Purplelicious!

Some commission pieces completed for a gentleman to present to his wife for their approaching anniversary. It was nice to be back on the torch after the summer off!



Realised today how quickly Autumn will be with us. There's the barest hint of brown appearing in the trees. Autumn is my favourite season and is always the time of year which inspires me to make tree beads.

GBUK Bead Fair

As a member of GBUK, I'm glad to promote the following event. Unfortunately I can't attend as I'm at a wedding the following week and can't travel to both, but if you can make it you'll see a wonderful assortment of lampwork. Tables are also free to GBUK members, which is great for getting your toes wet with selling at Bead Fairs if you've not done it before.

Glass Beadmakers UK is holding a Bead Fair of handmade glass lampwork beads for sale open to the public from 1pm - 5pm on Saturday September 19th 2009 at
Highgate House,
Creaton,
Northampton.
NN6 8NN

The 2009 Annual General Meeting of Glass Beadmakers UK will also be held on the same day.

Further information from www.gbuk.org or telephone 01455 440361

FHFteam Blog

Please check out the FHFteam blog, which Becci (Fired Silver) has set up. You'll find a list of members blogs, stores and lots of information about Treasury's and in the future, Team challenges, featured artists and much more.

http://www.fhfteam.blogspot.com/

Frit Happens! Team on Etsy

Exciting news!! The Frit Happens forum now has a Street Team on Etsy.




You can find us at http://fhfteam.etsy.com

You'll find a listing of the 30+ member shops so far promoting U.K. and European lampwork and handmade artisan jewellery by self-representing artists.

To become a member of the Frit Happens Forum Team you must be an active member on www.frit-happens.co.uk forum and your Etsy shop must contain selfmade lampwork, fused work or artisan jewellery . Members must use our tag in listings (FHteam) and help to create group treasuries and participate in our forum based activities.

Bracelets galore!

Daisy has been invited to a birthday party, and I thought her friend Ilona might like a bracelet. Different to being inundated with Barbie dolls as Daisy was at her party. Ilona's favourite colour is pink



After Daisy and Ruby saw Ilona's bracelet, they asked for one too! Daisy wanted orange and purple, and Ruby wanted pink and blue.



Thanks for looking!

Gifts

Have been busy with another birthday gift, and end of year presents for Daisy and Ruby's teachers and their assistants.

Bumpy beads strung on a hand dyed silk ribbon are here



Bookmarks for the teachers are here



Thanks for looking :-D

Birthdays

So, James's best friend has his birthday this month. Still working on a "male range"...



I've used dark topaz, and dark grey glass with sterling silver.

Etsy

Well, I have had 2 sales on Etsy, and another as a result of Lynn Davy's project featuring my Chinese Silk bead in Step by Step Beads back in November. As I'm currently selling through Etsy rather than my own website, I am going to try to load a mini Etsy store widget here on the blog. Fingers crossed!

We have so many public holidays in May and June. Torch time has slowed AGAIN as a result. I have no idea how I'm going to get beads made during July and August when the girls are off. They have a 9 week break! I'm going to attempt to spend each school morning on the torch until they break up on July 3rd to get a decent amount of stock up on Etsy. Best laid plans and all that :-D

Here are some beads I made which have recently found their way to a new home in Florida.



This one commission on the back of Lynn Davy's tute in Step by Step Beads

European Street Team on Etsy

I recently joined the European Street Team on Etsy. It's a great team and they even have their own Charity Shop. Every item is donated by a member of the European Street Team. (Please read each listing for details of shipping as items will be shipped directly from the relevant team member). All proceeds go to the following good cause: Kindergarden playground upgrade to EU regulations in Hungary (check our profile for more info). Please visit the store if you get chance and check out Etsy tags which feature EST or europeanstreetteam to see what delights the Team members have to offer.

You can also check out the EST blog here

And follow this link for the EST catalogue - your guide for shopping from European sellers on Etsy!

Tweet!

Just interested to know how many people tweet, and if you use it to promote your work... Maybe I'll see you there ;-)

Yippeee!

I woke up this morning and had my first Etsy sale notification. I'm so excited!

And if anyone has any idea why suddenly my photo's from the last couple of posts aren't re-sizing as they usually do and no longer fit within their "frames" (see below) I'd appreciate your advice :-*

So I thought....

... I'd make another tree bead yesterday before turning off the torch. I've been admiring the green beginning to show in the surrounding forests and have been itching to translate it into glass. For those of you who make tree beads, you'll know they aren't quick beads to make. This little beauty (35mm lentil) was made from 12 different stringers, each stringer consisting of 3 to 5 colours. It took about 20 minutes of pulling stringers. The base bead is white and transparent green glass, about 2 rods of glass in total. That took about 45 minutes to melt, then another 15 - 20 minutes laying down stringers and shaping. I'm pleased with it and it's my first tree bead in around 7 months, but they still need more work.

What did I do yesterday

A sneak peek at yesterdays work.

Firstly, it's the in-laws 40th wedding anniversary today and as we are in France, and have rather a fondness pour le vin rouge, this "ruby" lampworked winestop seemed an appropriate gift.



These will also be listed in my etsy shop over the next 24 to 48 hours after a lady who requested a Chinese Silk bead decides which she'd like ( and those of you with young children will appreciate there are Easter egg hunts to be done!)

CS bead 2


CS bead 3


Then there are these

Spring green focal and spacers


Autum tube focal


Now, I'm not sure whether to list these or keep them for a friend who loves green, and whose birthday is in June....



Happy Easter everyone. Hope the Easter Bunny left you plenty of chocolate eggs xx

Er-hmmmmm!

Well, I have been absent. Not only from updating my blog, but melting glass. I am back, and hopefully won't be absent for more than a few days at a time again. I won't bore you with the details as the main thing is beads are being baked once more.

There are also some announcements. My website is down for the foreseeable future (grrrrrr!! to the webhost) and so I will be selling my work through etsy, and you'll see my etsy shop details listed to the right. Beads will be previewed here also, and new bead listing announcements noted on my twitter feed (yes, I have succumbed to twitter). At the moment, I am running the one general Twitter feed as billiejlittle so you get a bit of family gossip too, but will split that off once I'm listing beads weekly again. And of course you can see a gallery of work on Flickr

That's it for today. Beads are baking as I type. Photo's to follow!