Resolutions!

Happy New Year everyone!

Did you make any New Year's resolutions?  I made the usual ones of course; eat more healthily, take more exercise and all the other ones that are usually broken by the second week in January, but I also resolved to keep moving forward with my beading.  I have exciting plans for an exhibition in 2012 and my butterfly mind keeps flitting to thoughts of that, but first I think that 2011 is going to be all about teaching.  I have 6 workshops lined up in the UK and Germany and I'm also planning on making more patterns available to purchase via my website, but all of that means a lot of detailed planning, writing instructions and drawing diagrams instead of designing new beadwork.  I do have a head full of new ideas to try out though, so watch this space!  In the meantime, I thought I'd remind you that one of my resolutions for 2010 was to start selling patterns directly from  my website and I now have 5 available - details below.  These are in addition to the 26 patterns that I have had published in magazines since 2008 and you can see details of all those on this page of my website.  Most of them are still available from the publishers as pdf's or back issues, so if you see one you like but can't find, drop me a line via the contact form on my website and I'll try and track it down for you.  All of the patterns below are available from this page of my website.

Core Beaded Beads tutorial

Poppy tutorial

Twinkling Tilas tutorial

Double Daisy tutorial

Rivoli Daisies tutorial

Bye for now!

Catching up and a new pattern ...

Gulp!  No blog posts for 7 weeks!  Where have I been?  What have I been doing?  Well I can promise you that I haven't been idle, but things have been a bit hectic just recently, so I'm afraid the blog had to have a little rest.  I've been busy behind the scenes, working on new ideas, writing patterns, judging contests, getting involved in challenges and discussing some exciting new teaching plans.  Hopefully I will be able to blog a bit more regularly again now and keep you up to date with what's happening.  So let's start by telling you that I have just finished writing my second tutorial 'Poppy' and it is now available to purchase via my website.

I had a very similar pattern to this one published in Bead magazine at the beginning of 2009, but the back issue is no longer available and several people have recently asked me if I could write my own instructions for it.  I had a group of wonderful 'testers' help me to fine-tune this pattern and so we think we have most of the wrinkles ironed out.  It's amazing how people can interpret things in completely different ways and I learnt a lot about writing patterns from this experience - thank you guys!  The tutorial is now 14 pages long and although it is written in English, there are lots of diagrams and photos to make things easier, and there are also instructions for optional leaves included.  I made the poppy above in traditional red and black, but take a look at the 'Readers' Gallery' page on my website (under Poppy) as there are lots of pictures there that people have kindly sent me, showing poppies in all sorts of colours with some fantastic inspirational design ideas - poppies definitely don't have to be red!

Creative beading ...

Well I had great fun with my new size 15's and used them to create a last minute entry to the British Bead Awards . I was working under pressure as the closing date is today but I'm fairly happy with my entry, although the idea has a lot more mileage in it when I get round to it. So of course I can't show you pictures of my entry yet but I do have things to share.

Yesterday I received my complimentary copy of the new book Creative Beading Volume 4. This is an annual that is brought out by the publishers of Bead & Button and includes "The best projects from a year of Bead & Button magazine". I had known for some time that my foxglove necklace 'Floral Fantasy' was going to be one of the projects in there, but I hadn't expected it to be such a lovely substantial hardback book. There are lots of great projects in there and I think it will make a nice coffee table book for me, but I may have to leave it face down as my foxglove design is featured on the back cover!

I've also had a good week on Etsy with my work appearing in three treasuries. The first two were created by the lovely Cheryl of Littlestone Design and featured Supernova Choker and Poppy Supernova Choker along with all sorts of gorgeous items. Thank you Cheryl! The third one was created by Etsy seller Moon Over Maize and includes my Poppy Pin - thank you!

Right now I'm off to work with some bigger yellow beads and get working on an idea I had when I wrote my Hello Yellow post. Suddenly Delicas seem quite huge!

Poppy Pin - version two!

A little while ago, a friend asked me if I could make her a special poppy to wear around the time of Remembrance Sunday. Obviously November is some time away yet, but I don't like to keep people waiting and so I have been working on it and just finished the new version of Poppy Pin.

This one is very similar to my poppy design that was published in issue 14 of Bead magazine but my friend wanted hers without the leaves, which presented me with an engineering issue regarding how to attach the pin. As you can see from the picture of the back of the poppy, I decided to use a similar method to the one I used for my Awareness Ribbons and attached a few size 8 beads to the back of the poppy to hold the sterling silver stick pin in place. I also made the actual poppy slightly smaller with a larger black centre and five fire-polished beads to give it extra visual impact. It will be winging its way to its new owner tomorrow - let's hope this poppy is just what my friend was looking for!

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!

Flower Power!

It's a cold, grey and snowy day here in Mansfield and so I thought I'd brighten things up by posting some cheerful beaded flower pictures. I have designed a series of three flower brooches, the first of which, Primrose Pin, is in the new issue of Bead magazine which is out now. Next in the series is Poppy Pin, followed by Periwinkle Pin.

The second photo of the full set is courtesy of Bead magazine - don't they look great nestled on the grass like that?

Beady Butterflies!

It's blog time again and unfortunately I haven't really got anything new to show you. I've been busy working on orders for my poppy cufflinks and poppy pins and also working on some interesting projects that I can't really share with you at the moment - but all in good time! I spent a very fitful night last night, half awake and half asleep with lots of weird and wonderful dreams but also with lots of new beady ideas flitting into my mind. Anyway, the result this morning, rather than being tired, is that I feel filled with enthusiasm and can't wait to get cracking with some of these ideas - trouble is, I might need to give up sleep permanently to be able to fit them all in!

One of the 'under wraps' projects I mentioned above needed me to take a photo of one of the butterflies I used to make. So as I feel a blog isn't a blog without some pretty pictures and I have nothing new to show you, I thought I would dig some of them out. I started out by using a mixture of cross-stitch cottons, silks and a few beads and stitching them onto plastic canvas before carefully cutting them out. Gradually as I got more and more addicted to beads, I made them using all beads and both Mum and I have a collection of them 'flying' on various walls in our houses. In my lounge, I have a beautiful hand embroidered wall hanging from Nepal that depicts the Tree of Life, it has a selection of my beaded butterflies and moths 'flying' around it - I find the whole scene very magical and soothing. I know these butterflies are quite different from my work today, but I still love them and it would be great to hear what you think!