It's a wrap for the wraps

Frequent readers will know that earlier this year, I was struck down with an addiction to making wrap bracelets. This actually culminated with being featured on the front cover of October's issue of Beads and Beyond:

Pretty much my own personal wrap de resistance.  I was given the words 'Ode to Autumn' to work with (a Keats poem, I was ashamed to not know, although I did recognise it when the penny finally dropped) and certainly, that idea of an Ode or Song was my inspiration here - the idea of a wrap bracelet (which can be worn as a necklace too) seemed the perfect response to this idea. I hunter-gathered as many Autumn art beads as I could, co-ordinating accompanying beads (ceramics, copper and my favourite Czech pressed glass) and spun this wrap together. I'm not sure I have anywhere to go from here, so my wrap-making compulsion seems to have ground to a halt. 

I did however have one left in me for the West End Fair, and here it is. One of my current favourite colour-combinations at the moment, royal blue, sky blue and sunny yellow. A dash of orange in this one too, thanks to the awesomely ridiculous hands of Mindy Moogin MacGregor. 

Beautiful lapis coins echoing Mindy's amazing lentil, wooden teeth, Peruvian opal discs (more lentil-echoing there) and some sunny, pressed glass rounds. It's a fairly happy piece, I'd say!

You can find Aztec for sale here. 

Songbead in Print

Some of you will know that, until moving over to Northern Ireland ten months ago, I had taught beading in Manchester at The Bead Shop for the previous six years. It's something that grew and developed and changed over time, and I enjoyed it all. It was only after a year or so of teaching for The Bead Shop that my partner persuaded me to submit some of the many designs I was creating for the classes to craft publications - and the rest, as they say, is history. 

I've been lucky enough to have been published in Bead, The Beadworkers' Guild Journal, Make Jewellery, Jewelry Affaire and of course, Beads and Beyond over the past five years - during which time, I've been a cover girl of BaB twice! 

March 2013

 {{{~~~~~ I can only find a really weeny picture of this cover from October 2008! 

After seven years of jewellery-making teaching, and eight years in music education, it has been refreshing to have a break from direct contact teaching, much as I didn't/don't plan to leave it behind altogether. But I am so glad that I haven't had to leave the education side of my work behind entirely, through continuing to write tutorials and projects for magazines. I have been published in the past four issues of Jewelry Affaire (which is a truly stunning American publication for those of you outwith America who are unfamiliar with it) , in every issue of Beads and Beyond for the past couple of years at least, and have recently submitted to a new (for me) publication, which I am eagerly awaiting to hear back from! I feel very privileged and honoured to be included so frequently amongst so many beautiful pages, and in such good and talented company too. 

My first design to be published in Jewelry Affaire, last year.

One of my earliest designs for Beads and Beyond - one that I'm still pretty proud of! This one was published way back in 2009.

My 'Forever Flowers' project from earlier this year in Beads and Beyond.

Eastern Landscape from the latest issue of Jewelry Affaire

Designs from the most recent issue of Beads and Beyond - from (L to R) me, Claire Lockwood, Rachel Norris and Trish Latimer.

A montage of designs coming up in the newest issue of Beads and Beyond, out next week - one of my designs is top left!

Where next? As well as continuing (I hope!) to work for these beautiful magazines, I hope to continue to spread my wings. Just a few days ago, I had a very exciting email from the publishers of a rather gorgeous magazine which I am yet to be published in, saying that they believe my designs would be a good fit with them. There really is nothing more flattering and humbling than a publication that you have long-respected asking you to submit your designs to them. I will keep wraps on the details just now - but needless to say, I am very excited to see where my designs will find themselves next, and I'll be keeping you posted here!

Old Beads and Beyond

So, Malin told me I should blog every time I am published....which I don't currently do....I have a stack of mags, each one with my designs beautifully photographed and presented by the Beads and Beyond team. I think this is the main reason I don't blog each time I have something in their magazine - they do it so well, my photographs pale in comparison! But I thought I'd share one of my favourite pieces from last year, my Winter's Eve necklace. Loads of silver as you can see, so this one is a keeper! Lampwork from Josephine Wadman and crystal quartz nuggets from PreciousSparkleBeads. The large turquoise flower, I bought at a bead fair from Bead Spider. Never been able to find another one since. 

This is one of my favourite pieces that I have had published. I hope you like it too! 

New Beads and Beyond items in le shop!

A quick post today to say I am starting to upload some of my Beads and Beyond pieces into my Folksy shop. Just a couple yesterday (doens't it just take so long to upload into an online shop? Or is that just me ;-)?) but I have more which I will shoot and upload gradually. I've got another craft fair next weekend (Altrincham Market, Sunday 19th from 10.30) so I'm loath to load too much but just a couple of things here and there perhaps. There are some pieces I have either given away as presents, sold to friends or quite frankly, I just want to keep for myself, but there's still quite a lot left over for sale. I love getting jewellery back in the post - somehow it looks fresher and more sparkly than it did before!

Moroccan Spice Bracelet

Nautical Knots Bracelet

THANK YOU!!!

This is just a really quick post to say a massive 

THANKS!

to everyone who voted for me in the Beads and Beyond designer competition....I am so very pleased and honoured to announce that I have been  voted Readers' Favourite!!! I couldn't believe it when I opened my copy and saw that I had won. I am so very touched - it is wonderful that the readers themselves have chosen me from amongst such great company - I'm told it was a VERY close run thing! My bloggie friend Jo and talented beader Vicky Fisher were 2nd and 3rd respectively. Congratulations to them both and all the other winners. 

To celebrate and say thanks to everybody who reads my little blog, I'm finally having a giveaway! Not the big(ish!) one I have planned but a small one. I'm giving away one of my lovely (if I do say so myself!) ribbon necklaces. I have used hand dyed silk ribbon from Sowzere Designs and a beautiful lampwork orphan from Clare Scott Beads, antique copper and brass, and Czech glass. I love the bead and ribbon so much and I hope you will too! It's quite a long one so there's no clasp, it just slips on. Just leave a comment to be in with a chance of winning, and for an extra chance, become a follower and/or blog about my passing on the love giveaway! Just leave me an extra comment to say you have done so. I want this to be short and sweet so I will draw the winner this Sunday evening. Good luck!

Where have I been???

My goodness, almost a month since I have blogged! I am way behind with all my plans for this little space. They are temporarily put on hold whilst I juggle my full time college vocal studies course, part time school teaching job, private singing lessons and beading commitments. Needless to say, I'm fairly shattered at the moment. The last few weeks, I've left the house every day before 7.30am and not got back till after 10. Not fun! I was hoping this week would be a bit easier but due to a concert postponement (power cut at the venue 45 minutes before we were due to go on...) that's two more of my evenings wiped out for this week. One of the things keeping me so busy is my college production of Carmen, we are in intensive rehearsal mode right now and will be until we open on the 5th December. I can't wait till we're in production! We're all sold out for the entire run and have been for ages (I'm just in the chorus but the principal cast are absolutely amazing!) but if you ever get the chance to see this fantastic opera then take it! It's sometimes considered the first musical; it's a real showbiz piece with love, death and high drama throughout! And some very beautiful music of course.

With the little time I've had for beading, I've been working on my Beads and Beyond projects. Here's the latest issue of the mag and I will pop back he later and add a picture of my project - Berries and Bling. 

***Here it is!! Not the loveliest picture as I took it on the not very attractive beige carpet we have in my flat. Yuck! I'd love to get it changed at some point - I'm not the biggest fan of beige in any context and especially not in carpet!***

I love the names the team come up with for my projects! So much better than any of my efforts would be. I was particularly pleased with the clasp I made myself - I have no metal smithing skills but with a little wire wrapping I came up with this pretty toggle clasp using a Vintaj birdie. I love making my own components for larger pieces and it's amazing what you can do with a little wire and some beads. 

Hope you are all well and enjoying the weekend - it's turned very chilly in the last few days - 1 degree c this afternoon! - so I am curled up with my iPad next to the fire. At last a chance to catch up with the beads!

A surprise competition!

I'm in a competition! I was reading one of my regular blogs, Jo of Daisychain Designs, who posted that she was in a competition...and guess what, so am I! It's Bead and Beyond Magazine's Jewellery Maker of the Year competition and apparently us designers have been nominated by the readers - I'm so very touched! Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see both mine and Jo's names down there at the bottom. It's such an honour to be included in the list of nominees - very talented designers, every one. I'm going over there now to check out the readers' entries - it looks like there's some really stunning work there. The new issue of Beads and Beyond will be coming out soon and I have to say, I'm really excited about seeing my newest design - it's one of my favourites which I'm sure you'll understand when you see the colour scheme! In the meantime, here's the main project from my most recent article in the current issue, High Tea.

Thanks!

Thanks for all your kind words about my sister. She's really doing well, coming out of hospital today but the doctors have told her she can't travel back until next week. So although they have had to make the decision to cancel the ceilidh (kay-lee!) for this Saturday, they've decided to make it a postponement rather than a cancellation. And she'll definitely be back for my wedding! So not perfect but things seem to be working out. She has been extremely well looked after in Dresden which my Mum and I are so grateful for. So far as the singing goes, as I'm a singer I have loads of friends who're also professional singers coming along to the big day, and I've asked my friend Richard to sing instead of Trina. I'm pleased to have a tenor singing rather than another soprano as it'll be a totally different sound, even within the same song. So, like I said, everything seems to be working out! 8 days to go and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm getting my hair cut and dyed today and then (you'll be pleased to know!) I'm going to go dress shopping. 

And then onto the jewellery...I'm imagining I'll get something lovely somewhere along the blue to green spectrum so I thought I'd share a couple of green pieces of jewellery I've made recently. 

This necklace just arrived in the post yesterday, back from Beads and Beyond and goes with the earrings from this post. It features lampwork beads by Clare Scott, ribbon from Sowzere and semi-precious stones from one of my favourite shops, Precious Sparkle Beads.  

The bracelet features a Green Girl Studios pewter clasp and a few super sweet lampwork beads by Mika of Pinocean. The Amethyst and Aquamarine stones are again from Precious Sparkle Beads and the bead caps (I love these!) are from Palmer Metals. They are so pretty, I use them all the time. 

Hope you like my new-ish pieces! Have a great weekend. 

Some worrying news

I had some worrying news today. My 19-year old wee sister is away with the National Youth Choir of Scotland touring Germany and this morning was taken into hospital as an emergency patient. The upshot of it has been that this afternoon she has had her tonsils taken out and is staying over night in the Dresden hospital where the procedure was done. She has come through fine but obviously it's really sad for her as the timing is so rubbish and it's been a scary experience for her and my Mum especially, who's flying out there tomorrow. She'll miss out on the rest of the choir tour (finishes on the 4th) and will now not be able to sing at my wedding on the 14th. It's also her birthday on Wednesday and she is having a big 20th/40th/60th birthday ceilidh party on the 7th which I hope she will be well enough to come to as they've been planning it for a year now. I am so sad for her and to be honest, it's been quite a stressful day for me too. It is a little selfish, but I am really gutted she won't be able to sing at our wedding. I am completely not Bridezilla-ey but the one thing I really wanted for the wedding was for my sister to sing a particular Schubert song as it is special to both me and especially my partner, who doesn't know this was the plan. I have been and am so laid back about everything else which happens on the 14th - it's going to be a lovely day and I can't wait to see everyone but I'm no control freak who gets obsessed about napkins etc - in fact, I don't even have a dress yet! So I am really sad that the one thing I have had my heart set on isn't going to be possible and for such a sad reason. I hate it when my family are ill as we are all major worriers - I am looking forward to Trina being back safe and sound in Edinburgh with our Mum. I'm so glad she's come through the surgery well but I do wish she hadn't had to have it is the first place, it is just such bad luck and timing for her.

On a lighter note, here are my earrings from this month's Beads and Beyond! They are part of a necklace/earring set called Meadow Sweet - I love the titles BaB give to their pieces, so much better than anything I come up with. Featuring beautiful lampwork beads by Clare Scott, one of my favourite lampwork artists. What do you think?

Beach Bride

Woo-hoo! The new Beads and Beyond is out now and is filled with lots of delicious projects and stunning photographs. I am such a big fan of this magazine! As you can see from my sidebar, I've been lucky enough to have had quite a few projects published by them over the past year and in my opinion the quality of this mag goes from strength to strength. The photography has always been really top notch but they recently had a mini makeover and now the pictures are more stunning than ever! It really is such a privilege to have my jewellery presented in such a beautiful way.

Here is my project from this month - Beach Bride. I had originally named it Something Blue but there was already a beautiful Blue Topaz ring by Jane Kharade called Something Blue so they went for Beach Bride instead which I think suits it perfectly - somehow the stick pearls do look quite beachy! I completed the legal bit of getting married on Saturday (wedding itself not until August but the humanist civil partnership we are having is not recognised by law so we had a legal trial run!) and I in fact wore the necklace on the day which was lovely. I had actually bought some jewellery from Eve Smith to wear but annoyingly the neckline of my dress didn't work with the beautiful necklace I had bought. Another time! I did manage to wear the bracelet however, which came complete with some Moogin beads! The whole day was lovely beautiful and amazing. It was also my Mum's 60th birthday so we had a double celebration - it was so great of Mum to share her big day with us!

Moogin

I've already told you about my slight obsession with lampwork beads so I thought I might start a new regular (not quite sure how regular as yet!) blog posting about my favourite lampwork artists and beads. If nothing else it will keep me entertained.

So, to kick it off, I'll begin with my all time favourite lampwork artiste extraordinaire - Mindy MacGregor, otherwise known as Moogin. You may have seen her profiled in Beads and Beyond recently (can't remember which issue off the top of my head) or perhaps at the Scottish Bead Fair where she regularly has a stand or perhaps you've also bought some of her amazing artwork. I first 'discovered' her in Perth at the SBF last summer. Wow! Before that, I was all about the organic, botanical lampworks. No more! Mindy really does create miniature glass paintings, I can see Miro, Klimt, Kandinsky there in the background behind her tiny masterpieces (three of my favourite artists anyway) to mention but a few;


but beyond this, she does things with glass I've never seen elsewhere. She has recently taken a move towards folk art which I never thought would be my cup of tea but, surprise surprise, it is!


Her love of colour is always evident whatever style she is working in and this is one of my favourite aspects of her work. There's so much more I could (ineloquently I'm sure!) say about Mindy's work but for now I'll let the beads speak for themselves.

My all time favourite Moogin bead - so far!

Cover Girl!

How exciting! I have made the front cover of Beads and Beyond with my sparkly pink chandelier earrings! I haven't seen the magazine for real yet but my lovely friend Susan texted me a photo of her copy. I can't believe it! Only a few months ago I could only dream of having my little designs featured in print and now I'm on the front cover...I really am chuffed to bits!

I've just seen the new issue of Beads and Beyond (out on the 13th August) and I am thrilled to see one of my wire leaves on the mini photo display on the front! It's so exciting to see your work in print and I think Beads and Beyond is really a fantastic publication, especially since its revamp! My design is second from the left, next to the lovely summery daisy. And the stunning necklace on the very front is by Eve Smith, fellow Scottish artist, with lampworks by Clare Scott. Below is a close up picture which I took of one of my leaves.