a nice feedback about what they bought from you. I always thought that once I have over a hundred of these stars I will be very pleased indeed (you see, some customers don't leave anything, and it isn't because they are dissatisfied, but they might forget or be busy). But now, of course, I am dreaming of, say, 500 stars! I don't know if I'll ever be able to produce as much as feedbacks for a 1000 items! But you never know...

Also yesterday I was very clever and I took photos of the beads I was going to put on ebay in advance. I usually list items on Friday, and usually Friday is a very hectic day: choosing and additionally inspecting beads (lots of noise, I tell you!), cleaning (for a 10th time) and polishing (for a 20th time) the beads which would be ready to be photographed, taking photos, choosing photos, tagging and naming them, ooooh! busy. Then the actual writing of the descriptions, measuring etc. When I woke up I saw a lovely sunrise, which was surprising as all night it was raining. Remembering where we live now (it rained a LOT LESS in Norfolk) I used the sunshine for these great photos of my beads. Here's one. I should have called the beads something like "Lunaglow", but this great thought only came to me this morning, so they'll just have to be simply "Lentils"!

What an Exciting Day! Mood: Busy

Yesterday was an amazing day!

First of all, the day before I received a message from this lovely guy, Kevin Clark, who got my book, which apparently arrived at his place last Saturday (wow! - 10 out of 10 to the GMC for organising themselves on time!), and he wrote a lovely note to me about it! But yesterday he allowed me to put it on my blog, so here it is:

"I received your book through Amazon on Saturday, love it. It's really well laid out and for a newbie in the lampworking field (well 4 months) makes a lot of sense. Love the fact that you can make a bead then for the jewellery makers carry on and make your piece."

Wheeee!!!!! I was thrilled!

Then all of a sudden the Making Jewellery team came back and said that they would publish this "10 Questions" thing about me in their Issue 25. Hooray, at last! One would think that as GMC Publications own the Making Jewellery mag, there would be a lot more connection between the editorial teams - well, not so! I've been nagging for ages about an article, so yes! yes! yes!!! OK, issue 25 is a long way away, it's the April issue, if I can count correctly, and this 10 Questions feature is a bit boring - the questions are all the same for everybody, they don't really fit very well with a lampworker, but never mind, this is the format - what can you do? I'm just so glad that they'll do it! So a sneaky preview of one of the photos I'm gonna use in there:

These are my "Gaillardia" beads, I make them from time to time, I just love the goldstone middles, and this green background is also one of my favourite greens. I start with white (any white really) then encase it into my favourite transparent emerald green which, I think, is now sold as "mid dark green" - I just love this shade! - so it comes out this lovely bright green with the added bonus of the following: if you decorate the surface, then you can see the shadows on the white, so it looks extra mysterious!

Next I received the actual 10 questions so I can now buckle down, which I have done actually. I sat at my computer all day, dilidently choosing the photos - only max 8. It's a real pity that I can't do any lampworking at the mo, as I've got soooo many ideas, so I'll have to use the old pix of the stuff I made in the summer. Hey! never mind! :) :) :)

Then I also approached the GBUK Newsletter team, and Sabine Little came back and said "yes" to my plan of writing a piece on how I did it with the book etc, so this was just really great news too! You never know how people might treat your contacting them: they might think that you are too pushy. But the book is out there, and I need to promote it somehow - you know what I mean!

It was raining yesterday, but I didn't notice - I was soooooo busy! Lovely-jubbly! xxx

Holiday!!! in Hurghada :)

Ahhh, we went on holiday!!!!!!!

This is the Alps!

Not that I've never been to Switzerland, but, let's say, it was some time ago, so even seeing it like this, from the window of an airplane, was very exciting.

We went to Egypt, to this interesting place called Hurghada. One of the activities was to go snorkelling to a beautiful island the name of which escapes me, but you can see our Flotilla (well, just about!), sorry the photos have to be small!

Here you can just see lots of people snorkelling. I love the colour of the sea! So much like my beloved Effetre Light Turquoise Transparent!

Rod said that this way of snorkelling wasn't very fun. There were too many people coming from too many boats, so all the wildlife, whatever had survived the noise from the boats' engines, had hidden away.

I tried some snorkelling too. Now you have to remember, that I am not a natural swimmer, but if Rod says I can do it, I will at least try! This was the scariest of my experiences in life! Even when I was going to have a baby, this wasn't so scary. I just couldn't master this "breath through the mouth" thing at all. I think, you either can do it, or you can't. Luckily for me, Rod was nearby. We had been promised dolphins, but it wasn't a dolphin who saved my life, it was my husband! I don't have a pic of me snorkelling, the children got too worried about me to take pix!

This is a happier situation - Nelli Rees is relaxing in a lovely Asian restaurant (at the resort) with a glass of wine! This was on Saturday. It was very nice indeed!

I love the sea! When we lived in Scarborough, we would often go for a walk on the seafront. People used to say, we take it for granted, but I never did. If you are born in Moscow, or, I should imagine, in any other enormously big city, with heat, and dust, and millions of cars, you never take the sea, or hills, or forests, or fields for granted. You just know how special they are.

This sea, Red, was very warm.

Up to about the day when we had to go back to England. All of a sudden a fresh wind started blowing from the sea, and everything changed. This photo was taken on our last day there, and you can see there aren't a lot of people swimming. (Lots of them were swimming in the pool, but I am not a great fan of pools - sorry!). :)

And this is the last picture of my Egyptian adventure - check out those skies!

This is "Sunrise Mamlouk Palace", booked through Thomas Cook.

The best part of it was the rooms. They were huge and, most importantly, ABSOLUTELY sound proof! I've never been at a resort with that level of sound-proofing.

We got what we wanted: to be away, in the sun, near a warm sea, to get tanned. There were some minor things, but overall it was great! This was our first holiday in five years.

Packaging

Whether one likes it or not, packaging is very important. I remember getting a parcel from my good friend Michelle of http://www.hmbm.co.uk/ (Hand Made By Me) - she makes lovely pieces from polymer clay beads - which was a bright pink shiny envelope, and getting so excited and happy just from the look of it! I, of course, like to re-cycle, so I often re-use the envelopes I get from other people: my jewellery bits and pieces, books etc. But I do pay a lot of attention to what and how I put inside. Well, of course, one doesn't want to go mental and spend lots of money on the stuff that will end up in a bin anyway, but your product has to be presentable.

I have been using these dark green boxy-things, made out of tough paper, you can open and close them on both sides. They were quite good, but not ideal: apparently, they wouldn't go through a letter-box, which is an important consideration for a lot of customers: when they are not at home, who is going to take the parcel from the postman? I'd wrap up my beads into white tissue paper, then into bubble-wrap, put them inside the green thing, wrap around some fuschia ribbon with a little dangly bit at the front - done!

But I have now run out of these. I went to Noblepac website, and the buggers have put their prices up! They obviously don't want to deal with little customers like me: if your order is less than £50.00, there is a £6.50 handling charge on top of everything else. OK, they can do without me then. So I found an alternative: http://www.bagnboxman.co.uk/, they do these little boxes which take about .1sec to put together and which look very smart!

So this is how my beads look now when they arrive: all wrapped up in white tissue paper, bubble wrap, inside a smart little box with my little Bead Mon Amour sticker on, with fuschia ribbon. I am very pleased, especially that these boxes are cheaper than the Noble ones were. AND they go through a letter-box!

This just reminds me that I need to spend some time thinking about my new logo for my new name: it's Nelli Rees Glass Art.

Making New Things Out Of Old Things

I had to fill out my "interests" section on Facebook, and this was one of my favourite things to do. Here is an example. Never throw anything out! I don't, that's why moving house is such a difficult job, I have so many things! Anyway, my daughter likes this bracelet very much, and I don't blame her: it is shiny and sparkly. Unfortunately, it was made in China, out of some very crappy material - I guess, some plastic, which later on was covered in a layer of shiny paint, so it looks like it is real silver (typical). It broke the other day, and there were tears. But don't you worry, mum is here! With her jewellery-making tools! AND her brain with bright ideas. I took a piece of sterling silver wire, attached it to one end of the links of the bracelet, put a big 8mm Swarovski on it, then connected the end to the other link. Voila! The only thing was my daughter didn't want any of my beads put into the bracelet :( Never mind, I'm used to it! :)