Stourbridge in August and prize draw.

Busy, busy, busy!

I am trying to build up a good stock for the Stourbridge bead fair where I will be selling my beads on 28th and 29th of August.

I know that it looks as if there is still a lot of time until the end of August but 6 weeks of this time will be spent in France in the summer (just before the fair) and I don't have any beadmaking equipment there.

I am very much looking to this event and please come and say hello if you are around.


I am having a prize draw.

The prize is this set of beads:

Let me know if you would like a chance to win them by leaving a comment or sending me an email (millbank.cottageATdsl.pipex.com) before the 31st May.

Kids, life and Tiree

It has been a very long time since my last post (I know I begin nearly each post with the same sentence).

Life has been eventful in the past few months, my little boy has had an operation (to have his tonsils removed), we are busy getting our house ready for sale (we would like to move out of the town centre or in my dreams to France but it is not likely), and a long time friend of mine died.

This latest sad event took us to Tiree last week, a beautiful, peaceful and luminous little island off the West Coast of Scotland.
We went on the ferry in Oban on Tuesday, the weather was wild and the 3-4 hours journey through the sound of Mull, down to the island of Coll and then Tiree was very bumpy. The boat did not manage to dock in Coll because of the strong winds and snapped a rope.

The sea was blue and turquoise as ever despite the rough weather and I wonder if there is ever a dull day weather wise on this island. It is often referred to as the 'land beneath the waves' (it is very flat) and I think the weather is either stormy or sunny as there are no real hills capable of stopping the clouds and the wind.

The last day ,Thurday, was sunny and we spent most of our time on the little beaches of the island waiting for our ferry to take us back to Oban at 5.00 o'clock. These are some of the pictures I took.

I hope that life is now going to take a steadier pace and that I am going to be able to spend a little bit more time on my torch.

I had a look through my stash of Bullseye glass yesterday (washed it because it was very dusty). I have had this high quality glass for ages but I have never really used it. The colours are beautiful and a lot of ideas are now brewing in my head, so hopefully I will have some nice beads to show you soon.

Until my next post...

The collective auction

Long time, no posts...!!! and I don't have any valid excuse. Anyway, I am coming out of blog fog to let you know about the collective auction, a very worthwhile, charitable event organised by Mel, from Kookie Designs.

All the proceeds from this auction will go to Haiti via Oxfam.

There are fabulous lots of beads, jewellery and handmade items (I have my eyes on some of them).
Please follow this link to see what is on offer and more information.


These are the beads I have donated to the auction, a little spin on my normal rockpool beads: a shipwreck heart bead (Thank you for the inpiration, Lorna! ;-) )

Happy New Year! Bonne année!

Balmedie beach (26/12/2009)

Dernier jour de l'année! Bonne nouvelle année!

Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas!

What I am up to and prize draw

I have not updated my blog for a month and a half ...bad blogger me!

So what I have been doing during all this time? Nothing new really...mostly making beads.

I am enjoying making sea themed beads at the moment and particularly these type of beads below. I call them coast bead, not a very original name (I know at least a dozen of bead makers who make beads called 'Coast' beads) but I could not manage to think of another name as these were very much inspired by the 'Coast' program which shows beautiful aerial coastal views.

I have also been experimenting with and developing some new designs that involve stringer control and precise dot placements. I have nothing worth showing at the moment but I am hoping to have some beads in the near future that combine organic (which I love) and more structured features.

Prize draw:

I am organizing a prize draw. The prize is this bead:



This bead was meant to be a pressed rockpool focal bead. Unfortunately, the bead release on my mandrel broke (the bead release is like a clay product that you put on the stainless steel rod (the mandrel) to stop the glass sticking to it). This usually means that the bead is doomed as it spins freely on the mandrel and you completely lose control of a big bit of molten glass.

I was not happy!!! I had spent an hour to get to this point, so I decided to not ditch it in my water jar (the water makes it explode in thousands of little bits which can be quite soothing in this kind of situation :-) ).

Instead, I decided to stick it in the kiln and give it to my little girl who inherits all my failed beads for her 'collection', gave up making beads for the day and ordered some heavy duty bead release to stop this problem happening again.

I opened the kiln the next day and found a rockpool bead that actually looked like a rock. It was never intended to look like this but it turned out a good bead.


Send me an email if you would like to be entered in the draw for a chance to win it.

Added on the 10th: My email address is millbank.cottageatdsl.pipex.com (replace at with @). I will draw a name on 31st December.

...and the winner of the prize draw is...

....................Trudy!


Thank you to everyone who took part, please keep an eye on my blog as they will be more before Christmas.