GBUK Prize winnings have arrived!

Well I had a very lovely suprise from my post-lady this morning in the form of some glass bead goodies, a bead box and a voucher for London Bead Co! These are my prizes for comming runner up in the GBUK lampwork jewellery contest - Final Frontier with my "Meet my Martians" necklace. The lovely blue lamp beads are by Marlene Minhas of Glassygear, the purple heart bead and matching round beads are ceramic by Caroline Dewison of blueberribeads, the toadstool with dragon lampwork focal bead is by Laney Mead of Izzy Beads and the £25 voucher is for London Bead company. I cant wait to do something with them!

How lucky....the Martians have landed!!

Well I had some lovely news yesterday and that is that my entry into the 2013 GBUK lampwork and seed bead jewellery contest, piece entitled "Meet my Martians", came runner up! The theme we were given was either nursery rhymes or the Final Frontier.....As much as I loved the nursery rhymes idea I really was at a loss for ideas that I would want to work with so I think you can probably guess which theme I eventually went for!!! Theme decided, I then chose to work with two gorgeous large Mandala lampwork Wheels made expertly by Lampwork artist Jennie Lamb. (Here is a link to her ETSY store "Raspberry Rings") I also fell in love with a cute spaceship lampwork bead by Lesley Nixon of "Mad Cat Glass" , and I knew I simply had to do something with this in my design too. My first idea was that I was going to recreate the rings of saturn with the mandala rings...but when they arrived they were so nice I decided that half of the beauty of these wheels whould be lost if they were suspended sideways and this was not the best way to do them justice. So after much experimentation and head scratching I decided to make a peyote bead woven core for each wheel and use one as a pendant and the other as a focal toggle that would feature at the front of the design. As well as a wide variety of Miyuki Bead sizes in an array of mouthwatering colours, I also decided to incorporate the latest Rizo beads into my piece which I purchased from Stitch n Craft. (Lynn, I promised I would let you know what I did with all those Rizo's so hopefully now you can see just why I needed so many colours!!! That's my excuse anyway!) I hope to post more photos and links to my piece and the 2013 flame off soon.

Czech bead addiction!

Well, I am continuing to experiment with lots of new Czech bead shapes...pyramid bead studs, Rizo's and piggy lentils. I've also given in to the temptation of Rulla beads which I simply had to get in several picasso finishes so I can't wait to have a play with those. I'm over the moon to announce that one of my pyramid designs has even been accepted into one of the Worlds leading Bead Magazines "Beadwork", as a project to be featured later this year. Very exciting times indeed! I'm also in the process of stocking my bead stash in a more orderly fashion as my lovely husband has built me a lovely range of cupboards in our conservatory.