Chameleon Designs now on Facebook

There is now a page on facebook for Chameleon Designs, and if you pop over and take a look you will see details of a competition I have just set up where you could win flutterballs, all you have to do to enter is "like" the facebook page (which is, I understand in my limited knowledge of facebook, like becoming a fan). The competition is running until next friday 10th September when I will choose a winner at random from all the people who like the page, pop over to facebook for the full information !

Busy busy bee

Where does the time go.. well for once I actually know. It has been a very busy but fun filled time, I have been at Stourbridge on a masterclass with the amazing and very lovely Gianni Toso, pictured below blowing a glass bubble on the end of a home made glass blowing tube !!



It was a completely amazing and awe inspiring class, there are a few photos on Flickr if you would like to see more.

There was a days "rest" - think running about meeting friends and blowing glass - on the friday before the Glass Market in Stourbridge on Saturday. A HUGE thank you to everyone who came along to say Hi it was lovely to see you all, and an extra special thank you to those of you that came along to introduce yourselves as you are taking my class soon.

For those of you who were wondering about just after lunchtime you will have seen the little band that struck up on the corner just opposite us in period costume, well I couldnt resist some shots with Hipstamatic, it just seemed to perfect for it



Now of course I am home again, back to my garage and my torch, I have a few orders to be getting on with but Im really really looking forward to some "playtime" and practising the techniques that Gianni showed us ... look out for some photos soon !!

My Camera's back

I am so very very happy to report the return of my camera, the poor thing had to go to the repair shop to have its shutter replaced ...having taken considerably over 20,000 pictures !! But now it is home again so I had a little celebration and went round taking photos in the garden of how the flowers are coming on.



Looking forward to taking lots of beady photos very soon... once I finish making the beads !!!

I know, unheard of, two posts in one day !!! I just wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone for the comments and emails about the Experimentaballs, and the flutterballs in particular. The response has been fantastic so many of you have been in touch and I cant tell you how amazing it has been. I am in the process of making some more but it will be next week before I have any online due to the amount of work that goes into them - those little babies have 3 goes in the kiln as well as the cold processes and of course the hand painting of the silver paint so please bear with me, there will be some available soon.

For anyone who is going to Stourbridge on the bank holiday weekend for the International festival of glass I have a stall on the glass market on the Saturday and I am hoping to have some focal flutterballs available.

In the meantime I have some sweet and simple disc beads that I spent an enjoyable time working on while I waited for some of the bits and pieces I needed for the flutterballs to arrive -

Bead and Beyond September Issue

Hello and welcome to anyone who has found there way here from Bead and Beyond Magazine who have been lovely and featured me on their review page in the current issue (out today !!)



This issue also holds all the information for entering their Jewellery Maker of the Year competition which has lots of prizes up for grabs and the opportunity to become involved with the Bead and Beyond design team !!

I hope you enjoy having a look around and reading about what I do, up there in the top right corner you will find links to my website and other places on the internet where you can see my work.

Thanks for dropping by !

Experimentaballs

I love round beads, there is something so gorgeous about the shape and it is so tactile so I decided it was about time i made some more as it has been rather a while. Then I decided to continue with some experiments I started a-g-e-s ago with dichro and these were some of the results.

Now Im not a huge fan of lots of dichro but I do love it etched, it glows almost like there is something moving inside the bead, a little bit of trapped sunshine or beam of light. So with that in mind may I present the Flutterballs -





And following on from another old experiment that needs more work I have another set - Sari, these are gorgeous they have been selectively etched so that there are glimmers of goldstone sparkling in places around which i have hand drawn gold sari patterns. They feel almost soft somehow and Im really pleased with the amount of detail I got into the size - they are only about 15mm. All that and a pink dichro core that is just stunning in sunshine... but you'll have to wait for a photo of that as currently its rather dull outside here.





I have lots of ideas for these little experiments and where I can take them, hopefully I'll have more to show you soon.

I made a treasury

I was feeling like it would be nice to make a collection of pretties so I had a good root around Etsy and this is what I came up with