Thursday 8 October 2009

Inspiration Flash


One of my customers emailed me today about the beads she had received, she said:




" I love these beads...simple but beautiful and very stylish."





And that was just the very look I was going for! So I decided to share with her, and you where some of my inspiration comes from. These are the beads that she bought:







And they had been inspired by - ok you guessed it Strictly Come Dancing Costumes!! I do love a bit of glamour and I really love watching the show (and Take Two of course!) - so not only am I enjoying the show, but my mind is thinking - WOW, those colours look great together, how do I get that look into a bead!

If you look a the bodice of the dress, you can see that it has a layered depth, so I started with a white base - I then added on "Antique Clear" - a super lovely colour, and then it needed the black. I wanted the black to compliment the bead and not take over, but at the same time it also needed to be bold - so I placed some kissing flowers around. Popped the beads in the kiln - and they were great when they came out - but still not quite what I was after, they were still glossy and shiney. So I then decided to etch them - this is basically putting them into acid that gives the bead the matt/frosted look. Voila - the beads were ready!

So now you know!

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Mojo A Go-go

Ever have one of those days where things just don’t go to plan??? Well last Friday was one of those days for me!!

The next bead fair was planned for November, so we had lots of time. But then there was a cancellation for the Bead Fair at Harrogate in October – too good an opportunity to miss, so we’ve booked up to be there. But not only is this a big fair, it’s also a 2 day fair. So I’m thinking not a problem, I’ll go into the studio and have a session. Only problem was any new design I worked on just didn’t work out as I wanted, and then my mojo went AWOL!!

So I then decide – let’s leave it for now – no point in forcing something that’s just not going to happen! So I decided to head home, and hey it’s Friday night – there’s Strictly Come Dancing and the Tudors to watch. I was off with a spring in my step. Only to discover that Strictly was now just on Saturday’s now and the Tudors had finished the week before!!! I was heading downhill fast, so I had to contend myself with NCIS and Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Brownie - I could have more as it was the low fat yogurt version – yay, something was going my way.

Happily the mojo has returned now, and I’ve made a few more Halloween beads for my bead swap,




and I’ve made some new style beads too! - I'm calling these Chinese Water Garden.



As a side note - the other week I went to see Julie & Julia - a film about someone who admired a famous cook, and she decided to set herself a challenge to cook all her recipes from her book in 1 year, and she would write about it on her blog. She came across the same question as me - am I just rambling on into cyber space, or does anyone actually read this at all? Well, I know I'm not completely alone on here as one of my customer actually told me that she did read it, and she did enjoy me ramblings .......... thank you x