Judiths Bead Lounge

Beads of Awesomeness...Introduction

2011-05-18T22:56:00.002+01:00

I have a small collection of lampwork beads by other beadmakers, some I have been gifted, some have been trades and a very few I have actually bought. I treasure each and every one of these beads and the story they tell. If I won the lottery I would have my own bead gallery and fill it with beads, jewelry and bead-fabulousness from every corner of the globe, nothing would give me greater pleasure. However as I don't actually play the lottery I am going to make the next best thing, a virtual gallery and write a series of blog posts featuring beads I have acquired by fair or foul means since beads sneaked in and took over my life all those years ago....

Watch this space....Coming very soon...

Beads of Awesomeness....

Oh and until then here is my random bead picture of the day

Spice - Lampwork Bead Set

Bead Photography...

2011-05-14T22:35:00.000+01:00

...and my ongoing struggle to produce good pictures!
Today in an effort to get my website shop and Etsy shop stocked with beautiful new beads I have mostly been taking photographs. In actual fact I have spent the last three days taking bead photographs without much success because although it has been really quite sunny here there have been clouds scooting across the sky and giving me a real headache trying to get the exposure right....I use a Canon G11 which is a fairly decent camera and although I would give my eye teeth for a DSLR my G11 is more than good enough for what I need it for, assuming I know how to use it that is.

Anyway I have been struggling with setting the exposure as well as getting a hideous green cast when I try to set the white balance and then finally today, I did it, I read the manual. I have had the camera for 18 months and to date have managed by randomly poking at buttons - quel suprise there were a couple of really simple solutions for my problems, who knew that the manual would have all the answers? Not only did it have the answers to my problems but I found a handy dandy little button that previously I didn't know what it was for, apparently it automatically adjusts the exposure, magnificent.

I try to do as little post production as possible on my photos to keep them as close as possible colourwise although I realise different monitors show pictures differently, Georges computer monitors are both completely out of whack and all his colours appear more or less luminous but I digress...I had been struggling with pictures of some pinky/purpley/magenta silver glass beads which have a gorgeous irridescent mother-of -pearl sheen I was trying to capture. I had photos from every angle and in every light setting imaginable, I was trying to bring out the luster and it became clear while trying to edit them it was an epic fail! I rocked back on my chair and studied the offending beads sitting on my laptop, I looked and looked again and realised that in the late afternoon light by the window with the blind down I could see them perfectly, I grabbed the camera and took the shot and voila...perfecto!

So here we go...the first photo was taken outside and shows some irridescence and some mother of pearl shine.


pinky lampwork beads with a little bit of MOP

and the second photo... a quick snap taken on top of my laptop next to the window with the blind down...

lookeeeee all that shiney mother-of-pearl.. yay!

pink lampwork beads, laptop shot - lots of shiney :)

So todays lesson is...scrap the fancy schmancy tripod, light tent, outdoor set up and just plonk beads on laptop and take a couple of quick down and dirty snaps.

I'm back from Cyprus...

2011-05-11T10:47:00.000+01:00

....where we stayed with Georges' family in a fabulous villa right on the East coast in Kapparis, gloriously the properties on either side were empty so we could be as noisy as we liked!. Everyones health held up and we only had one minor casualty - hurrah!

The photo below is Natalie sitting on the Patio of the villa, in the background you can see the garden dropping away down to the private beach, it really was idyllic.


Natalie

We went out and about a couple of times... to the view point of Famagusta, the water park at Ayia Napa and on the last evening to a local restaurant famous for it's Kleftiko, a traditional lamb dish, which was absolutely delicious. But mostly we spent our days at the villa, chatting, reading, swimming in the pool, walking the coastal path above or on the beach, in the evenings we had barbecues with local produce, gallons of wine and played cards amid much hilarity.... sigh, I miss it already.

Thank you Simon, Dee et al for a wonderful holiday, it was a magical combination of people and place.


everyone in the pool

Now back to the beads!

jo angell blog: Marrakesh Airport - Tradition Meets Contemporary Perfectly

2011-05-05T16:03:00.000+01:00

jo angell blog: Marrakesh Airport - Tradition Meets Contemporary Perfectly
I hope one day to visit Morocco and, amongst many other things, see Marrakesh airport's extended contemporary wing for myself.... but for now I will make do with visiting Jo Angell's excellent blog and looking at her photographs instead.

On Monday...

2011-04-22T14:20:00.018+01:00

...I wrote "I am hoping for a week without drama" - FAIL!

On Tuesday I wrote "I think maybe this will get it out of her system" - EPIC FAIL!

about 20 seconds after I hit publish on that post Natalie deteriorated rapidly! I won't go into the details but 6pm found us at in the drop in health center bucket in hand, 7pm referral to the Acute Medical Unit and by 12.30 am Natalie was occupying a bed opposite the very bed where George had been exactly 2 weeks before! We saw a lovely doctor at 3.30am who got her on intravenous everything - phew! The care she received at the drop in center and the AMU was fantastic and I can't praise them highly enough.
She was discharged yesterday and although still not 100% she is already better than she has been since last summer. While on the ward she received a call from her GP practice nurse.... "I don't want to worry you Natalie but I think I prescribed you the wrong antibiotics on Monday"!!! Really?... are you kidding me?...Bearing in mind this practice has seen her on 6 separate occasions in the last 7 months for this particular problem, I really think she needs to register with a new doctor pronto.

Gloriously we have a holiday coming up very soon which will be a fantastic opportunity for George and Natalie to convalesce properly. We are going to a fabulous villa in Cyprus with Georges family, his brother, wife, children and mum, and I can hardly wait. Rob can't come, which is a huge shame, but he will be house sitting for us and he has a lovely shiny new netbook to make up for it. I am so excited, I get on really well with all of Georges family and we always have a huge laugh when we are all together, the timing is perfect and I can hardly wait.

These last few weeks have been brutal so I am going to take a break from beads, blogging and my lampwork beads website while I recover my equilibrium and prepare for my holiday. I will be back shortly, hopefully refreshed and invigorated with lots of lovely photos to show you.
I will leave my Etsy shop open for a few more days until after the bank holiday, please sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar if you would like to know when it re-opens.

I leave you with today's gratuitous bead picture...

Butterfly Floral Focal Lampwork Bead

What was I thinking...

2011-04-19T11:07:00.000+01:00

when I posted yesterday how much I love Mondays....yesterday was crap!
Natalie struggled into the doctors surgery on campus (again) to get antibiotics before spending over an hour on the bus to get back here where she promptly collapsed into my bed with a kidney infection. Our bathroom is downstairs and my bedroom is as far away as you can get, obviously this is ghastly when one of us is poorly.....I have spent the last 24 hours on bucket patrol while desperately trying to cool her down with a wet flannel and some paracetomol. It was tricky trying to administer the paracetomol and anti-biotics without her throwing it all back up but some must have got through because after a horrible night her temperature is finally stable. I am hoping that this will be the end of it, she has been suffering since before Christmas and I think maybe this will get it out of her system.
I don't think I will be making any beads today, have I mentioned how rubbish I am on no sleep?

I love Mondays....

2011-04-18T10:32:00.000+01:00

... no, really, I do! I think I wrote a blog post somewhere about hating Mondays, but things change you know and I am nothing if not contrary!
Mondays are like lovely new white sheet of white paper, a fresh start, another go at a week where nothing has spoilt it yet. Monday morning are usually quiet for me so I can sit and reflect, make some plans to ignore and generally just meditate on what this week might bring. After the last few weeks I am reminded that life can chew you up and spit you out faster than a blink of an eye and I am hoping for a week without drama, lets see how that works out for me.....

Beads and balance

2011-04-15T23:06:00.000+01:00

I have been thinking a lot about balance recently and how hard it is for me. I'm an all or nothing kind of a girl, George and I used to say "nothing in moderation" which pretty much sums it up. In preparation for the Big Bead Show I went flat out making beads so that I would have a table full of lovely new beads. I made beads to the exclusion of everything else, website, Etsy, blog, housework, meals etc. I did make some lovely beads but often the process was a struggle and now I'm suffering from bead burn out, I still have the ideas but my execution is somewhat lacking.
I have been making round floral beads for some years now but the other day I tried to make some for a lovely customer who I met at B.B.S. they all came out oval! oval for pities sake! I couldn't make oval beads if I wanted to, actually I could but I digress... I could not round them back out... I was so far gone I couldn't manage something so basic, something I have done hundreds of times. I know that if I do other things for a while then my joie de bead will return with a vengence. I sometimes think a schedule would help, you know the kind of thing... internet stuff and photographs in the morning, make some beads after lunch, cook dinner, a bit of knitting in the evening... but my experience with scheduling has been a massive fail so far.
Balance is not in my repertoire right now, maybe one day I will be able to bring some into my life, but for now I'm going to get on board, strap myself in and enjoy the ride!

Lovely Lavender Glass Beads

BeadCreep gone bad

2011-04-13T21:59:00.000+01:00

Last week I promised to lend a fellow beadmaker a lovely tool that I have and rarely use. The tool in question was a Jim Moore brass spiral stamp and I had moved it several times during the lampwork extravaganza that occurred in preparation for the Big Bead Show. It had it's own little corner on the shelf and I accidentally knocked it off, instead of putting it back I thought I put it somewhere "safe".....duh! Anyway I strolled jauntily out to the shed to fetch it on Friday morning, two days later by Sunday evening I had turned the shed and inside the house upside down, inside out and about face..no rod of glass, tool or bead drawer was left untouched, I emptied, I tidied, I moved cupboards and shone my torch behind them but clearly "safe place" in this case means lost forever, never to be seen again. I am seriously perplexed by it's absence and started to doubt my sanity when I found myself calculating how far I would have to pull the cooker out to get a good look behind it!

I have given up and have tried to stop fretting about it, I think the shed elves who spray pixie dust and flick cubic zirconia into the darkest corners when I'm not looking have stolen it to make pretty patterns with it.
On the up side the studio is the tidiest it has been in months, possibly years. I work better when it is tidy and I try to use up all my short ends of glass either by making spacer beads or by melting them on to the next rod but invariably the bench ends up littered with shorts, stringer, shards and more. It is lovely in there at the moment, I can pick things up without spearing or slicing myself on sharp bits of glass and I can't wait to get properly back in the swing of things.

The house, on the other hand, is not quite so tidy. After George's soujourn with the NHS last week I haven't yet had a chance to pack away all my beads and kit from the Big Bead show the week before, add to that looking for a small tool that no longer inhabits the same plane of existence as me and I am looking at beadcreep gone bad, BeadAgeddon strikes again, personally I quite like it but I don't think anyone else does!

Silver Grey Lampwork Beads

What a week that was...

2011-04-11T09:50:00.000+01:00

The Big Bead Show was fantastic, I had a wonderful time. There was one gloomy speck on the day and that was my lovely husband George, he had been fighting what we thought was a chest infection for a while and looked somewhat under par early doors on Saturday when I forced him out of bed for the bead show. The trooper that he is he battled on, spent most of the day in the car reading the paper but having seen his rather ghostly pallor I decided it was for the best, he would probably scare people away. We arrived home at 7pm we were in bed by 8pm.
Sunday, Mothers Day - Child no 1. Full Marks - Excellent.
Child no 2. Null points - really Robert, claiming no credit on your mobile phone doesn't actually cut it!
Husband - still looking ghastly
Monday, migraine day - enough said
Tuesday, finally focussed long enough at husbands face to realise that all was not well and should probably get him to the doctors for antibiotics post haste. Got him tea and toast and woman-handled him into the car before having my breakfast, huge mistake...was not expecting to spend the entire day in ER and the acute medical ward.
Apparently George had been bleeding internally and had pretty much no blood left, an adult male generally has haemoglobin levels between 14-18 (just for illustration purposes, don't quote me on that) George had 4.3 which one kindly nurse informed me was "dead"! He had been chugging ibuprofen for his chest/fluey thing and had developed an ulcer which had been bleeding, of course the worse he felt the more ibuprofen he took, the man who did his endoscopy reckoned that ibuprofen pretty much kept him in work, which is fairly freaky. What was also freaky was the entire lack of pain or other noticeable symptoms apart from shortness of breath, tired and a bit peaky...all of which could be a chest infection or similar.
They pumped him back up with blood, in stereo at first, one pouch in each arm and over the course of a couple of days I think he had maybe 8 pouches of blood over 2 days although I lost count early on. They gave him an endoscopy which showed a healed ulcer and after 3 days in the hospital they discharged him on Friday.
At this point I would like to say that all of the medical staff (except the nurse who pumped blood into his tissue for a while leaving an extraordinary bruise) were totally fantastic. I have never seen a team of people work so hard, for so many hours and keep a cheery smile on their faces, nothing was too much trouble for them...a huge thank you to all of them. Also, thank you, to everyone who gives blood, without you I know it would have been a very different picture last week and for that I am eternally grateful.

I would also like to pay my respects to my Uncle Clifford who died on Friday evening, may he rest in peace.

Once again...

2011-03-30T23:06:00.003+01:00

...it has been a while, there has been far too much going on to write about it all, mayhem as per usual. After recent events, George Natalie and I needed a bit of a break so we went up to Liverpool to stay with my mother-in-law for a long weekend. Rob came over from Manchester too, I hadn't seen him since the end of January, it was lovely for us all to be together and we had a wonderful time.

I returned full of vim and vigour and set to full bead making mode ahead for the upcoming Big Bead Show this weekend and lo and behold I have been struck down with the lurgy. So far I don't feel too bad but I have lost my voice, a blessing for those around me but not ideal for a bead show. Anyways I have spent today labelling and pricing so it is probably a good thing as otherwise, and not for the first time, I would have turned up completely unprepared.

I have closed both my webshop and my Etsy shop until after the bead show but afterwards I will update them both with new beads, if you would like to be advised when they are open again please sign up for my newsletter. I have added a handy dandy sign up widget in the right column so you can sign up directly from here. I am not a prolific newsletter writer but every now and then I offer subscriber only discounts and competitions so it's definitely worth a look.

As usual

2011-03-16T20:17:00.001Z

...when I have a deadline approaching my muse has packed up and left the girl from Ipanema playing on a loop in the empty room which used to house my brain... beads are not being made and I'm on a nightmare. The Big Bead Show is right around the corner, 2 weeks away in fact, I will be away for 4 of those days, travelling for 2 and pricing for 1 which leaves me 7 days in which to make beads. 7 days...how did that happen? last time I looked I had weeks! I try to get out every morning at 9 and to melt, melt, melt the day away but it's just not working, ...panic is setting in and I need a plan! Suggestions on a postcard please?

Fortunately I have a supply of Gratuitous Bead Pictures -GBP- from before my muse took a hike

It was Natalies 21st....

2011-03-13T11:55:00.000Z

birthday on Friday, I can hardly believe it....how can she possibly be all grown up? already? surely it was only yesterday we brought her home from hospital full of panic and terror because we didn't want to break our tiny baby and had no experience of what to do with her? Apparently it wasn't yesterday and clearly we didn't break her, although we had some near misses.. memorably the time George carried her on his shoulders and passed her to me just as I made a dive for our runaway trolley and she crashed onto the tarmac between us....or the time we were the only people on the dodgems at the funfair and with a child each in our cars, lined up at opposite corners and drove full tilt at each other, man those dodgem cars can crash hard! Nevertheless, despite our periodic bouts of stupidity and uselessness, she has survived and grown into a beautiful, clever, funny young lady who we love with all our hearts and who we are incredibly proud of, Happy Birthday Natalie xxx

Exciting week...

2011-03-07T10:34:00.000Z

this is going to be....I have an auction on Ebay for some orphan beads. When I first started selling my beads somewhere back in 2003 (I just looked to see when my feedback started for beads) it was my venue of choice. Back then there were a few lampwork bead artists on there but not loads and most were in the US, also there were no mass produced lampwork beads feigning artisan pedigree. The charges were reasonable and there was a friendly community feel to it, I made a lot of friends on Ebay back then. It is different now, for a start it took me 2 days to actually write the listing, I still don't think it's very good but all the pertinent information is in there and lots of pictures so it will have to do. I'm sure my orphan set will go for a modest sum but you know what? I enjoy listing on ebay, it's fun, it's exciting and I genuinely love the idea that at the end of the day someone might get a bargain!

Here is the link, Orphan auction....please check it out and let me now what you think.

Is it Sunday

2011-02-27T22:12:00.000Z

already? Last week disappeared into a haze of migraine, insomnia and a dodgy stomach, all fairly minor irritants but debilitating all the same. I still managed to make some bracelets and take some photos even while I felt less than stellar but I probably need to check them out now my eyes are focussing properly LOL. One more early night and hopefully full speed ahead in the morning...
A new bead picture

One World One Heart Winners

2011-02-18T19:20:00.000Z

are.....drum roll please.........and yes I chose two winners just because I could :)

Maggi who writes the charming Just add Glitter and Stir
Writergirl Dreams who writes the extraordinary The Sacred Ordinary Blog

Congratulations ladies, your prizes will be winging their way to you very soon. I loved reading your blogs and will be back for more.

I have loved reading all the lovely comments everyone left for me and I have enjoyed discovering many new blogs and talented artists out in blogland, thank you one and all.

Lisa has big plans for next year so be sure to check out her latest post on a Whimsical Bohemian

What a fab day....

2011-02-17T19:17:00.000Z

I have had today. I got the bus into town but because I only had a £20.00 note and the driver didn't have any change, he let me on anyway and I got a free bus ride, which was unusual and nice. I met up with Natalie, she had been to a 3 hour interview for...wait for it .... a cinema usherette (I'm fairly sure they aren't called that any more, so un-pc, but I love it, it's so evocative and so retro) and she has to go back for an individual interview tomorrow as well, seriously!!! She seemed fairly nonplussed by the whole thing, apparently there were qestions like "if a film starts at 6pm and runs for an hour and a half, what time will it finish?" and "if a customer spends £3.00 on a ticket and £6.50 on popcorn, how much did he spend?" and they were multiple choice too! I fear she may be a tad over qualified..

Anyhoo we had a bit of a laugh and hot-dogs for lunch at the fabulous Scoop and Crumb, we were so dissapointed that once again we were too full for waffles and ice cream, next time we are just going straight for pudding. It was a gorgeous sunny day with hardly a breath of wind so we walked home along the beach stopping to to sit and watch the waves for a while, then on to Lawrences, a great art supply shop. Nat bought a new sketchbook and a small box of gouache paints but we could have both spent so much money in there, it was hard to restrain ourselves.

These aren't the best photos as I took them with my phone. The first is Natalie in front of the recently renovated bandstand, just look at the colour of the sky, it didn't feel like February. This is my favourite time to walk here before Easter starts the influx of tourists.

Natalie by the bandstand

This one is what remains of the skeleton of the West Pier. At this time of year come dusk we sometimes go down to watch the "murmuration" of starlings which really can be quite a spectacle.

West Pier

All together a lovely day, I do love living here.

Just quickly

2011-02-17T12:37:00.000Z

Okay I have to race into town to meet Natalie for lunch an I'm already late (again!) so here is a quick preview of beads to come

Don't they look pretty all lined up like that!

Click to get the full glory :)

One Day Left.....

2011-02-16T22:16:00.000Z

To leave a comment on the One World One Heart post below, tomorrow I draw the lucky winner by means of the handy dandy online random generator I found the other day. Quite frankly I didn't relish writing out 300+ names (I am absolutely blown away by all of the wonderful comments b.t.w.) and then cutting them up and picking one from a hat so I went, I Googled, I found....woohoo!

In other news I have been making lots of beads and spent several hours yesterday cleaning and sorting, hopefully tomorrow I will be able to take some photos.
and for today.... Live long and prosper...

I think therefore I'm spam

2011-02-11T21:44:00.000Z

At the moment things are not completely tickety boo chez bead towers, nothing dire but a fairly unimpressive array of minor irritants and stresses. These last couple of weeks I have been a bit anxious and generally more tetchy than usual.
In April I will be at Bead Magazines Big Bead Show so I thought a useful tactic would be to turn the burner up and concentrate on actually making some beads for the show. I still have nearly two months so the pressure isn't on yet and I was feeling really chuffed with myself for being so well organised for once - ha!
I have made a lot of beads over the last week or so, there are some nice colour choices that I am pleased with, they are even and neat but they all have one flaw..one dodgy end, not sharp and pointy but rough enough to ensure they will never see the light of day. I know I'm a perfectionist but these things really matter to me and it really galls me to have wasted so much glass and time and made such a basic mistake.. over and over again, several days in a row! Here is the thing though, it almost perfectly matches my mood, not in a total funk or anything major but just a little bit crap. So I am taking the weekend to catch up with the general shenanigins, let my head stop churning and maybe, come Monday I will be able to make a decent bead..that's the plan at least.

Have a great weekend and here is the usual gratuitous bead shot

Loving OWOH

2011-02-06T21:58:00.000Z

It has been a bit quiet around here, so sorry. I have been busy flying around the world visiting One World One Heart blogs and how wonderful it has been. Once I start I can't stop but I have barely scratched the surface of the 807 blogs listed so far and with another ten days to run I'm going to have to pick up my pace a bit! I have read some fantastic blogs and seen some extraordinary talent, such a shame that this is the last year but I am so grateful to have been a part of this one. A huge thank you to Lisa Swifka of A Whimsical Bohemian, I am strugging to read even a small proportion of the entry blogs so I cannot get my head around how much work she has put in checking each and every entry!

Normally I put a gratuitous bead photo in this spot and even though last week was very poor on the pretty bead stakes I have found oneset that us up to the mark ....

Arabian Nights

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-02T22:49:00.000Z

One World One Heart

2011-01-31T07:59:00.006Z

Hello and welcome to you all, particularly those of you are new to my blog and have found your way here via One World One Heart.

One World One Heart, for those of you who have not heard of it,is a huge meet and mingle open house for bloggers, a blog hop adventure if you will. This is the fifth and final year of OWOH but my first year, I am really excited and looking forward to meeting lots of new people from around the world. The blog hop is hosted and particiapated by Lisa at A Whimsical Bohemian you can read more about it and find the rules here,

A bit about me: My name is Judith Johnston, I make glass beads and I live in fabulous Brighton on the south coast of England. About 9 years ago after several years of bead weaving and jewellery making I discovered I could make my own lampwork glass beads…. Using fairly basic equipment I set myself up in my garden shed and started melting glass. From the very beginning I was mesmerized, it became my passion and joy and I haven't looked back. My blog is mostly about the beads I make, the good, bad and ugly with photos.

I hope you enjoy my blog, please say hello below in the comments section and let's get this party going...

As part of and in the spirit of OWOH I will be giving away a door prize it is one of my own Heart of Glass pendants complete with a sparkly cubic zirconia. It will come with a hand dyed silk string so it is ready to wear but you can easily add your own chain if you prefer. To have a chance of winning the pendant all you have to do is leave a comment in the comments section below. Please, make sure you leave a way for me to contact you in your comment so that I can visit your blog too but also so that I can contact you should you win. It is open to everyone worldwide and I will announce and e-mail the winner on February 17th.

Door Prize for OWOH

Comments are now closed and the winner will be announced shortly :)

Just a quickie..

2011-01-26T19:06:00.000Z

My attention has been drawn to the fairly complicated rules about give-aways on Facebook Fan Pages. Apparently I was not following the afore-mentioned rules and risking having my page deleted so I have deleted the competition post and will be drawing a name from the entrants I have so far.
However, this is good news for my dear blog readers, newsletter subscribers and non-Facebook people in general because it means the competition I had planned for here will be brought forward...Stay Tuned....

Bead Prize

2011-01-24T20:07:00.000Z

A picture of the prize bead on my Facebook Fan Page give-away. I will pendantise it and add a hand dyed silk ribbon before the draw ends on Sunday.

Bead Give-away

2011-01-23T22:11:00.000Z

I'm having a bead give-away over on my Facebook Fan Page. All you need to do to enter is click this link to my fan page and then comment in the comments section of the give-away announcement. The prize is one of my floral beads made up into a pendant with sterling silver and a hand dyed silk ribbon.

Bonne Chance!

Bah!

2011-01-20T21:46:00.003Z

I will be honest the Purple Rose beads were a dis-as-ter dahling, truly awful and I know I said I would show the ugly but if I showed these I would have to rate the blog as unsuitable for children! I think it boils down to being a bit heavy handed, I really hope I can find a way of applying a finer layer of the powder without having to sift it but that is for another day I think.
After yesterdays dissapointment I surprisingly had lots of ideas today, I felt that the force was with me...and it really was. I had finally broken out my stash of original terra frit, my bead was encased and looking very lovely I was starting to finish shaping it when.... pffft... my propane ran out...wow was I snarky. I have a new bottle ordered for delivery tomorrow, really I should be doing all sort of houseworky, internety stuff and yet I'm so busy sulking I couldn't possibly do anything useful.

Toying with putting this one up for sale on my website but I rather love it and I'm not sure I'm ready to part with it yet...

Purple Mist

2011-01-18T22:57:00.000Z

There has been a thread on the forum Lampwork Etc of late with people showcasing their beads made with Zimmerman Z99 purple rose powder and there are some absolute beauties. Now I have to confess that I have had a stash of this for some years now, I think I even have some of the rods somewhere, but for some reason I have never touched it. Obviously I only realised I already had some the second I hit the paypal pay button and bought some more but as it is no longer in production having too much isn't really a problem!
I think it has a reputation as being a bit tricky to work because it can devitrify and leave a chalky white powder on the piece, some people like the devit, others not so much. Personally I don't care for it, I think it can make beads look aged and that can be cool but I never plan to have it so when I can't get it and can't get rid of it I get a tad snarky .
Anyway today I thought I would break out the Z99 and have a play...so much fun...so addictive, seriously I literally couldn't stop. I'm not sure if the beads are going to be nice or if I was just posessed and crazed by the purple mist, I can't wait until tomorrow to see what I get. It is entirely possible I have a kiln full of crap but even if I do I'm going again....

I have also been making chunky lentils these last few sessions and I love the shape. They have a nice large area for decoration and would make a fabulous chunky piece of jewellery. I have some ideas on how to use these so I think I'm going to have to make myself a set.
Here is the set I put on Etsy this evening.

Today ...

2011-01-17T23:07:00.000Z

I have mostly been organising my beads...I looked around and suddenly realised my living room looked like Battle of the Beads had been held there, beads beads and more beads ever-y-where. I am not a tidy person but once the mess starts to reach epic proportions, I get quite blocked and find myself unable to do anything at all. It was only then that I realised I had been renewing beads on Etsy instead of lising new ones for quite some time that I knew action needed to be taken, I knew there were good beads in there just waiting for liberation.

I had only been going about 20 minutes or so before the doorbell rang and I got a double delivery, Double Helix odd lot glass and some Reichenbach rods with a new bead roller - woohoo. Well that put a different complexion on things but no, I was strong, I forced myself to stick with it, the new glassy goodness would have to wait until playtime tomorrow (sigh). It took me all day. I didn't even look at the paperwork like I was supposed to, I only stopped to stroke my new glass once or twice but one way or another (and I got quite brutal in the end) the beads were put away. I feel so much better, it was definitely a day well spent.

It turns out I had several sets of beads waiting to be cleaned, quite a few heart pendants and some other bits and pieces so now I have some lovely new beads for Etsy and my Webshop

Anyway the upshot of this is that I need a bead friendly housekkeper, cooking skills mandatory, or failing that a schedule...ideas on a postcard please

customary gratuitous bead shot

Fire Divas Quarterly Jewelry Challenge

2011-01-14T05:34:00.002Z

The Fire Divas are holding their quarterly jewelery challenge competition.
Read all about it.....

February is a time for romance and love. It's also the time to get your jewelry into our Fire Divas Quarterly Jewelry Challenge! The theme is That Special Bead. It is entirely open to your own interpretation and we hope you have fun with it! For some inspiration, head over to our Flickr page. You can win some fantastic prizes; see them below!

Winged heart bead like this one by Lori from http://www.ashlyndesign.etsy.com/

$20 Gift Certificate to janeldudleybeads.etsy.com

$40 Gift Certificate to hollysfolly.com

$15 Gift Certificate to teasebeads.com or teasebeads.artfire.com

$25 Gift Certificate to http://www.arensea.etsy.com/ or http://www.arensea.artfire.com/

A bead donated by Lara from www.lutrick.etsy.com and www.lutrick.artfire.com

A fish like this one by Laurie from www.glassbead.etsy.com

$20 Gift Certificate to http://www.artfire.com/users/BabsBeadsandDesign

$20 Gift Certificate to www.etsy.com/shop/uglyducklingbeads

This set of beads from RiversEdgeGlass

Now the boring stuff:

All submissions must feature Fire Divas' lampwork. We require the name of the Fire Diva who made the beads used in the submitted piece, so if you submit something, please be ready to provide that information.

We will allow one submission per person per contest, and a maximum of two photos per submission. Entries may be submitted here (http://www.flickr.com/groups/firedivachallenge/) for approval, no later than February 10, 2011. No Flickr account? No problem. You can also email your submissions to firedivas @ gmail . com (no spaces). Please include, in the comments section or in your email, the following:
Information about the beads:
Description of the piece:
Inspiration for the piece:
Submissions will not be approved without all of this information.

Fire Divas reserve the right to approve or reject any submissions.

Fire Divas reserve the right to modify or cancel the challenge at any time.

The winners will be determined by an open poll which does not allow multiple votes.

True Blue

2011-01-13T20:19:00.000Z

I had a good bead day yesterday, I made this....

and these....

I am very happy with them.

The heart is in my shop now and the beads will be there tomorrow when I get another photograph of them

Typical....

2011-01-10T23:47:00.000Z

... I have the hearts nailed but now I can't take a decent photo for toffees - gah! I think I will be happier in a few weeks when the days are longer and a bit brighter. I know I can use lights and all the paraphernalia but I just prefer to see the glass colours in natural daylight, also I am lazy and it bores me to tears setting it all up and down. I swear my neighbours think I'm as mad as a box of frogs, as I lumber into un-carachteristic action at the first ray of sunlight. Anyway here is the best of today's pictures in the glimpse of sunshine we had today.

P.S. Any suggestions for beads I can make other than hearts will be gratefully received, I am all out of ideas and need a re-boot.

It's all about...

2011-01-09T23:33:00.003Z

....the pictures. I have added a gallery to my website. I have only put some of my most recent pictures up so far but I hope in time to add some of my older ones too. If you would like to take a look you can find it here Gallery
It is taking a little while to whip it into shape but I do feel my website is coming along quite nicely now, I actually enjoy updating it now so that in itself is a result.

While I'm on the subject of pictures I spent an hour earlier today chasing the smallest triangle of sunshine around the garden to try and get some pictures of yesterdays hearts... FAIL. I don't quite know what happened but the pictures just didn't come out right and I really want to do the new hearts justice so tomorrow I will try again.

Another bead picture, just because I can...

pink love hearts

Working away....

2011-01-08T22:30:00.001Z

... spending some quality time in the shed making more hearts. I'm still making a few mistakes but less of them and more importantly I'm able to fix them now. What I have found surprising is how time consuming these are, they are taking me over an hour and a half each and because I'm having to concentrate so hard I can only manage two in a day. I'm not sure that I'm going to get any quicker but that's OK, I really like them so they are definitely worth the effort. I had a huge result when I discovered a long forgotten stash of glass in really saturated colours which is going to make some gorgeous hearts. I am also working on some smaller heart beads, very similar but made on a mandrel so they have a hole top to bottom for a headpin or other stringing medium. Maybe I will try horizontal holes soon....
I need to think of something different for tomorrow though or I'm going to be suffering from heartburn out :)

I have a new page on my website where I am putting snapshots of treasuries I have been featured in. All items in these treasury snapshots are click-able so you can investigate further if something takes your fancy.
I have just put the two latest ones up today, click here if you would like to take a look - Treasuries.

By George

2011-01-06T18:32:00.001Z

I think she's got it!

Pink Heart

Purple Heart

Pink and Purple Hearts

Pink Heart with light coming through

Now I'm going to write it all down so I don't forget again....Actually I might not because I stumbled across something really cool while trying to do these. I find some of my better ideas come from trying to repeat a particular technique, doing something not quite right and getting a surprising result, I love serendipity.
I would also like to bring your attention to my loops, yes indeedy, I'm mighty pleased with them, not quite perfect but definitely getting there - woohoo!
P.S. These are destined for my webshop early next week, keep 'em peeled :)

One World One Heart

2011-01-06T09:00:00.046Z

I will be taking part in the fifth and final One World One Heart event in which bloggers from all over the world meet, mingle and make connections with other bloggers. It starts on January 30, 2011 and runs February 11, 2011.

As part of this I will be giving away a prize, I haven't completely decided what this will be yet but it will be a ready to wear and probably be either a floral or a heart pendant, quelle surprise! Anyway click the picture to be transported to Lisa Swikas blog, A Whimsical Bohemian, to read all about it

Day 2...

2011-01-05T20:16:00.000Z

of the heart challenge and I have to tell you things are looking up. When I checked the kiln this morning yesterdays hearts, while not great, were not nearly as bad as I had previously thought. I finally prefer my freehand pendant loops to the bead loops (easy loops - make a donut bead on a mandrel, keep warm in the kiln and attach to the finished heart) and the heart shaping really only needed a bit of tweaking, as usual it was all about heat control. I also was better prepared in other ways, I had my loop cane ready to go BEFORE I started the heart (very important), I succesfully cleaned my clear up so it was, well... clear and sparkley plus I finally remembered how to make the fabulous purple of yesterdays heart, yay, so excited about that.

I only made 2 today but I'm quite excited to see how they come out in the morning. There really is nothing like the kiln anticipation, it makes it easy to get up in the morning.

Not a Heart!

Heart Trauma

2011-01-04T20:45:00.002Z

I used to make lots of off mandrel hearts like these...

Today I thought I would make some but you know what? it's so not like riding a bicycle! I remember them being a little bit awkward but not horrendous, however after 8 hours of making really, really rubbish hearts I am changing my opinion, these are absolute buggers to make... I will be going at it again tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that until I get it back again, you may want to look away now, it's not going to be prettty.

Hello and Welcome

2011-01-03T11:38:00.000Z

to 2011. How exciting, a lovely fresh shiny new year to play in. I have not made any resolutions to fail but I am forging forward, the windows are open, old baggage is being flung out and I can feel the wind on my face......

Some of my favourite beads from the last few years, I wonder what this year will bring?

Long purple floral focal bead

2010-12-16T12:40:00.000Z

owner doesn't love it and so looking for a new home! This is the focal I made on Tuesday, it's not bad. It's balanced, the flowers aren't smeared, the clear casing is actually clear and with out many bubbles but technically adequate isn't really ringing any bells for me. It just seems a bit gawky!
It is possible I will pick this particular bead up in a couple of weeks and feel differently about it, that happens a lot. In the meantime I think I need to have a total floral re-think.
Someimes less really is just less!

New Glass...

2010-12-14T23:38:00.000Z

There really is nothing like receiving a parcel of glassy gorgeousness for seriously improving the quality of ones day. Tuffnell Glass had a sale on CIM glass over the weekend and of course I had to take full advantage of it. I love the CIM glass range, their transparents are sparkling clear in gorgeous colours, their opaques are fabulous and include some reactives but their opals send me delirious, their opals are to die for...and today I got a big parcel full of CIM lovliness to play with. Originally I was going to write Christmas cards and stuff like that but once the parcel turned up that was completely out of the window. It was late afternoon and I knew I only had a couple of hours before my blood froze in my arteries then I remembered I needed to make a floral focal so the CIM was put to one side for tomorrow.
I managed two and a half hours and made my focal, just that, nothing else. I have not been particularly happy with my florals of late so I tried a different tactic with this one. I'm going for less is more and I will let you know how it is tomorrow when the kiln reveals either trash or treasure...

Holiday Traditions

2010-12-14T00:21:00.001Z

In our house the weekend following our wedding anniversary traditionally marks the start of the festive season. When the children were small it used to send them into a frenzy of frustration because they had seen trees and decorations going up from the beginning of December but we never waivered, always the weekend following the 10th, sooooo unfair! So today we have been tidying up in preparation for the tree and decorations but of course the pressure is off as both Natalie and Rob won't be here for a few days yet. After the recent re-decoration of the house we haven't managed to actually move anything back (apart from the sofa, tv and computer!) so the tidying up is a bit more intensive than usual, I fear it's going to take a while...

So we have been out and bought the tree now and I am spamming Natalie with texts hoping she will come back and decorate it for me. I think her lack of response is payback for all the years I made her wait until the 10th.

I am looking forward to Christmas Eve with the Hayward-Kelly contingent playing Cranium, new pyjamas, mulled wine and mince pies with carols, our list is very long.....what are your holiday traditions?

A year on....

2010-12-14T00:21:00.000Z

As many of you know after the sudden death of my brother a year ago I dropped the ball on my beadmaking. Everything just stopped in its tracks and all of the work and effort of the whole of the preceeding year, getting my beads up for sale, being seen on the internet, establishing a blog and working my way up Google etc. went down the drain. It has taken me pretty much the whole year to even think about picking it all up and starting over again but I have and I am. My confidence was completely gone and it has been so hard to just get on with it regardless but after a couple of false starts I have finally planted the seed, now I have to nurture it and hopefully something good will grow..

Twenty two years

2010-12-14T00:20:00.001Z

and counting, today is my wedding anniversary. George and I have been married for 22 years and we still love each other and make each other laugh, I really don't think I could ask for anything more... well...except for the missing heater to turn up!
A quick trip down memory lane to 1988, a time when I worked in Soho in London for a video facilities company and George and I did not behave at all well but had so much fun!
I give you Georges favourite, the gorgeous Wendy James..

Moon Beads

2010-12-14T00:20:00.000Z

I call them moon beads, typically I have no idea why I just do! I used to make these beads all the time about four, maybe five years ago. I really got sucked into experimenting with different levels of translucency and graduation of colour. I think when the heater arrives I will make some more. I make them by layering transparents, opaques and opals and pulling a really long, maybe about a meter long and 3mm thick, stringer and then winding the resulting stringer around a core bead. The trickiest part is starting to wind the stringer on the bead when it is too long to hold in the usual fashion, then I have to balance it on my right shoulder (having made sure it was cool first, I only ever got one melted onto my sweatshirt!) and feed it onto the bead next to the flame. Also bubbles in the stringer are OK but will make a mess if they burst so it's a fantastic technique to practice making bubble free encased stringer, there is nothing like spending ages on something to have it ruined by bubbles to sharpen ones technique.

While writing this I have just had an idea, so I will leave you with a picture while I head out to buy a fan heater so I can go and try it out.

Ciao
Jxx

It's too cold and...

2010-12-14T00:19:00.002Z

I gave Natalie my fan heater from the shed, she needed it more than me and I thought I wouldn't be heading shedwards anytime soon because I have a rotten head cold. When ones child phones up from her bed, fully clothed and one can hear her teeth chattering with cold, measures need to be taken to rectify the situation but buying a new heater was not on the agenda. Obviously the second the front door clunked shut behind her and afore-mentioned fan heater I became immeadiately desperate to make beads... I had a debate with myself and ordered a new and rather spiffy halogen heater about 20 minutes later! I am now waiting for the delivery, it might be tomorrow, it might be next week, I just don't know and I have no fancy schmancy tracking so I can follow its journey across hill and dale.
In the meantime I have ordered all my Christmas presents online and I am hoping they will also turn up in the next few days so hopefully all my waiting in will be over by the end of this week, that's the plan anyway, genius huh?
I have also been out to the shed to try and work out where to put my new-fangled high faluting heater so it doesn't set fire to anything. I have tried tidying up, did I tell you about the pixie dust incident? glitter-tastic! I have tried shifting things about but the real problem is that I am trying to get a quart into a pint pot....the shed is FULL, it's a problem and I don't know what I'm going to do about it...
I need to figure it out quickly though because the second that heater turns up I'm going out to melt some glass even if I have to strap the heater on my head to do it.

Do you see what I see?

2010-12-14T00:19:00.001Z

This just makes me want to cry a little bit. I was really happy with this bead...

but...the petals of the flower above the butterfly has hairline cracks in the glass, I think this is called checking and as far as I know it is down to glass incompatibility. Do I know which glass is the culprit? At a guess I would say it's a rod of Lauscha purple but what is so peculiar is that it is just this one flower which suggests I picked up a rogue stringer floating about on my bench. Looks like I'm going to have to turn Sherlock and work out what it was.
The worst of it... this bead represents several hours of work and I really liked the way it turned out. The best of it ... I am grateful I always take such enormous photographs from all angles which show this sort of thing up instantly!

No beads today..

2010-12-14T00:19:00.000Z

my love has gone away...as Hermans Hermits sang. It became apparent yesterday afternoon that George was not going to make it home from his office some 55 miles away, sadly by the time he realised he had snow trouble the hotel in his building was fully booked with a waiting list of 34 people! He managed to book into a travelodge some 3 miles away..it took him nearly 7 hours to drive those 3 miles. Needless to say we spent most of the evening on the phone, checking traffic reports etc. as usual I was panic stricken and he was resigned. I didn't get to bed until 1.30am so I was utterly pooped by this morning, I don't make good beads when I'm pooped! So today the beadmaking report is poor.
However here is a picture of one I prepared earlier...

That old chestnut

2010-12-14T00:18:00.000Z

I am really pleased with the way yesterdays beads came out considering my starting point. They are quite a departure for me but I am happy with the shape and colours of these, I really didn't think they were going to work. I used to have trouble working with pinky/coral colours that go grey when they are hot, I found it quite distracting but I seem to have overcome that when I wasn't looking!
Anyway here they are, what do you think?

New Website

2010-12-02T10:04:00.002Z

Hello, sorry I have been neglecting here of late, I have decided to streamline all my efforts on one website. I have moved to www.judith-johnston.com , my online lampwork bead photo journal with my blog as the core, I like to think of it as my interactive sketchbook. I have a webshop for my latest beads, an Etsy shop for stock beads, a newsletter subscription page and some lampworking articles planned for the future. I will have a gallery in some form but haven't decided if I should go with Flickr or something else yet. The new site is primarily about the beads (isn't it always) but I think it will be more.. umm.. well, more me! I don't know if I'm just getting better at defining my ideas and expressing them but somehow it just feels like I'm finally wearing my own clothes....

There are several ways to subscribe to the new site and it is very much a work in progress. I have tried to migrate all my Google friends subscriptions from here over there but unfortunately I have not been able to do that. I have installed a new Google Friends Connect box in the left hand menu if you would like to subscribe through Google. I would be thrilled to bits if you would subscribe to the new site one way or another and as always I look forward to hearing from you.

Hopefully not goodbye just

A bientot

A bit of a day...

2010-11-16T23:33:00.002Z

I woke up in the early hours needing to use the bathroom. Our bathroom is downstairs and about as far away from my bedroom as possible in a house the size of a peanut. When the need to use the bathroom arises at night sturdy footwear is required because one has to negotiate the slug-fest that takes place every night on my kitchen floor, they're big bastard slugs that really make a mess if you get one underfoot. I am half asleep as I slide into my crocs and YOUCH! something stabs itself through the sole of my foot. Still, time is of the essence and gravity is not my friend, so I stagger on regardless. When I get back to bed I try to inspect my foot, this is tricky because...
a. it is early I am unable to focus
b. it's dark
c. it's on the sole of my foot.
d. it's transparent glass
e. it is early I am unable to focus

It took me over an hour to get it out with a pair of hemostats and a needle..
By this time I'm awake!

The rest of my day followed thusly..

It was a gorgeous morning bright, sunny and crisp. I thought I would take advantage and shoot some bead photos in the garden so coffee in hand I stroll out and..

A random cat appeared to have had a nasty digestive incident and exploded in my garden, I couldn't navigate around it until it was cleaned up! Hazmat suit donned, Jeyes fluid at the ready. I didn't realise that what I actually needed was to change out of my crocs! into waders and source a high pressure water jet from the local car wash... basically I managed to swill it around, spread it out and get my feet wet in a truly disgusting fashion.. yay me!
bead photography- fail
operation catshit cleanup - massive fail..

Natalie was upstairs in bed with kidney infection I have been waiting on her hand and foot in a bid to aid her recovery, she has been properly poorly for weeks and we have been quite worried about her. She decides aroung 3ish she is a bit bored and needs to come down and watch tv but the living room is far too dusty (builders left 2 weeks ago) for her tender sinuses. She has a point, so I take her a bacon sandwich and a drink and I fill the bucket again, but the floor mop is beyond redemption so I get down on my hands and knees and start scrubbing. I'm nearly finished when she appears behind me coat on, bag in hand. She announces she is feeling sooooo much better she is going out, round to her friends house because they always have cheap pizza on Tuesday but she will be back tomorrow and she is sure that all the dust I have disturbed by mopping will have settled by then!!!!

Fortunately dear reader you will be relieved to know that my sense of humour is still intact although it is hanging by a mere thread.....

I have been busy..

2010-11-16T01:10:00.001Z

as well as adding beads for sale to my website I am slowly adding beads back to my Etsy shop, JudithBeads. Check out the little doo-hickey on the right.....

My plan...

2010-11-12T23:17:00.000Z

So after another hissy fit the other day I pulled on my big girl drawers and got on with it. My plan, which as always is subject to immeadiate and inexplicble change, is to build my website around my blog. The beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t require many, many hours of reading nonsensical geek speak or a deep understanding of how to design and build a website! Quite frankly I would rather be making beads.

All I want is a simple system that is fast to update, easy to navigate and pared down to just the parts I actually use. I can use my existing Etsy shop, Flickr photo gallery, import my newletter database and just add blog pages as the need arises. I can fool around with the appearance to my hearts content and tinker with impunity, I think it will be fun... niggely bloated website be gone and take my dread with you! Sometimes I find it hardest to see the obvious when it is staring me in the face.

So I now have a new webhost, a shiney new web address and when I am ready I will point my current DNS servers to the new house, et voila! In the meantime I have started putting beads back in my Etsy shop and you know it was a doddle and a pleasure…..

Click the pic to go to the Etsy listing

10% discount on my beads

2010-11-10T16:00:00.003Z

and free postage for November. I have updated my webshop with some new beads and I will be putting more up over the next few days. Click the bead to be magically transported to the webshop :D

http://www.judithjohnston.co.uk/catalog.php

I have revised my position

2010-10-19T20:25:00.000+01:00

.... on Builder Chaos from yesterday and have decided it is a very good thing, yes indeedy. I mentioned that the shed was the only comfortable place left to sit but also there are strange men in my house making one helluva noise and mess, so escape was the only option. This morning I went out at 8.15am and bar lunch and tea breaks I stayed out until 5.30, the kiln was full. I can't remember the last time I filled the kiln and the sad truth is with all the carry on of the last ten months I was totally out of the habit of spending the whole day making beads. I used to spend every hour of every day out there and here is the thing...for me it is self evolving and by that I mean that when I am totally focused on the glass I percolate new ideas, I try new techniques and generally just have a more interesting time of it and (imo) I make more interesting beads. So there we have it...I feel like today I found something that I didn't even know was missing and I am happier than I have been for quite some time.
Plus I have a stall at the Big Bead Show coming up on 30.10.10 at Sandown and it will be lovely to put some fresh beads out.

Hey there...

2010-10-19T18:29:00.000+01:00

Georgy Girl, I heard this on the radio this morning and got all nostalgic for Ed "Stewpot" Stewart.

And so it begins...

2010-10-18T18:31:00.000+01:00

...sitting on the small patch of my bed that isn't covered in stuff, typing in the gloom, reflecting on the fact that this is only the first day of BC or Builder Chaos! I somewhat tardily remembered why we never had any work done on the house. Downstairs has been magically transformed into a building site and upstairs is full of crap and there are at least 5 more weeks of this....sob...I can't seem to get his cheerful parting shot out of my head "don't worry luv, it's going to get loads worse before it gets better"
On the up side at least I will be forced into the shed to make beads as it is the only place left where I can sit down in comfort.

I did it

2010-10-14T14:53:00.000+01:00

Not the best picture in the world because of their opalescaence but also because I'm in a hurry and I want to go and make some beads, but look....

Peach - ish

I'm not sure about the flower colour but I am really pleased with the base colour, now all I have to do is remember how I did it and do it again.....

Hmmmmm...

2010-10-14T14:26:00.001+01:00

Builders are due to start work on the house stupid soon ... We have had three weeks to prepare for this and yet I find myself making beads instead of a. packing up the living room/kitchen/bathroom b. doing last years tax accounts before I pack/lose the paperwork c. all the other bucketloads of crapola I was supposed to do BEFORE they arrive. I see an all nighter in my immediate future!
But look, pretty heart beads in all their pinky peachy gold sparkley loveliness....sigh

Grand opening Mango Beads

2010-10-14T14:26:00.000+01:00

I have been back from my travels for some time now but the day after my return the internet broke! So I have been an internet free zone for the best part of a month now and you know, I quite like it, I really didn't realise what an enormous time sucker it had become for me.
The grand opening of Mandas new Mango Beads studio was fantastic, she and David have set up a superb facility that has been extremely well thought out and executed, truly a place where creativity can flourish.
I met lots of lovely new people as well as some friends I haven't seen for far too long and had a wonderful time. I really hope I will be able to go back and spend some time there when my life is a bit less manic.
Many of the people I met at Mandas bash frequent the UKs popular lampwork forum "Frit Happens" it's such a shame I can't "do" forums but sadly it takes me forever to construct each post I make. I realised a long time ago I was forum impaired and probably should give up trying. That doesn't mean I don't pop in now and again to check out what everyone is up to so it was excellent to put some faces to names.
I had the best time and if you are at all lampwork inclined I strongly advise you to check it out.

I'm hopeful...

2010-10-14T13:15:00.001+01:00

that after a day of faffing around in the shed when I open the kiln tomorrow it will reveal that I have indeed been successful at producing a gorgeous shade of peach.
I'm also hoping that Rob hasn't taken offense at my last text to him "Skype me up spotty", I'm sorry but I thought it was hilarious!

Back inthe Saddle

2010-10-14T13:09:00.001+01:00

I realise that this has been a picture free zone for some time now and I apologise.....however, after the recent madness I am back in the saddle and have taken a boat load of bead photos just this morning. I am heading shedwards at the minute but I promise there are new beads and photos just on the horizon.
See....

2010-09-06T14:30:00.000+01:00

On Saturday we had a builder round to grimace, suck air over his teeth and sigh "I dunno mate!" Surprisingly he did none of those things, he turned up on time, was affable, polite, funny even and he did not make us feel like we were morons, and asking him to do some paid work was not completely outside the realms of reason.. builders like that actually exist! who knew? We showed him round our house (size of a peanut) and he took notes, copious notes, we were getting a bit nervous by his 4th sheet of A4 paper but we ploughed on relentlessly, we lost our nerve by the time we got to the bedrooms and stopped, the bedrooms are the least of our problems. Originally he said a couple of days to work out a quote by the time we finished he was promising a quote by Friday! Hmmm a week to figure out a quote is a bit freaky but he is going to break it down so we can prioritise which is very cool. Here is the thing....we have a few more builders scheduled over the next few weeks, it is possible none of them will turn up but if they do and if there is not a humongous difference between quotes, we will be employing Saturdays bloke. He really understood what we are trying to do here but also because I liked him and isn't that all you need in a builder?

31st August Tuesday

2010-08-31T13:39:00.000+01:00

Today, the Tuesday following the August bank holiday, marks the end of summer for me. The air and the light are different, the windows are not permanantly thrown wide open and I notice that it is getting dark earlier now. I like it, but this year it marks the beginning of a particularly frantic period for me which I think may be extremely taxing. Before the heavy duty refurbishments and moving really kick in I do have several excursions planned that are going to be fun, fun, fun....

First off I will be heading off to Barnstaple in Devon on the 11th September to demo at the opening of my friend Mandas (Mangobeads) teaching studio. Some of my favourite lampwork people will be there, Di East is coming, Julie Fountain will also be demo-ing, not to mention Manda herself, how could you resist such an all-star cast? Further details here Mangobeads Workshop, it's going to be fantastic, a monkeyload of glassy goodness and larks, I can hardly wait and hope to see you there!

Sadly I will have to head off mid morning Sunday, before the GBUK get together really starts, in order to catch the train and get home by 8pm and that's only if they run on time. I need to make sure Rob has everything packed and ready to get back to university before catching another train to Liverpool early on Tuesday to hook up with Mrs J, my lovely mother in law. George will move Rob into his new digs in Manchester on Wednesday, drive on to Liverpool then we are off on a ROAD TRIP, yaaaaaay! We have a wedding to attend on Iona, a small island in the inner Hebrides off the Western coast of Scotland. George's aunt lives there and her youngest is getting married. We are taking a leisurely 3 days to drive from Liverpool before meeting up with the rest of the family for the wedding and ceilidh, how cool is that going to be? George's family is pretty large and the family parties are legendary, it has been a few years since the last one we are all looking forward to this immensley, I'm definately going to take my camera.

I better get off my backside and get out to work out what I'm going to demo at Mandas bash...
Catch you later
Jx

21st August Saturday morning...

2010-08-21T09:51:00.002+01:00

... ran round to feed (my neighbour) Bobs cat, pyjama and slipper-ed up with a hoodie over the top, tres chic n'est pas? I'm now back in bed with a pot of tea, strawberry jam on toast and some most excellent music on the radio. The men of the house are still asleep, I have my laptop and plan to spend the rest of the morning surfing-perfecto!

18/08/10 - Wednesday

2010-08-18T17:47:00.005+01:00

I spent Monday at Mums house and we started clearing out Stephens room. It seems like only yesterday but he died 8 months ago and it had to be done, it was, unsurprisingly, very hard. He had lived in that house, in that bedroom for most of his life and I think it's safe to say that a.) he was not a tidy man and b.) he was not expecting to quit this mortal coil quite so suddenly. There was a lot of stuff, some of it private and he would have been appalled to have thought his mother and his sister were going to have to clear it all out....
We made a start and it's going to take a few more trips yet but I came home determined to use our up-coming house move as an opportunty to start throwing. I think much of the accumulated detrius of the last ten years or so is surplus to requirements anyway and I have new found desire to lose the baggage!

Natalie got the keys to her new house today and she is so excited to be stepping onto her own path, all bright and shiney, full of hope and anticipation. We will take her matress and some bits and pieces over tonight and so the slow haul of stuff exiting this peanut size house begins. I am preparing to be shocked and horrified how much crap we have managed to cram in here.

Unsurprisingly I have not managed to make any beads or jewellery of late but I have had some neat ideas to try as soon as I get a chance. I am trying to sketch and write all my ideas down so I don't forget but I can see how that may turn out to be a massive FAIL!

Onwards and upwards...

Left to right: Big George, Natalie, Rob, Jake (nephew) and the venerable Mrs J. rocking the sun hat
Natalies hair is now shorter than Robs is here and his hair is now longer than hers is in this photo!

12/08/10 Thursday

2010-08-12T17:47:00.001+01:00

I could really do with nothing else breaking down for a bit, not that there is much left to go. Currently the boiler is not functioning properly and we are having to put the heating on to get hot water. That wouldn't be too bad except it's a very hot August and we keep forgetting to turn it off again, it's only when we are beetroot coloured with rivers of sweat coursing down our faces that we realise the radiators are still belching out heat!
In recent weeks the fatality list has included: the dishwasher, the toilet, the washing machine, the television, a veritable cornucopia of smaller items, the kettle, the toaster, a rocking chair, most of our dining chairs, a leather recliner, assorted light fittings dotted about the house, all of them gone, bitten the dust.... kaput! None of them have been fixable, all have needed, although not actually been replaced. Several other things are clearly complaining, the Sky digibox has had a few flutters, the car has been making some really freaky creaky noises and my laptop has developed a nasty wheeze, at this point I really have had enough. Part of the problem is that everything is OLD, really old, the dishwasher, for instance moved with us from Epping over 10 years ago when it was already 5 years old, so I probably shouldn't complain but gee whiz, enough already. We will be moving in the autumn and will be getting rid of a lot of these things so is it really too much to ask that they just stagger on for another few weeks?

I have also been somewhat under the weather for the last few weeks and I really hope my old thyroid problem isn't back. although it feels like it might be. In between bouts of lying down and throwing hissy fits about "stuff" breaking down I have made some beads but my mood is unsettled and distracted and so my beads are... um just ....well...ah crap!
Natalie moves into her new house next week and I have to go and help my mother clear out my brothers bedroom (not really looking forward to that) before the end of August so this may well be the calm before the storm...think I will lie down for a bit and hope nothing else breaks.

A bead from less irratating times :)

Working through

2010-07-16T23:17:00.001+01:00

one deadline at a time. I had an invitation to send a bead to an upcoming exhibition this summer to be submitted by Monday so I took some time this week to make some floral focal beads with dichro, cubic zirconia, butterfly murrini, yup I threw the whole shebang in there! The first one I was aiming for soft peach and pale yellow flowers unfortunately the rod marked 008 transparent yellow was labelled incorrectly and turned out to be 069 electric striking pass the bucket puke yellow. I realised this when I saw it strike but I was nearly 2 hours in by that point so carried on regardless. In the end it took me three hours, it was a fantastic shape but still I had a sneaking suspicion when I put it in the kiln...GAH! Man that was one awesome fugly bead. The next one also took three hours this time the poor colour choices were all mine, not quite as luminously ugly as the first but a quiet understated, creeps up on you, whoah that really sucks kind of a bead! Such a waste of my precious butterfly murrini.
At this point panic was starting to set in but I set to once again, this time using an old favourite colour combination...then finally, gloriously after a further three hours this....


Butterfly Garden

So when anyone asks me why I am so poor at getting things done to a deadline it is clearly a nasty combination of procrastination, being over ambitious and also just a bit crap!

10/7/10 - ooh is that a palindrome?

2010-07-10T23:09:00.001+01:00

I've been making jewellery recently and I have to say I loved doing it but it takes me forever! I don't know if it's just me but I usually have to re-make a piece 3 or 6 or often more times and even then I'm not always happy with it. I find being a perfectionist gives me migraines and I would really love to take a walk on the slapdash side once in a while.

What is interesting is how my jewellery ideas have affected my bead making and inspiration is coming from an entirely new place. I find I am looking for beauty in the form and thinking about creating harmony through simplicity, it's an exciting and challenging place to be and I'm looking forward to exploring all the nooks and crannies.

Nothing to do with the post but one you probablyt haven't seen

Busy, busy, busy....

2010-07-05T22:34:00.003+01:00

and once again, busy. I have a few deadlines at the moment and as usual I have procrastinated to the point of stupidity and now am desperately trying to pull it all together before the real work begins. I have been thinking about which direction I'm going to go in and there are some big changes coming which is going to take a whole lot more work.

This summer we will be moving N-J and Rob into their student houses for next year and then we will be packing up and moving ourselves. I don't want to say just yet where we are moving to but I can guarantee that it is going to raise some eyebrows.

I will be designing and building my new studio from scratch and it's going to be big, big enough for my glass, silver and jewellery with ventilation, running water, photography, kilns and whatever else I choose to throw in there, a bed perhaps? I'm hoping to have it ready before we move but there is so much to do I don't know if I will manage it, if not I can pitch my torch, generator and kiln up in the garage so I shouldn't have too much of a break. I'm so excited, one of the things that has been very difficult for me over the last few years is the total lack of space. Our house and garden are the size of a peanut and totally and completely and utterly full to the brim, there is not a spare millimeter of space. Where we are going won't have that much more space but there is a nice size garden where I can build a big studio and and I think that will give me the mental and physical space to grow into my next incarnation, whatever that turn out to be!

Been making lots of jewellery.....

Nico (click to biggerise)

Noooooo..

2010-06-10T15:22:00.000+01:00

I had so many ideas earlier I could hardly keep up with them and made for the torch as soon as the coffee hit my bloodstream. I set off with a couple of mandrels full of spacers to warm up and mentally refine the direction I was planning on taking and no sooner had I melted the beginnings of my very first bead than.... NOooooooooo!.... out of propane. Normally that would be fantastically annoying but George will be away for the weekend, he's fetching Rob home from Manchester, so I may be out until next week which is so much more frustrating. Hopefully I will be able to sort a delivery out for tomorrow but in the meantime all the fabulous ideas I was percolating this morning have evaporated, poof into thin air! Maybe I will just get my notebook and crayons out and see if anything bubbles back up.

Anyway here is one from my recent Clio obsession

Mesmerise

Bead Gallery

2010-06-08T19:26:00.002+01:00

I am working on a new bead photo gallery for my website. The built in gallery on there has very limited functionality with no real way to organise the pictures and although I have used Flickr I don't like it very much. I needed something that was really easy to organise and just a couple of clicks to upload so I have installed Coppermine Gallery. My plan is to try and take photographs pretty much as I go, daily-ish perhaps, and then upload them so I have a pictoral record of my work. I think it will take a while but if I can keep it up, it will be pretty cool.

You can see it here or navigate to Bead Gallery from the bottom link of the information menu on my home page and as always I would love to know what you think of it.

Deco

This one ...

2010-06-07T13:21:00.000+01:00

..is mine...

It came out of the kiln in the most gorgeous pastel colours. I don't know how and I don't know why but I'm definitely keeping it!

Chanctonbury Ring

2010-05-27T12:32:00.001+01:00

I had another successful WWW (weight watchers Wednesday) yesterday and threw another couple of pounds on the slurry heap of excess weight I have been hauling around for the last couple of years! BG had the day off so after weigh in we headed out to a Triumph Motorbike dealer near here, lordy mama those Triumphs are mighty purty bikes. I love Triumphs and BG is considering getting one, depending on which way the wind blows in the next couple of months.

After drooling over the bikes we decided to make an unscheduled detour into the countryside to walk up to Chanctonbury Ring which has history dating back to the iron age and some fantastic legends about it.

A crappy picture of Chanctonbury Ring

It was wonderful, we walked up through the woods, that reminded me of Epping Forest, to the top where we were rewarded with spectacular views across Sussex. I used to walk a lot with Dad and I still miss him so much, but BG has always been allergic to the outdoors so I made the most of it yesterday and we had the best time. We only passed two other people and a horse so it was completely quiet except for the birds singing (and us gasping for breath, it's pretty steep for the unfit fat!). I took some pictures with my 'phone which aren't particularly good, I either need to work out how to use the phone camera properly or carry my digital around.

Horse Chestnut

Cowslips, I think, I haven't seen these for years!

I'm working on some bead charms for an exchange I'm taking part in and they need to be in the post tomorrow so I had better get on with it.

TTFN
Jx

P.S. While searching for a better picture of Chanctonbury Ring I came across a blog with the most fantastic nature pictures, particularly butterlies, I will share the link next post.

Finally

2010-05-21T21:53:00.002+01:00

A couple of quick snaps of a new bead

It has been a strange week,..

2010-05-21T09:58:00.004+01:00

.. plans are afoot and we are trying to thrash out a major decision... I can't tell if we are right to even consider it or not! A couple of people whose opinions I value extremely highly have made it clear that they think we are horribly, horribly wrong and that makes me nervous. BG and I, we operate a little bit left of field, we don't do things for the same reasons other people do the same things, our motivation can be very, um well, creative I think.

We seem to be at a crossroads at the moment and we really should to stick to the main road but we already know that we are probably going to take that little pot-holed dirt track just to see if there is anything up there. Why is it when our instinct and people we know, love and care about are screaming at us to stop we just keep on going with a cheery wave and a slightly hysterical smile?

I think I need to make some beads and meditate a while.

Wicked Wednesday...

2010-05-19T12:10:00.004+01:00

.. today because it's weigh in day at Weight Watchers. I eat as little as possible before the weigh in and then whatever I want after it because I then have a whole week to behave before the next one, hey, don't knock it, it works for me!

You may have noticed I have been tiddling around with my template again... I have recently been very lax on all of my web duties (yet again, I know) and I finally figured out what was at the bottom of my overwhelming ambivalence and ennui this time. Someone somewhere did something a few months ago that totally ticked me off and while I was saying "like, yeah, what-ev-ah" in truth I was boiling mad and that expressed itself by walking away from the internet, which was pretty much shooting myself in the foot (yet again, I know, I know). Talk about repeating the same mistake over and over again, I have my own personal turbo charged groundhog day scenario. Throughout my life assorted people have pushed my buttons and then laughed in my face before walking over me and I seriously can't believe I let it happen again, it saps my energy and leaves me feeling sad.

Anyway once I had figured out who and what I became possessed by the spirit of "what the hell was I thinking" and I am re-vitalised and back on it, yay me :)

Sideways

Rocking Serendipity

2010-05-12T12:47:00.006+01:00

I am obsessed with the newest glass from Double Helix - Clio, and have spent the last four weeks or so melting this glass to the exclusion of all others. I was looking for predictable results, but you know that's not really how the silver glasses work, so I have been rocking seredipity big time.

I didn't realise quite how far I had gone until I squared up to cleaning them all this morning...

So now my fingers are all pruneyfied and numb and I have a huge pile of Clio beads, some mucho fabulous, others not so much. I think I'm nearly there and have tamed the beast but I guess as soon as that thought is thunk the next batch of beads will be crapola ! At this point I can't even begin to work out how much I have spent in cold hard cash, time and other incidentals but I had so much fun it was most definately worth it.

One thing is for sure though, I probably should have made some notes!

27.04.10 Thirsty Thursday

2010-04-29T12:44:00.006+01:00

The Big Bead Show was a blast and I'm looking forward to the next one already, I saw lots of old friends and made some new ones, thank you to everyone who came by to say hello.

Now N-J and the boy have returned to their universities our routine is settling back down again, which is very soothing. Big George and I have been taking walks along the promenade in the evenings, the tourist season hasn't really geared up yet so during the week it's still calm, It really is quite lovely, especially on a sunny day. I have been putting dinner in the oven before we go so it's ready when we get back but have realised if we eat before we go we wouldn't need to rush back. So the plan is to take a blanket and cooler with some beers or a bottle of wroughty red, leave it in the car while we take our constitutional then chill out on the beach with a cold beverage, how cool is that? I love living here, I really do.

Big Bead Show

2010-04-14T00:00:00.003+01:00

Because it was hard to pick this out from my last post....

I will be selling my bead wares

this Saturday, 17th April

The Big Bead Show

Sandown Park

Esher

I hope to see some of you there.

Time out

2010-04-13T16:49:00.004+01:00

I took some time off over Easter to see family and friends, it wasn't really planned and I pretty much just dropped everything but I guess I needed to take a break.
I have driven many miles, eaten far too much, talked myself hoarse and laughed myself stupid, for the most part I have had a lovely impromptu holiday..... however... here I am three weeks later having had some kind of brain wipe. Seriously, there is nothing going on in my head and I now realise that while I was busy enjoying myself and distracted the little elves that usually occupy the grey matter and keep things tickety-boo at Bead City Central have sneaked out and left 'the girl from Ipanema' playing on a loop in my head which is really jolly unhelpful!
I am in in total disarray with 3 days before the Big Bead Show on Saturday but fortunately am so excited to the very prospect I am not worried about the chaos...la la la the girl from Ipanema goes walking la la la la lalala.....

It's entirely possible I have exhausted my photo stash but I pretty sure this one has been on here yet, it's old but I still love it

This week I have mostly been working with Cleo..

2010-03-21T14:14:00.005Z

This week I have mostly been making beads using Cleo, the newest Double Helix silver glass, man I love that glass. I have also been working on creating more movement and depth using different layering methods but I feel I need a lot more ppp with that. I know what I'm trying to do but as yet without much success, I'm sure I will get there eventually. Fortunately because Cleo is such a gorgeous glass I am really enjoying the process but also loving the beads that come out of the kiln..Result!
Cleo is a striking and reduction glass so I have also been playing with selectively striking and reducing different areas to varying degrees on a single bead and getting everything from subtle smokey bluey greens to vibrant, shocking magenta, fushcia and shiny reflective purples. Did I say I LOVE this stuff!
I am struggling to capture them properly in photographs but this is one is quite nice!

Back out to play, have a super Sunday
J

My lovely torch..

2010-03-09T09:21:00.003Z

Is hooked back up and I'm so happy...Off to melt some glass, catch you later...

Red bead

2010-03-01T11:38:00.004Z

Flying by to bring you a big red bead....

Red is Best!

I am playing with my camera settings, I still don't feel I'm getting the best out of it but hopefully I'm getting there.

Latest Lampwork... Starlight Beads

2010-02-26T13:26:00.018Z

This week I have mostly been making beads and not just any beads...I would like to introduce Starlight my very latest lampwork beads. I have re-visited a technique I used to use A LOT but have neglected for maybe four or five years, winding silver wire around the bead. It is very simple but stunningly effective. I combined it with some silver glass and voila....

.....out of nowhere I have a whole new line of beads.

BUT...I am up against my multi-taking demons once again. Basically once I'm "on one" I just can't stop, not for housework, or laundry, photographs, blogging, hell, half the time I won't even stop for dinner and I love food!!!

So please if anyone has an army of elves (if it's not too much to ask technology savvy elves would be super!) they can send round to tackle the relentless and increasingly necessary mountain of chores I would be revoltingly grateful..

While I'm waiting I'm just going to nip back out to the shed for a mo....

I'm so happy

2010-02-17T11:23:00.004Z

oh so happy....It is a beautiful morning, the sun is shining for what seems to be the first time this year, I have taken photographs in my new photography spot (the boys back bedroom window, full sunlight from early morning until lunch and NO wind - huzzah!), I have a brand spanking new GlassHive kiln waiting in the shed for playtime this afternoon and I think I might hit a small milestone at Weight Watchers today thus enabling me to have all my hair cut off (it's a reward thing!)
I am seriously very happy about all of these things, although the new kln is way up topsides =D...

I traded a never used Bethlehem Barracuda torch for a new kiln built by Mike Crowley of The Glasshive and I have to tell you, even though I got stung really badly by customs, I am thrilled to bits with my lovely new kiln, a massive thank you to Mike. Mike is a glass worker who makes these kilns specifically designed for beadmakers and seriously they are just fantastic, you can anneal soft and borosilicate glass, fuse glass and fire pmc too. I have drooled over them for at least 3-4 years now so when the chance of a trade came up I jumped at it. You know how the tools of our trade are sometimes so much more than the sum of their parts? My Phantom torch is like that, this is too and I love it, love it love it. It looks a bit like a robotic dog and I'm going to give it the name I'm giving my dog, if I ever get one, I'm calling my new kiln Gibbs!

Back in business

2010-02-15T17:05:00.007Z

Yesterday I did my first bead fair since Stourbridge last August and I had a fantastic time. The people who came by were so nice, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun. The hall was excellent, it was big, light and airy which was a huge plus as I can't stand being crammed in... also they served great coffee, could it get any better? I don't think so. A huge thank you to everybody who helped make my re-introduction back into the bead fair world such a fabulous success, I really do feel like I'm back in business!

I have pretty much had today off to recover but tomorrow I will be photographing like a loon in preparation for getting my webshop back on the go, stay tuned...

and just for larks here is a new photo...

I call this shot love on the Rocks - ha ha!

Finally...

2010-01-25T19:02:00.002Z

it's quiet and I can hear myself think.

Everyone else has returned to work, study and their own homes and this is the first day in over 6 weeks that I have been alone.

Shhh! don't you love total silence?

Snow!

2010-01-05T23:15:00.004Z

During the last year we have had snow in Hove several times and every time I have managed to be elsewhere. In fact back last winter the snow actually followed me around the country as I took N-J and the boy on the Great University tour of '09. I remember coming back down from Manchester and seeing the massed grey snowy maw snapping at my heels in the rear view mirror desperate not to have to stop in case it caught up with me!
Then before Christmas I hired a car which, in a fit of snarkiness I failed to take extra insurance out for, thus adding a frisson of terror to the following journey. BG always drives but he wasn't insured at all for the hire car and so it fell to me to drive the the unfamiliar manual car (ours is automatic) in appalling weather. Snow was falling when I picked up the unfamiliar manual car, from an unfamiliar industrial estate in Harlow then I drove back to Epping, then Croydon then up to Liverpool, back to Epping and on to Hove, approximately 650 miles in the space of 48 hours and the snow just kept coming - cripes, my hands were like claws from gripping the steering wheel for days after.
So here I am in the warmth of my own home watching the snow softly falling, listening to the weather forecast and being really really glad I don't have to drive anywhere at all particularly in a hire car!

01/01/10

2010-01-01T23:34:00.009Z

Today dawned a beautiful bright sunny and utterly freezing day, a perfect start for a new year in fact. I had planned to make some beads today but decided that the shed deserved a bit of a new year tidy up, out with the old in with the new! So much glass, so many tools, critical mass had been reached in the shed. I couldn't turn around without arseing into something, usually glass which of course smashes to smithereens once it hits the floor. So I have about 10 lbs of random glass rods, mostly unlabelled, that I piled onto a tray and which I now have to attempt to sort out. Also a big stack of all of my favourite tools, about 30, that I need to find a way of storing so that they are on hand when I need them, any suggestions? I am considering one of those peg board deelios that you can clip the tools onto.

I have a fantastic new Glass Hive kiln coming to me soon and I am so excited about it, I have already cleared a space for it. I will be able to do pmc as well as boro in it plus I am looking forward to not having to use the transformer with it. I consider these to be the Rolls Royce of bead kilns and I have been spending far too much time on the Glass Hive web site drooling over them, go and have a look, you know you want to...oh and did I mention that I was really excited about it?

We went for a walk along the seafront this afternoon, the sea was completely flat calm with the sun setting over it, it was beautiful. There were so many people with the same idea as us though, it was nearly as busy as it is in the height of summer, wooly hats and sunglasses were de rigeur of course. One of the things I love about living here is that it really doesn't matter how daft your wooly hat is there is always someone wearing one that is infinitely more ridiculous!

All in all a lovely day was enjoyed at chez Johnston, an earlyish night and I am all set to melt tomorrow.

Bonne Nuit.

Dolly Mix

Click to big it up!

This is one of the first pictures I took with my new camera for publication in issue 19 of Bead Magazine November 09.

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T23:42:00.003Z

I'm nearly back to normal and I'm really looking forward to the new year. This year I let myself get seriously distracted by so many things but mostly by the internet. Next year I will be in my studio much, much more, I can hardly wait.

Thank you all so much for your support, I appreciate it more than I can say.

Sending you and yours peace and love for the coming year

Judith xx

2009-12-24T12:06:00.004Z

Merry Christmas
and a
Happy New Year
to you all

I am already looking forward to moving on into the new year, see you then....

Thank you

2009-12-21T14:00:00.003Z

A huge thank you to all who sent messages last week. It was an extremely difficult week and it was very touching to receive messages of condolence and sympathy, many from people I only know online, I really appreciate your support and friendship.

I am back home with my mother, N-J and the boy and of course Big G. We are totally not prepared for Christmas but at least we have a couple of days to try and organise ourselves. I guess that by the time I realise it actually is Christmas I will be packing up the tinsel and it will be over for another year.

Not much to blog about at the mo unless I document the usual festive fiasco of trying to feed the fussy philistines.... one diabetic with high cholesterol who doesn't like anything anyway and one allergic to dairy, tomatoes and citrus who thinks there is a huge conspiracy and we are all trying poison him with cheese! Currently I'm stockpiling Mothers Pride white (thin) sliced, it's going to be a gourmands delight chez moi, bon appetit!

Just to let you know..

2009-12-18T14:14:00.002Z

my current circumstances are fairly awkward, I wanted to explain my absence but am mindful of various things so I need to keep it brief.

My older brother died unexpectedly on Monday morning, he had been an alcoholic for the last 35 years and I have been called upon to help support my mother and help with the funeral arrangements.

I would really like to use my blog to express my feelings but it would be extremely unwise and so for now I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hopefully I will be back in the near future.

Let the holidays commence

2009-12-13T21:24:00.007Z

It's been a while since my last post but you know sometimes life just gets in the way!
I celebrated my 21st wedding anniversary last week, which was nice and faintly astonishing. Despite working like maniacs we don't have much money or live in a particularly nice house but... we are still together, we still have a laugh, our children are doing better than we could have possibly hoped for and we are all healthy. All things considered I feel blessed and hope we have at least another 21 years to look forward to.
Traditionally our wedding anniversary marks the start of Christmas in our house so we have been out buying the tree, cards, presents, baking mince pies and tidying up in readyness for the holidays. Natalie is home already and we will head North to pick the boy up next week.

Last time I blogged about social media and how much time I was spending trying to get my head round it and critical mass was reached and meltdown occurred. I have come to the conclusion that all the gnashing of teeth and handwringing is somewhat pointless. About as pointless as spending hours trying to figure out how to promote my beads in a way that I am just not comfortable with. I feel like somewhere along the line I got distracted and all my creativity and energy has somehow been sucked up by something enormous and soul destroying.
So here is my way forward out of the chaos that is making my brain ache... I will continue to put beads up on my website and on Etsy and if they sell then that is wonderful and I will be extraordinarily grateful but I will not be spending entire days/weeks on the computer listing, posting and promoting my beads. I can't and I don't want to do it.
I have four bead fairs planned for next year and I'm really excited about them. It will be great to get out and talk to beady people face to face again, I have really missed that the last few years.
Most of all though, and this is the kicker, I'm going to get my ass back in the studio and make beads....lots of beads because lets be honest, the only way I can hope to develop as an artist is to spend my time doing what I love to do, melting glass to make beads not on the internet twittering about it!

Here is my latest special up for grabs on my website, click here =D

I will still be blogging, on Facebook and Twitter but it will be more about the beads than the business.

Social Media or Beads...

2009-12-03T20:09:00.004Z

I have been trying to get my head around social media....again... but to be honest, Blogging, Facebook and Twitter are about all I can manage. There are various places like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck that tie them all together and supposedly make it more streamlined but to be honest my hard drive is full and if you add assorted foums into this heady mix..."she canna take any more captain, she's gonna blow!" yes indeedy!
In an attempt to promote my Etsy shop I have been trawling the Etsy forums reading post after post of advice and really, I'm none the wiser. Actually that's not exactly true I have gleaned two pieces of useful advice...
1. Use fantastic photographs
2. Don't give up!
Hours and hours of reading and this is what I have to show for it, I am completely overwhelmed!

Obviously I have now spent so many hours reading that I haven't done anything else for days, I have not made beads, photographed beads, made jewellery, photographed jewellery etc. etc.
So here is the thing, do you think I should be doing my bead thing and hope that my work sells itself or should I "not give up", invest more time and see if I can up the ante?
Answers on a postcard please :D

New Special up on my website if you would like to buy them click here.

Half Speed Harry

2009-11-25T15:45:00.005Z

I have been taking photos and updating my Etsy shop with one or two things but it is very slow going. I seem to be operating at half-speed this week, I stopped taking beta-blockers a few days ago and obviously immeadiatly stopped sleeping and then went down with a ghastly migraine but I decided to stick with it anyway. I'm really hoping that in a few days everything will settle back down and I will be able to get some sleep and then pick up the pace a bit.
So I will not be making any beads today and I don't think I can bear to take anymore photographs in the wind tunnel I call my garden so it's chores - wimper...so far today, I have scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom, cleaned all the leaves, hair and other crap out of the outside drain and now I'm debating between finishing my tax return or starting on....clearing up the bead creep....it's a tough choice...Let's hope the cleaning fumes/boredom get me to sleep tonight because I much prefer melting glass!

Beadmakers Lexicon

2009-11-23T21:38:00.003Z

Todays addition to the beadmakers lexicon....

Beadmakers Arse - Definition....

"It's behind you"
"oh no it isn't"
"oh yes it is"
etc.

Beadmakers Lexicon

2009-11-21T10:34:00.004Z

I am working on a beadmakers lexicon. Words made up, mostly by myself and BG and used in our misguided attempt to normalise something that is clearly not normal i.e our rather bizarre existence at BCC - Bead City Central.

De-mandrelate - to remove beads from mandrels by whatever means necessary, water, pliers, freezer, hydraulics, jaws of life, tow truck....whatever means necessary people, let's all work together and get that sucker OFF!

I have more, many more, but do you have any? because I would love to hear them and any added will be properly credited to you for posterity....

I have a new friend....

2009-11-19T14:10:00.008Z

I call him Rock the Prop... Shhh.. if we are quiet we can see him hiding in his natural habitat.

You are going to be seeing a lot of Rock the Prop because I have discovered that, rather bizarrely, I have to confess, I think it is very photogenic! Yes it is a dirty, mankey lump of rock but when I dress it up in some shiney glass well it just seems to come alive. I find the contrasting textures and colours of glass on rock very appealing. I think it really adds depth, dimension and perspective to my bead photographs, somehow, it lifts them.
I have been shooting the Rock pictures mostly without my tripod so I am struggling to keep them steady, however, it does mean I can use some different angles and make the most of the light at this time of year. I love taking photos when the sun is quite low in the sky and shining through the beads not glaring off the surface.

Check out Rock the Prop decked out in all his finery...

P.S. can you please remind me NOT to sell these beads because I love them...a lot...and also they photograph ridiculously well!