Dichoric Glass Cabochons

Look what I've just taken out of the kiln......some lovely dichoric glass cabochons!! These are lots of fun to make. I'm going to practice with the technique - maybe order in some new types of glass to play with and hopefully build this into a workshop for next year. Tomorrow I'm off to Birmingham to teach 3 days of PMC....that's the reason for making the cabochons actually. As one of the projects Im going to be doing a pendant project with them as they can be fired with PMC. Have a full day today of PMC to - Intro to PMC at the shop......I'm going to be all PMCed out by Wednesday night!!!!!!!!

Witney Day Centre

Today I've been teaching over at Witney Hospital for the Day Care Centre. This is my second visit. I love going over to see them all - they're all such a lovely enthusiastic group and I get to teach some men!!!!! We had an hours session together and made a bracelet and earrings set. I think these types of workshops work well in within a day care environment because it means everybody acheives something and has been given the opportunity to be creative.....you could see they all enjoyed it!!!

This is what everybody made



Here's the group

I've spent the rest of the day organising.....try to get a better system in place. With the small scale products we deal with it can be really difficult...we're getting there!!!!

Its been a long time.....

Hello!!!! Yes I'm still here. Apologise for not blogging in earlier - I need to keep on top of this! I've been involved in soooo many lovely things I've been dying to get it all online - so here it is.

Back in June I started to attend The Oxford Castle Market on a Friday. I really loved attending, met some great people and experienced being part of a nice event. Unfortunately I've now stopped, for various reason but mainly because I found it a big commitment what with everything going on at the my shop. Here's an image of my little stall....I was very happy with how it was all set out and it gave me lots of opportunity to make jewellery and promote my workshops.

As always we've been running lots of workshops with some great pieces being made. Back in June we ran a Make your own Tiara workshop - Kirsty made this beautiful piece for Ascot. She used a combination of Delica beads, Swarovski crystal and 0.4mm silver-plated wire to create her tiara.

Our Introduction to Beads & Wire workshop is one of the most popular we do and most people that come along to it are complete beginners so this is their first jewellery making experience. The jewellery made is always full of fresh ideas and new combinations of colour. These pieces are very much influence by the summer season (Does anyone know where its gone?).

Memory Wire Bracelet with Czech Glass Beads

Silver Plated Chain and Wire with Glass Beads

With the summer holidays upon us we have started to take lots of children workshop bookings. Last week we did a workshop for Storm and her friends. They all made a cluster ring using a wire ring base, glass beads and headpins and a bag charm using a bag clip, glass beads and headpins. The technique I taught the group was simply making loops above the beads after making over 20 loops they all went away knowing how to do it!!!

We had a briliant Enamelling workshop this month. Everybody on the session really thought about what jewellery they were going to make their pieces into and had some fantastic results. We explored the use of decals, stencils, wire, stringers, Millefiori chips and more....

Butterfly made using a stenciling technique and Millefiori

Our most recent workshop has been Recycle Silver. I must say one of my more high maintenance workshops but I do love it. The results are always amazing. This time we looked a little more at pushing objects into the cuttlefish to cast them. You can see here Debbie used a shell that I picked up years ago in Florida to cast. The results aren't perfect but they give you a really nice quality.

At the beginning of July we went to see Take That!!!! It was amazing. I've never seen such a spectacular show. There was so much to see I couldn't take it all in and am eagerly awaiting the DVD to be released. They had an elephant which they all came in on...Tricycles, clowns, acrobats, lots of balloons, unbrellas, gymnasts, fire, ringmasters and so much more. Here's a couple of pictures.....

This image it a picture of a floor at High Road house in Chiswick....isn't it great. We went there when we stayed up at Kay's for Stuart's B'day. We had a lovely breakfast then did some shopping and in the evening went to see Oasis at Wembley - again a great show but nowhere near as fab as Take That!!

Harry's doing well apart from a case of Kennel Cough. It s not very nice for him but he's getting over it with the help of some antibiotics. Fortunately its not passed to humans at all so he can still come to work with me and socialise with all his friend at the shop.

This coming week I'm getting ready to teach at The Birmingham School of Jewellery. I'll be teaching an Introduction to Precious Metal Clay for 3 days on Aug 3rd, 4th & 5th. I'm really looking forward to it and excited to work for a new establishment. I'm also going to be working at The PMC Symposium on Aug 9th for The PMC Studio. We've got a table in the market place where we will be selling a variety of tools and equipment and introducing people to our workshop programme. If your attending I'll see you there!!

Artweeks, Finger Prints and workshops....

Wow! Doesn't time fly when your busy!! I've had the most fabulous few weeks. Artweeks went really well this year. We got the exhibition up and running in time for our private view on Friday 8th May - Thank you to everyone that came along. I think at our peek we must have had about 30 people watching demos, browsing our range of materials and tools and enjoying the exhibition. I was pleased with how it all looked - I took a gardening theme that worked really well. I bought some artificial lawn to use as the background - the silver and lampwork beads looked great against it.

Harry before the mayhem of organising Artweeks Private View

Ohh thats nice.....

Kay was demonstrating on how to make lampwork beads

Lucy was demonstrating Precious Metal Clay

We had a great response to the possibility of Lampworking classes. I can't wait to get my stock room sorted out to accomodate the class!!

I've been asked to do a few commissions recently using the finger printing technique on Precious Metal Clay. This is a pair of cufflinks that Lucy asked me to do with her thumb print on.....she gave them to her now husband on their wedding day!! As you can see the date has been inscribed on the back. I've used liver of sulpur to oxidise the print then buff back to highlight the print.

I also did a bracelet for David to give to his wife who gave birth to little Oscar. The finger print is Davids but when baby is old enough and his finger print defined enough we're going to do his too. To make the bracelet even more 'charmy' I added a few baby charms. I've called it Mummy's Baby Bracelet.

Though you might like to see some jewellery made on a Beads & Wire workshop I ran for Adult Learning in Chipping Norton. These were all complete beginners - we had a lovely day and fabulous results.

Last but not least I'd like you to meet my new neice.....Gladys Parthenope Flittersnoop!! Isn't she adorable. She's an 8 week old Pug puppy getting bigger my the day. Tomorrow Harry and Gladys will meet - I'll be sure to take lots of photo's and post the best ones for you.

Peyote Beads and......We have a Winner!!!!!!

I wanted to show you what we've been making today on a workshop that Kay's been running.......Peyote Beads!!! Aren't they beautiful. I'd like to make more and make a fabulously long necklace....trouble is they take a little while to make although the results are so beautiful. We used delicas, crystals, fireline and patience to create this little gems.

We also have a winner for the lucky blog follower........Kez! Kez or Kerry as she's also known is currently on one of my courses so I will be delivering this to you next week - well done Kerry!!!!!! You've won one of our new Beaded bead kits.....hope you enjoy it!!!

Working my little socks off!!!!

Wow....its been ages since I last wrote in. I have been working my little socks off!! Getting ready for Artweeks has been really good fun but added a big work load to the already full schedule!! I've also started back all my evening classes - I've really missed them while I've been off although it was nice having a couple of evenings to make a few beading things. I've been playing with the bead mixes we have in store....Kay and I found them at a trade show in Feb and since I've had them in the shop they've sold really well. I always say to people who come along to my beginner workshops "If you go into a beadshop and aren't to sure what beads to choose always look at their bead mixes...these are a great place to start as they can give you ideas on colour schemes, textures, beads types etc" I think the summer being on the way is inspiring these necklace and bracelet sets - all I've used in the set below is one of the Tiny Gold Bead Mixes £1.50 and a selection of semi-precious and glass beads to match. The necklace is approx 30 inches long with a toggle clasp so you can wear it long or doubled up. The bracelet is simply on memory wire - we've got some new silver plated stuff in the shop by Beadalon...much easier to work with then the previous one we had.

This necklace is one that Rosamund started on the Beads & Knotting workshop the other week. She'd finished it at home and bought it into the shop for us to see. I love it when customers do this!! Its always great to see what you've been upto!! Rosamund used the Planet bead mix for this necklace along with some blue No18. Nylon - she's used simple knotting and macrame techniques to create the complicated looking piece. She came into buy some Square Calottes to finish the ends - these are clamped on so a clasp can be fitted.

Last week we also had Little Lucy's birthday....29years!! We started back our evening classes on her birthday so as usual on a Thursday she had dinner with Stu, Harry and me then we went into class. To celebrate with Kay we all went for dinner at The Mole Inn at Toot Baldon. Our Dad grew up in The Baldons and was actually born in the house opposite The Mole so it was a lovely blast from our past!! We used to go to what was then The Crown for the best chip buttys. The Mole is very nice...not cheap but really worth the money. If you want somewhere special for the evening I'd highly recommend it although booking can be a bit of a hassle!!!

Lampworking, New Kits and Yummy Cake!!

Having fun!!!!

Last Wednesday Dawn, another lampwork artist, came over to the shop to have a play on the torches with Me and Kay...Lucy joined us later. We had a lovely day passing tips to each other, showing each other demonstrations and colour ways we liked. Dawn taught us how to make a hollow bead......great fun....we showed Dawn how to make a gravity bead and a solid fish. Dawn currently sells her work on ebay and from her website www.dawnbydesign.com.

Yummy carrot cake

Kay made a lovely carrot cake for us to eat.....she cut the hugest slices!!

Kay & Dawn on the torch

Kay has also been busyputting together some new kits for the shop. We've got three new necklace kits and a beaded bead kit all using seedbeads, glass beads and semi precious stones. I'm really pleased with the kits - they make fabuolous presents. Those of you that have signed up to be a 'follower' of this blog will be in for a chance of winning one of the Beaded Bead kits - the winner will be drawn at the end of April.

Multi-Strand Necklace Kit

On Friday we (Kay, Lucy & I) visited a show in Towcester called Flame Off. The show was all about lampwork beading. We spent lots of money, saw a demonstration by Sarah Hornik and saw some other artists work. The show wasn't as big as we'd expected - originally we'd booked two days to go but only actually visited for one. It was a great opportunity to see products and glass colours we needed.