Catching Up

Well things here at The Oxford Bead Shop have really moved on. We now have a Lampwork Studio...Yay!! I am sssoooo pleased with it. Here it is...

So, as you can see we have lampworking benches on one side and silversmithing benches on the other. The lampworking stations are set up to accomodate 3 people and the silversmithing 4. I can't wait to start tecahing in there. My first lampworking class in on January 22nd and its already full..my second is on 6th March and that's full too!!! I'm going to look at the diary today and try and fix a date in February. We launched the Studio at our workshop taster evening on Friday 29th October. The night went fantastically well, we had about 50-60 people attend and we raised £56.00 for Breast Cancer Research. Lucy and I were demonstrating how to make Lampwork beads, I also did a Button Necklace and PMC Demo, Fiona ran a beads and wire workshop to make a bookmark, Becky did a beads and knotting workshop to make a bracelet and Bella did a textured silver pendant. Mum was demonstrating and answering questions on our beads and stitching workshops, Kay was holding fort on the till and Mary was making sure everybody had a drink. We were all very busy - I'm not sure what the neighbourhood thought was happening...as the night went on the windows became fogged up and we were full to the brim!!

Pete (Lucy's Boyf) was called upon to take photos for the night - he did fabulously well. All our photos can be seen on our Facebook page. We also launched our 2011 workshop programme that can be viewed on our website.

With Christmas just around the corner we have been preparing some new kits that are perfect little stocking fillers. This week we made a Memory Wire Bracelet Kit and a Charm Bracelet Kit - I'm really pleased with them. We have a few Craft Fairs coming up before Christmas so I thought these would work nicely. Our Bauble kits are flying of the shelves - they are so pretty and easy to make.

We have the first of our Christmas workshops today - Christmas Decorations with beads and wire. I'm feeling very Christmassy - is that wrong??