Spot the beads!

What bead artists can you spot in this shot? Whoever spots the most will win a super secret prize.....

Tree Wings Studio Giveaway

Rebekah, my friend from Tree Wings Studio makes the most exquisite little polymer beads - some of my favourite art beads around. I have often used her beads in my creations - check out these babies:

Look at the beautiful detail that goes in to every single one of Rebekah's beads! 

And you can win some. Rebekah is giving away three bead bundles on her blog. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Sunshine and rainbows - I've been after one of those hearts for ages!) Just hop over there before the 20th and leave a comment and you'll be in with a chance of winning some of these tiny works of art. 

AMAZING giveaway!!

Wow. Look at this A.mazing giveaway that the very lovely Andrew Thornton is having! Hop over to his blog and leave a comment to be in with a chance of snagging this awesome stash from the Bead and Button show.

The goodie bag includes items from: Green Girl Studios, Diane Hawkey, Pam Wynn and Heather Wynn-Millican, Susan Lenart Kazmer, Raven's Journey, Lisa Peters Art, HumbleBeads, Earthenwood Studio and Amazing Porcelain. 

What are you waiting for?!

Jade Wisdom, design process and a giveaway

The lovely Barbara of Floridity left me a comment on my last post saying that she does in fact take custom orders for her sweet owls. Hurrah! I was swithering over whether to sell this bracelet or not but I've decided now that I will put it in the shop at least as I know I can get more owls when I want need them. I made this bracelet in Skye a few weeks back and I absolutely love it - the colours for me are just perfect. Pyrite is one of my favourite stones to work with but it can be in danger of looking a bit gaudy - I think I've balanced it nicely here. 

I've been reading a lot recently about folks' design process which I admit totally fascinates me; Jamberry Song hosted a song based blog hop at the weekend and although a lot of beautiful jewellery was created based on one song the thing that interested me most about hopping was reading how different people approached designing. For this bracelet I did what I often do - pulled out an art bead or focal (Barbara's owl) 

and designed around that. The pyrite gives respite from and adds a richness to the vivid green and the green in turn softens the pyrite, blending it in with the patinated brass. A simple design I'm really pleased with!

Jade Wisdom is for sale here

So here's a question, and I'll open it up into a giveaway of beads and bits and bobs - how do you design? What's your starting point or is it different every time? Do you start with colour, theme or beads? I'm fascinated by the process behind the jewellery, I hope you will share yours with me!

Best Giveaway EVER!!

Hop over posthaste to Lorelei's blog for this awesome giveaway of Kylie Parry charms! You've got 24 hours to get your comment in :-)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody or happy sunny (hopefully) weekend if Easter isn't your bag! I'm in Whitby (North Yorkshire coast) 

at my family-in-law's, enjoying some lovely sunny weather and celebrating that my brother-in-law has just got engaged to his very lovely Floridian girlfriend. Ian and Laura are a fab couple and we're so thrilled for them :-) 

This morning, some of us went out for a walk on the beach, with the objective of looking for some rocks and/or driftwood for my jewellery shots. 

There wasn't loads of wood (although we found a lovely piece which will be great once it's been dried out) but we found some really cool rocks. I can never resist sticking my feet in the sea when I am near the sea but my goodness, the North Sea is bloody cold!! 

Enough to make your feet sting, if you know what I mean. I am a complete water baby and always run and jump into pools and the sea but not this one! It hurt my tootsies.

When we got back to the house I took some shots straight away with the dry rocks (I picked up about six rocks - not so much scope for finding such things back in Manchester!) and I think they are going to work pretty well. The rocks have a nice, matt surface, pretty flat but with some interesting ridges and for bracelets especially they are perfect. 

We also found a cool piece of slate-like material (can't remember the proper name) with loads of holes in it which I have a feeling may be awesome for earrings....fingers crossed! It's still quite damp and dirty so that'll have to wait for another day. 

In the afternoon, after an amazing roast dinner we headed out to a nearby river where you can rent a boat and go rowing - so fun!(really wanted to write "Such fun!" anyone else watch Miranda?!) 

I hadn't done anything like that for years, it was so sunny and peaceful and beautiful. There were some gorgeous wee lambs and their parents by the side of the river which I managed to snap. 

We've had gorgeous weather all week and I'm just hoping it will hold. Sometimes it feels like we in the UK get a week of sunshine and that's our lot for the year. I'm holding out for a proper summer! 

This has been a photo-tastic post but I'm going to leave you with a few photos of some jewellery I made whilst in Spain. I was so inspired by the sparkling blues, aquas, teals, greens around me....totally my colours anyway so being surrounded by them all the time was wonderful. I'm going to gradually load them into my Folksy shop but if you would like one and don't have a Folksy account, just drop me a line.

Water Flowers

Unnamed as yet....any ideas???!

Periwinkle Wishes

Mediterranean Seas

Aqua Cherry Blossom

Well done if you've made it to the end of this post! As a thank you, I'm going to have a small give away....the best type - a mystery grab bag of beads. It will contain Art Beads! Czech glass! Gemstones! Crystal! Ribbon! Phew, are you excited? I'm excited to make it up for you. Just leave me a comment, perhaps with a name suggestion for my dotty lampwork bracelet above, and I'll draw a name next Sunday. 

And the winner is....

And the winner, as selected by random.org is....

Judy of Judith B. Designs!

Congratulations Judy, you have won my wee fishy bag charm! It'll go perfectly with that Lobster Bisque you're brewing up at home right now :-) Send me an email with your address and I'll get wee fishy in the post to you. 

Messing around with Picnik

Thanks to Heather of Humblebeads (a new beady obsession!), I have recently discovered Picnik.com, a photo editing website. Now, photography is not something that comes easy to me (especially when my camera is lost...!) as you probably gather if you have read my blog before - my photos are definitely hit and miss! More often somewhere in between the two, but I know it's something I have to work at. A course one day, perhaps....when time and money permit! I'm also not the most techno-savvy of folk either - I'm only 29 but somehow I feel like the lost generation when it comes to computers and the like - I did a little computer work at school but my pupils are much more au fait with such things I think. And even my Mum (60) seems to know her way round her computer and camera at least, more comfortably than I do, maybe because she had to start from scratch in her own time. Perhaps that little bit of knowledge I received at school was a dangerous thing...I can't be bothered to learn any more! But I'm getting there, slowly but surely. 

So, getting around Picnik hasn't been very easy for me (I'm sure it is really, just not for me!) but today I have come up with a couple of collages of recent pieces! And I'm pretty pleased with them. I have often wondered how folk on other blogs managed such things and now I have too - hurrah! Let me know what you think - of the jewellery and of the collages!

Gaea ceramic beads, vintage czech glass and mocha lace ribbon

You  can see I started playing around with inserting the text after I made that first collage. I couldn't work out how to go back and re-edit it! And couldn't be bothered to upload and re-do....see what I mean about my bad attitude?! 

I'm feeling inspired by out latest spate of givewaways in our wee beady community (Lori and Malin in particular), I'm going to offer up the best type of prize....beads!....to anyone who can come up with some names for these three pieces. I am rubbish with naming my titles as I find the balance between charming and vomit-inducingly cheesy a hard one to strike. So, leave me some names...nothing too corny...I'll pick my faves and post you out some beady goodness from my far too vast collection! 

Hope you are all having a great weekend! x x x

PS I've recently become obsessed with vintage lace ribbon and trim....how did that happen???!!! I don't need anything else to hoard!!

Brigitte Lejonklous is having an awesome giveaway, drawing tomorrow evening, Swedish time! Hop over here to enter. Aren't they absolutely stunning??? I love them! 

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!

101st Post!!

Hey! I didn't even notice that the last one was 100! And I now have 107 followers....seriously, you guys are more than I ever hoped for when I started this little blog. I have to admit, I struggled with it at first - seemed a little narcissistic to me initially (anyone else have similar thought about blogging ever?) even though I really loved reading other folks' blogs so much. But I think I've got into the swing of it now and the best bit has been meeting so many lovely folk and making so many wonderful friends, across the waters on both sides. It's a lovely way to assemble one's thoughts, and share the big and the small with others I think.

So.....to celebrate all of these things, I'm going to be having a giveaway. But before I can do that, I have to organise a truly spectacular prize! No pressure there Rebecca! WATCH THIS SPACE for a box of goodies looking for a new home.....

Until then I'm going to share my British Bead Awards piece - finally! It seems like years since I sent my necklace, Indian Summer, away for judging. I was long-listed, then short-listed and although I didn't make the top three, my piece was displayed alongside some really spectacular bead work at The Big Bead Show in Surrey this past weekend. Here are a few shots for your perusal...

I don't have a good one of the whole piece; I really struggled with the light on this one but maybe another day I'll manage to capture it. I love it but see a lot of imperfections. Or maybe they are just things I'd do differently if I did it all again; who knows. I was very proud of her for getting as far as she did! Congratulations to all the award winners and finalists - there were some really amazing pieces in the display and I came away full of awe and admiration! Hope your week has been filled with such things too.

Eve's having a giveaway...

...and it's a good one! Fellow beady person and Scot Eve is giving away these lovely beads. Wouldn't you love to get your hands her lovely fire enamelled beads? I have bought three sets now and trust me, they're just gorgeous! And look at the colours here - my favourites, surely yours too?! All you have to do to be in with a chance is hop over to her blog, leave a comment, become a follower or blog about her giveaway. Easy! Why not head over there now?

Andrew's Bloggiversary Giveaway!

Amazingly generous as ALAWYS, Andrew Thornton is celebrating his 4 year Bloggiversary (should that be 2 Gs or 1 G? I can't decide!) by having a superbly awesome giveaway! Head over there (or don't and leave me with more chance of winning :-)) and leave a comment soon to be in with a chance of winning this fabulous stash of wonderfulness.

Another win...hurrah!

I've done it again....some of these lovely green (SO my colours!) beads are heading my way soon courtesy of Jen Judd Velasquez. Thanks so much Jen! I am so excited by this pile of green goodness and can't wait to see what goodies you will pick for me :-)

I WON!!!

There have been so many giveaways recently and I DO love a good giveaway...Malin de Koning (one of my bead soup friends) had one to celebrate her recent birthday and guess what (I'm sure you already have from the title of this post!)? I won! It was a giveaway with a twist however, you had to leave Malin a tip in order to enter and she picked my tip as her favourite. Well Malin, I'm so honoured! I struggled to think of a technique (she is a great beader, not sure I could teach her anything new succinctly in a blog comment) or storage (she has just posted loads of pics of her lovely neat and tidy studio, currently my bead studio is my living room floor...) so I put this down for her...

My tip will be to KEEP LOOKING. Look beyond other 

beading artists; look to decorative/high/folk artists

 and see what they do and how they can inspire your work. 

Look beyond the obvious and you will find 

inspiration everywhere.

I'm so glad Malin felt this to be good advice. It's advice I try to follow myself - the beading community is GREAT, don't get me wrong but sometimes (and I'd include myself in this) we can be a little insular. I loved the recent Toulouse-Lautrec challenge on Art Bead Scene that Malin herself was chosen as a designer of the week for and I thought it was such a fantastic place to find inspiration. Loads of us are inspired by nature which is fantastic of course, but I am really interested in what artists in all mediums have done and are doing. Thanks Malin! I'm so chuffed that I've won your awesome bead soup!

Bead Soup Day 7

We are now on day seven, can you believe it! Here are today's players:

72. Cindy, Cindy Dolezal Designs
73. Valerie, Hot Art
74. Courtney, Beads by Breul
75. Johanna, Fire Phoenix Creations
76. Shea, gr8findings
77. Julie, Pryce Designs
78. Jeannie, Jeannie's Blog
79. Patricia, Verre Design
80. Christa, Adventures of One Beady Woman
81. Heather, My Muse
82. Susan, Night Beader at Large
83. Sonja, Drachenei
84. Jennifer, Glass Addictions by Jennifer

I'm heading off to check out the new pieces right after I post this.

And don't forget!! You have TWO more days to enter my fabulous giveaway....

Just leave a comment and become a follower to be entered into the draw for

***THIS book...***

I will be having the draw on Sunday morning (27th) so get your name in the hat by then!

Bead soup party day something...

So, we're now on day goodness knows what in our fabulous Bead Soup Party and now that I have participated, I can sit back, relax and check out the other partiers without thinking "Oh dear, my soup is still loose on a tray...."

Here are today's players:

48. Nan, Spirit Rattles
49. Amy, Copper Diem
50. Malin, Beading by Malin de Koning
51. Anne, Gardanne Glass Lampwork
52. Alice, Alice's Beads and Baubles
53. Barbara, Second Surf
54. Amanda, Articulations
55. Heather, Humble Beads
56. Melissa, Melissa Meman, Art, Life, Love
57. Kate, Organic Odysseys
58. Patti, PJ Clark Designs
59. Stefanie, Stefanie's Sammelsurium

I'm off to check them out NOW.

And hey, don't forget my GIVEAWAY! Seems like everyone's having them at the moment (we're all sharing the love) so why not play along? Just leave a comment and become a follower to be entered into the draw for

***THIS book...***

contains Andrew Thornton and Melissa Lee designs amongst many fabulous others! I will be having the draw on Sunday morning (27th) so get your name in the hat by then!

Check out Virginie's giveaway! Leave a comment by Sunday to be in with a chance.

My Bead Soup!

So, better late than never, here is what I came up with yesterday (!) with the soup that Nicki sent me. Thanks so much Nicki! I think we both challenged each other but (I hope) in a good way. I don't usually use LOTS of larger elements in one piece although I do like the look of it when other folk do so.

Nicki was SO generous with what she sent me, I just didn't know where to start! I think that's why I procrastinated so much in getting my ass in gear and making something with my German beads...I have made two items so far (still have quite a bit of soup left!) and I do feel quite pleased with them. I was a bit scared of using all the items together as it seemed like it could be too much but my sweetheart said "get over yourself and just do it!". So I did! And here are the results.

What do you think? I am pretty pleased as, like Nicki, I've done a couple of things new to me. One as I've already said, use many larger elements in one piece

and also, use two different metals in one design.

To be honest, I'm still not totally sure what I think about this, somehow I feel it can cheapen the look of the metals to have them side by side but perhaps I'm wrong...Looking at these pictures, I think I will switch the large white bead and the copper filigree in the necklace around to achieve more balance. Any thoughts? I'm open to any suggestions!! Would you switch, or stick?

I got a nasty shock when I first plugged my camera into Cagney (my wee MacBook)....look what the pictures first turned out!!!

Lordy. Thank goodness for iPhoto is all I can say! One click on

***ENHANCE***

and it does what it says on the tin...

I made these pieces sitting at a picnic table at a lovely wee local park after I finished work yesterday and here

is the reason I didn't get around to taking completion pictures yesterday! All I can say is I feel it was well deserved :-)

Check out everybody else's finished pieces for today;

37. Filomena, Pink Velvet Bird

38. Lyn, Lyn Foley

39. Tari, Pearl and Pebble

40. Rebecca, Song Beads You are HERE!!!!!!!

41. Regina, Regina's Writings

42. Nancy, The Rabbit Muse

43. Whitney, Whitney Lassini

44. Maria, Garden Path Beads

45. Michelle, Life in the Bead Lane

46. Ann, My Critical Eye

47. Lisa, Lucid Moon Studio

that's what I'm off to do once I've posted this!

And P.S. Don't forget my GIVEAWAY........