Experimentation

I wonder how my creative life would have turned out if Youtube had existed when I was growing up?  My daughters aged 10 have cottoned onto the Loom Band craze and have access to a plethora of how-tos on Youtube, they have been happily working up different styles of chain and one of them even made a guinea pig!

I decided to have a little look at Youtube, something I do occasionally, and I came across Stephanie Serisch the Corning Museum of Glass.  I have been experiencing a creative drought when it comes to beadmaking so I decided to give an off-mandrel pendant a go!  The whole process was completely alien; working off the end of a mandrel, using a punty to remove pendant from mandrel, applying a loop and then removing punty.   I was very chuffed to find my pendant in one piece when I opened the kiln.

 You can see on this front view where I had the pendant attached to the punty, I didn't manage to melt the dot smooth.

This shot shows the back of the pendant.  My freesytle loop went abit wonky and I could have melted the back to a smoother finish.

However, all-in-all I have to say I am rather chuffed with the end result and I will definitely work on the technique.

Behind the Scenes

I have been busy behind the scenes making jewellery for my upcoming craft fairs and home parties.  You can see some of the items I have made in my Folksy shop.  Must dash got loads more to make, here is a pic of my latest bead set.

I hope it hasn't been too wet and windy on your neck of the woods.

Some bits to share

I was thinking of making this post a summer catch up but we did so much I could be here until Christmas, especially considering the regularity with which I update this blog.... Suffice to say it consisted of lots of trips out, catching up with friends, eating lots of ice cream, a week in France and sun sun sun!

I thought I would share a few of my recent makes with you:

I made these early in the summer holidays, as you can see I was definitely feeling the summer vibe.  The bottom two beads are made using a beautiful mini-mo club selection.  These beads ended up being added to a birthday present for a special friend. 

I was so pleased with how this necklace turned out.  

Special friend wearing birthday gift.

It has been a long time since I treated myself to some new glass, well it feels like a long time, so I ordered a few colours among them was CiM Gunmetal.  What a revelation this glass was!  In the rod it looks like any other black.  However, once melted, cooled then heated again this fabulous gun metal sheen appears.  I combined the gunmetal with ivory and I am rather pleased with the outcome.

Another glass I bought is CiM Rainforest which is the dark green in this set of beads.  I made these to go with a dress I bought, I still have the colours at my work station to make some more so that I have enough for a necklace.












I have also been working on some new jewellery designs which will be winging their way to my Etsy shop very soon!!

Where did that go?

So, July has come and gone!  I must have blinked and missed it.  It was so hectic at school with theme week and the Jungle Book production.  However, the main event of the month was our first visit to the Larmer Tree Festival it was amazing.  We also camped for the first time, weren't we lucky with the weather!  We had a fantastic weekend of live music, great food and creativity

 The grounds are beautiful with sculptures dotted around here and there.

There was some yarn bombing going on.

 The Larmer Tree taxi gave us a lift back to the car with all of our camping gear and some very tired festival goers.

 I haven't done it justice here, unfortunately I can't get hold of the photos I took.  However, we can't recommend a visit enough.  I really felt like I had been on a holiday and didn't want to come home.

I have managed some torch time this is the result of my first session in a while.

Yes! This is the haul from one session.  As you can see I real difficulty getting into a groove and I ended up making a batch of very different beads, none of which I am particularly pleased with.  However, I did manage another session the following evening

 As you can see this little set has a theme.  There aren't very many beads to the set but the large ones took me a while.  I am quite pleased with these, they might end up being  a piece of jewellery for me if they don't get snapped up.

Happy holiday, I hope the sun is shining where you are!

A slight alteration

You may remember from a previous post that I had made a bracelet but it was too small, I was going to re-string it and did suggest that it might not remain a bracelet.  Well, it has become a very lovely necklace.

 As you can see the hand woven beads remain and I have added some big hole beads over some seed beads which give the necklace some movement.  I really like this style of necklace, I made one similar for myself a while ago and I wear it a lot. 

This is a lively colourful version which also has some hand woven beads.  I also made a pair of earrings to match this necklace, but I forgot to take a picture of them.  I have also dipped into my copper wire box this week.

This design is based on the 'Brangle' that I made during a workshop with Lush and Mizgeorge.  I treated myself to one of Jolene's mini-mo boxes of glassy goodies!  The parcel contains some twisties, murrini and shards.  The mini-mo is  a great for pushing me out of my comfort zone of my usual pallette.  I rarely work in yellow and lime greens but I am pleased with the way this turned out.

I am hoping to get my act together and to get these pieces and others posted on Folksy for sale so I will keep you posted.  

Enjoy the sun while it's still shining folks!

Sometimes it's just the way it goes

My previous post was a brief one because I was dashing out to the 'studio' to make some beads.  My torch-time is limited due to work and family commitments being a drain on my energy reserves so any chance I get to get to the flame is precious.  Sometimes I find I have a clear idea of what I want to make in terms of colour and design and sometimes I have an end product in mind be it a necklace or bracelet.  Other times though I head out there hoping to be hit by a bolt of inspiration.  I bought a calendar  a couple of months ago to help to give me some inspiration when none can be found.  The plan is to use each month as a starting block for colour.  April looks like this:

 It is a beautiful calendar I bought from Wakehurst called 'Through the Eyes of Children' and is a collaborative piece with many children and the artist John Thompson. I pulled together 5 colours and set to work, I was completely stumped as to design these are the resulting beads

Not the most inspiring patterns I've seen.  I just wasn't 'feeling' the colours and I couldn't get into a flow.  I decided to revisit the design I used for my 'Graphic' beads.  I couldn't decide on colour so I had a play.

It was a bit of a disaster really.  The bead on the left is rubino oro which should give a deep pink but I put it over ivory which was clearly a mistake as I have ended up with this kind of brown sludgey colour.  The beads are ok I guess but I just wasn't feeling it so I ended my session.  Sometimes it just happens this way, the time is there but the ideas aren't.  Often I find the ideas are there but when I fanilly get the time they are gone, I must get better at keeping a journal of ideas, then who knows the two might collide....

In Answer to Jill

One of my readers asked me whether I would show the blue and green spotted beads when I had etched them.  Yes, and here they are

As you can see the etch gives a lovely matt finish.  The beads with the white centres look as though they are glowing.

This is just a quick post as I have got the kiln warming!