Treasuries and tulips!

I know, it's barely a week since my last blog post and here I am again - you never know where you are with me ;0) Anyway, this morning, I managed to grab a slot for a champagne themed Etsy treasury that I created and I wanted to show it on here while it is still live. It features a variety of beautiful handmade items all with the word 'champagne' in their title. If you click on the picture below it will take you to the actual treasury - feel free to click on the items, comment or even purchase!

A little while later, I learned that my friend Lynn Davy had created a brilliantly colourful Treasury West featuring lots of intricate beadwork by my fellow team mates the Etsy Beadweavers and included my Bougainvillea Bouquet - thank you Lynn!

I thought I would also show you another picture of me beading in the garden which was taken about an hour ago. The weather has been glorious this April and the garden is already looking lush and abundant - just look at those tulips! I could also smell the scented Narcissus and had cherry blossom drifting down around me like confetti. Who could ask for more?

An anniversary and a giveaway!

Monday March 3rd 2008 was the day I started a blog and you can see my first tentative step here. I wasn't sure if I would take to 'blogging' as I used to be a reclusive kind of girl, but one year and 45 posts later and it's still going strong and I've discovered I like it! I also find it fascinating to be able to scroll back through that years worth of entries and see my portfolio of work. The collage below shows the projects I have had published during that time.

In order to celebrate my blog anniversary, I am going to hold a little giveaway! The earrings below were made to compliment my 'Daisy Chain' necklace which was published in Bead magazine in September 2008. Leave a comment on this blog entry and in one months time I will put all names (excluding spam!) into a hat and the first name out will win the cute little pair of daisy earrings on gold-filled hooks as shown in this photo (photo courtesy of Ashdown Publishing). Don't forget to make sure I have a way of contacting you in case you are the lucky winner!

As an anniversary gift to myself, I am going to give myself permission to be more carefree about blogging. I have tried to post something every two weeks, but I don't want it to become a pressure and I don't want to bore my readers by having to come up with something just because it's blog time. So in future, if I have something to blog about, I will and if I don't, I won't!

I'm also happy that I have received gifts from others in the shape of seeing my work in two Etsy treasuries! The first treasury 'Rain Beautiful Rain' was curated by Sue of Beadweaver and includes my 'Frosted Flower' made-to-order necklace. The second Treasury West 'Is it spring yet?' was curated by Jama of These Precious Things and includes my 'Bougainvillea Bouquet' made-to-order necklace along with lots of other Etsy BeadWeaving beauties - thank you ladies :0)

See you whenever I have something to blog about - oh and don't forget the giveaway!

Bougainvillea Bouquet!

I have finally finished working on my new flowers and here is my entry for the Etsy Beadweavers challenge - Bougainvillea Bouquet!

Whilst I was working on this, I recalled some of the beautiful images of bougainvillea I have seen on my travels; arching over a monastery doorway in Corfu, cut into neat hedges in Spain, growing wild by the roadside in Thailand and Sri Lanka and vivid clusters set against a backdrop of deep blue sea in the Maldives. I didn't need to dig out the photos to remind of these scenes, they are all quite clear to me and I thoroughly enjoyed casting my mind back as I sat and sewed each bead together.

I wanted to create a piece that was not only eye-catching but also very wearable. Therefore I engineered it so that the necklace can be worn quite simply with just two bougainvillea bracts suspended from the woven rope, or all eleven bracts can be threaded onto the rope, creating a vibrant cluster, exposing their inner white flowers.

Botanical beading experiments ...

I've spent many happy hours beading since my post last week, but I have very little to show for it I'm afraid. When I first read the Etsy Beadweavers challenge theme 'Tropical Holiday', images of big bold hibiscus flowers sprang to mind. I sorted through all my beads and chose some gorgeous shades of orange, red and green and then spent several days working on the shaping of the petals, experimenting with increasing within the petals and also on the outside edges. The trouble with beadwork, or maybe it's the charm, is that it's sometimes very difficult to tell whether a design idea will work, without spending several hours (or even days!) trying something out, only to discover that a slight adjustment 20 rows ago would have been better! I'm also not very good at visualising the finished look of a flower after creating only one petal, so I tend to keep going and then decide if I like the finished result. To me, none of this is time wasted, it all provides valuable lessons about the different effects created by varying the choice of stitch, count and bead - as long as I remember to keep good notes that is! Anyway, the hibiscus just wasn't up to scratch but I still want to enter the challenge, so I have put all the part beaded orange petals into a bag with my notes and will return to it later. I am now working on new flowers that shout 'tropical' to me and I'm using hot pink seed beads - any idea what flowers I am working on? It's going well and so I should have photos of the finished piece to show you next week.

In the meantime, issue 14 of the UK magazine Bead is now in the shops and has the second in my series of flower brooches as one of the projects - Poppy Pin.

I was also very happy to learn that my Poppy Supernova choker was selected by the lovely Irith of RioRita as one of the items in her beautiful Etsy treasury 'Rainbow the Fourth' - thank you Irith!

Off to a flying start!

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm getting back into the flow of things after spending Christmas and New Year with my parents. We had a lovely time with lots of beautiful crisp frosty days. Long walks, good food, a drop or two of home brew and a glass of elderberry port which is only brought out on Christmas morning. I didn't manage to get much beading done over the Christmas break, although I did make Mum a bracelet and I got the hideous job of doing my accounts out of the way!

I've been busy beading since I've been back. I'm going to try and enter the Etsy Beadweavers challenge this time, the theme is Tropical Holiday which should provide a good antidote to the freezing temperatures here. I hope to have pictures to show you within the next week or two.

Things are busy on the publication front too. My Frosted Flower necklace is in the next issue of Beadwork magazine, my Poppy Pin will be in the new issue of Bead magazine and my Hibiscus Twist necklace is due to be in the next issue of Bead & Button magazine due out in March.

Other good news is that the lovely Caroline of Crafted Gems has included my Poppy Supernova choker in her gorgeous Etsy treasury 'Red Red and more Red'. Thank you Caroline!

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.

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!