It has been a while....

Congratulations Griet and Quinton! At long last they have done the deed and Griet has taken on the task of trying to make an honest man of Q. A life time of love and happiness to you both.

So, where have I been? The sun shines, we dig out out our summer clothes and what happens? Everyone catches a cold!! The girls have been ill, James has been ill, now I'm down with the lurgy too. Hoping to re-stock my site with new beads - just need to stop sneezing first. Normal bead service will resume soon!!

In the meantime, I did a prize draw on the Bead Buddy forum and Mary aka Balrogz won this bead... I love the colours in this bead, and the pleat effect of the white. Can't wait to see what Mary does with it.





Keeping myself out of mischief while not being able to sit at the torch, I've been reading through blogs and discovered


For those seriously addicted to art beads, check out http://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/

You'll find:

• interviews with bead artists and jewelry designers who use art beads in their work.

• monthly design challenge

• "As the Bead Turns", a round up of the best posts from some of ABS's favorite blogs

It's a utopia of beadiness (not only glass, there are many, many medias featured)!

Who is "Art Bead Scene"? Heather Powers, Melanie Brooks Lukacs, Cindy Gimbrone, Elaine Ray, Tari Sasser.

And what Art Bead Scene all about? As the blog says, "Art Bead Scene is an interactive blog with the goal of uniting bead artists of all materials and the jewelry designers who use art beads in their work."

Sarah Hornik is the current featured artist. Check out the delicious eye candy accompanying the interview.

I have been blogged...

Valérie of Luz Bijoux is featuring me on her blog at the moment. It is in English, so pop across and have a read http://luzbijoux.over-blog.com/



I have also been reminded to join L'Association des Perliers d'Art de France. It has been my intent to join since arriving in France last Autumn, but as we still have no income we've been prioritising our expenditure. L'Association des Perliers d'Art de France has been instrumental in having a book published on French beadmakers (in which I'm hoping to feature). You can find many talented glass artists listed on their website (see web listing). It would provide tremendous opportunity to showcase my work, so this has nudged me to move applying for membership to the top of my priority list.

And non-beady...

We had a wonderful afternoon with the girls at Citadelle de Montmédy Sunday afternoon. It's less than a 15 minute drive from where we are, although a different commune. The weather has been wonderful here since Thursday. It has given me a glimmer of hope that Summer is on it's way.

Here are my little darlings modeling their sunglasses...



And this is a view from the Citadelle...



You can find a great aerial view of Citadelle de Montmédy here

http://www.jedecouvrelafrance.com/f-3587.meuse-citadelle-
montmedy.html

Tinkering....

We had a wonderful day at the park yesterday with the girls. The sun was shining, it was a very warm 18 degrees and the day had "park" written all over it. Daisy and Ruby were climbing trees (unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but when grandpa downloads his pictures I'll add one to this post) and there is also an athletics section to the park and I showed Daisy and Ruby "how to do" the long jump. It was so warm, I was wearing knee length trousers... Hadn't realised how abrasive sand can be!! After a few hours at the park, we had a short drive to our main shopping complex which houses a Haagen Dazs cafe, so the girls had an ice-cream and chocolate brownie, and James and I were very good sticking with our diet and had a water and orange juice respecively :-D We had a great time, and Daisy and Ruby were asleep within minutes of their heads hitting the pillow. They were awake very early this morning though, so we're having a quite day doing jigsaw puzzles and crayon-ing.

James has gone into Luxembourg today for a lunch with someone who may have some work for him. Here's hoping!! It has been a long time since we had a regular income and funds are now running very low.

When James is out, I can't make any beads, but I can upload photo's so I've been updating the albums on Flickr (and I'd hoped Facebook, but I keep getting an error message :-( ). Here's one set I made from a bunch of beads last week. I love the classic reaction of turquoise and ivory and rather predictably, have called them Classico...



I don't know if maybe I need to move away from dotty beads again for a spell and re-visit the sculpted focals I so enjoyed making at the end of last year...



To be honest, it seems the case that when I sit at the torch, I'm subconciously driven to making a set of dotty beads, or a tree bead, or a sculpted focal before my conciousness engages and even realises it. I find I can't "force" myself into making a specific type of bead, I can't sit down and say "Right, I'm making this kind of bead today" because I usually end up with a jar full of water and frit. Maybe that's lack of discipline, I'm not sure. It is interesting though. I stand in front of my rack of glass, pulling out colours not knowing what is to become of them... Maybe that's all part of this glassy madness!