Necklaces and things that go deeper.......

So.  In my huge collection of stuff I have beads, bead wires, spacers, threads and all of the paraphenalia associated with jewelery making.  And every so often I am inspired to make something from this ever growing stash.  Here's a couple of pics of the stash...

So in the world of jewelery what is still really hot at the moment are necklaces made up of slightly incongruent elements.  The colours integrate but the necklace isn't symmetrical.  This is harder than it sounds to recreate properly and I strive to make something beautiful each time I create a wearable item.

I was too late in taking some proper pics this evening as the children were enjoying playing in the garden and with a river at the end of the garden that takes some supervising believe me.

But here are the quick pics of what I've done today:

 
When I was at school I wanted to go to art college and fully explore the artistic side of myself that I knew existed.  My parents, being more pragmatic, wanted something else for me and so I pursued a career working with people, that to their credit has stood me in good stead.

Now I get to pursue both of these avenues and that makes me very happy.

Being Human

Ask me how I'm coping with without it next week........

Hiya!!

I feel as though I have been ignoring you all....

That's not the truth, I've been thinking about you, honestly.  But I've been dealing with the day to day life issues us mothers of young children deal with - mainly getting the kids to bed before 9pm, and then trying to be committed/organised enough to get something else done before I go to bed myself.


Soon, soon I will post something interesting......

Being Human

Not that I've watched it yet, possibly ever, but there's a US version of Being Human.  Sorry US readers, your version will NOT be a patch on the original.  It's something uniquely British, like Terry Pratchett (who has never yet translated well to the big screen, the delicacy of his wit does not seem to translate to movies well at all) and Douglas Adams (who did translate well).

Without giving things away I feel sure that the fourth series will delight and deliver.  I refuse to believe that the writers and collaborators of this superb drama series will disappoint us in the face of such obvious distress.

The last series has had me hold my breath for almost the full hour on more than one occasion, bite my hand (I thought only people in bad dramas did that but I DID do it - one of the cage fighting scenes as I recall), cry, laugh - a bit -  and admire actors/actresses I had no admiration for previous to their inclusion in Being Human.

Those that know wait with baited breath......

Sneak Peek

I have a couple of vintage items that will go up on Etsy in the next couple of days, two of them are vintage Banjara anklets, usually used by Tribal and Fusion belly dancers these days as other body costume parts.  There's also a really delicate lapis necklace.  And for the non-vintage lovers I have a new cuff and will soon have another in the same fabrics and lace but with extra embellishment......

Oh, and there's a headdress that I need to get a good full headshot of.......

Couldn't Get a Photo......

...because I had to stop the water from leaking through the ceiling below.  Today my pre-schooler son decided to run the taps in the upstairs bathroom sink.  I was down-stairs getting my daughter's packed lunch ready when she said, "Mum, is he having a bath?"

No, I thought....

NO!!!!

Cue legging it upstairs to find the taps turned on full and a floor half-covered in water.  Many many towels later it was all mopped up and now the plug has been removed from the sink but the sad reality is that when the taps are turned on fully enough, no plug is needed to flood the sink and the floor.....

The upside is that I was quite awake because not one small child crawled into bed with me at an ungodly hour.... : )

Never Enough Sleep

This morning I was woken at 5.46am with a toddler stretched out diagonally across my bed, and with my 6-year-old daughter sitting forlornly at the end of the bed.

"What's the matter?" I asked.  "I can't get into your bed," she said.  So I moved over and she got in and as this is a pretty frequent situation and I never get enough sleep I told her, "One day, when you're a teenager and want to stay in bed all day I shall get my own back and come and wake you up."

"You'll forget," she replied.

I won't............

The Belly Dance Extravaganza.....

This event to help celebrate Women's Week was a lovely way to spend a Thursday evening.  We had been asked to come and do a bit of teaching and performing at a bar in town.

Myself, Emma and Kat all got to wear our new stripey trousers (yay!) and taught a group of enthusiastic women how to belly dance.  (I'm on the far left below)

As with any event, it's hit and miss as to who will actually come, and in the end the 15 or so attendees fitted the available space beautifully.  There were a few faces that we knew, so I made them do some moves with added finger cymbals, just to tax them a little more than they would have liked.  I couldn't get any pics of them with the sagat (mores the pity) but they did really well!

Below are pics of the attendees (blurry enough for no-one to be recognisable!) and then underneath are some pics of the three of us performing.

The organiser of the event emailed to say thank you and also mentioned that the bar owners had said how much fun the event was and how relaxed everyone seemed and that that must be down to us!  Yay us!

Spice Must Flow

Ahhhh, small children and what they find amusing......

After the recent butter experiments (yes, although I only blogged about it once there were more days when butter and kitchen implements were my sons favourite toys...) I could only wonder what was to come next.

My spice rack is what came next.....

There was no vehicle involved, he managed to climb up onto the kitchen side via the integral wine rack at the end of the kitchen.  I was unaware of this as I was downstairs putting some washing in and hanging further washing out.  When I got upstairs I saw him standing on the kitchen work surface, kitchen cabinets open, him with a big smile...."I cooking mummy."

This is what he had achieved...

It may not look like much, but the pot contained sea salt, and from what I can see he had added:
cinnamon
ginger
rosemary
celery seeds

dried chilis
cumin
coriander
thyme
and had added a bit of bubble mixture for juiciness.......

I hope he puts these experiments to good use when he's older!

Sneak Peek, earrings and necklace

Here's your sneak peek at the new items.  They probably won't go up on Etsy until later tonight as I'm grabbing time whilst cooking a roast lunch, mediating a teddy bears party and getting ready to teach this afternoon.

Derren Brown

One of his shows is on TV again - if he weren't gay I'd be begging him to marry me, I think he's amazing at what he does.

Feathers #2

So tonight I was going to try and get an early night.....

Instead I've made (or started to make) four pairs of layered feathered earrings.  I say started because I'm waiting for the glue to go off overnight and tomorrow night I'll get them all wired up.  I won't take pics now (boo!) because the light here is dreadful and won't show them off in their glory.

This batch probably won't have a huge amount of bling attached because I want to put them up on Etsy as part of a tiered set - that means that the next set will have rhinestones and freshwater pearls threaded onto them as extra decoration and will offer customers the opportunity to buy the unthreaded ones at a lower price than the threaded ones.

Feathers!

Today saw the arrival of many new feathers to stash and I will confess that fly-tying feathers are officially my new objects of joy.  I've not been able to buy as many colours as I would have liked but I have lots of plans for the ones I've got, especially the beautiful strong and flexible generic hackles that enable me to thread things onto them without damage to the filaments.  The dust-buster will come in very handy in getting rid of the excess fluff that needs to come off of them in order to make sleek and sexy earrings and other accessories.

And now I'm working my way through a huge list of *things to do* so that I can free my mind of clutter and get on with designing and making as I can find the mundane things in life can get in the way of creativity (although I'm pretty good at not doing the ironing, that one never bothers me.)

I've paid for my Deb Rubin workshop that will be happening at a weekend event in Southampton in April (details can be found here) and I'm very much looking forward to that.  As well as doing a workshop I shall be dancing with Covert Bling in the evening Hafla and vending as Blackwillow Tribal on the Saturday.  Make sure to come along and say hi if you're there.

I now have to go and pay for my WOMAD ticket as I plan to take the kids there this summer, reply to a couple of emails, and have decided that I need to take a trip to Fabricland this week in order to see a couple of fabrics in the flesh before putting in an order for some fabrics for Covert Bling.

Once that's all done I'm going to sit back and play with feathers for a bit!