Stash busting, pearly dreams and festivals

Well, after a rather swift accumulation of Swarovski and shell pearls for pieces I will be creating for the craft fair I'm appearing at in July, I felt that I needed a good dose of stash busting (especially as I haven't been let off the norty step by my fellow beaders at Operation Tackle That Bead Stash for months!).
But what could I do? What could I make?

A few magazines and websites later, I decided to have a go at a piece of Cubic Right Angled Weave (CRAW). I must admit, I love the straight forward RAW, but had been a bit apprehensive about trying CRAW, especially as a lot of the written instructions I found a tad confusing. Then I saw a wonderful video how-to on beadmavens.blogspot.co.uk that was straight -forward and easy to use (go to beadmavens then look up the post from 9th September 2011).

My Mum was going to a wedding reception, and had a beautiful dress which obviously needed a new and beautiful necklace to go with it! Approximately 30g of size 8 seed beads later, a gorgeous rope had been created! The addition of a couple of little swags and a small slab of blue opal which I designed to simply fill the "V" in the neckline of aforementioned dress. I haven't taken enough photos of the full piece yet, but these will be up here very soon!!

Festival fashion has been thoroughly on my designing brain this month, and some beautiful and colourful clothes and jewellery have been released in time for the festival season. I'm no exception; again using my stash of dyed shell-strands, neon swarovski pearls and a beautiful strand of orange dyed shell pearl.

If you want to see a sneak peek, go to either etsy.com/shop/uk/bubblyduckbeads or my new facebook page facebook.com/bubblyduckbeads

Bad days, Good days and holidays

In April, I had a bit of a "funny turn" in work, which made me feel unwell for quite a few days. I'm still under investigation, but when it happened, it led to a couple of really stressful and unsure weeks for me. So I decided one Wednesday, to visit the guys at The Bead Shop Liverpool and do a class. As I'm working full time, and have rather busy weekday evenings, I simply give Vicky at the shop a ring to see if there's space, and I will then just turn up!

So that's what I did, not caring what I would do, and if I've done it before, but wanting some lovely beady time.

Olygalala (sorry for the spelling) bracelet. I tried desperately to steer clear of the colours I usually gravitate to (blues and greens) and went for a lovely red and white.

Here's the result

pretty isn't it? The first time my naturally tight tension has worked in my favour! I had a few issues with thread snapping (crystal + tight tension + friction = snapped thread) but eventually, I got there.
Here's a tip for this kind of bracelet: don't wear it every spare minute you get, or regularly with sleeves. If you do, it might end up like this...

In a sandwich bag, given to me when I visited my cousin the week before last. It snapped very discretely, very quietly on the train, and began raining little red seed beads on my Metro newspaper. A sad moment.


But that didn't matter, I was going up to The Lake District with my cousin Emma (from emazbeadz.blogspot.com) for a few days, and then I was joining her at her jewellery making class at the end of the week, doing silversmithing.

The Lake District is a wonderful place for inspiration, whether it is in the crafty sense, or literary sense (I also write poetry and short stories). There are loads of small independent craft and designer-maker shops, galleries and stalls in Windermere, Grasmere and Ambleside alone!

As I said, I learned some silversmithing techniques from Deliah at The Jewellery Maker, Lancaster.
I was lucky, as normally I would need to learn the basics before doing the stone setting. This includes soldering, shaping and firing. The nearest I've ever been to these, is sawing and soldering copper pipe for my dad a few years back.

Well, with help and support from my fellow learners, and the wonderful tutelage of  Deliah. I completed a beautiful pendant!

 I've got the bug now, but with silversmithing courses in Liverpool too rare and prohibitively priced for me, more Lancaster trips for me, me thinks!