Sooz Jewels

More spankle colours and patination experiments

2012-01-13T13:25:00.001Z

Here are a couple of new spankle bead colours for 2012. Navy and aqua (yes, yes, I KNOW ... more blue!) :-) I can't help it, I LIKE blue!

I've been busily restocking my Etsy shop after it got emptied before Christmas. The aqua spankles went very fast so I'll be making more of those.

I'd usually be working on new jewellery designs at this time of year and I have got ideas in my head but I've got a poorly hand at the moment, seeing the doctor about it this afternoon. It's been very sore in the mornings since just before Christmas. I think I overdid it on bending memory wire (it's very tough material). I thought I'd just pulled a muscle and with the Christmas break (and not doing much), I expected it would get better by itself but it hasn't. Beadmaking doesn't hurt too much for most of the beads I'm making but any hammering or filing is difficult; basically anything that involves rotating the hand is painful. I'm not having a moan about it (it's my own stupid fault for making 16 memory wire bracelets in one day ...) I just wanted to explain why there's no new jewellery designs so I'm not just writing this for sympathy (but any going spare would be gratefully received!) :-)

In the meantime, I'm experimenting with organic means of patinating silver that doesn't involve liver of sulphur or platinol. I don't like working with chemicals if I can avoid it, both of the chemicals mentioned are smelly and messy. To avoid doing the patination myself, I have been buying pre-patinated items and wire from Daisychain Extra, an excellent Etsy shop but one of my new year resolutions for Sooz Jewels is to make my own earwires and I can't expect someone else to patinate them. I am addicted to Jo's clasps, my customers adore them, so I'll definitely still be buying those!

So far I have run trials using uncooked and cooked egg yolks. The former doesn't work at all. The latter worked but the tutorial said it would only take 24 hours. My earwires and headpins needed 4 days imprisoning in a little plastic container with mashed up egg before it became dark enough (I'm after gun metal grey, something that looks vintage). After 4 days at room temperature, this was just as smelly and messy as the chemical means (but at least you don't need a Health & Safety sheet when you buy and cook eggs!) The patinated finish from the cooked egg method is also quuite uneven which is disappointing (I might do a photo when all my experiments are finished).

The instructions say to make sure the silver is very clean in order to get an even finish using the cooked egg method. I degreased the silver using alcohol, tumble polished with mild detergent, and then rinsed very thoroughly, only handled the silver using plastic tweezers. If the silver needs more cleaning than this, then I don't think this is the system for me.

I have read that you can use old kitty-litter (the ammonia produced by the decaying cat's urine is the thing that colours the metal apparently). Anyway, I don't have a cat, both my sisters have two but they live well over half an hour's drive away. So I've used my own wee (is that shocking?!) This is just out of interests sake to see if my urine is effective. Please be assured that even though the silver isn't directly touching the urine (it's just in contact with the fumes), I have absolutely no plans on using urine-patinated silver in jewellery that I sell!

I also have some silver hanging up in the shower to see if that will do it. These latest two experiments have only been running for two days though so I'll report back on results as and when anything happens!

And so my thoughts turn to the weekend, it's very strange for me to have a Saturday where there's no Art & Craft market to go to. Normally I'm running around like a mad thing on Fridays! The market starts back at All Saints on the 28th so I'll have to think of something nice to do instead; I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T16:25:00.001Z

I am very grateful that the only snow we have seen before Christmas this year has been the stick-on snowflakes variety! I have enjoyed so much less stress and aggravation this December which means I'm far more relaxed than I have been the previous two years. I hope your Christmas preparations have gone smoothly and you're feeling calm and free of hassle.

With this message, I send everyone my very bestest wishes for a peaceful and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to follow next week.

Science -v- spirituality; why can't we have both?

2011-12-19T18:10:00.005Z

I'm fascinated by science. I dropped science subjects at school when I was 14 which I regret profoundly.

I have read a few science books in the (many) intervening years. But as we all know, a little knowledge is dangerous and therefore I am always keen to gain more. I have enjoyed all of Prof Cox's previous TV science programmes and I therefore looked forward to A Night With the Stars last night. The trailer billed it as explaining how things can be in more than one place at once, I assumed he was going to talk about super positioning which I learnt a bit about when reading Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife during the summer.

But he didn't touch on that really. In reading the above book, it helped me to (VERY) broadly follow everything covered in the programme but that wasn't what disappointed me. I don't think there are enough television programmes about science so I'm not criticising the content, quantum mechanics is a gigantic subject to summarise in an hour! Even though I was already aware of the things he presented, I'm sure there will be many who will have enjoyed it and were enlightened by it.

What irritated me was the way Prof Cox dismissed things like spiritual healing as "wishy washy" and implied such things were only practiced by people with tattoos on their bums!

Having savoured both his Wonders series, I didn't realise he was a closed-minded reductionist. I felt quite stung by his ready dismissal of such things as I quite like him.

As I said above, I am very interested in science but I am interested in spiritual matters also - not necessarily in a religious context, until very recently I considered myself a died-in-the-wool-atheist-God-Delusion-zealot-who-will-never-ever-change. I'm also quite superstitious, which I realise is totally at odds with scientific thinking but then that's me, an individual.

I'm convinced that spiritual healing (I prefer the term energy healing actually but not many people have heard of it) can work, and that positive thinking can help with everything in your life but not as a total substitute for medical assistance or doing practical things to make what you want happen. I was so sorry to learn during a recent TV programme about his life that Steve Jobs delayed surgery on his cancer for 9 months whilst he tried to heal himself, I wish he could have tried both at the same time.

Just because we don't understand the physics or mechanics of how the mind can affect the body, doesn't mean it should be waved away with such certainty by people who haven't tried it or experienced benefits from it.

Last month, my husband caught a cold, one of those nuisance factor ones that are just annoying, your nose runs, you get bunged up, cough and just generally feel unwell but not enough to stop you working like flu does. Last time he had a cold was in early October so this latest one was only a matter of weeks after the last.

Last time, I tried visualising a bubble around my mouth and nose to stop me catching it. It didn't work, In over 30 years of marriage, I have caught every cold that my husband has ever brought home (and he mine). I've always previously seen catching each other's illnesses as an inevitability I can do little to prevent. However, I caught it a couple of days after he did, my symptoms were less severe and I got better before him. I am convinced that the visualisation helped me to have an improved experience of the illness than his.

The end of November was no time for me to catch a cold, it's the busiest time for my business, I could not allow myself to be slowed down in the slightest. I point blank refused to accept the idea that I was going catch this latest sniffle. I steadfastly would not entertain the idea that I was going to be ill.

I put some mechanical preventions in place, I ensured that I didn't share a towel with him, I cooked all our meals whilst he was in full coughing and sneezing mode and made him sleep facing away from me. I changed my visualisation technique, instead of the bubble, which you can't keep up at all times because you do have to think about other things during the course of the day, I decided thats'probably why it didn't work. This time, whenever I was near to him and he sneezed or coughed, I imagined a bottle cleaner going up and down my nose removing any viruses that had got lodged in there since last time I did it. When I was visualising, I could feel a slight tingle in my nose so I was sure it was doing something.

Result - NO cold, I didn't catch it. Geoff has been well for a couple of weeks and I got all my work done. It could be it was just sheer bloody-minded determination and singled-minded focus that helped me avoid it but this in iteself is a kind of visualisation.

My lack of a cold will probably be dismissed by peremptory scientists as a coincidence and that the mechanical measures I put in place were the way I stayed well. That might be so but I am not sure so I'm not dismissing it. I am convinced that without that visualisation, I would have got it the same way as I did all the others. Making sweeping statements saying that things like spiritual healing don't work without KNOWING whether they do is a bit like all those people who dismissed Darwin's work who now look like right berks. I do hope Prof Cox doesn't regret his repudiation at some point when we have more knowledge.

I'd like to remind him that Richard Woolley (a UK astronomer) said Space travel is utter bilge in 1956 (one year before Sputnik).

Cox himself used a Humphry Davy quotation during the programme: Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are no mysteries in nature, that our triumphs are complete and that there are no new worlds to conquer. (Humphry Davy invented the first electric light).

Whilst I was watching Professor Brian Cox's programme (for some reason I thought it was live), I tried to visualise him sneezing and concentrated on it for around ten minutes ... I jumped when Geoff sneezed (I kid you not!) and I stopped.

So Brian, if you're reading this and you sneezed at around 9.30ish last night - my wishy washy brain made that happen! (And before you ask, I don't have any tattoos!)

Frosted front door

2011-12-16T18:19:00.002Z

I don't normally get much time to write alot in December; it's the busiest time of the year for my business. However, today has been a bit of a freebie, I was planning to be doing an extra day on the Art & Craft Market in Cambridge but the weather forecast was so bad and as only seven stalls turned up on Thursday, I'm pretty certain it was cancelled. I let the Market Manager know I wouldn't be there and I imagine I will find out tomorrow if anyone braved the cold sleety rain. The forecast is fine for tomorrow, even if it wasn't, I would still probably be there on the last full Saturday before Christmas.

So I've used the "extra" time to do some Christmas preparations (shopping list and hemming a new tablecloth I've made). I've also got a ton of ironing out of the way and made some more jewellery stock ready for tomorrow. When I'm jewellery making and ironing, I tend to watch films and TV programmes on DVD using my Lovefilm account. Today, I saw Julie & Julia. It's a marvellous film, I watched it twice and then watched Nora Ephron's Director's Commentary too.

The film is a true story about a girl in a job she hates who decides to cook her way through Julia Child's classic cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" which consists of well over 500 recipes. She sets herself the deadline of one year and blogs her daily experiences. The film intercuts with scenes from Julia Child's life in France during the 1950s, the time before she wrote the cookbook.

I was a little horrified when Nora's commentary describes bloggers as "predators sitting watching their own life" and refers to the people who are mentioned in others' blogs having their "privacy totally invaded". Um, I hope I don't do that!

There are lots of things that happen in my life and those around me that I specifically DON'T blog about for that very reason, plus other things that I think aren't remotely interesting to anyone else and others that are too private.

People who read my blog don't really know everything about the real me, I prefer to think that my readers get a partial view. Edie Sedgwick described Andy Warhol's films (some of which she is in) "It's like watching Henry Moore sculpture out of focus".

I was pondering whether this was a good analogy for my blog, (I like pondering, I do it a lot!) when I walked past my front door which has a lovely pattern of frosting in the glass, when it's daylight, some of the garden shows through but the frosted part makes the whole indeterminate - I'd therefore like to use this picture of my rented (and totally gorgeous!) front door as a metaphor for my blog.

Fellow bloggers of the world, don't let Nora's opinion of bloggers put you off watching the Julie & Julia flick, it really is a brilliant film and Meryl Streep is just great in it. I can't wait to see her (and of course, Anthony Head) in Iron Lady when it comes out on DVD!

Excuses, excuses

2011-12-01T08:30:00.000Z

Did anyone hear on the travel bulletins about a lorry of Marmite causing delays somewhere oop North on Monday? I remember commenting to DH about how it was unusual that the radio bulletins actually told you what the lorry was carrying, normally they just say the delay is caused by a broken down/jack knifed/overturned lorry. I didn't think it would affect me in the slightest. By the afternoon they were still reporting it as causing delays but it had turned into a lorry of yeast extract as someone obviously realised they were giving Marmite free advertising. Apparently it closed the motorways both ways, I guess it spread out ... (groan).

I ordered some materials on Monday and I particularly want four 18 inch chains as a bride is picking up four pendants from me on Saturday for her bridesmaids. They should have arrived on Tuesday with the postman as a Special Delivery item. When my package didn't turn up with the postman on Wednesday, I rang the supplier and apparently quite a few of their dispatches haven't been delivered because the yeast extract held up a lorry load of mail. I'm really hoping it will turn up today, if it doesn't, I'm thinking that this will be added to those other notorious and classic excuses ...

The dog ate my homework
Leaves on the line
The wrong kind of snow
Marmite on the motorway

Gosh

2011-11-23T19:42:00.000Z

Gosh ... I'm busy!

I have got commissions for beads from my Etsy shop, orders from my website and also jewellery commissions from my stall. I don't really feel I deserve any orders from my website, it is so out of date and unloved. However, all this is keeping me extremely busy so this is a quick visit to say that the production system of new indoor studio and outdoor lampwork studio are both working well and keeping me fully occupied.

The photo above is a commission from my Etsy shop for 25 of my pink swirly lampwork beads.

I'll probably be preoccupied 'til Christmas so apologies if my visits here are sporadic and brief!

That's a big 'un

2011-11-15T18:38:00.002Z

My family came to inspect our new home on Sunday. They came for lunch (soup and a sandwich, I'm not confident of the oven yet to do a full roast for 8). It was super to see everyone but just look at the size of the chew bone that sister, Sandy bought for Missy!

And trust Sandy to take the next picture (it looks VERY rude!)

There's still loads of it left!
This is the best pic in my opinion but it's a bit blurry

New premises

2011-11-08T15:41:00.000Z

This morning I made beads for the first time for what seems like absolutely ages. Here is the new beadmaking studio, those are leaves from an ash tree (so I haven't escaped the big Autumn clear up after all but it is a little smaller than the one at Gardener's Cottage so maybe it won't take as long!) Even on a damp and grey November day, the stone looks lovely.

Here's the interior taken from the window end

And here is the reverse angle

I'm going to put up a couple of large pinboards with some posters on so I can get a similar look and feel to my old studio which I have missed so much. I also have an idea to disguise the rafters and bring the ceiling level down to make it feel more cosy. Note our old fridge freezer is sharing the space with me (I can't be without prawns or icecream for long!)

Whilst I had DH and his camera outdoors, I got him to take a couple of shots of the pretty stream which runs along the bottom of the garden, here it is looking towards the West

and here it is looking towards the East

We're very happily settled in now, all the boxes are empty and the cartons returned to the removal company, some pictures have yet to be put on the wall but to all intents and purposes, everything is back to normal again. I even found somewhere for the sundial ...

Checking in

2011-10-29T22:02:00.001+01:00

We got internet back up and running again yesterday evening. It's awful being out of touch ... five whole days without e-mails, blogs or Facebook. I have lots of e-mails, Etsy convos and blog reading to catch up on!

The move went pretty well, we're getting settled into our new home, but I haven't got either of my studios up and running again yet, I can now find pretty much everything I need in the house (our cereal bowls went missing for 4 days ... I got so, so, SO sick of toast for breakfast) and I only found the boots that I wear to my market stall this morning!)

One surprise was that what I assumed was a built-in fridge freezer in the new kitchen is in fact only a fridge. So when our order from Sainsbury's arrived, we had nowhere to put the frozen items ... prawns and ice cream for dinner on Wednesday ... yum!

Some filing cabinet keys went missing, I got a new one cut in Cambridge this afternoon - EIGHT QUID! Only took the guy a matter of seconds once I gave him the 3-digit number on the lock ... I'm definitely in the wrong business but am infinitely grateful nothing else too dreadful went wrong.

So the filing cabinet that is IN MY WAY can now be moved and then the house will be straight but my studios are another matter. I am starting on unpacking all the boxes which comprise my jewellery making studio tomorrow, I'm hopeful I will be finished on that front on Monday evening at the latest but it'll be at least another week til I get round to being able to make beads again. The outbuilding which is to be my new beadmaking HQ is choc-a-block full of lots of things that need a good sorting out (or throwing out!) Some items are heavy so I need DH's help to move things around, everything just got plonked in there willy-nilly. As he's already taken a week off work to move, he has to get back to earning some proper money next week so it'll be a while before I can get back to lampworking unfortunately.

In the meantime, I'm just checking in to prove that I am still connected to the universe. I'm so relieved the move is over and looking forward to getting back into jewellery and beadmaking routines once again - doing something different for a while (even if it has been a bit stressful) has whetted my apetite and given me ideas ... there's nothing like being UNABLE to make jewellery or beads to really, really make me particularly want to do both of those things ... more soon!

Moonbeams and trees

2011-10-18T18:49:00.002+01:00

I'm very fond of the moon, I particularly love it when you can see the moon during the day; so different than when she's out at night. During the hours of darkness, on a clear night, she's a beacon and you can't miss her, she demands you look, admire and wonder at her majesty.

On a clear blue sparklingly shiny day like today, she's almost in disguise. Here she is tippy-toeing through the tree tops pretending she's a little bitty cloud. Mysterious and cloaking her true nature but still inspiring and drawing the tides, still "chaste and fair" and "seated in thy silver chair" (Ben Johnson). It calls to mind another poet, Ted Hughes who says of the moon

"The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed".

To more mundane matters, removal plans are going well but to DH's chagrin, I have gone into list mode. If I have things recorded and written down so I don't forget, it enables me to sleep at night! I had a list for jobs that needed doing on Sunday (complete in total, all items ticked off and list disposed of). Still to be completed is the "List of moving jobs to do the first half of the week" (4 items left to complete but I've still got Wednesday morning to finish that one off!)

The next list is the "List of moving jobs to do the second half of the week", it's the longest of them all but on the plus side, one of them is already crossed out!

Shorter lists are the "List of moving jobs to do on pack up day" (Monday) and "List of moving jobs to do on day of move" (Tuesday). Wow, so this time next week, we should be safely domiciled in our new home.

One of the Sunday jobs was to sweep the paved area outside the backdoor. I swear I did this but look - it already needs doing again.

The horse chestnut and willow trees in and around the garden are half way through shedding. But I think I'm going to get away with the major leaf event in our garden which is when this ash tree shrugs off its foilage.

Look it's still green, will it stay that way for another week?!

Wintry clear bubble beads

2011-10-13T11:02:00.000+01:00

The weather is set to turn a little colder from this evening onwards and here are some icy white clear bubble beads to go with it! It wasn't my idea to make some clear bubble beads, a customer suggested it but I'm really pleased with the simplicity of them.

I've listed them as a reserved set for that customer in my Etsy shop but I'll definitely be making some more of these soon. Hope I don't induce full-blown winter weather to appear too prematurely though!

Preparations for the move are on-going, we're going to sign the tenancy agreement for the new house today and pay the first month's rent and deposit. The new house is empty now; the letting agent is giving us the keys for the afternoon so we can measure up and decide exactly what furniture is going into which room to hopefully make things on moving day as smooth as possible!

So many bottles, so little time!

2011-10-06T15:59:00.001+01:00

I got given these two bottles (empty!) by a couple of my lovely fellow stallholders at the Art & Craft Market in Cambridge a couple of weeks ago. The Jack Daniels was from Les, the Hairy Growler and the wine from Roz at Stabo.

The Jack Daniels bottle will create beads like the Talisker whiskey bottle - just plain old clear glass. As you know, I jazzed up the Talisker beads by sparingly applying silvered frit on the surface and reduced it to get a whiskey coloured bead. I'd like to do something similar with the Jack Daniels but maybe a different colour.

The wine bottle looks like it will produce beads very similar to the recycled Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry bottle but it looks a little lighter when side by side. I will have to melt some to see if they're easily discernible from each other. I could maybe make them a different shape though.

What I really need is time to experiment and that's in short supply at the moment! On top of that, I have managed to pick up a cold, DH and I both have it We probably caught it from being in a confined space on one of the warmest evenings of the year at the Blackmore's Night concert with thousands of other people- oh well, it's just a sniffle, it was worth it but it's really annoying when I need to blow mid-bead! What's more annoying is that it's only 3-4 months since I last had a cold, normally I get away with one a year. Ah well, better than getting it at Christmas time I suppose!

Getting there

2011-10-05T08:52:00.001+01:00

Full steam ahead for the move. Removals are booked to pack us up on Monday 24th and we're moving into our new home on the 25th. It's been a busy couple of weeks showing removals people round for quotations and the Letting Agent so they can list it on Right Move. We've been continuing to work but all spare time is taken up with clearing drawers and taking old clothes to charity shops but I'm almost finished indoors. It's been so hot recently, not been doing a lot outside but we have some bits and pieces to take to the tip. Plus of course prospective tenants will start to arrive so I have to be in super-tidy mode just in case we get a short-notice visit. Cups and plates and dog bowls are whipped into the dishwasher immediately after use, taps on the sink, bath and shower are polished after every use ... it's exhausting!

Now we have a date, I have to do all the letters letting everyone know our new address. Hey Ho!

In amidst all this, we had tickets that we bought ages ago to see Blackmore's Night (site plays music as soon as you click on it). They're only doing 5 dates in the UK and it's the first time they've been in the UK for three years so we grabbed the front row seats of the dress circle of York Opera House as soon as they went on sale. York was the closest gig to us, it's usually about an hour and a half drive from where we are but given Friday night traffic, it took closer to three!

Blackmore's Night are a kind of rocked up medieval folk band. Guitarist is legend Ritchie Blackmore. He's married to the vocalist, Candice Night who has a brilliant voice. The band seemed to have a good time on stage, we all really enjoyed ourselves. They were on stage for ages and we didn't get to bed til 1am. We generally get up before 6am on Saturdays in order to get to Cambridge and set up my jewellery stall so it was a tiring weekend!

I've recovered from that now and am busily making stock (amongst moving preparations!) Here are some photographs of some of my latest creations. The top one features new clasps from Daisychain Extra in the shape of a poppy, they're really lovely! A bracelet made with a copper version of the poppy clasp and recycled Grand Marnier beads has already sold and so I've missed the opportunity to photograph that one. I'll be getting some more of these clasps so I'll make a better effort to get the camera out next time!

This one is made with recycled Perrier Water beads in a variety of shapes.

This bracelet is made with steely blue bubble beads, rock crystal and dyed quartz with one of my own sterling silver hand hammered clasps.

My taupe bubble beads are a lovely colour, so neutral, they go with everything! (Especially amber and moonstone as here in these earrings).

Across the County line

2011-09-19T15:39:00.002+01:00

Where we currently live, a few miles South of Grantham and only a couple of miles from the A1, we're just inside Lincolnshire.

By travelling only a few miles though, we can be in one of four other counties very quickly. If we go West, we'd be in Leicestershire. South, we'd be in Cambridgeshire (where I grew up and spent a lot of my life). If we go South-West we'd be in Northamptonshire or the small County of Rutland.

And now I reach the point of today's blogging - we are moving house very shortly to a village close to Oakham in Rutland. We're renting the cottage where we currently live and due to circumstances I won't repeat here, we have to continue renting for at least another year. We do want to buy another house and settle down again but our house close to Cambridge just can't be sold for a while. We only ever intended to be in this cottage for a short term tenancy of 6 months maximum. There are some things that aren't ideal for us about it and so after a rent increase, we decided to move on.

We've found a four bedroomed house (we have three at the moment) which has been fairly recently built but in an old style (which we like), we've filled in the paperwork and paid our deposit for the Agent to go through the reference checking procedure. Fingers crossed everything should be OK, our circumstances haven't changed much since we last had them done 3 years ago ....

So, we're hopefully on the move and this is why blogging has been a little sporadic, we've been clearing out cupboards and getting ready to move. It's surprising how much clutter you acquire in only 3 years! I'm feeeling quite excited now, the new house has several advantages over where we are now so if it doesn't happen, I think I'll be disapointed.

The new village has got a post office just down the road (easier for my mail order beads, most of my customers are overseas), a smaller and easier to manage garden, spacious hot working area for beadmaking and soldering in an outbuilding overlooking garden, log burner (to keep the caveman in DH happy-he likes making fire!) Both of us will have a double bedroom at the top of the house (its three stories) to use for work and so the mess and clutter of computers and my beading can be out of the way when we have visitors. The downstairs two floors are then our usual living and entertaining rooms. There are lots more dog walks locally without getting into the car as well so even Missy will like this new place better! There's also a bit of a bonus in that the new house is a few miles closer to Cambridge for my Saturday excursions to the craft market to sell my jewellery.

If all goes as planned, we should be on our way during the last week of October so if I'm a bit quiet, you know why!

Asymmetry

2011-08-31T20:53:00.001+01:00

Asymmetrical earrings. I sold a blue pair of these at the weekend, I never got round to photographing them so when I made this green pair from recycled Perrier Water bottle beads, teeny pieces of faceted peridot, swarovski crystal channels and sterling silver daisies, I thought I'd better record them for posterity.

I did have a couple of people tell me that the two earrings didn't match ... they didn't quite get the point ... oh well! :-)

I'm in a bit of an asymmetrical mood at the moment, possible big changes on the way (not with my beads or business) but will post more in next couple of days if things pan out the way I hope ... ;-)

Twiddly twirlies

2011-08-24T20:08:00.000+01:00

I listed these beads yesterday n my Etsy shop and they sold within an hour! (Thank you Hazel!) I have made a pair of prototypes in a rusty red and amber colourway (see below) and there are a quantity of purple ones are annealing in the kiln as I type.

This is another new bead for sale in my Etsy shop but I am also planning on making jewellery for my stall with these. I showed a trio of the prototypes to prospective customers and other stallholders last Saturday.

Everyone that saw them said they reminded them of the sea so I've gone into production and the set above is the result. Hopefully I should also have some jewellery made out of these in time for this Saturday in Cambridge.

Grand Marnier spirals

2011-08-17T08:12:00.001+01:00

We have finally managed to finish the contents of the Grand Marnier bottle! After trimming the lawn on Sundays, I rewarded myself with a Grand Marnier, lime juice and tonic water cocktail (sometimes DH would join me). I also put it into some casseroles of liver, mushroom and orange, and DH manfully poured a tablespoon over strawberries for desert a few times too, the brandy flavour was too strong for me to take neat but I believe DH came to quite like it - he's a star!

When I broke it up, the glass looked rather close in colour to beer bottles. I was a bit worried the beads would look too similar but fortunately, the beads are much lighter, gingery amber colour that I'm very pleased with. I don't know what I was so worried about.

If the colour was too similar, I had it in my mind to melt the glass into spirals to differentiate the different types of glass but I needn't have worried, they are easy to tell apart from the beer bottles (Poachers beads shown below)

I think the Grand Marnier spirals allow the full beauty of the glass to show through rather than the usual donut shape and so I'm going to be making more of these today!

Talisker whiskey jewellery

2011-08-12T17:39:00.001+01:00

I've made another batch of recycled Talisker whiskey bottle beads. This time I've kept them to myself and turned them into a set of jewellery. Above is a close up of the bracelet which may (or may not!) make it onto the stall tomorrow. I really want to keep it myself!

Below is the complete set including a necklace and matching earrings. I've teamed the beads with some gorgeous Czech faceted glass beads, some Jasper rondelles and copper. The fantastic primitive and rustic stoneware bead was made by Beadfreaky in the US.

They'll all (maybe minus the bracelet!) be for sale on my stall at All Saints Art & Craft market opposite Trinity College in Cambridge tomorrow. The weather forecast is for some early rain but it's clearing up and the rest of the day should be dry, so I'll hopefully see you there!

Time goes by

2011-08-09T17:37:00.001+01:00

I'm not going to make excuses about why I haven't blogged in ages, I do have quite a few but enough about that!

Here's a picture of my sun dial to remind me how time passes by without you really noticing how quickly. I don't have anywhere in this house to put it, we're only renting here (for now), one of the reasons for my absence is arranging repairs and tenancy agreement for our tenants in the house we own near Cambridge (ooops, I said I wasn't going to mention excuses!) We came here for 4 months and have been here over three years ...

Anyway, back to the sun dial, for the time being it has been left in a corner under a hedge and now the ivy has started to wend its way over it ... I don't know what it is about stone and ivy - they always look wildly romantic together don't they?!

Amber alert

2011-07-04T12:15:00.002+01:00

I have been after amber and red recycled glass for some time. Through a circuitous route, I found a Grand Marnier recycled glass vase on Etsy and suddenly realised I had an old bottle at the back of our drinks cabinet. It has been there forever, it must've moved at least twice with us ... DH and I were trying to remember why we bought it, I think it was for a chocolate and orange cheesecake that I only made twice. Anyway, what a bonus!

Just one problem, there's a lot of Grand Marnier left in it and so I have to use that up before I can get my hot little mitts on the glass. I could decant it but after recent adventures in that department, I'm a little shy of doing it again. One morning, I was decanting some Bombay Sapphire gin, some of it got spilled onto my arm and then suddenlhy the window cleaner wanting paying (at 9.30am!) ... he gave me a funny look and I just couldn't be bothered to explain why I smelled of alcohol so early in the day!

Another time, some time ago, I must've decanted some into a Perrier Water bottle. I did write in red on the label "GIN" in capital letters and put the bottle back in the drinks cabinet. I totally forgot about it and got on with my beads!

Sometime later on, DH saw it in the drinks cabinet (ignored my fading scrawl on the Perrier label) and decided that mineral water isn't a drink .... so he put it in the wine rack in the dining room with the mineral water and unsuspecting me poured some into a glass (noting it was a bit flat) and then took a big swig ... yeurggh! As anyone that knows me will realise, I do quite like a gin and tonic (especially Bombay Sapphire) but not neat! We're more wine and beer drinkers in our household, it takes ages to get through a bottle of spirits so I now need to go find some dessert recipes (or summer cocktails) that use Grand Marnier in large quantities or perhaps have a party with a Grand Marnier based punch.

Lost in London

2011-07-01T13:46:00.001+01:00

I had the weirdest dream last night. I dreamed DH and I were in London (don't know what for). DH was walking ahead of me somewhere around the West End but we got separated. For some reason I had his Blackberry phone and his wallet in my bag (the same one made by Sarah-Jane who sells these on the Art & Craft Market in Cambridge on Saturdays and shown in this pic).

So I had no way of contacting him. I stood where I was for a while in the hope he would backtrack but DH did not appear. Then his Blackberry started beeping in my bag, I got it out but couldn't make it work (very frustrating!) I could hear his voice saying "Tut, all she's doing is saying 'Hello' but she can't hear me" ... but I could!! "I can hear you, where are you", I say. "No luck, I can't get through to her, thanks for lending me your phone". He rung off.

I decided that as he had no wallet and no phone, he had no way of identifying himself so I looked for a branch of our bank, I went in and explained; they were very helpful and said they would give him some money if a man identifying himself as DH turned up.

As I wandered aimlessly around London not really knowing what to do, I came across a library and had the brilliant idea of contacting him through Facebook using the public access computers as he would be sure to think of this himself. So I went on Sarah-Jane's page (she of the bag) and left a message on there saying if DH saw it that I would meet him at the entrance to Kings Cross tube station. Then there was the dawning realisation that he wouldn't see it because you have to be a friend of Sarah-Jane's to see her Wall and since he no longer has an account, he wouldn't see it ... I woke up in a cold sweat and DH's Blackberry was beeping away in the Study where he'd left it the night before, forgetting to turn it off.

Sarah-Jane misses DH's wit and charm on Facebook more than I do and nags him every Saturday when we see her to re-open his account. If the fact that I am now having bad dreams about Facebook isn't enough to persuade him to come back, I don't know what will!

New look and a Blogger question

2011-06-20T14:56:00.001+01:00

I have had a bit of a tidy up and smartened up the blog, what do you think? Feels roomier and looks fresher IMHO. Website needs a revamp next! I haven't updated it for ages.

I have a query that I'm hoping other Blogger users can answer. Is there a direct route to the Dashboard from the public face of one's blog? I always click "New Post" and then "Dashboard" to see whether there are any comments needing moderation, is that how everyone else does it? I keep thinking I must be missing something as it seems daft to have to click twice to get to the most useful part of Blogger.

My visualisation strategy hasn't worked for bug preventation, I'm afraid I have succumbed to DH's cold. I have had better weekends, it has to be said! I missed the market as I was feeling too bunged up and poorly, and then my mum had to go into hospital because she dislocated her hip. I can't go see her in case I pass it on to her, it's the last thing she (or anyone else in hospital) needs. We're having a family bar-b-q round sister, Sandy's house on Sunday so we're hoping she'll be well enough for that. Get well soon, mum! xxx

Milk is running out

2011-06-16T08:41:00.001+01:00

I just finished this cup of tea, I have enough milk for one more cup. DH has got an awful cold, he worked (from home which isn't unusual) yesterday, I don't know if he's feeling well enough to do that today, he seems worse than yesterday.

Dilemma, I have only enough milk for one more cup which will take me through to about half past ten. Normally, DH would just pop down to the shop, it's about 2 miles away. I would take the dog and walk it as a four mile walk holds no fears for me, but it's along a fast A-road, not very pleasant and more than a bit dangerous given Missy's habit to go sniffing. DH would argue with me not to go as he has in the past and I don't want to put him through that, he would just struggle out if I said I was going.

I can drive, I have driven lots of cars, when I had a proper job, I owned one of my own for years but it's been a long time since I've been behind the wheel and I've just realised, I have never driven DH's latest which he's had about 18 months. It's a big car, an estate, so we can fit in all the boxes which I take to the market every Saturday. I'm a bit worried about driving something so big but if I don't ... no more tea with milk today.

I have some choices:

Order some from Sainsburys, it will come tomorrow
Drink fruit teas all day
Drink my normal tea with no milk
Take the plunge and drive DH's car for the first time but the places to park are so limited (and small) in the village's narrow streets, I think I'd be sure to have to turn round and come home without any (which would be annoying!)

I'm posting this as a blog posting as I realise that both of us are pretty much healthy and happy for most of the time. I really never take the time to appreciate that so when we're both back to the peak of health, I will not take it for granted as much as I normally do.

Of course, if we had a milkman, this wouldn't happen, there would be one behind the front door like magic. I miss having a milkman. One of the casualties of modern Britain. I wonder if there are any places in the UK where milkmen still exist?

I'm hoping I do not catch this cold as it might put me out of action for Saturday at the market. I have been visualising a sterile bubble around my nose and mouth which filters out any cold viruses. I'm a great believer in visualisation as a means of healing oneself; I use it a lot to minimise the impact of headaches which I get from time to time and lately, it's been working. It's not an instantaneous cure but I haven't had one that lasted two days for well over a year since I started (touch wood) and so I think the visualisation helps get rid of them quicker and makes them less bad.

It's all about positive thinking and so (applying that principle) I hereby announce that I am going to enjoy drinking tea without milk!

I hope anyone reading this is fit and well!

EDITED at lunchtime:
DH went to the shop, without me even asking! He just came out to the shed where I was making beads and said he was going to get some and off he went in his car despite me saying I could manage without. It's not as if he wanted some for himself, he drinks black coffee or fruitjuice (or beer if I need the glass!!) Isn't he a love? I have the bestest bloke in the world! xxx

On the run and nowhere to go - renegade beads

2011-06-14T23:08:00.002+01:00

These beads don't fit in anywhere, they're either left over from sets (where I made too many, they were too big or too small) or they're experiments I decided not to go ahead and make more of. Either way, individually, they're renegades and pretty wild. Six of them teamed up on my bead table pretty peacefully as they seemed to like each other. However, since the blue ones got together with two of my bombay sapphire recycled beads, and the golden ones got hold of one of my Talisker whiskey bottle beads, I'm worried they're going to start causing some trouble! Please buy these beads from my Etsy shop (before they wreck my studio!) If you put them to work with some calming influences, I can see them leading a long and happy life in some wonderful jewellery created by you!

PS Please note, these bead sets have now been sold, thanks!

Daisychain bracelets

2011-06-07T21:37:00.001+01:00

I'm very pleased with some new clasps which I bought from Jo at Daisychain Designs a few days ago. I've been following Jo's blog for some time. When she announced she would be selling clasps at a new Etsy shop called Daisychain Extra, I headed over there and was so impressed, I immediately purchased two! One in sterling silver; it's so pretty, I thought the bracelet needed to be feminine and on the delicate side. I've used my own pink lampwork beads, swarovski pearls in Light Amethyst and swarovski pearls in Rosaline.

The other clasp I purchased was the same design but this time in patinated copper. This clasp had an altogether different character; this time I combined it with my own recycled beer bottle beads, copper and some more swarovski crystals.

Both bracelets will be for sale on my stall on the Art & Craft market in Cambridge, opposite Trinity College on Saturday, come along and try these pretties on!

Cambridge Beer Festival

2011-05-25T17:21:00.000+01:00

It's the Cambridge Beer Festival this week! Guess who has been drinking beer so I can make beer bottle beads, yes, it's good old DH. He may have disappeared from Facebook but he still supports me in other ways! He doesn't really like beer ... he only drinks it for me ... ;-)

Look out for recycled beer bottle beads being turned into jewellery later on this week so I can engage any stray festival goers who wander round the craft market on Saturday!

Sparkly poncho

2011-05-20T11:07:00.000+01:00

This is my latest completed knitting project. A sparkly poncho knitted in Firefly using a pattern I bought from the knitting shop in Alnwick when we were on holiday in Northumberland recently. As soon as I saw the pattern, I knew I wanted to knit it without any idea of when or where I would ever wear it - suggestions welcome!

DH is elsewhere today so I've had to take the photograph myself on the 10 second timer. I had such a peculiar expression on my face as I tried to work out whether it was going to take the picture or not that I've had to crop my head out for fear of scaring my followers!

The finished beads

2011-05-19T19:56:00.000+01:00

And here are the cleaned Talisker beads, Heather whipped them off my Etsy shop within an hour or two of them being listed this afternoon! They'll be on their way to Canada tomorrow. In her convos she sounds as excited about them as I am. I think these are the best recycled beads I've ever made; I can't wait to hear what she thinks about them.

Recycled whisky bottle

2011-05-18T21:24:00.003+01:00

Customers at my Saturday stall in Cambridge are nearly always fascinated to hear I recycle bottles into beads and then into jewellery and they seem to find it especially interesting when they discover the bottle used to contain something alcoholic! In fact at the moment, I only have one tee-total option - Perrier water mineral bottle beads!

Here is a photograph of the latest recycled beads that I'm adding to my range this week. It's another alocholic one; these have been made from a Talisker whiskey bottle. The bottle was drunk and donated by sister, Sharon's fiance, Martin. (Thanks, Martin, you're a pal!) I quite like whiskey and have drunk it in my younger days but for preference, I'm a wine or a gin and tonic drinker myself. What I particularly like about using a Talisker bottle is that my sister, Martin, DH and I had a holiday in Scotland several years ago and we actually visited the distillery and saw how Talisker whisky is made.

There's quite a range of colours in the beads here, when the glass is first melted, the beads look like the clear ones to the bottom right of the photograph. They're a bit boring like that, and they don't really say "whiskey" to me. I could etch them but then they're going to look identical to the recycled Rosé wine bottle beads which are all summery, light and delicate. That look isn't going to suit a drink like whiskey and I want some way of differentiating them; their origin is a robust and (forgive the sexist word) manly drink. I had the idea to add frit to the surface of the beads to alter the colour. After many experiments and failures, I've come up with a combination I'm happy with; I've very sparingly used a reducing frit with a high silver content. With reduction frit, you can make the surface of the bead ultra shiny/metallic/irridescent. At the end of the beadmaking process, I turn the propane to my torch up and the oxygen down to achieve what we beadmakers call a reduction flame. It's much cooler than the neutral flame that is used for most beadmaking. I'm not sure how it does it (probably a chemical reaction) but when I bathe the finished bead in this altered flame, it causes metal oxides in some types of glass to come to the surface and coat the bead. This particular frit produces colours that are reminiscent of whiskey itself, all kinds of burnished golden amber.

As you can see from the photograph of my experiments into how much frit and reduction to apply to the beads, the colour you can achieve varies quite a bit. Mostly, it depends on how much frit you've put on the surface and how long you bathe the bead for. Sometimes the effect of the reduction can change in the kiln depending on how long the beads are in there as well, all sorts of things affect the colour of glass but I won't go into all those factors here.

Anyway, I've decided the ones I like the best are the lustre-rich semi-transparent golden ones to extreme left of the front row. I've got a batch of these annealing in the kiln as I type. I hope to be offering some beads for sale in my Etsy shop tomorrow as well as making the others into jewellery for sale on my stall on Saturday.

The idea to make these beads came about after an e-mail exchange with one of my Etsy customers, Heather who lives in Canada. She's a member of a very active single malt "appreciation" association. They often raffle off prestigious bottles of scotch, but are always on the look out for other means of raising funds, and after seeing my beads, Heather had the idea that she could make some jewellery with beads made from a recycled whiskey bottle. She asked if I could make some and I was certainly willing to try! Heather teaches English literature and - like myself - the narrative of people and things fascinates her, I think this is why we struck up such an e-mail friendship.

I like to have a story behind the recycled beads and "narrative" as a word just fits the way I sell the jewellery made from recycled beads. Just recycling any old bottle won't do. For example, my dad had some brown bottles that he purchased years ago intending to make some home brew beer to go into them but he never used them. When he had a clear out, he offered them to me but unused and unloved, they seemed a bit "soul less". I like to tell my customers that the beads were made from a Rosé bottle that DH and I drank at a bar-b-q last summer - there's the narrative. Customers enjoy the Cava story where the first bottle I made beads from sent me to sleep all afternoon so I always make sure I have guests for Sunday lunch when I need another ... how disappointed the first time I had Bombay Sapphire gin that the drink was was clear instead of the lovely aquamarine colour of the bottle.

There's no narrative to some boring brown bottles that have never contained anything, Dad just thinks "hey, free glass, what's not to like?" I can see his point but I'd rather have some kind of a tale to go with it. Heather told me a very special story from her family history and with her kind permission, I'm reproducing it here

Even ordinary bottles can carry stories, I learned years ago when, literally on his deathbed, my grandfather confided to my mother that he had a little six-pack of beer squirrelled away collecting dust under the kitchen sink that he wanted my mother to have. They were little dark brown "Stubbie" bottles, a short, slightly squattish shape that had been abandoned by the major breweries in Canada many years before, so they'd been hidden under the sink for a while. After his death, my parents raised the Stubbies in honour of my grandfather. If only we could have made beads and jewellery out of them: my grandfather (himself a tremendous recycler of all things long before recycling was popular) would've been thrilled!

I think that's such a beautiful memory. I'm glad she shared it with me and that she took the trouble to write and enquire about whiskey bottles, together we have developed a new product line and I'm grateful for the inspiration, especially from one who is so appreciative of the narrative that accompanies these new beads. I hope you will like them too.

Volunteers, form an orderly queue here

2011-05-09T16:19:00.002+01:00

DH (stands for Darling Husband) has deleted his Facebook account, he has decided that busy people don't have time to do social networking. Huh! I'M busy and I still find time to do a little blogging and a little Facebooking and the odd Tweet, OK so I only put in the occasional Twitter appearance just to check whether @AnthonySHead is STILL ignoring me (answer: Yes).

Anyway, the reason I'm blogging is to let everyone know that it means that my Facebook "Married To" has disappeared ... does this mean I'm no longer attached? Am I divorced?! (DH, if busy old you is reading this, please note, I'M having custody of the dog and tortoise). So, are there any volunteers to fill the vacancy?! Anthony ... if you're reading .... (and if not, why not?!) please be the first to offer. :-)

New spankle bead colour

2011-05-05T19:58:00.000+01:00

I haven't even cleaned these beads yet, here they are straight from the kiln - a brand new colour of spankle beads. One of my customers asked me if I could do a version in teal or green and here they are, hope she likes them!

Feels like I'm still on holiday!

2011-05-01T15:08:00.000+01:00

Hiya, been a bit elsewhere for a while. We just got back yesterday from a wonderful week's break in Bamburgh, Northumbria. We didn't realise it was Easter week when we booked it last year! Also, then William and Kate decided to get married so there was a lot going on whilst we were there!

It's quite good to be away for bank holidays as otherwise, I just end up working - no rest for the self-employed amongst us - no work, no money!

So even though it was busier than we're used to, the beaches are big places though and we took lots to read and I took some knitting too. Because we know Northumberland so well, as we've been so often in the past, we knew exactly where to go to get away from any crowds that do form!

I'm including a few of my favourite photographs in this blog posting but I know how boring it can be looking at others' holiday snaps. So for anyone who does fancy the full gamut of photographs, I've put some albums of pics up on my Facebook profile. The four headings below are links which will take you to the corresponding Facebook albums:

Album of flowers and gardens of Northumbria

Morning walk around Bamburgh Castle

Stag Rock Lighthouse at sunset

Day out at Warkworth

Hope you're enjoying some lovely May Day weather - Happy Beltane, everyone!

I'll be back soon with beads and jewellery, I'm well rested and can't wait to get back into beading!

I can say no more

2011-04-20T08:10:00.000+01:00

Sad to hear the news about Elisabeth Sladen, I didn't even know she was ill. I was watching the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures on DVD from Lovefilm just yesterday. She was the Doctor Who assistant for most of the time when I was watching in my younger days - I wanted to be her!

I really like Russell T Davies's tribute, it says it all for me:

“Lis was funny and cheeky and clever and wonderful. The universe was lucky to have Sarah Jane Smith; the world was lucky to have Lis.”

Rest in Peace Elisabeth

Updates on a couple of things

2011-04-12T16:36:00.000+01:00

I've put a few pics of our visit to Rufford Abbey on my Facebook page. The link I've posted is public so I don't think you have to be on Face~~cloth~~book to see them. But don't hesitate to send a Friend Request if you're on it - if you read my blog, you are a mate!

The Anthony Head phone call went to a lucky lady called Paula with a winning bid of £1,893!

Georgina, the gecko, helps celebrate 30 years!

2011-04-11T08:13:00.002+01:00

It's DH and I's pearl wedding anniversay today - we have been married for 30 very happy years! :-)

I admired this lovely gecko brooch on Les's Facebook page a few weeks ago. Les (aka the Hairy Growler) is a fellow stallholder at Cambridge's Art & Craft market, he makes beautiful recycled jewellery out of stainless steel and silver spoons and coins. As you can see, his piercing work is exquisite.

I went to see him on the Saturday following as I was genuinely interested in buying it but he told me he had sold it to the first person who saw it when he put it out. I wasn't surprised as it's so beautiful. Les was REALLY vague about when he was going to make another one for me to buy. What he didn't tell me was that DH had bought it for me - they kept the secret very well between them! Thanks, both of you! xxx

We're taking today off and are going to Rufford Abbey, a beauty spot near Clumber Park about half an hour's drive from here, we're taking Missy and a picnic, there are some nice gardens to walk around (and they let in dogs), craft shops, forest and nature trails plus a big lake to walk around. Hope everyone else has a lovely day too!

To dye or not to dye ....

2011-04-06T19:48:00.000+01:00

... that is the question. I have been collecting hair dye for sometime. I keep buying it but never using it. This is just a small collection I have amassed, some got thrown away before we moved to this house three years ago. I've had temporary hair colour rinses before, you know, wash in and they're supposed to last 6-8 washes but after two washes you're peering in the mirror going "where's my snazzy new hair colour GONE?"

I've also had a permanent red streak in the past, I got it done and was right pleased with it but then Freddie Ljungberg got his done and everyone thought I copied him when it was HIM that copied me (footballer for Arsenal for those who don't know who Freddie is). Freddie hasn't got any hair at all at the moment ... definitely won't be going with that one!

For a short time I was red all over and when it grew out, it looked quite good because everyone at that time was having their hair "tipped" where only the ends get dyed, so I was in fashion without meaning to be.

But this stuff is semi-permanant, the kind that stays in and if you don't re-dye it, you get an 'orrible line. I want to go a couple of shades darker than my naturally brunette but not quite black. There's the problem, once I start with this, I'm thinking I'm going to have to keep going forever.

The greys used to be the odd one or two, then they got to be the odd few and now they're a definite noticeable sprinkling. I'd like to get rid of them but am a bit bothered about having to keep doing the hair dye thing. I need people who regularly dye their hair to tell me it's not that bad ...

-o0o-

PS Apologies for the lack of blog postings lately, I was without telephone and broadband completely for two days last week. A branch on an ash tree in the garden has rubbed away at the telephone cable. It contains lots of twins of wires and my connection was one of those at the top where it has rubbed through. The absolutely wonderful BT telephone engineer has fixed me up with another pair of wires lower down in the cable as a temporary measure but it's definitely compromised the whole performance, at least I can work now but it's very slow - almost as slow as dial up used to be! The cable is going to be replaced in a few days so hopefully the broadband speed will go back up to normal then so my internet activities are a little curtailed. How did we manage before broadband?!

Silver bracelet

2011-03-22T20:25:00.000Z

I sent this newly designed silver bracelet to the Assay office yesterday to be hallmarked with my mark along with some other silver items. They should be back by Friday so I can put them on my stall on Saturday.

This one is a variation on my Asterope range, it's a double strand of random sizes of round sterling silver links which have a hammer finish and includes 5 small hammered disks at intervals along the chain with a lucky 4 leaf clover silver charm dangling on the end. The size is adjustable by attaching the lobster clasp to any one of the links and letting the rest dangle. If you're on the lookout for a bit of good fortune, this is the bracelet for you!

Commissions picked up

2011-03-20T11:57:00.001Z

Had a lovely day on my stall in Cambridge yesterday, the weather was gorgeous and sunny all day - makes a change! It's still chilly but I'm definitely not complaining about that.

As I've not been posting many pictures of jewellery lately, I thought I'd show off photographs of the necklace and earring commissions I mentioned I'd got a few weeks ago when I took my latest bead creations in to show my customers. Two were collected yesterday and the other is being picked up shortly. I'm pleased to report that so far, they have been well received!

A 20 minute phone call from Anthony Head!

2011-03-16T21:41:00.005Z

How would you like a 20 minute telephone call with Anthony Head? I know I would! Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know that Anthony Head is my number 1 favourite actor. Occasionally, I have Anthony Head days where I spend the morning making beads whilst listening to either the album he made with George Sarah or the Once More With Feeling CD issued after the musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and then in the afternoon I make jewellery whilst watching Buffy and/or Merlin DVDs (or Manchild or The Invisibles if I've got them from Lovefilm).

Anyway, Anthony is holding a charity auction in aid of the Mental Health Foundation. The highest bidder gets a 20 minute phone call from Anthony himself.

All the instructions are on this page I've linked to on the Official Anthony Head website. As I type, the bidding is up to £320 and bound to go higher before it closes. I am sooooo tempted, it's for a very good cause. Having suffered a bad bout of depression coupled with disabling panic attacks in the early 90s and come through it, it's something that I would like to support. If only my business hadn't suffered so badly with the snow last Christmas, I might just have gone for it (and not told DH!) Ha, this will be a test to see if Geoff reads my blog, he says he does ... but sometimes I doubt it! He seems to tolerate my Anthony Head swooning in much the same way as I do his intent interest in Julia Bradbury (of Countryfile fame) whenever she's on TV wearing a t-shirt without a bra on underneath!

Since the news was announced on the Anthony Head newsletter, I have been fantasising about what I would talk to him about, I'd like to ask him about his music, I really love the album he made with George Sarah, will he do another (acoustic version this time maybe, he does Freebird in an episode of Buffy). My favourite track is This Town in the Rain. I'd also tell him which are my favourite Buffy episodes and ask him if any stick in his mind. I'm fascinated how someone I find so appealing can be playing Geoffrey Howe in Iron Lady, a film due out this year about Margaret Thatcher. It will be quite an acting feat (which I'm sure he will carry off extremely well). I didn't fancy Geoffrey Howe in the slightest so I'm really intrigued to see his performance.

I'd ask him for a signed photograph and what he means on his website when he says "RIP Ripper"? Giles didn't die in the 7th series of Buffy though he did disappear back to England for quite a time. In a panic, I went on line checking I hadn't missed series 8 and I think it must've happened in some comic book that Joss Whedon was tied up with and apparently there are some novels that have been written carrying on where series 7 finishes. All I can hope for really is that he has another auction when I'm not quite so strapped for cash!

I bet I'd probably just get all tongue tied and starstruck and not be able to think of a single thing; I imagine I would probably just spend most of the time just listening because he has such a lovely voice! Ah, and then the fantasy goes to what he would say to me - I'd best not go into any details ... ;-)

PS Many thanks for permission from Liz (who runs the Anthony Head website and newsletter) to use the photograph of Anthony on the phone.

Help for Japan

2011-03-14T22:05:00.002Z

Whilst working making beads this morning, I was thinking about how lucky I am not to be affected personally by the awful events in Japan and feeling somehow that I should be doing more. I was fortunate to have my best day of the year so far on my stall on Saturday. The weather was kind and my customers were out in force; I was grateful therefore to be able to make a donation to the Red Cross to help Japan.

I read at lunchtime that Laura Sparling is having sales on her BeadsbyLaura blog to help and then I read Erika Price's blog, which gives an excellent cut-to-the-chase summary of the awful events so far. I "met" Erika through the British Sellers on Etsy team; she has long been making stunning jewellery and donating her profits towards good causes. For the next two months, all her profits will be going towards relief in Japan. As I was reading, a lightbulb went off and I offered her some of my beads free of charge to make into jewellery for this cause. I'm so glad she has agreed. The bracelet pictured is an example of her absolutely beautiful work, featured here by Erika's kind permission

I'd like to recommend all my readers to go to Erika's Etsy shop to see if there's any of her lovely jewellery that you'd like to purchase in the knowledge that you will be helping people get over the devastation they have suffered.

Other British Sellers on Etsy team members are making Treasuries featuring items in shops that are being sold to help Japan, MakeMeSparkly (great name!) has created this Treasury, full of items also being sold to help Japan. Likewise, lovisetto has created this Treasury - please visit and support the shops if you can.

Cobalt blue; Kate I thank you

2011-03-08T21:56:00.000Z

I'm not much into fashion. It's not that I'm not interested, I am (a bit) - it's just that it doesn't seem to apply to my lifestyle.

I spend a lot of my time in my studio making beads which means my clothes are at risk of being burnt by stray bits of hot glass if I'm not paying very close attention. In the afternoon I'm making jewellery which is a little less hazardous but I can't be bothered to get changed into better gear in the afternoon. Plus I have to walk the dog later on which means I have to wear flat shoes or boots and again - I can't be bothered to get changed so I pretty much live in practical jeans or cords, hand knitted socks (always), and a T-shirt with a sweater or sweatshirt over the top when it's cold. I put on training shoes, big heavy walking boots or wellies on depending on the weather and location for the afternoon Missy walk so skirts and dresses are pretty much out of the question.

I did used to wear suits and nice blouses and make up to work in the old days when I was a PA. I even had a couple of designer suits and wore 10 denier tights, lipstick, hairspray and stillettoes. Gosh, I can't walk in anything over a two inch heel these days! I was well paid and could afford to splash out a bit - those were the days (but I don't miss them that much!)

So I tend to rely on others to inform me of the ways of the world of fashion and when I was reliably informed by a fellow Etsian who works in the fashion industry that cobalt blue is all over the catwalk this season, I decided I had better get in on the act. So here are some cobalt blue beads, now on sale in my SoozBeads Etsy shop ... I have even worked out for myself the reason for this obsession. It has to be the colour of the lovely dress worn by Kate Middleton upon the occasion of the announcement of her engagement to Prince William.

Plus I am even more impressed with myself for being minorly ahead of the game because, even before she told me this, I already had these earrings in my SoozJewels Etsy shop, made with beads I made by melting a Harveys Bristol Cream sherry bottle.

Who says I'm not bang on trend?!

Three glassy things

2011-03-02T17:58:00.000Z

This little lady leapt into my life yesterday with the postman. I bought her from a lovely lady called Rachel Elliot of flyingcheesetoastie a fellow British Sellers on Etsy team member. Last weekend the team had a buy and replace (BNR). The organisers create a Treasury made up of team member items from their shops. If you buy something from one of the shops featured, one of the items from your own shop replaces the one you bought. It sounds complicated but it's a lot of fun. I sold some Harveys Bristol Cream sherry beads and I'm looking forward to seeing what my purchaser makes of them (cue future blog post!)

Anyway, my little glass leveret is called Warwick. She's adorable, keeps me company in my studio and eats surprisingly little so she's cheap to keep too! When she arrived, I instantly called to mind some Reichenbach glass (from the top of my head it's called Antique something-or-other). I made some very simple beads, today I etched them and I'm really pleased with the colour match!

She also called to mind a vintage bottle that I dug up from my garden nearly 20 years ago. It has the name "Warwicks and Richardson" (hence my leveret's new name) on it and also "Stoke on Trent". This is one bottle I wouldn't ever melt to make beads as it has sentimental value.

I don't think the brewery is still in business. A quick search on the internet revealed their premises on Northgate in Newark that are still standing - impressive looking and converted into apartments from what I can gather.

The beads' shape I'm calling curvy cubes. When the glass was still molten, I roughly mashed them into cubes and then a couple of the corners have been flattened on each one. After fire polishing to a smooth finish, they're popped into the kiln to anneal. Acid etching after they've been cleaned takes off the shine and gives it a similar finish as my vintage bottle.

Anyone for spankles?

2011-02-22T19:32:00.000Z

I added a couple of new sets of beads to my Sooz Beads Etsy shop today. The British Sellers on Etsy team have a Team Discussions Section and there's a thread where you can link to new items to promote them. I was merrily adding my latest additions, typing a bit of a description about the set below but instead of typing "silver spangles", it came out "silver spankles". I like the word so much, I keep saying it to myself!

If you're a touch typist (rather than the 2 finger variety!) try typing the word yourself, is it just me or do your fingers just want to type a "k" after the "n"?!

Recycled glass of two kinds combined

2011-02-17T07:57:00.000Z

You probably all remember the celebration of my first Etsy sale a little while ago, well, Deb, the lovely lady who bought some of my etched Harveys Bristol Cream sherry beads has made these earrings which I think are just brilliant! They're available to purchase along with a matching pendant from her northcoastbeachglass Etsy shop. Another first for me - my beads in someone else's jewellery!

Deb was so pleased with the beads that she ordered 15 more. The first ones only took a week to reach her in the USA but we're a bit concerned that the follow up order seems to be taking forever - hope they arrive with you soon, Deb as I'm looking forward to seeing more combinations with the beach glass you find close to your home.

Look - jewellery!

2011-02-15T19:50:00.000Z

I've been posting far too much about new beads lately and not enough on jewellery. Here is a new recycled/upcycled pair of earrings using etched beads made from a melted Harveys Bristol Cream sherry bottle and pretty sterling silver leaf charms. The earrings are available to buy both in my Etsy shop and will also be on my stall this Saturday.

Hope you all like them!

The saga of the pre-dug hole

2011-02-13T16:40:00.000Z

At the back end of last week, we had some very windy weather but it was mild so I decided to put some washing out. It managed some shirts and trousers fine but when I added the second load (sheets) within a couple of minutes the big sail area almost completely collapsed the rotary drier which was only anchored by a hammered in stake rather than being properly concreted in. I didn't take a picture of the sheets half trailing on the ground, I was too busy washing them again (and swearing at whoever it was that didn't put the dryer up properly first time!)

It has taken said person a little over a week to get round to remedying the problem, claiming that B&Q, Jackson Shipley and the Co-Op had all run out of pre-dug holes to put the concrete in! But anyway, here he is all kitted out in his site safety gear.

Taking the p*** a bit with the hard hat ....

Getting down to business now

"What do you mean I've put the hole in upside down?"

Make sure it's upright. (Ooer, his hat has come off!)

Ta dar!

What a clever chap! Thank you DH xxx

Whilst I had the camera out in the garden, I snapped this one of the snowdrops just opening up to remind us all that winter will soon be over!

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.

Sneak previews

2011-02-13T10:03:00.001Z

It was just an afterthought (suggested by DH) that I take the beads that I've offered for sale in my new beads only Etsy shop to my stall on Saturday. I got four commissions for necklaces and another for a pair of earrings with a possibility of a necklace or bracelet to match later on.

Regular customers, in particular, seemed to appreciate a "sneak preview" of what I'll be making jewellery with in the future. I'll definitely be doing that again!

The weather in Cambridge was cloudy but dry when we arrived at around 8.30am; I think it must've been raining earlier because everything was wet and the tree over my stall was dripping on me! :-) However, apart from a light shower in the afternoon, we had a pretty much perfect day weather-wise for sales. I think my Duffers' Guide has helped the fellas out as I got more Valentine's Day purchasers :-)

Lampwork beads for sale

2011-02-08T20:44:00.001Z

For the first time since I started making lampwork beads, I am currently making more beads than I can actually use in my own jewellery business and so I'm making a small selection available to purchase in a separate Etsy shop called Sooz Beads.

I'm not selling seconds, I am only selling beads that I would be happy to make jewellery with myself. When things get moving again in Spring, there probably won't be many left over, so snap them up whilst they're available!

The duffers guide to taking a hint

2011-02-05T18:24:00.001Z

I see it all the time at art and craft markets, couples wander up to my stall, look at the jewellery, have a chat, the girlfriend/wife/partner picks up a piece of jewellery and says something to her boyfriend/husband/partner that - to me - is clearly a hint that if someone special bought the item for her, she'd be highly delighted. All she gets back is a blank look and they wander off. Very occasionally, the gentleman will return and buy the item; he was just playing dumb. I'm always most impressed with guys that can pull that off (DH is hopeless, he will actually ask me "Is that hint for your birthday present then?") !!!

So, for all you blokes out there that can't take a hint, here's a rough guide translating commonly heard phrases and generally letting you know what might be going on in your beloved's mind.

The vital point for you to realise is that when you are taken out shopping close to Valentinue's day, her birthday, your anniversary or Christmas she is NOT doing this just to deprive you of watching sports on TV, or keep you from your mates in the pub. She is trying to help you come to the right decision about a present for her and to save you wasting your money. See ... she loves you really.

So, when you're in a shop or (for preference) at a craft market stall and she picks up (for example), the bracelet photographed

if she tries it on, she is interested in it. If she just puts it down again and tries on something else, that wasn't a hint. Sometimes things look different when they're on. (NB With earrings she will just hold them up next to her ear and look at herself in a mirror, she won't put them in as most retailers don't like you to do this with earrings for hygiene reasons.) What she says after trying it on is the key to not missing the hint.

If she says "Oh, this is lovely, I really like it what do you think?" and shows it to you, she isn't really interested in your opinion, she is engaging you and bringing the item to your attention. If you go back later and buy this for her, she will pretend it was all your idea and tell all her friends how clever you were to notice that she'd like it. Other things she may say if she'd like you to buy it for her are:

"This would go with my new dress"
"It fits perfectly, it was made for me"
"I really like this, I'd like to have it but I can't afford it" (you will get bonus points here for your generosity)

When she doesn't buy it for herself, she isn't torturing you and drawing out the nightmare of having to keep shopping til she does find something she wants to buy - she is dropping a hint to you.

The thing to do next is after a few minutes, when you've left the stall, is to say "I'm just going to buy a newspaper, I'll be back in a minute" she will probably realise what you're doing but she won't let on, so no need (at this stage in your hint-taking education) to be any more subtle than that. She probably won't even question you if you don't have a newspaper when you come back, if she does, just tell her "They didn't have a copy of The Daily Mirror" (or whatever paper you usually buy).

However, some ladies have a different approach, having tried the above way numerous times in the past and had their hints ignored, they are a tad more direct about it and may say something like:

"This is a lovely bracelet, it would be so nice if someone listening to me would buy it for my Valentine's day present"
"It would be lovely if someone came back to buy this for me when I wasn't here"

In my experience, this still only works about 50% of the time. Oftentimes, the gentleman will pick up one of my business cards which are handily lying around at both ends of the stall and I will get a phone call/e-mail/internet order. I have a really good memory and if you ring me during the week, I will remember the hint and know what you are talking about. After a week though, my memory is a bit faulty so follow up on this kind of comment fast! Hopefully you're getting the idea by now; you need to realise that it's imperative to take heed when she's talking; if you're not listening and are daydreaming about the football scores, then you will not pick up on this hint - remember: pay attention!

There is one final way that some ladies adopt. These ladies have been so often disappointed in the past and fed up with presents they don't like, that they utilise a candid, blunt and to the point method:

"Get your wallet out, you're buying me this for Valentine's day"

This is a royal command, if you don't buy this item right then, don't expect any smoochies later on! This has a good success rate but it's a little unromantic. So I urge all of you people out there who never know what to get your other half for a present; all you have to do is listen when you're out shopping together - she may be trying to tell you something!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Sooz Jewels' jewellery is designed for women to wear, we have no objection if men wish to wear our jewellery and readers of the above guide may therefore feel free to substitute gender and gender-specific terms at will should they so wish. Sooz Jewels is an equal opportunities purveyor of craft jewellery.

Computer problems and calling Heather!

2011-02-03T08:14:00.001Z

Since the last Windows automatic update, my laptop been difficult to boot. Consequently, I just didn't switch it off for a couple of weeks whilst I got my accounts and tax return done as I needed information in it to do so. Now that's out of the way, I've been trying to fix it but unfortunately, now it won't turn on at all!

It's within its year's warranty so I'm going to take it back to hopefully be fixed but I don't know when I can get it to the shop or how long they'll keep it. I can use this desktop PC to download new e-mails but I can't access old ones til I get the laptop working again. I was in the middle of e-mail exchanges with Heather about her daughter's wedding jewellery. She was expecting me to post a package of sample beads yesterday but I can't get at her address so Heather, if you're reading this, please can you send me your address again. Thanks!

Am I messy?

2011-01-25T10:31:00.001Z

I asked this question of myself when I was reading Amy's ReFinds blog. I "met" Amy through the Upcyclers team on Etsy.

So .. am I messy? I took these pictures of my indoor studio where I make my jewellery and the answer is ... when I'm working, most definitely!

I have another studio in my garden where I do my soldering and melt glass for beads which I've featured in here before. Basically that's for hot work - if it burns down, the house is safe! I had a big tidy up in there over the christmas holidays and so basically looks as tidy as it was in the last photograph. (That won't last!)

EDITED A BIT LATER:
This blog entry has been featured in the Etsy teamUpcyclers Love 2 Upcycle blog under their Blogs 2 Love section. My infamy spreads!

Wedding jewellery

2011-01-22T15:57:00.001Z

My heart confetti arrived through the post this morning and so I've been photographing the jewellery I made with the recycled Rosé bottle beads.

These have all been listed in my Etsy shop. The plan is to be back at my stall at Cambridge's Art & Craft market from next Saturday onwards (if the weather forecast is dodgy though, I probably won't be there until February) and so I'll have them with me there too.

I celebrated my first Etsy sale yesterday! I changed my shop over to dollars and also introduced free worldwide shipping, I'm not sure which of the two things tipped my luck but I'm glad whichever it was! A lovely jewellery designer in the USA purchased a set of etched Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry beads. We both think that these will look great with the seaglass that she mainly works with. This is a market I wouldn't have reached but for Etsy so I'm hap-hap-happy! I have missed the buzz of making sales on my stall and am also looking forward to being back out there amongst my customers.

Recycled lampwork beads now available to buy

2011-01-20T15:40:00.003Z

I've made a small selection of my recycled glass beads available for sale in my Etsy Shop.

As well as the etched Bombay Sapphire beads shown in the photograph, I have also added listings for beer bottle beads (Poachers, specially drunk by DH), sherry bottles and Perrier Water beads. Still to come are some beads made from Cava bottles and unetched Bombay Sapphire.

I have made some bridal jewellery with the Rosé bottle beads which I'm excited about but I'm holding off photographing them just for the time being as I'm waiting for a prop to come in the post to make the pics more "weddingy". All will be revealed here first! I've used up all the beads I made but I will be making more so I'll add a set of those in the course of the next few days too.

So why start selling beads now? I've been asked at various times since I started Sooz Jewels via e-mail and on my Saturday stall if I would consider selling them to other jewellery designers and my answer til now has always been an apologetic no but I have changed my mind. I've always thought that I would get bored with making more than I actually need myself and I do find that other lampwork beads are more interesting to make.

Having said that, I have been making recycled beads quite a lot lately and found it relaxing. If I do get a little bored, I watch the birds through my studio window, I have a strategically placed bird table and feeders especially for this. They absolutely love the sunflower seeds that I've been putting out for them (ready shelled so there's less mess). They fly in, pick one up and then fly off to eat it. A few seconds later, they're back for another ... I would get terrible indigestion if I ran around inbetween mouthfuls. It made me wonder what birds use instead of Rennies ...

New recycled beads (Rosé wine bottle)

2011-01-17T15:48:00.001Z

This is a new colour for me for my upcycled/recycled range, this time I used a Rosé wine bottle which had clear glass to show the colour of the pinky wine inside. Unlike Bombay Sapphire where it's the bottle that is the lovely colour, in this instance, the glass is clear and remarkably "clean" for glass from melted bottles.

I think it looks lovely etched as it is here and I can envisage some beautiful bridal pieces using them - keep a look out for new jewellery soon!

New kiln; I think I love the FedEx man

2011-01-12T17:22:00.000Z

My new kiln arrived just before lunchtime. It's a diddy little thing compared to the old one, teeny but I never used to fill up the old one anyway; I tend to make beads for about 4 hours at a time and this will easily take half a day's lampwork output.

I've been going crackers without my kiln this week. I even feebly tried turning on my Paragon in the hope that the christmas rest had done it some good and it would suddenly work again. Never mind, now my new one is here, I can finally make some more beads! I made a sandwich and read the manual cover to cover whilst eating it (yes I am THAT sort of person!)

I was just about to take it out to the studio to give it a trial run and the power went off in the house and possibly the entire village. The people in the big house opposite are having some work done and I have a feeling their workmen did something. I couldn't believe it! How unlucky am I?!

By the time it came back on again, it was time for me to make dinner, we are having lamb stew tonight and as it takes at least a couple of hours to cook, I was chopping and browning instead of playing with my kiln. It's bubbling away nicely on the stove now but we'll be eating in an hour or so, I really want to sit and hold it's hand on its first run through to make sure everything is AOK so I think it'll be tomorrow before I know whether I love my new kiln as much as I do the FedEx man who brought it to me.

Modified photography set up

2011-01-10T12:19:00.001Z

I've added to the photography set up I wrote about last year. I've been reasonably happy with the photographs I was taking with it but even so, they were still much better if I opened the studio door and let in some natural light. I really wanted something that was independent of the time of day or weather. Hence I've invested in another OTT light and a softbox to replace the amateurish piece of paper. I've also purchased some different coloured card backgrounds cut to fit the softbox.

I think my jewellery photography is improving; I'm really pleased with this photograph of a recycled beer bottle and copper necklace, taken today (flat, dull, very overcast and breezy). The necklace will be on sale in my Etsy shop this afternoon!

Facebook

2011-01-06T12:42:00.001Z

Another New Year's Resolution has been ticked off the list; I am now on Facebook! Just click the link to the left to see. I have sent out some Friend requests to some people that I know have Facebook pages (and even had some replies already!)

If any of my readers/followers would like to request me as a friend, please do so and I'll add you next time I'm on-line :-)

I was in DH's diary yesterday; he was going to take me to Stoke to pick up a new kiln from Kiln Care (a couple hours drive) so I can get back to beadmaking but I got postponed til today ... and now he can't go again so I think I'll order one to be couriered. I'm not cross, I'm glad he's got the work and is busy (especially as I'm not earning anything this month!) The Art and Craft market isn't open again til 22nd January and I'm planning on being back a couple of weeks after that so it's not urgent but I am worried that I'm forgetting how to melt glass!

Messin' aroun'

2011-01-02T16:30:00.000Z

I've been playing with Etsy this afternoon. I rephotographed all the earrings I have in stock made with Bombay Sapphire lampwork beads and have listed them in the my new Etsy shop. Then I read up about this thing called a Treasury. People seem to like it when they get included in one and seeing as I'm so new, I thought I'd be unlikely to be featured so soon so I made one myself in my company colour of aquamarine. I only included one of my own items, all the rest are things I like which are in Etsy and are either aquamarine colour or its close cousin, turquoise. It's called Aquamarine Dreams Hope you like it too!

I'll be adding the rest of the range of recycled/upcycled earrings very soon:

Cava bottle
Perrier water bottle
Harveys Bristol Cream sherry

Coming soon (when I get my new kiln): jewellery made from upcycled wine bottles and the much anticipated return of the beer bottle.

Words of wisdom

2010-12-29T09:24:00.002Z

Today's words of wisdom are

Left over mince pies and maltesers

Are not a proper breakfast

:-) I didn't actually have this for breakfast but yesterday I was very tempted. I waited til later and had them with a cup of tea. We saw off the last of the turkey yesterday as well so it feels like Christmas is over. DH is already threatening to take down our tree! Had a super time, don't often get to see brother, Dave, and all the rest of my family turned up as well on the day and then 3 days of quiet and chill time. Lovely presents, DH bought me a Pandora necklace so I can now put my large hole beads on that as well, I have worn a different combo every day so far since I got it. I love it. Here's how I'm wearing it today.

Brilliant tin from sister, Sharon. I complained to her about it when I saw it in Lakeland one Saturday in November when we were on the craft market together. It's in a lovely pink/silver Art Nouveau style and I coveted it greatly for my collection but the biscuits it contains have got palm oil in it so I forbade myself from buying it. Sharon bought it for me, ate the biscuits herself (she's so self-less!!) and left me a note inside about elves eating them so she replaced them with palm oil free chocolate! Inspired!

Super selection of books and DVDs, one was a compendium of loads of different knitting and crochet stitches with photographs of swatches knitted up. I've had tons of fun playing about knitting some up, combining stitches to see what I can come up with myself. Merlin series 3 DVD ... was really hoping to get that and am half way through the excellent How to Survive in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.

Highlight of Christmas day has to be getting Sandy back over the tongue poking out mug incident. When I put her warmed plate in front of her ready for her to help herself to vegetables, I sleight-of-handed my photograph underneath it and giggled to myself all throughout lunch. I could hardly wait to say "Anyone for some christmas pud?" When we cleared the the table, she was passing plates to me. She picked hers up first and was so intent on grabbing dad's and then mum's that she didn't spot it until after the fourth plate had been passed along! She jumped a mile when she noticed it (c'mon ... I'm not that scarey!) A great reaction and it was a huge laugh.

However, I had a shock when I got into the shower on boxing day, she had placed it very carefully so it wasn't noticable until you actually got into the cubicle BUT .... but ... as it's a photo of ME sticking my tongue out, not her, she hasn't got me back .... yet!

Christmas card

2010-12-24T10:00:00.001Z

This year's christmas card money has been donated to Doris Banham Dog Rescue. Many thanks for all my friends and family who don't mind getting a christmas card from us to enable this much needed donation to be made.

Warmest Christmas and New Year wishes to all who are reading.

xxx

Plus licks and woofs from Missy.

Eeek!

2010-12-23T14:44:00.004Z

DH has gone out this morning armed with a list of the last few bits and pieces that we still need for the 25th that got missed off the big shop yesterday. He is also visiting friends, Kev and Mandy. Kev made our Christmas pudding last year, his own secret recipe and it was absolutely brilliant. It was so good, my family have said they will only come to me again this year if Kev is making the pudding and fortunately, he is supplying us with another so DH is also picking that up too.

I have been diligently cleaning the kitchen today and didn't notice a text was sent to me by DH an hour ago ... a whole hour ago ... innocent enough message:

"Have we got potatoes?".
"Arghhh! NO, we have no potatoes", I urgently messaged back. No reply. I rang him, no reply so I don't know whether he is getting any or not! Help! What if the shops are all out tomorrow due to frozen ground? I have probably got too many carrots, anyone got a good recipe that makes carrots look like roast potatoes?! Quick!

EDITED LATER:

No, he didn't get any potatoes so without any cup of tea after his journey or me asking him how Kev and Mandy were, I sent him straight back out to get some and phew, we now have potatoes. However, my little panic pales slightly compared to Kev and Mandy's, they are so laid back, they haven't even bought their turkey yet, which is probably fine if you have ordered one (we picked ours up from the free range farm down the road yesterday). But, they don't have one on order, I suppose the shops still have them for late comers but I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving it til tomorrow ....

And THEIR little panic (which they aren't actually panicking about, I am panicking for them) pales in comparison with some other friends, Martin and Suzy, whose story was related by Kev to DH. Martin and Suzy came home with a frozen turkey crown yesterday but had no room in their fridge to put it. For one thing I don't know how they have no room. I know for a fact they have TWO big fridge freezers because when we moved into a house with a built in fridge and freezer about 5 years ago, we gave them our old one one which was quite new to keep in their garage for "overspill" items (they have a big family). Anyway, they decided to put their frozen turkey crown in their oven to defrost. Suzy started doing some baking this morning and unfortunately, forgot the frozen turkey crown (complete with packaging) was in the oven ... they now have to get another one and are talking about becoming vegetarians. ;-)

Etsy shop

2010-12-20T17:30:00.000Z

Opening up an Etsy shop was going to be one of my New Year resolutions so I feel extremely organised to have accomplished this feat before 2011 has even started.

Due to the craft market cancellation today, I have gained a day this week. I was tempted to get on with all of the jobs I need to get done before the 25th but as today was going to be dedicated to my business, selling jewellery in Cambridge I decided there's still plenty of time for all the Christmas preparations (breathe slowly and deeply ....) I have instead earmarked Wednesday and Thursday for list-busting and so the time was re-allocated to creating the Sooz Jewels Etsy shop.

For the time being, I'm concentrating on my recycled/upcycled glass jewellery. I only have three items in there at the moment, the majority of the recycled range were photographed before I got my new photography set up so I'll be adding to the listings as soon as I get some nice new photographs of the stock.

My New Year's resolution has changed from "Create an Etsy shop" to "Stock my Etsy shop". All the hard work has been done now and the rest should be easy (she says).

Best laid plans

2010-12-20T07:33:00.000Z

I'm afraid the market has been cancelled for today. I was just setting off about half an hour ago when I got the call. It's not too bad where I am (about 50 miles North of Cambridge) but freezing fog and icy roads have forced many stallholders to decide not to travel. You really need about 10 stalls to make a decent showing. There were 15 of us on Friday and Saturday was full with over 30 stalls.

I will keep an eye on the forecast for tomorrow but Countryfile were forecasting a big lump of snow for Tuesday; they're often wrong on predicting snow so I can't say whether I'll be there tomorrow or not!

It was quite funny when my mobile rang because we were sat in the drive about to leave and heard the tone, I'm not familiar yet with receiving calls on my new mobile. It sounded like an alarm on the car, we went round checking the doors were closed, seatbelts etc. before it rang again and this time I felt the vibration and realised someone was ringing me :-) I couldn't get hold of the market manager (busy ringing everyone else no doubt) so I tried my sister, she had her mobile phone turned off. She normally stops overnight at my mum and dad's house after she's done the Sunday main market (they live much closer to Cambridge) so I tried ringing there but Sharon had decided to go home and so I woke them up! :-/ Ooops, sorry mum and dad!

Spell(un)bound and christmassy

2010-12-19T16:44:00.001Z

I'm not sure if it's the fact that I got the christmas tree decorated today (poor thing has been all barely forlorn in the corner since Wednesday waiting for me to overcome my festive lethargy), or if it's that the christmas presents are now all wrapped (except for DH's) or if it's the fact that I'm finally feeling warm after two days out in sub-zero temperatures in Cambridge City Centre (the banana I had with lunch was half frozen when I ate it!), or if it's the sherry I was tippling whilst I was doing said decorating and wrapping (I only bought it because I need the bottle to turn into lovely dark blue beads) but ... but ... at last I'm feeling christmassy!

My Cambridge No-Snow spell was finally broken at around 3.45pm yesterday afternoon. It would probably be an exaggeration for me to say I packed my stock and stall away in a blizzard because it wasn't very windy but it was ve-e-e-rrry snowy! I had snow on the top of my hat and DH looked like he'd got a very severe attack of dandruff - the snow really showed up on his black overcoat! When we shook the tarpaulin that had been covering everything up, even in only half an hour, it had quite an accumulation on top.

I am counting myself lucky that it held off for as long as it did, given the awful forecasts that were being given earlier in the week for Cambridge. Sales were well down on the seasonal average but it was really good to note that the City Council had salted the pavements (they didn't do that last year, indeed I can't remember them ever doing it before in December). The Market Manager had also been given a supply of salt for the market - last year, the Council quoted health and safety regulations that said they weren't allowed to salt the market because if someone fell over due to it not being done properly, they would be sued - no salt, no lawsuits are possible. I know it was in the tory manifesto to do away with such stupid health and safety legislation but whoever decided to give us salt this year - thank you, thank you, thank you! There is a concrete entrance on a bit of an upwards slope and it was so depressing last year to see people try to get into the market only to turn away because it was too slippy.

So, hopefully when I report for duty tomorrow, people should be able to get out and about in Cambridge, even if it is in fewer numbers than previous years. I can't blame people for sticking to the indoor shopping areas due to the unseasonably cold conditions but if anyone fancies venturing out, roads allowing, I will be in All Saints Garden opposite Trinity College tomorrow (and possibly Tuesday as well).

If you're suffering with snow-related problems, my genuine sympathy - I hope anyone who has to travel stays warm and safe.

Now where's the bottle for another glass ... I think I could definitely do with feeling even more christmassy.

Kiln update

2010-12-14T14:46:00.000Z

Robin e-mailed me back very quickly to say you press the plastic bits to release the wires. So easy when you know! Not really intuitive though, it looks as if it would grip tighter if you pressed them in further. Anyhow, the wires came out easily enough, new ones inserted, made sure none of the wires were touching the outer casing (they would burn) and then I screwed it all back up.

Unfortunately, I still have the tCL error. I've e-mailed Robin to ask him if 4 years is a good age for a Paragon SC2 and whether he thinks it's worth fixing any more. It was definitely worth trying a £52 fix when new ones are about £600.

I am therefore reluctantly resigned to not making any more beads before the new year. I only have two more making days left before I will be at the craft market for four out of the following five days and then I will be getting ready to receive guests on the 25th; after that I'm having a rest!

We're getting our Christmas tree tomorrow so it's time to deck the halls, make merry and forget about kilns. Shame I don't feel Christmassy at all yet!

Defeated by small bits of plastic

2010-12-14T12:16:00.002Z

I have managed to get the back of the kiln off and remove the old thermocouple from the firebrick hole. This was relatively straightforward; 12 screws to remove the kiln back and 2 different ones requiring a quarter inch spanner to get the ceramic block thing out of the firebrick hole (if a woman designed this, one tool would do both jobs). I've got the new one in place at the back now but attaching it at the other end to the controller is causing some grief. The instructions just say to "Remove the old thermocouple wires attached to the back of the controller".

The photograph above shows the back of the controller and the old wires - I have no idea how to get them out. It looks like I have to remove the bits of plastic first. They don't look like they unscrew (though I have tried). Another tack was to grab them with pliers and pull but all that has done is chew the plastic up. Before I ruin it completely, I have sent a photograph to Cherry Heaven and hope they have some advice of how to do this. I am thinking there is some kind of trick to it that only men know. I am thinking I should've just ordered a new kiln by overnight carrier, it would've been here by now and I wouldn't be left unable to make beads at the busiest time of the year. (Yes, I am grumpy AGAIN!)

I am going to make myself a nice lunch and watch Bargain Hunt to cheer myself up.

Extra days

2010-12-14T10:10:00.001Z

I will be doing some extra days at All Saints Art & Craft Market in Cambridge on this coming Friday (17th), Saturday (18th) as usual and also the following Monday (20th) and Tuesday (21st). This is subject to weather allowing me to get there (I note the forecast says it's due to turn cold and snowy again from Thursday onwards) and that I have sufficient stock left.

I am running out of some things due to the fact that I cannot replenish my bead stock. Additionally, some silver items have sold out and there is now not enough time left for me to have the items assayed and put them back out on the stall or post for Christmas. It's very unlikely any items ordered now will reach you in time for Christmas but if your item is in stock, I will be happy to post it first class to you. Please e-mail me first to check availability.

The part for my kiln has arrived this morning so I'm now going, screwdriver in hand, to see if I can fit it. It may be a job for DH but I'll keep you all posted (ha, may my performance in that regard be better than Royal Mail's!)

Post and phone

2010-12-13T07:04:00.001Z

No post on Thursday but he finally arrived on Friday morning with quite a bit of post; thankfully my materials arrived, but not the spare parts for my kiln. Nothing was waiting for me on Saturday when I got back from the market. I am really hopeful it will arrive this morning. The reason given for sporadic post was that they are doubling up, two postman per round because of the icy conditions. I really don't understand that at all, if it's dangerous for one, surely sending two is twice the risk?! I suppose one can ring for assistance if the other has an accident but isn't that what mobile phones are really good at? Oh well, anyway, the snow and ice has virutally all melted here over the weekend so I am hopeful they will be delivering once a day from now on.

Speaking of mobile phones, I got a new one on Saturday. My old one finally gave up the ghost after seven years - it would work OK in the house for texts but not phone calls and if I took it outside in the cold, it just switched itself off (know the feeling!) The O2 staff were comically appalled when I rang them about upgrading, my SIM card was one of the oldest ones on the network apparently (I feel quite proud :-))

I am getting to grips with how the new one works and what it does, I can take photos but can't send or receive them yet, I think I have to upgrade my package with O2 as I'm on a really cheapo one (I really only ever text, it's very rarely used for calls). Sister, Sharon, tells me that she just had to enable it on her phone as it's not a feature everyone uses so there will be another call to O2 a bit later on.

Right, I'd better get showered and dressed ready to wait for the postman. (Fingers crossed!)

Relying on the postman

2010-12-09T07:32:00.002Z

I have ordered a new thermocoupler (and a new relay just in case - always a good idea to have a spare). They are being dispatched today first class but I can't imagine they will arrive til next week. There's a possibility that it's the element in the kiln but without an electricity meter I won't know til I fit the new bits. I'm feeling so gloomy that I'm convincing myself they won't fix it.

Things that were posted to me on Monday haven't arrived yet, some materials (really really need that package as I can't make earrings if they don't arrive). DH is expecting a cheque (really really need that too!) New SIM card for my mobile (could do with that before Saturday). Two Amazon packages (would like those but not desperate) and some Love Film DVDs (ditto). Broke one of my 2.5mm bamboo needles that I use for sockmaking last night so can't even take refuge in knitting new socks (that's always fun). I've ordered some more as soon as I broke it but they probably won't arrive either.

All the disrpution and delays as a result of icy pavements and side streets is a nightmare at this time of year. Only the postman arriving with armfuls of post will cheer me up today and maybe the ice disappearing. Out of the last 10 days, I have only had 3 lots of post. At least it's supposed to be warmer for next couple of days. Need something to lift me out of the gloom.

More kiln trouble

2010-12-08T11:44:00.004Z

A couple of months ago, I was getting a tCL error on my kiln and after some advice from Cherry Heaven to make sure it's warm before I turn it on, the kiln has been behaving itself nicely, I just turn on the studio heater a few minutes before the kiln. Once I start work, I usually turn the heater off because as the make-up air comes in from outside, I'm just paying to heat the garden!

I’ve been using the kiln at least 4 times a week without any more problems. However, this morning, it got up to temperature OK but when I started to work (with fan going and window open for fresh make-up air), obviously the studio got cooler again. Then I noticed that the kiln was losing heat with alarming speed. It has been much colder outside earlier on in the week and last week and it was working fine then.

In fact DH said the car was registering minus 2 when he turned on the ignition and that's much warmer than the last couple of mornings! So I've e-mailed Cherry Heaven again to ask them what they think is up, I guess either relays or the thermocoupler. No beadmaking for me until it's fixed.

EDIT after initial posting: Quick phone call with Cherry Heaven chap - I have an exercise to do when it's cooled down and then ring him to let him know how the kiln behaves to diagnose exactly what replacement part(s) I need.

Frozzed tootsies

2010-12-06T15:09:00.000Z

My feet got really cold this morning. I was only out there in my converted shed for three hours, it has polystyrene and chipboard underneath the new vinyl but as I hadn't used it for 2 days, any heat from Friday's activities had long since dissipated through the insulation. Two pairs of socks and my heavy walking boots were no defence.

Here's me with my feet on my tiger hotwater bottle whilst I ate my lunch waiting for my poor frozzed toes to thaw out! Normally I would go back out there after lunch but I have retreated to the warmth of the house and am going to package up some parcels for commissions, a couple of alterations from Saturday and maybe make a necklace or two indoors for the rest of the day!

The spell I cast on 1 December has worked - Cambridge was still very green on Saturday and felt positively warm compared with Lincolnshire! There were fewer than normal Christmas shoppers around for a December Saturday - I'm hoping that next week everyone will realise there are only two shopping Saturdays before Christmas day. :-)

I'm dreaming of a Green Christmas

2010-12-01T14:08:00.002Z

I'm dreaming of a green Christmas
With every Christmas card I don't write ...

I am so fed up with the snow. I was really shocked to hear on the local news that the Lincoln Christmas market has been cancelled this year on account of the Lincolnshire weather. As a Saturday market trader myself, I feel sympathy with all the traders who will have bought in materials and stock specially for this huge event. It's never been cancelled in its 28 year history.

In my webmaster days, I spent a couple of years working on Visit Lincolnshire's website and I can attest to the fact that it's of enormous importance to the economy of the city. There are hundreds of stalls and visitors from all over Europe flock to the four day event. All the hotels and guest houses are full up to capacity, booked months in advance, the shops all open extra days and extra hours. I'm sure this will hit the City hard.

So far, I understand Cambridgeshire is broadly OK and forecast to stay relatively snow-free for next few days. As long as I can get to the A1 (2 miles from my home), I should be able to get to my stall there on Saturday. However, at the moment, the news reports that the A1 is blocked at our junction (near Grantham) both ways with jack-knifed lorries. Actually, looking at the state of our very long driveway, I'm not even sure we can even get out of the garden!

DH has been hearing horror stories about journies home from tradesmen working on the site he is supervising. He hasn't been able to get there (about 25 miles away) for the last two days and so he's been stuck in doing paperwork. He's run out now and every day he is stuck at home is a day's wages lost. People in villages in and around Lincoln are reporting 12 inches of snow and journeys of 7 miles taking 7 hours.

I haven't seen the postman since Monday morning; I am expecting two lots of yarn that I ordered last week as well as supplies to make jewellery with. I really hope it all goes away soon.

Trip to Belgium

2010-12-01T07:32:00.003Z

My mum and dad, sister Sandy and her partner, Chris have just got back from a trip to Belgium for a book launch. My dad was a guest of honour there. I wish I could've gone but it's just too busy for me at this time of year to miss a Saturday in Cambridge.

The whole story is on Sandy's blog. It will be of interest to anyone curious about Second World War history, warning: it will probably make you cry (it did me!) In Sandy's inimitable style, she also finds lots of humour in the story as well, bless her.

Crystals

2010-11-29T09:46:00.002Z

When I turned on my kiln (and the studio heater!) about 20 minutes ago, there were all these crazy ice crystal patterns on the inside of the glass. I'm about to go out and start doing some work, even though they're really pretty, I hope they've thawed by now!

The snowy weather played havoc with my sales figures on the stall last year in December so I want this little dollop GONE by next Saturday (are you listening weather-forecaster-peeps?!)

Revisiting bubbles

2010-11-25T17:35:00.000Z

These blue bubble beads are to go with the very cold weather we're having at the moment. We haven't got any snow here at the moment (how about where you are?) But it's so cold that the frost doesn't seem to have melted in bits of the garden where the sun hasn't reached like the North side of hedges etc.

The beads are made with a base of CIM Sapphire (a colour which I adore) and they've been encased in Halong bay. The bubbles have taken on the light blue frostiness which makes them feel very sharp and even colder than clear glass would.

Brrr ... I needed warming up so I have made a Topaz version (a cognac amber colour) with straw yellow bubbles this morning so hopefully I'll warm up a bit when they're ready to come out of the kiln. I'll be making jewellery with them all tomorrow!

It's arrived

2010-11-24T08:10:00.005Z

It's now that time of year when my Christmas commissions and stock making takes over and other things fall by the wayside. Blogging goes a little quieter, the ironing piles up, telephone messages remain unanswered (OK so nothing new there ..!) and DH does more of the afternoon dog walking. Luckily, his business usually slows down at Christmas so that works out quite well.

Here are some new things that got added to the website recently (bigger pictures if you click on them)

Midge over at the Soggibottom blog is having a giveaway, click on this lovely image below to be taken to the page where you can win this cute little bear

Winter time

2010-11-16T09:20:00.001Z

Wintertime comes just a little too fast

Summer just flies by on its patient wings

Sweet Burgundy by Tommy Bolin

A case for morphic resonance?

2010-11-15T21:44:00.000Z

The world, well, my little world, has gone a little scribble bead jewellery dotty the last couple of weeks.

One of my regular customers already has red scribble bead bracelet and matching earrings. When she stopped by a couple of months ago, she was admiring the newest blue version of the scribble beads but was looking for something in green. I was thinking of doing a green version and so I made some scribble bead experiments over the course of a few weeks. When she stopped by the stall again, I showed her what I'd come up with, she couldn't decide between two that she liked and so decided to have bracelet and earrings in both colours! (I really like having wonderful customers like that!)

This week, I completely sold out of everything I made in blue scribble, an expensive necklace, a bracelet and three pairs of earrings :-) The customer that bought the necklace wanted another in a different colour for her mother and commissioned me to do a lilac version so now I'm experimenting with purpley-pinkey hues.

The week before it was all almond blossom jewellery ... I sold out of everything I had on the stall that was almond blossom related. Out of the first six items sold, four were made from almond blossom beads.

I don't really know what I'm talking about when I refer to morphic resonance. This is Sheldrake's theory (I'm paraphrasing here) of collective memory; that events become more likely the oftener they occur, and therefore behaviour becomes guided into patterns laid down by previous similar events experienced by others.

What I do know is that occasionally items of jewellery on my stall become "unloved" the less often they are picked up and tried on. Sometimes I put the same bracelet out week after week and it is totally ignored by customers. I put it in a different position, reduce the price, change the way I display it all to no effect. But ... one day, for whatever reason, early on in the day, someone will pick it up for the first time in weeks. I can virtually guarantee that several others will also pick it up later on and chances are I will sell it - odd. Sheldrake is a Cambridge academic and therefore I feel obliged to take him seriously; morphic energy fields are as credible an explanation for this as anything I can think of!

Why do we have dogs?

2010-11-10T19:38:00.002Z

I have just spent 20 minutes sorting this tangled mess out.

It's was a tension square I was knitting to check my gauge prior to knitting up a new project. I quite often eat my lunch with the news on the TV in order to get the weather forecast. After my sandwich but before the forecast, I thought I could get a couple of rows done. I left it there this afternoon and I've just come back to carry on and found it on the floor ... Missy had a rather guiltily sheepish look when I picked it up in puzzlement ...

Why do we have dogs? Because it's a laugh! :-) Bless her.

Couple of bracelets

2010-11-05T21:27:00.002Z

I've just added two new bracelets to my website.

I don't make many charm bracelets; I absolutely love them but they take so long to make, they are a bit of a labour of love - it's very difficult to get back the amount I should charge for them so there's a real bargain to be had on my stall in Cambridge tomorrow!

This is a new hammered sterling silver bracelet, a double version of my random link asterope range of items. It's hallmarked 925 sterling silver by the London Assay Office, it's adjustable though I can resize to fit exactly if you bring your wrist along with you ;-) and it has a safety chain.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Say Hi to Horace

2010-11-03T21:15:00.002Z

This is Horace

He lives at Stoke Rochford, a village that's a 3-4 mile drive from our home. Every couple of weeks or so, we like to walk Missy somewhere different to give her a bit of a change. This morning, we both took the morning off (oh, the joys of self-employment!) :-) I have quite alot on at the moment but nice weather doesn't come along that often at this time of year and DH persuaded me that this would make up for the umpteen bank holiday Mondays that we have simply ignored and worked through.

Horace lives by this bridge

I always take along some stale bread for him, he's named Horace after Laura Sparling's hothead torch (she has names for everything!) because he sounds a bit like a Hothead (used to make beads) whenever he hisses to let me know that I'm not dishing the bread out quick enough!

Horace shares the vicinity with these creatures:

Missy wants to chase them all (but isn't allowed to!)

There are loads of leaves, they were just dry enough to crackle when we walked over them :-)

The walk is a mixture of river, weir, mill buildings converted into business units, quiet country lanes, farmland, a golf course and lots of old stone cottages

We pass by two war memorials which are particularly poignant at this time of year. My dad was a gunner on Lancasters in the Second World War so I find the Canadian one especially moving (look at the ages of the crew that died near here). Every year, the Canadian Air Force and RAF leave wreaths on memorial day.

Stoke Rochford Hall itself is impressive, currently home to the National Union of Teachers and you can hire the place for conferences etc. There's also an impressive monument to Newton, who was born in nearby Woolsthorpe Manor.

Over the small bridge, round the corner by the Church and we're almost back to the car

We got home just before it started to rain but we had a lovely morning.

Fun test

2010-11-02T09:37:00.000Z

Here's something that's fun to do, I had three goes and this was my fastest result (ranked 1966 of 68710).

89 words
Speed typing test

New jewellery

2010-10-22T18:56:00.003+01:00

Here is a selection of the new items added to the Sooz Jewels website today and available from my stall on All Saints Arts & Craft Market in Cambridge tomorrow. The forecast is for a soggy start but I'm hopeful of a better afternoon!

Two cute photos

2010-10-21T20:43:00.001+01:00

My cardigan was folded up and left neatly over the arm of the chair .... she looks too comfy to shift!

Have you ever tried to purchase some of Laura Sparling's lampwork beads? They go virtually as soon as she adds them to her website or Etsy store. It was therefore with mixed feelings when I got an e-mail from Sandy asking me to make her something with these:

Aren't they beautiful? I can see why Sandy liked them but ..... on the one hand I can't wait to get my mitts on them but on the other .... oi!! It's hard enough trying to get hold of Laura's beads without non-jewellery-designers buying them as well!

New photography set up

2010-10-13T16:30:00.003+01:00

Here are the first photographs of beads made this week using the new photography area which has been set up in my studio by DH and myself (thank you darling!)

Even with just one small light unit (daylight flourescent tube), it's giving pretty good results. I may add a second light but just a minor tweak in Photoshop to get the white background really white and the colours are really quite true to life. I'm calling the beads photographed "Melted Tigers" and "Drizzled Toffee", I expect you can guess which one is which.

Here's what it looks like. It's all very low tech and inexpensive.

I've covered David Tennant up with white sticky back plastic (ignores shrieks of indignation from DT fans). There are a couple of creases and bubbles in it; I think the Tardis is trying to find a way out but I'm assured it's Blue Peter strength so that oughtta hold David and the entire space time continuum behind it.

The flourescent light fitting has been screwed to a piece of white contiboard which is held in place with a batten of softwood fixed to the wall of the studio. The light fitting and bulb is being diffused with a piece of A3 photocopying paper secured with masking tape so I don't get a long rectangular reflection on shiny beads.

The base is another piece of contiboard resting on top of two drawer units which is temporarily ontop of a large Really Useful big box - this is to bring the item being photographed closer to the light but also has the advantage of meaning I don't have to bend down to take pictures. We will put another batten in soon to tidy it up and replace the box. The beads have been placed on top of some really white photocopying paper but I can put any background in there that I like.

I'm going to screw in eyelets as well to the left and right so I can string things across to photograph 3-D earrings and those that really don't photograph well on a flat surface.

From now onwards, there can be no more excuses like "I can't take photographs because ...."

it's raining
it's too cold
it's too bright
it's too dark
the bench is covered with bird poo and I can't be bothered to clean it off

Strange coincidence but one of the blogs I follow The Drifter and the Gypsy is giving away a polaroid camera on this posting. To enter all you have to do is leave a comment and it's open to international visitors. I get a second chance for blogging about it and so I'm feeling lucky!

Sisters

2010-10-11T22:17:00.005+01:00

One of my sisters, Sandy, was diagnosed with breast cancer just over a year ago. I alluded to it in my blog at the time but I didn't say who it was because of her privacy. A full account of what we (and particularly Sandy) went through is on Sandy's blog. She's absolutely fine now, thank goodness, though she has the hurdle of reconstruction ahead of her if she decides to go ahead with that.

I have to say I am impressed she decided she wanted to share her experiences and we're hoping it will raise awareness of the importance of having checks and reassure others that the outcome of a cancer diagnosis isn't necessarily all bad news.

This year Reveal magazine and The Sanctuary (on Floral Street, near Covent Garden) held a free ‘Pink Friday’ party on October 5^th for Breast Cancer Care supporters who have or have had breast cancer. She heard about the party via Twitter, I think, and applied for a place. She was lucky enough to be one of the 50 invitees. It was exactly a year to the day that she was diagnosed and so was a brilliant way for her and her work colleague, Lin, to mark the anniversary in a very positive way.

Apparently it was very glamorous the whole place was lit up in pink, she drank far too much pink champagne and there were roving beauticians doing manicures and pedicures.

Reveal magazine was also there at the event taking pictures and interviewing 4 of the party-goers. Sandy also got in on that as well and so she got her hair and make up done for a photoshoot too! Apparently the article will be in tomorrow's issue.

The picture above is of Sandy, second from the right with the other 3 selected for the magazine. Sandy had a brilliant time but was rather worse for wear the next day (she's not used to booze!!) She came home on the train with a huge goodie bag.

Well done Sandy, I'm looking forward to reading the article. I won't make you cry again by saying how much we all love you. ;-) In the meantime, here's another picture, this time of me ....

AMBUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now people may be wondering why I am poking my tongue out ... when we were little (there's only 2 years between us), Sandy and I used to play this daft game of sticking our tongue out at the other and then closing our eyes so the other one couldn't get us back. We'd go on for hours waiting for the other to open their eyes so we could get the last tongue-poke in (oooer Missus!) Happy days, simpler times - we were easily amused! Anyway, we forgot all about it for decades but recently it has got resurrected to much merriment.

I have had to put up with photographs of Sandy sticking her tongue out at me all over the place, she loves to play practical jokes. There was one on the windscreen of our the car going back from Martin's 40th birthday party (she colluded with DH on that one!) Another time there was one sellotaped underneath the toilet seat lid at her house when we visited! One two other occasions, DH has helped her again - the photo from the car surrepticiously replaced the photograph that I have in a plastic holder to show people on my stall how I make glass beads, another got sellotaped to the TV/DVD player that I watch when I'm making jewellery.

I have got my own back a couple of times, the ambush photograph above was e-mailed to Lin at Sandy's place of work and Lin very kindly printed it out and stuck it on her monitor. She e-mailed me to say You should have seen her face - it was funny she uttered some abuse about you being a bitch!! A bit later in the day, Lin also kindly printed out this one:

and stuck it to the door of their office as Sandy was about to go home (my eyes are closed so she can't get me back!!) Thanks, Lin - I owe you one (or two!)

I also printed them out and made the back of the photographs look like a postcard. I sent the first one to her from Northumbria when we were on holiday with news of what a nice time we were having. Chris, her partner, saw it first and left it with the writing side up so she would read that first and think it was a legit postcard. Apparently Sandy jumped out of her skin when she turned it over and saw me! :-) The next day, the eyes closed one arrived and Chris put it in a book that had arrived from Amazon, at first she couldn't work out how it got in there (thanks, Chris!!)

So I thought I was winning until Saturday, Sandy and Chris turned up to say hello in Cambridge. They came to my stall and very kindly bought me a cup of tea .... in THIS mug!

Any ideas for getting my own back gratefully received, get in touch secretly via my e-mail form on the Sooz Jewels website.

EDIT: Have seen the article and professional photographs, all four ladies look totally wonderful and have courageous stories to tell. Sandy wore a pair of Sooz Jewels earrings and so I can now tell everyone that my lampwork tube drop earrings are "as worn by glamorous people in Reveal Magazine" (ta, sis!)

tCL error

2010-10-07T09:41:00.001+01:00

I have been turning on my kiln to warm up very gingerly all this week. Monday was the first time I'd used it for a week and it wouldn't warm up. I got an error code "tCL" on the digital read out. I got out the manual and it said there was a fault in the thermocoupler and to check the wiring. Sounded like a job for DH but then I went to Frit Happens to see if anyone else had had this problem in the past and found a thread there. Someone else had the same thing happen after a fortnight away and they needed a new relay.

I have heard about relays being replaced, Laura had to do hers not so long ago and I knew it was an easy fix. I rang the people recommended at Cherry Heaven and a very helpful gentleman suggested I put the kiln in a warmer room. Apparently, the programmer has an expectation of how quickly the kiln should heat up. if it doesn't do that, it thinks something has gone wrong. The margin of decision has been increased on the newest programmers. it's not a fault - just an over-sensitivity. I was a bit sceptical about this solution as it's been much much colder than it was on Monday (especially last winter!) and the kiln has still worked. Anyway, if it still wasn't doing anything after warming it up, he said to ring back. I turned my heater on and left it for half an hour and it worked; every since it has been as good as gold.

I don't know why I didn't get this error on colder days in the past; one of life's little mysteries, I have a personal theory that my kiln just missed me whilst we were away and wanted a bit of attention as I'd been taking it for granted. My kiln has served me well for nearly four years without a problem and I certainly would've been stuck if it hadn't started working again.

Back to work time after Mary's books

2010-10-06T09:39:00.004+01:00

I've been missing from blogger land for several days; we've been on holiday. We got back from another week in Northumbria on Friday. We had a lovely time but the weather was mixed to say the least! This was taken on the best day weather-wise, a 4 mile walk along the coast from Craster along to Dustanburgh Castle, then Embleton bay and on to Low Newton where there is a pub, the Ship, that brews its own beer (DH always thinks he's in heavy when we get there). Whenever we've been to that pub in the past, we've practically had it to ourselves but the weather was so nice on the Thursday, it was packed, we had to share a table and got talking to lots of other holiday makers. After suitable refreshment, we walked another 4 miles back inland along fields past a quarry and old lime works.

We stayed in the stable block belonging to the Pele tower at Craster, it's the first time we have stopped there and it was magnificent. The stable block was originally converted into a residence for Mary Craster, a cousin of Mr and Mrs Craster who own the Pele tower. She was an academic at Cambridge, a professor of Anthropology, deputy Curator of one of Cambridge's museums and taught Prince Charles. Since she passed away, Mr and Mrs Craster let her home out as holiday accommodation and they showed us the table where PC once sat, swinging his legs during tutorials. According to Mary, he was just like all her other students but he had better manners!

Mr and Mrs Craster can date their family history back 850 years and the village was named after them, apparently they constructed the harbour and many of the buildings there.

I can't praise the accommodation highly enough, it was huge and the best, the very best thing, about the house is that it is full of Mary's books and those she inherited from her parents. They span almost the entire twentieth century and the variety of subjects was diverse and fascinating. I was taking notes and sketching things from books on Byzantine art, Islamic art, Indian art, Greek art, you name it. There were craft books on quilting and embroidery, books on mysticism, novels by a diverse range of authors, old gardening and cookery books and many of the books were about India where she apparently grew up. There was a section of poetry that was almost as large as the secondhand book shop in Alnwick! Barter Books is one of the largest secondhand book shops in the UK and dogs are welcome - we had a great afternoon in there! Another lovely shop in Alnwick is the yarn shop, a boring hour for DH but I can't visit Northumbria without a trip to it!

One way or another, I found myself with a nose in a book quite a lot of the time we were away. I took 2-3 novels to read but only finished one, Cross Stitch, the first in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon recommended by Lori, thanks to that, I found myself thinking in a Scottish accent for half the week! :-) Rather appropriate as we were close to the border!

The rest of the time I was buried in Mary's books and the really interesting thing was that every other book had a clipping in it, perhaps a review from the Times, an obituary on the author or something about the subject matter; a brochure from an exhibition related to it, sometimes a letter from the author! Some of the letters had 2.5d stamps with King George on them!

A very lucky find was No Signposts on the Sea, a novel by Vita Sackville West, I have read several of her works but I wasn't even aware of this one, it was apparently the last one she wrote before she died.

So I am back all refreshed, relaxed and happy and brimming with new things I want to get on with making!

Lori's competition

2010-09-23T08:08:00.000+01:00

Before bed last night, I was reading blogs but too tired to leave any comments. The blogs must've been on my mind because I dreamed about a competition Lori Anderson of Pretty Things was having. You had to sneak into her house at night, eat a piece of chicken in sauce and then leave patterns in the dirty plate. The most artistic plate won the competition.

Fortunately, the real competition is a little more mainstream, if you blog about it, you can win a book so why not pop over there and enter! And the best thing for Lori is that there'll be no washing up when she gets up!

Poser

2010-09-22T10:28:00.001+01:00

Couldn't stay away long could I?!

Painting the studio black was very satisfying, the fence is done to match now too and as I was painting I could see exactly where I'd been ... I am definitely a goal oriented person. Some jobs (like unloading the dishwasher) don't give you such a sense of achievement as the kitchen doesn't look any different after you've finished, but wow - the studio looks VERY different now. AND I have ticked one job off my to do list :-)

But ... but ... sometimes doing one job makes another doesn't it? After the studio was finished, I realised there was a thin line of the old colour I couldn't get to behind the plastic glazing that comes with the shed pack. It just ruined the whole effect. After discussing the problem with DH, the only thing for it was to remove the wood holding the plastic in place, paint it and then put the glazing back. The tricky thing was that the plastic had become really discoloured as it degrades in sunlight.

The only thing for it was to replace the plastic and we came to the conclusion that my smart new studio deserved glass and so DH was dispatched to get some horticultural grade; it's amazing the difference it makes, sometimes I could hardly see out when the sun was shining on the plastic. It's only now I've got the glass, I realise how bad it had got.

I'm so proud of it, I had to take a photograph and then this Red Admiral came down to give it his seal of approval and he posed beautifully for me!

Whirlwind

2010-09-20T10:24:00.000+01:00

That's me at the moment: a whirlwind. I am so busy, I am meeting myself backwards! Loads of things on the "to do" list and very little time for blogging.

I will return with news and new photos in a couple of weeks prob'ly.

Hope everyone is happy and has more time than me at the moment!

New floor

2010-09-10T09:53:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday, we laid my brand new floor in the studio. I thought it would only take a couple of hours, and I could spend the rest of the day painting the outside but no. Even with two of us at it, taking everything out, cleaning behind things that hadn't been moved for over two years, laying the floor and then putting everything back, it took all day! So worth it though :-)

The cushion on the floor is where Missy rests when she's keeping me company, the area closest to the camera on the right is going to have a work surface resting across the two drawer units and be painted white to be the photography area. We haven't got the light units for that yet so David Tennant will be with us for a few more days (so, sorry you have to go, David but next time you visit, you can park the Tardis in the garden, yeh?)

The desk to the left is where I do my soldering (and enamelling earlier in the year). All the broken bottles for upcycling into beads and then jewellery are organised into containers with lids now so they don't get dusty and now they're in smaller boxes, there's much more room. My glass is now organised by manufacturer so I've got separate shelves for Effetre and Reichenbach with CIM and Double Helix sharing. Tons of room to buy loads more as well! The drawer unit that was freed up now I'm no longer using it for glass has got all the clutter that I don't use so much so now my workstation is looking much tidier. DH took this photo with his wide angle lens just after I'd made some Bombay Sapphire beads yesterday. You can still see my lovely new floor!

Here is a close up of my Effetre glass stash, I'd like eventually to arrange this into a rainbow of colours but that has a rather low priority. You can see the rough edges of my not-so-expert ~~sawing~~ hacking of the plastic pipe to cut them down to size!

I started painting the outside with black preservative yesterday afternoon after making recycled beads in the morning but I'm nowhere near finished! For the rest of today, I'm making jewellery for as long as it takes until I've used the small quantity of beads I've made this week and then I'm back to the painting. Photos when it's finished, it's looking good so far!

Ooo, before I forget, Laura is having one of her bead giveaways on her blog so head on over there and enter!

Studio re-organisation

2010-09-07T14:31:00.002+01:00

The usual busy summer months of July and August are behind us, my sales are dwindling and so jewellery making to restock my stall has fallen to a more manageable level. Before the big Christmas push, it's a relief to find I will now have a bit of time to get round to some stuff I've been meaning to do for ages. Like, paint the ~~shed~~ studio and adjacent picket fencing (it's turning black).

I've also run out of space inside the studio as I'm not using the existing space very well. When I moved into this studio, it seemed huge but in the intervening two and a half years, I have been filling it up (mainly with glass). I've planned it all out and if I move things around and re-organise, I have room for another shelving unit and will even have room for a small photography area so I can take photographs independent of the weather and lighting outside.

I often want to photograph things after it's gone dark, particularly on a Friday night when the majority of my pieces are finished off. Consequently, I don't take photographs of everything I make and sometimes some really nice items don't get recorded which bothers me. Provisionally, I am planning the photography area around this useful Etsy article about photography, but DH is going to have a look first and tell me if he thinks it will work for my jewellery.

Whilst I'm moving everything around, I'm going to take the opportunity to put a proper floor covering in. It's already got insulation and chipboard but that's it. Ideally I would like a ceramic tiled floor or chequerboard quarry tiles maybe but the budget won't stretch to that, especially as I think we'll be moving within a year or two. So, we're going to buy a cheap off-cut of a bit of vinyl and laying it ourselves. It'll look smarter, be easier to clean and it won't be the end of the world if it gets a scorch mark or two.

The photograph represents some initial purchases which DH picked up on his travels for me yesterday but I still need some inch and a half plastic pipes (which I cut up and store glass in), some brushes for the stain and the vinyl floor. So, I'm off to the shops!

There may be some jewellery/bead pictures later in the week.

Large hole bead bracelets

2010-09-03T18:20:00.004+01:00

Over the past several weeks, I've been building up my stock of large hole Pandora style silver core lined beads (what a mouthful!) I'm displaying them on my stall on starter bangles, which are also available to purchase at less than half the price of a Pandora starter bracelet. The bangles are available in three sizes, a child's size, medium which will fit a lady with a UK dress size of (say) 8 to 12 and large for (say) size 14 over.

I've photographed a couple to show you what they look like with a selection of my glass bead, this blue one includes some sterling silver and also features three of my fine silver spacers right in the middle which I wrote about a while ago. The ends of the bracelet unscrew and you can therefore put as many or as few beads on the bangle as you like. The starter bangle includes two friction beads which go either side of your chosen beads to keep them tidily in place.

If you're out and about in Cambridge, the weather forecast is for fair weather on Saturday and I'd love to welcome you to my stall in the All Saints Art & Craft Market. Whatever you're up to, I hope everyone has a good weekend,

Technology versus knitting

2010-08-31T16:36:00.001+01:00

As part of our broadband upgrade after the lightning strike a couple of weeks ago, we decided to upgrade to BT Vision, the box was only £28 and it came with a new free hub. I had it in my mind that our old hub (which got fried) cost something like £80. I thought a replacement would be at least £100. Bargain!

The new box arrived on Friday but I reserved Sunday morning to setting it up. It says on the box that it takes 30 mins, well, ~~they are talking out of their arses~~ um ... ~~they are lying toads~~ hmmm.... they were telling a teeny fib there cos I started at around 10.30 am and finally finished at 5pm!

When I'd finished and it was all set up and working, I did get a happy feeling of accomplishment ... but BT Vision squashed my picture and fuzzed it up; everyone looked like they were hugely overweight and blurry. Changing the aspect ratio on the TV solved the overweight bit but I had black lines down the side and I was a bit cross about not getting the full quota of inches of widescreen TV that I paid for about eighteen months ago.

It could just be the old equipment that we have to receive TV pictures, we are trying to cram 21st century technology into a 19th century house. I doubt the aerial and cabling have been changed since television were invented! These problems may be easily resolvable but not by me, I feel I've wasted enough time on it. The advantages of BT Vision such as pausing, rewinding and recording live TV are far outweighed by the disadvantages; it's all been unplugged and we have gone back to normal fuzz-free Freeview.

I had all day on Monday to forget about my stressful Sunday. We attended a 40th birthday party for sister Sharon's fiance, Martin. We had a lovely time, lots of great food, most of his family and ours were there. Martin seemed quite overcome (bless him) with his present. We all clubbed together to send him to Rome for 5 days and 4 nights, Sharon is going with him (but she paid for herself!) He said he has always wanted to go.

Today I've been back at work making beads (yes, she came back!) and this evening I will be taking solace in doing a nice bit of knitting and having happy thoughts about how nice it is that the knitting needles I have had for ~~forty~~ twenty-odd years don't need upgrading, repairing or a software download. They are fully compatible with every kind of yarn that has ever been invented in the intervening time and have never needed a reboot - I just love knitting!

I've just finished this pair of Bouquet socks from Wendy Johnson's Toe-Up Socks for Everybody.

This is a lightweight scarf for Autumn which is being knitted in a lovely 2ply lace yarn with a lovely sheen that glams it up a bit. I've only got a few more inches to knit on this so it's nearly finished.

Final picture - this is a mutli-coloured blanket I'm knitting for Missy's basket using up various left over balls of sock yarn. Can you believe that I actually removed some balls from the selection I made because I thought they clashed a bit ... :-)

The only other UFO I have on the go is a black cobweb weight lace shawl I started about a year ago; I am about a quarter of the way through the border on that one.

Mardy bead muse

2010-08-27T20:36:00.008+01:00

My bead muse stomped off on Monday in a right old temper and she hasn't come back. I know what's upset her, I agreed to two commissions last Saturday and she was a bit off with me about it at the time and on Monday, we fell out completely. I'm having to think seriously about accepting commissions in the future as she gets so-o-o-o huffy about them these days. If I'm not doing exactly what she wants, this is what happens.

All the experiments I made for the commissions ended up in my big reject jar. In fact, apart from recycled Cava and Bombay Sapphire beads, the only ones I got made this week were the very simple frit beads in this necklace. The colours are lovely but technically, not at all difficult to make. Fortunately, my jewellery muse stuck by me and helped me make the necklace (secretly, I think I always liked her just a tiny bit better anyway!) I'm sure we'll all kiss and make up next week.

Have a lovely bank holiday weekend everyone!

A bit wet

2010-08-26T09:03:00.003+01:00

This is the view of my commute to work from the kitchen window. I think I'll need to take my brolly with me ...

My theory about the weather is that it's getting all the rain out of the way so we can all have a lovely bank holiday!

What's it doing where you are?

My poor toe

2010-08-25T15:20:00.011+01:00

I stubbed my toe quite badly on Sunday. I broke my big toe once several years ago, it didn't hurt quite as much as that did but almost! It's the one next to my little toe. This toe is slightly longer than all my other toes (except the big one) and hence it's more susceptible to being stubbed.

It has gone all kinds of colours in the intervening days and it is still sore to put weight on three days later. Colour-wise, today it looks its "prettiest" ... don't worry, I am not going to subject you to the photograph I have taken of it!

I recalled reading on a couple of the many blogs that I regularly follow about an application whereby you upload a photograph and the website or i-phone application will tell you what colours are in it. I can't recall which blog it was, sorry so I apologise if you are reading this thinking "that was me!" Please feel free to tell me again :-)

A quick google revealed Design Shack with links to various web and phone applications that will do all kinds of things with colour. I selected Colour Grab. I confess I chose mainly because it sounded like it would do what I wanted plus (a minor point) the site spelled Colour correctly (apologies to my transatlantic readers!! :-))

Anyway, after uploading my pic, here are the colours my toe is displaying today (the silver is my nail polish!)

And to keep the promise I made last week before I became properly web re-enabled, here are a couple of bracelets that I photographed last week and were on my stall on Saturday. This one is made with a blue version of the red scibble beads which were a big hit during the early part of the summer.

The matching earrings that I made sold immediately. I love the combination of CIM Lapis with Fremen. I only had one rod of Fremen (thanks again, Laura!) and today I have been soaking it in soapy water to get rid of the colour label so I could make 5 more beads today (have added Fremen to my list of glass colours to buy when I next place an order).

This bracelet is a variation of my crocodile shoes bracelets. This is going to be one of the last bracelets that I make in this style of bead so get in quick if you want it!

Technology multi-tasking re-enabled

2010-08-22T10:56:00.004+01:00

Dunnit! Crawling around on the floor, tracing the routes of wires, unplugging and plugging things back in, re-setting passwords etc. etc. all done. Internet multi-tasking is back on the Agenda. Phone and broadband now triumphantly working together at the same time - no more cursing the position of the sockets. I am a happy gal today - it doesn't take much to please me :-)

This is the last of my no-picture postings. I have time until Sainsbury's arrive with the the rest of the week's groceries so I am going to catch up on the rest of the blogs I didn't manage to look at on Friday night. Once Sainsbury's have been, there's three hours of lawn mowing to do - busy, busy, busy!

Hope you are achieving your goals this Sunday.

Edit added later: Wouldn't you know it, I had no sooner clicked "Publish post" than there was a knock on the door - no rest for the wicked, I shall catch up with the rest of you a bit later :-)

Stormy internet

2010-08-20T20:43:00.004+01:00

I've been a bit quiet on internety things this week. Not yesterday but the Thursday before, during one of the numerous thundery downpours, our house was hit by lightning. I heard an enormous thunderclap directly overhead which was so loud, it made me spill my cuppa but DH, who was upstairs in his study, got a flash in the corner of the room as well!

It completely did for our new phone with the cordless extension which enables me to hear the phone wherever I'm in the house and also damaged our internet connection. I was still able to get broadband but we couldn't use the (old) phone at the same time. Switching between the two meant disconnecting and reconnecting everything. Of course the switches and power sockets are in the most inaccessible place under the desk. With DH working from home, he needs the phone on for most of the day so it was just such a pain til the BT Outreach engineer came, I just checked e-mails once (maybe twice) a day and left it at that.

The Engineer came on Thursday this week, he changed the surge protector and box but there was still a problem. He's pretty certain that the broadband hub has had been damaged and needs replacing. Broadband isn't handled by BT Outreach so he couldn't just put a replacement in. We had to phone up again. Fortunately, they have sent a new hub which arrived today and so hopefully when I connect that up on Sunday, that will be the end of my internet woes!

I've been too busy making jewellery for my stall tomorrow in Cambridge to fix it up today so I'll be back on Sunday, hopefully with photographs of everything new I've been up to. Because I've not been on-line much, I've had a super-productive week! :-)

Have a nice weekend everyone!