Its been another busy week, I have been back "home" to Manchester for a very quick visit. I got to see my Mum the day after her birthday and we went for a celebratory afternoon tea at Cloud 23. I love afternoon tea and this was all rather yummy with lots of different cakes and sandwiches, a very good way to celebrate a birthday !!



As well as eating lots of cake we spent quite a while admiring the view and working out where our favorite places were (and the fact we could actually see the car from where we were which was quite impressive!!) I didnt have my camera with me but did get some shots on my phone, shown stitched together -



Quite impressive isnt it !! So yes, that is one of the reasons I dont have any beady photos to share but I promise there will be lots of those very soon !

Claudia Trimbur Pagel Class beads

My class beads have arrived home !! They arrived in the post this morning, it was very exciting opening the parcel to see if the lived upto my memory of them. The class was great fun and we covered quite a number of things considering it was a one day class. We started off by having a go at applying gold and silver patterns to beads -



I went with basic patterns to keep things simple although I did keep thinking "oooh I could just add a bit more there...." Its quite addictive !!

This bead was originally a mid transparent blue but it has struck to a smokey grey in the kiln -


the nice thing about it being transparent too is the pattern on the other side shows through



Then we moved on to making some murrini which was a little nerve wracking as I had never made murrini quite that large before, and I did manage to bust mine part way through but I learnt so much in doing it and Im looking forward to making some more of my own design.



and we followed that up with making a bead to use the murrini on



All in all it was a great day, very very inspiring and left me with loads of ideas i want to try, now all i need to do is find some time !

Busy day

I have just come in. I have been having a mega day outside working away.

Have I got lots to show for it ??

Well I have a couple of commissions done, I have made the acquaintance of a new heart press that I have on loan and I have made lots and lots of cabachons. I have also capped and cored some beads and done a couple of other bits of overdue metal work so yes I guess I have.

Im looking forward to my next torch time hugely, on Monday I spent the day having a class with Claudia Trimbur Pagel of Glasting fame which was a fantastic day and has left me with a mass of ideas I want to try out, isnt it just great when you're all fired up ready to go ! I cant wait to see the class beads when they arrive either, not sure mine will be that great but we tried gold painting as well murrini making and learning some of Claudia's other techniques so it will be fun to see how it all turned out.

I got some lovely post today, do you remember back in April the Random Acts of Kindness post where I mentioned I had been lucky enough to be chosen to recieve a little something from the lovely Kerry of Kab's Creative Concepts, well today it arrived ! I have a fab and funky pendant with one of Kerry's lovely vibrant beads, great timing for cheering me up as it arrived just as it started to snow. Again.

Hello Mojo

Ok so there is something to be said for all this white stuff ...its very inspiring :)) Following on from the blizzard tiles I showed the other day, I worked on the idea and came up with these snowflakey focals -



Im really pleased with how they turned out so im going to share lots of pictures and they will be on the website later on today.

Eskimos ...

Some photos today of some fab snow creations, my mum sent me these of the house down the road from hers and I think they are amazing.



Isnt the fishing hole just fab ? and there is an igloo -



and a really great snow dog -

Blizzard Tiles

I promised I would show the new beads and here they are, inspired by our current weather conditions here in the UK, they have a sprinkling of enamel for a frosty, snowy background and then some stringer work of abstract snowflake pattern.

New Ring Design

Since I first came across spinner rings I have found them fascinating, Nic of Murano Silver recently showed one that she made which reminded me how much I like them and I put together a little flickr gallery of them. All fired up from that I decided I need to make my own version, that included both Sterling and glass so after a 3 or 4 "not entirely successful" attempts at an off mandrel boro ring I succeeded and this is the result



What do you think ?

Snow

Yes, like so many people in the UK we have snow, lots of snow, so much so we are snowed in !! Pickle cat and I went out this morning in the garden to play as he likes to chase snowballs and he's is so cute when he does that, that i had to take photos of him and managed to get a little sequence which I animated -



Isnt he cute !! Anyway as I havent been able to go out to work today I have been out in the garage making some beads, which, fingers crossed I think are going to be good ones in a new style !! so keep you eyes out for pictures sometime tomorrow !

Hope you are wrapped up nice and snug somewhere warm and the weather isnt causing you too much stress !