What a week!

This has turned out to be one very busy week! I came back from Artisan (which was brilliant, but more of that later) to find lots of notonthehighstreet orders and an urgent request from one of the galleries that stocks my jewellery, so what with the general running around after the family and household chores (oh the glamour!), my college classes on Tuesday night and a couple of magazine articles I feel as though I've spent the days rushing around! The non-teaching evenings have been a lot quieter, but only really because almost as soon as B has been put to bed I've just run out of energy and flopped. I keep forgetting that I am nearly 6 months pregnant and I need to pace myself!

Anyway, Artisan!

I had a brilliant time there, and all of the visitors seemed to be enjoying themselves! I certainly saw lots of smiling faces with full carrier bags! I arrived later than I planned on Friday afternoon as the traffic and the weather were awful - what should have been a 2 hour journey took more than double that. I think it would have been easier for Radio 2 (yes, I have reached the age when my preferred radio station is BBC Radio 2 - my parents and I now listen to the same station!) to have listed the motorways that didn't have problems rather than those that did. I still managed to arrive in time for the last hour of the first day, to say hi to Becky and Michelle (deputy editor and editor of Beads and Beyond), to have a look round and (much to Becky's amusement) to buy some beads. I think it was that fact that I hadn't been inside for more than 20 minutes before I bought something that made her giggle, but what can I say? I'm an addict! Friday evening was spent settling into the hotel, going out for a great evening with lots of chat and lovely Italian food with Becky and Michelle, and then searching for somewhere that sold butane gas for the small blowtorch I had brought to use for the demos. I suppose I could have forgotten something more serious, like the torch itself, and we did get to see some nice parts of Leamington Spa!

Saturday was great, although we were all so busy that it seemed to go very quickly! I started my demonstration, showing people how to make a hammered soldered chain like the one in my Ebony project, at about 10.15am, and I was answering so many questions and enjoying myself so much that it was gone midday before I realised. Kerry arrived not long after that, and it was in some ways rather strange seeing her walk in the door - strange because she looked and sounded so familiar, like an old friend, but we'd never met or even talked on the phone before. It was so good to meet her properly, and great to see her demos. She showed us two bracelets from Totally Twisted, complete with her own beautifully coloured lampwork beads, and I was amazed at how quick the projects were - instant gratification! Kerry also demonstrated some lampwork, which I would have loved to have seen, but by then it was time for me to get back to hammering and soldering. Anyway, I could waffle on for ages about my girlie weekend away serious working weekend, but I think some photos would be much more interesting for the rest of you, so here you are.....

Kerry demonstrating the first bracelet

 

  

Kerry signing books and my turn to wrap wire!

Signing more books!

Group photo - Michelle, Kerry, me & bump, and Becky

Tutorial ...erm...Wednesday - lampwork bead videos

These summer holidays have left me very confused about the days. T now has the summer holidays off too (well, I say that but he seems to still have meetings most weeks to do with the new project he's working on in the new term!), which has made me even more confused about which day it is! Anyway, that's my feeble excuse for Tutorial Tuesday being a day late!

I've got some great lampwork bead tutorials for you this week - well, I say I've got them, but as you can probably guess they're not by me but by two lampwork bead artisits I really admire. The first is by Laura Sparling -she's added to her lampwork videos with this one on making encased silver wire beads like the ones below - I've used some of her silver wire beads in a few designs before, and they are beautiful. The video is here, and you can find the rest of Laura's lampwork videos here. Laura's also got a fantastic lampwork project in the latest issue of Beads and Beyond, showing you how to make heart shaped beads.

The second tutorial is by Kerry Bogert - her video is showing how to make a bead inside a hollow bead, something that I wasn't even aware was possible until I saw her video! The beads below are my favourite of the ones she's put on the post with the tutorial, but there are others so make sure that you take a look! I love how Kerry combines her colours.

Happy Anniversary!

Two years ago today I phoned Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to register as self-employed. My full-time employment with my old school had officially ended on 31st August, and I was excited at the thought that all the wishing, dreaming, hoping and planning that I'd been doing for the previous couple of years was becoming a reality - but I have to say that the phone call was a bit of an anticlimax! It's not that I was expecting a fanfare when I registered, or that I was going to celebrate with a street party, but just having to give my name, NI number, date I started etc was just, well, too quick and easy!

It didn't take me long, though, to remember that official phone calls and form filling aren't the reason I started up Daisychain Designs - it's the excitment at making unexpected sales (one from Zurich and another from New Zealand were particularly lovely recently!), at meeting people by chance who have heard of my work and (I'm blushing now) admire what I do, at the eureka moments when a design I've spent ages perfecting comes together beautifully, at opening up parcels of gorgeousness (such as the beautiful focal bead from Mindy the other day!), at the satisfaction when a student is surprised and delighted at what they've created in one of my workshops. I can honestly say that leaving mainstream teaching and setting up the business was the third best thing I have ever done - falling in love with T and having B being joint first, of course!

Now, before I start gushing even more (although if you want to read lots more gushing go and read Kerry Bogert's gushing contest!) I have a couple of things that I hope you may be interested in. Firstly, you may have noticed that a link to sign up to my newsletter appeared at the side of my blog over the weekend. For ages now I've been sending out my newsletter using MS Outlook, and while that's worked well up until now, as my mailing list has been getting longer and longer it's become a rather inefficient method. I'm now going to be using a newsletter service to organise everything, so if you are already on my mailing list and would like to stay on it or if you would like to join up then please click on the link below or at the side. As an incentive (as if getting news of the events I'm attending, special offers and advance notice of new workshop dates and designs isn't enough!), each month I will be running a prize draw - and yes, that draw will be open to everyone, even those of you not in the UK - don't you just hate it when competitions are only open to those in a particular country?





Secondly, because it's always nice to get a little extra and because they seem appropriate (and I like making them) every order of £20 or more placed through my website during September will receive a present of a pair of little daisy studs (see right for an example). That includes workshop bookings. The studs are fine silver with sterling silver pins.



Thirdly (what a long post this is turning into!) I've got another little competition for you. If you fancy winning the earrings to the left then leave me a comment below to say hello. The deadline is a week today (8th September) and I will get T to randomly choose a winner. Again, you don't have to be in the UK to enter. The earrings are sterling silver, oxidised to give an antique effect, and freshwater pearl. If you fancy learning how to make a pair of these yourself, please visit the workshops section of the website!



P.S. Completely off topic here, and I'm probably going to jinx it now, but B LOVES his bed and has, so far, slept really well in it! There you go, jinxed it now, and we will have sleepless nights for the rest of the week!

I got there!

Well, I've painted the spare room and sorted everything out in there enough for T's Dad to sleep in this weekend, so that was one goal met this week! Now I just need to sort out the rest of my papercrafting bits and pieces and move B's things in there. I think I'm going to have to ask my parents to look after B for the day or at least wait until T has a day off (he's due a few) so that I can move everything around without trying to entertain B at the same time. This is not exactly something that I can do while he's having a nap!





Anyway, despite the almost wintery weather here I've been able to take some photos, and the ones here are of the necklaces I mentioned here on Wednesday, the ones made with Mindy Macgregor's beautiful beads. The first designs that I had sketched out for the ivory and black bead used patterned silver discs (I was going to make some myself using a disc cutter and my lovely rolling mill - more about those 2 tools to come next week!), but I realised that using that much silver took the focus away from the bead, and I really didn't want to do that. So, I re-visited and adapted a design that I came up with years ago before I started using much silver. I put the bead together with Swarovski crystals and hung it from 2 strands of seed beads and one strand of silver chain. I like how this one turned out so much that I decided to use the same idea for the red and blue poppy bead.


It was only when I started editing the photos of the necklaces that I realised why the seed bead/silver chain combination looked more familiar that a years-old design usually would - have a look at these gorgeous bracelets by US lampwork artist Kerry Bogert. If you stay for a read you'll see that she's made several different colours and adapted the idea into necklaces too. Her blog Kab's Creative Concepts is one that I read nearly every day, and I guess that more stayed in my subconcious than I realised! Oh well! Kerry, if you ever read this I really hope you don't mind!

"Ivory" was sold the day after it was made - a friend was over when the post arrived one day and I unwrapped the beads and made me promise to show her what ever I made with it before I showed anyone else and she bought it! "Poppy" will be on the website tomorrow.