Satin Smooth Sea Glass

Here's my sea glass after it has spent almost 3 weeks in a pebble polisher. It's beautiful, with a satin smooth finish (including some pebbles) and I am thrilled to bits with it, which is why I took lots of pictures of it. The pictures are almost pretty enough to hang up on the wall. :-)


Can't wait to make some jewellery with it. Thanks to Alison and her kids for collecting most of it for me at the beach in Nice. Check out my Etsy shop for some sea glass jewellery I have currently for sale.

Latest commissions

I've had some more commissions recently. They are for designs from my website that had been sold already.

I don't make the same piece twice, but I create new designs based on a particular design. It's very important to me that each design is unique. There is so much mass produced stuff around and it just has no soul. It's okay for every day things, but with jewellery I feel it's important that it is an extension of yourself. Quite often it's not possible to create the same design again because I either use things like seaglass in my designs where each piece is unique anyway, and also because I only buy small quantities of beads, so often don't have more than just a few of the same bead (especially feature beads, rather than seed beads) to make the same design again.

White Charm Ring

The original ring design can be see on my website.

This is lovely charm ring. I've hung up little glass flower beads (three different types) from one loop, then added a tiny dragonfly charm and wrapped a double ivy leaf around the loop for texture. This looks lovely on. I am very pleased with it.


Lizard Mobile Phone Charm

This little charm is based on another charm with a lizard on my website.

I like the natural feel of it with the lizard charm at the end and the leaves and star flower.

Here's a close-up of the charms:


Rainbow Daisy Chain Necklace

I love the idea of daisy chains. I remember making them when I was a kid. Using all the colours of the rainbow in this necklace makes it even more fun though, than if I'd used just white flowers. AND it goes with everything. All of the flowers are glass and I used good quality seed beads, frosted glass leaves and little lustred Miyuki drops in pale green to make the chain. Everything is threaded on pale green tiger tail and the findings (clasp, jump rings, cord ends) are all silver plated.

Here's a view of the necklace hanging down, so you get an idea how it would look like when worn.


Please feel free to contact me for commissions. Either through my website or my Etsy Shop.

Note: I am just in the process of uploading new designs to my Etsy shop. However, I will showcase all the items here.

Mural

I've been busy redecorating the house. Not that I am anywhere near finished, but this was the first step. I bought myself the most gorgeous black mirror and the perfect place was over the cast-iron fireplace in the bedroom. However, that meant I had to paint over the original design that I had created specially for the fireplace wall.

Here it is:

I first created the new design on the computer so I'd get a feel for what went where. I find it easier to do such things on the computer as you can move them around a lot easier until everything is just where it ought to be. :-)


Here's the new design in chalk on the wall, this time drawn freehand:



And here's the new design all handpainted with a mix of the original raspberry red wall paint and black acrylic paint (a blackberry colour rather than the black it appears to be):



Sorry for the quality of the photos - red is notoriously difficult to photograph and the light in the room is awful for taking pictures, especially with a flash as the paint is reflective....

Trips Number 3: Granchester Meadows

Just after Christmas and before the new year we had a little outing to Granchester Meadows which is round the corner from where I live (well, almost). It's very pretty there (even Pink Floyd thought so as they wrote a song about it). It's especially lovely in the Summer when you can sit either by the river or in the Orchard - a lovely place to drink tea and eat homemade scones with clotted cream and strawberries.

However, it was too cold to sit outside, although we did go for a walk and, of course, I had my camera with me. Here are a few of the snap shots I took:


This is a few up the river towards Cambridge, so is the one below. The light was really beautiful and golden.

I am fascinated by trees and I love willows. They're probably my favourite trees (next to birches).

The reflection of this willow in the water is particularly clear.

Then I went on to grasses and reeds.


The drops on the grass were so large and pronounced. Not like diamonds at all, they are far too round and organic! Here you can see how muddy it was. Muddy with a capital 'M'.

The sun set really early and it began to get dark at 3 in the afternoon. This is a view over the trees towards the sunset.

Here, a similar view of the river as the ones at the beginning but with light fading fast.

I couldn't resist playing with the next lot and applied several filters including a Sumi-E filter. I think it works really well.


The last two are of reflections in the water. The bottom one looks almost like some secret writing - hieroglyphs maybe...

Fab DIY Lampshade - It's a Puzzle

I've just come back from Rome - don't worry there will be pictures... the trip was great - my son's idea - and the shopping was even better. :-)

Amongst other things I brought back a DIY lampshade, or rather two but I've only managed to assemble one so far as my head is a bit fuzzy and the instructions are in ITALIAN!!! Amongst all the lovely things I also brought back a horrible bug and I am not quite feeling myself... so I am very proud of myself that I managed to put it all together after all!

Anyway, here it is.

The whole lampshade first with the top unfinished so I can insert the cable/bulb.


A close-up of the lampshade.

The puzzle pieces (40 of them) that make the lampshade.