Wintry clear bubble beads

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!

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

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

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

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 ... ;-)