Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Let's play tag!

It seems there's a tagging epidemic in Blogsville at the moment - everywhere I hop someone is sharing seven interesting but often bizarre 'facts' about themselves! Well I've been tagged twice too, so I thought I'd join in with the fun. I'd like to thank the wonderful Triz of Triz Designs for my first 'tagging' and Leah of the beautiful Michon Jewelry Blog for my second.






So my seven facts to share are:

1) Family legend has it that on my mother's side, our family tree can be traced back to the Pilgrim Fathers, but that we also have a Spanish pirate thrown into the mix. Whether it is true or not, I like this idea as it seems to pretty much sum up the person you see before you today!
2) I am a member of Mensa.
3) I am the only child of an only child and I don't have any children - so this particular Slade line stops right here.
4) I have a penchant for real ale and/or home brew. In fact, Dad has a barrel of homemade nettle ale fermenting right now for our next visit!
5) I don't have any tattoos in any out of the way places, but I do have a rather splendid secret mole ;0)
6) Mum tells me that when I first learnt to read I would start from the bottom right hand corner of a page and read up to the top left. Mum also says that the first time I wrote my name I wrote E, I, R, R, E, K - now this really explains a lot!
7) I am a free spirited Sagittarius born in the year of the snake sssssssssssssssssssss!
Once again I won't be passing this on as everybody I would have tagged has already played the game. As usual, I would encourage you to explore some of the blogs and sites listed on my side bar, or the links to the Etsy Bead Weavers or Entrecard.

Other news is that the two winners of the Awareness Ribbon Pins have been announced on Beading Daily. It was a difficult decision as there were so many moving stories. If you have time, follow this link and read the two winning entries - there is also space to leave a comment at the end if you wish.

Friday, 17 October 2008

Ingredients ...

Just a short blog today as I've spent far too much time on the computer recently and I really must get on with some beading today. I have loads of new project ideas in my head and various notes scribbled everywhere, but none of that is any good if I don't actually put the time in and try to create them! So, here is a quick picture of the ingredients for the project I plan to start today ...



... I went on a bead buying spree earlier this week and came back with lots and lots of Delicas in a gorgeous shiny dark green (shade number 175) some very expensive 24k lined cream opal Delicas (shade number 230) a bag of beautiful semi-matte blue Delicas (shade number 630) a string of Lapis Lazuli beads, a Swarovski crystal Cosmic Ring and some thread. I'll keep you posted with some 'work in progress' shots, but in the meantime I'd love to hear your ideas of what you think it's going to be!

Wednesday, 8 October 2008

Not that again???

I know I have blogged about my Ribbon Awareness Pins countless times now, and some of you will be bored of seeing the same old photos instead of lovely shiny new beadwork, but I am still getting quite a lot of people asking me where they can find the pattern. The fundraising aspect has now finished but the pattern is available as normal in the Beading Daily shop and if you click here and then click on the title 'Ribbon Awareness Pins' you will be taken to the relevant page where you can purchase and download the pattern. Of course October is breast cancer awareness month and I have noticed that lots of bloggers have added a pink ribbon logo to their blog, so I have followed suit and changed my banner for this month only. I am currently in the process of reading through all the entries for the Power of Beading Contest - the winners will be announced on Beading Daily by October 20th. A big thank you to everyone who entered the contest and shared their stories about how beading helped them through a challenging time.



Other news is that the talented and lovely Victoria of Three Fates Design passed on an 'I love your blog award' to me - thank you Victoria! As I have mentioned previously, although I am very grateful for having received a blog award, I don't pass them on as I don't want anyone to feel left out. I have a very long list of blogs and websites on my side bar, a link to all the Etsy BeadWeavers blogs, a link to Bead Artists who blog and of course Entrecard. All of these bloggers are deserving of an award in my view, and I would encourage you to explore some of these links.





Finally, I was also excited to see that another lovely fellow Etsy BeadWeaver, Kim of Regal Beads, has created a treasury entitled 'Little Black Dress' and included my Supernova Choker - thank you Kim!





Talking of the Etsy Beadweavers, all the fabulous entries for this months challenge 'Animal Instinct' have been added to our team blog - take a look, voting begins on October 9th.


See you next week!

Wednesday, 1 October 2008

A new trend!

I've been busy busy making floral cufflinks over the last week or so. I came up with the design for these some months ago and sent them to a beading magazine to see if they would be interested in them as a project - they wanted the flowers ... but not as cufflinks! So the flowers will appear in a future publication as a charm bracelet, which I am quite happy about, but I still think that floral cufflinks are a nice idea - maybe I'm just ahead of my time ;)

So I was quite surprised on a shopping trip last weekend, to see that this season all the major stores are now carrying not only gents, but ladies shirts with cufflinks! They are lovely as they are, but to me they look a bit plain as most of the cufflinks that come with the shirts are just little cream or white enamel discs. So I thought I would become a trendsetter - I bought myself one of these shirts and made some floral cufflinks to wear with it that also match a beautiful amethyst and teal angora top I have - perfect as the weather has become decidedly cool here in the UK!


When I first started making floral cufflinks, I tried to make relatively life-like flowers, such as poppies, apple blossom and wild rose and I have sold a few pairs of these, but now I have decided to add to this range with some 'fantasy flowers' that are just beautiful rich autumnal colours with either glass pearl or freshwater pearl centres. There are currently five pairs of floral cufflinks for sale in my Etsy shop or via my website and I will be adding to these in the near future - I am also happy to take commissions for any colour.




I used to call these 'ladies cufflinks' as I also make much plainer 'gents cufflinks' (see above) but I have sold a couple of pairs of poppy cufflinks to gentlemen, so I now consider them to be unisex, although of course you have to be a pretty cool guy to wear them! Both types have a sterling silver chain and bar attached. Why not treat yourself to a pair of beaded cufflinks and be a trendsetter with me!