Monday 27 July 2015

Kazuri Kritters and Creative Beading!

Hello everyone!

National Beading Week has arrived and so it's been a busy few days with more demonstrations of my designs lined up at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd tomorrow, but I had to drop in and share some other news with you. Firstly, I've just received my copy of the August 2015 issue of Bead and Button magazine which has a picture of my Kazuri Kritters in the 'Your Work' section on page 17. You may remember that I made these pins in November of last year as part of my work as a design team member for Many Hands Marketplace - Kazuri West and you can see the original post and the stories I wrote for each animal here. The pins were originally going to be published as a project in Bead and Button, but it was later discovered that they are not as simple as they perhaps look and so they are not really suitable for a project. However, as my original intention was to help promote the work of the Kazuri ladies I still needed to find some way to do that and so a wonderful collaboration took place - Preciosa's excellent photographer took some pictures of the pins for me (because really, my photography is not so great!) and the editor of Bead and Button magazine agreed to publish the picture and some links in the 'Your Work' section. I'm sorry that I cannot provide you with a tutorial for these pins, but I do hope that you love these charming handmade animal shaped buttons as much as I do and that perhaps you may give some of them a new home.



The other piece of news is that I have also received a copy of the new Kalmbach publication Creative Beading Volume 10: The best projects from a year of Bead and Button magazine. I have several of these lovely hardback annuals on my shelf now and I am delighted to have had four of my projects selected for this issue. Flowercup Cascade which is the Kumihimo project I wrote for Yorkbeads is on page 194 and my Preciosa projects Flamenco Pellets, Twinflower Lariat and Organic Twist can be found on pages 74, 120 and 213 respectively.






That's all the news for now so I'll get back to preparing for my demos. Don't forget, I'll be at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd tomorrow but I will also be at the Bead Art Fair in Hamburg doing demonstrations at the Preciosa stand from August 21st to 23rd - I hope you can join the "Flower Party"!

See you next time!

Kerrie 

Thursday 2 July 2015

National Beading Week!

Hello everyone!

There's an exciting new event taking place here in the UK this year - the first ever National Beading Week! The event is sponsored by The Beadworkers Guild and takes place from 25th July to 2nd August 2015 and is intended to be a huge celebration of all things beady and to help spread the word about the wonderful world of beads. Even though I have many beading friends around the world who all know what I am talking about if I slip names like Delicas, Pips and Fireline into the conversation, I still get lots of blank looks when 'other' people ask me what I do, so National Beading Week seems like an excellent way of introducing people to BEADS! There are all sorts of exciting things planned up and down the country, from workshops to contests and even some bead bombing! You can find out what's going on where if you click on the menu at the top of this page. I am delighted to be involved in National Beading Week and so I will be doing demonstrations of four of my projects using Preciosa traditional Czech beads (as shown below) at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd. I'll also be taking part in an informal Question and Answer session where you'll have the opportunity to bring along a beading project, have a cup of tea and a biscuit and chat to other beaders - I'm not saying I will know the answer to all your questions, but it promises to be a fun event!



So if you are in the area during National Beading Week, you will be able to find me doing demonstrations of the above projects at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd on Saturday 25th July from 10.00am until 11.00am and from 11.30am until 12.30pm and again on Tuesday 28th July from 10.00am until 11.00am and from 11.30am until 12.30pm. The Question and Answer session will be on Saturday 25th July from 2.00pm until 5.00pm. There's no need to book any of these, simply turn up and stay for as long as you want or drift in and out, but I will be demonstrating the projects, showing finished and part made samples and passing on some of my 'top tips'. I will also have some free leaflets of the projects with me which you can take away and the bead shop will have the beads and some kits available to purchase. There are already some of the samples on display in the shop (as seen below) so feel free to pop in any time to take a closer look at them.





Come and join in the fun at the bead shop - and don't forget to spread the word about National Beading Week!

See you next time!

Kerrie 

Saturday 13 June 2015

Garden Party!

Hello everyone!

I've been pretty quiet on the blogging front lately but, as usual, there has been a lot of unseen activity going on. Some time last year the editors of the German beading magazine Perlen Poesie asked if I would be interested in having a project and an artist profile article in their magazine and as I have followed and enjoyed this magazine since its inception in 2009, I was quick to say 'yes please!' I already had some experience of working with the people at PP as my 'English Rose' necklace project was published in issue 8, I taught my 'Popper Flowers' project at the first Bead Art Fair in Hamburg (organised by Perlen Poesie) in 2011 and I was also one of the judges for their 2013 IBA contest so I knew that working with Perlen Poesie was likely to be a smooth and enjoyable process and I wasn't disappointed. I'm very fond of maximising opportunities and so I decided to involve Preciosa Ornela in this project too and I chose to use pastel coloured Preciosa Traditional Czech Beads to create a lush flowery necklace which I thought would be suitable for the summer issue of an international Bead Art Magazine. You can see the result, 'Garden Party', in the picture below.


The instructions for the necklace are on page 92 of the magazine but as it's made up of individual flowers and leaves it would be very easy to adapt it to a bracelet or even a pendant or earrings if flowery collars aren't your thing. If you would like a copy of Perlen Poesie magazine you can order it direct from their website (in German or English), or if you are in the US you can purchase the English language version from here or ask if your local bead store carries it or can obtain it for you. If you are in the UK, then The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd stocks the English language version. You can also find an 11 page profile article about me and my work which starts on page 10 of this issue and I have to say that I am VERY pleased with the way this turned out. Freddie and Andrea Ott flew to the UK to interview me as they wanted to see me in my 'natural habitat' and as you can see from the photo below, that is just what they got! The picture below shows me in my favourite beading spot, chatting to Andrea and working on my trusty beading tray that Mum painted for me and lined with a piece of her old velvet curtain. You may notice that the tray is now held together with yellow sticky tape but I will always treasure it and I'm quite happy that my 'warts and all' tray now appears in an exclusive magazine - how fortunate that the sticky tape matches the daffodils on the window sill!


The duo spent a couple of hours at our house with Andrea asking me lots of questions and recording my answers while Freddie took numerous pictures of both me and my work. Then we all headed off to one of my favourite places, the village of Edwinstowe to meet Robin Hood and Maid Marian before having a lovely fish and chip lunch and a leisurely stroll around Sherwood Forest. Next it was back home to decide which pieces of my work they would take to Germany with them for more detailed photography work - I have rather a lot of beadwork so Andrea found it hard to decide which pieces to take and Freddie's case left here bulging at the seams! It might seem a bit unusual for the editors of a magazine to go to these lengths but this is where that level of dedication and enthusiasm pays off because although they already knew about me, this time they got to know the real me, enabling them to write an accurate article. Once back in Germany, Freddie and Andrea took some staged shots of my work and of course I can't give too much away but I would like to show you this one - the way they have Podger, Flash and Crusty set up in a garden of tasty looking flowers with absolutely no input from me lets me know that I made an excellent choice in working with Perlen Poesie magazine again.


So after months of behind the scenes work the magazine is now out and you can buy it, you can read the article (as well as several others such as an interesting article on the history of simulated pearls) and you can make the 'Garden Party' necklace along with lots of other beautiful beadwork projects. For me, this is not the end of my work with Perlen Poesie as I will be at the 2015 Beaders Best Bead Art Fair in Hamburg and I will be giving more details about that in a future blog post. In the meantime, if you are in the area and you would like to see 'Garden Party' in the flesh, she is currently on display at The Bead Shop (Nottingham) Ltd so feel free to drop in and have a look and perhaps buy yourself some beads while you are there.


See you next time!

Kerrie 

Sunday 3 May 2015

Ripple Crown Pins!

Hello everyone!

I notice it's been nearly two months since my last blog post and I am wondering where that time went. I guess it went in a frantic whirl of meeting various deadlines for magazine and book projects (all to be published later this year or early next), followed by visiting family for a couple of weeks and then coming home to find my trusty 8 year old PC had virtually died. My computer is sort of limping along at the moment but this is the last blog post I will ever write using it. I am very attached to this desktop as I bought it in 2007, just before I turned my beading hobby into a business, so every pattern I have ever created, every diagram I have ever drawn and every blog post I have written have all been done on this computer. After doing a lot of research, I have decided to jump ship this time and I have invested in a shiny new iMac which is sitting waiting patiently in its box, ready to take over from Old Faithful.


So because of technological interruptions I am a bit late in letting you know that the latest issue of Digital Beading Magazine is out now, packed with 178 pages of projects and inspiration. Although I don't have a project in this one, there are a couple of adverts in there that use my work - the newest one being the Ripple Crown Pins that I showed you in my last blog post. I can also tell you that the instructions for these little pins will be available from the Preciosa Ornela website in the coming months.


I am actually very sad to announce that issue 15 is the last ever issue of Digital Beading Magazine as Kelly (the editor) is moving on to an exciting new chapter in her life. I have been on the design team of DBM since the first issue back in December 2012 with 14 projects and an artist's profile published during that time. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Kelly and I would like to publicly thank her for all the support and opportunities she gave me (one of my favourite is pictured below) and I wish her and her family all the very best for the future. I hope you have enjoyed reading DBM as much as I enjoyed designing for it and don't forget that you can still purchase the current issue and back issues via this page of the website.


That's all for this time but I do have some exciting news bubbling under the surface, so I will be back with details of that within the next few weeks.

See you next time!

Kerrie