Mojito Madness

My favourite cocktail at the moment, thanks to my eldest step daughter ;-) is a Mojito. For those who don't know it's a refreshing drink with a base of Bacardi, lots of lime and fresh mint, a bit of sugar and lemonade and poured over crushed ice. Well that's how I do it anyway. Imagine my delight when a popular glass manufacturer produced a load of new colours calling one of them Mojito! I had to get some of course. It is a lovely apple green and yesterday I had fun making these.

Tomorrow as you know is halloween and as I love to cook as well as bead I will be busy in the kitchen as we are having friends around for dinner. I didn't realise that Halloween was originally an Irish festival and one of the most traditional Irish dishes to have on Halloween is Colcannon which I love. It's a real good old fashioned comfort food and so the menu is pretty much along those lines....comfort food. We have dusted off the Karaoke machine so if we feel brave enough we may even give that a bash. Have a good weekend x

More Pandora Size Beads

Well what a fabulous day it's been here in East Devon. The garden thermometer was showing 21c and it's in the shade!! Can you believe that? It's nearly November and I should be making beads with the heater full blast and woolly socks on not switching on the electric fan in the 30c heat! Please don't think I'm complaining, I wouldn't dare.

I have just uploaded some photo's to my Flickr gallery (see the link under favourite websites) which shows the individual sets in this collection.

I was rather pleased, there are 6 sets of 5 beads here and I particularly like the icey blue ones so you will be seeing this colour combination again.

The Pandora Size Beads!

It's not the best photo, blooming dull weather! Dad just said he didn't like the combination so I'll just explain they are 3 separate sets, pinks, purples (nicer than the photo shows) and yellow golds!!

Pandora Size Beads

Well I had a good session at the torch today and made some Pandora size beads that have been ordered by a customer. There are 3 sets so far (I don't have many mandrels in that size) one in pinks, one in purples and one in pale amber. All being well I will post some photo's to tease you tomorrow.
Night night x

Finally back up to speed.

I have had just finished the best full day in my studio for some time and hopefully I will have some lovely beads in the kiln in the morning. My "mojo" has been a little absent recently, probably due to being poorly, but it's back now and I've got loads of ideas up my sleeve. I will hopefully be listed new stuff in on my website at the end of this week.

We had a flying visit to London over Friday and Saturday and as our lunch appointment (husbands business partner) was in Knightsbridge, what better place to kill a couple of hours than Harrods. If you have never been, the food hall alone is worth the visit. Some clever ladies I know make gorgeous, tiny cupcake beads-check out Laura Sparling and Wishing Well Glass. Although the photo doesn't do them justice these looked almost as gorgeous!

The rest of the cake counter was not a sight for dieters eyes, although I did manage to walk by without spending any money!

"Sigh".......I WISH I was skinny and could eat cake without a care.

My Birthday Weekend

Last weekend was my 39th birthday, party time next year! I had a great time as we went to Edinburgh for the weekend with our friends Sara and Steve. We ate very well and one of the nicest meals for me was afternoon tea at the Balmoral Hotel. Is anyone ever able to eat everything you are given at afternoon tea??? For each person there was 4 finger sandwiches, a handful of crisps, 3 scones with jam and cream, a fruit tart, 2 Scottish shortbread biscuits and squares of Victoria sandwich, bakewell tart and chocolate fridge cake.......phew!! This was half way through......

ALL ABOARD!

.We also took one of the open top bus tours and stopped for a look around The Royal Yacht Britannia. What fascinated me was the complete lack of glitz. Not what I expected at all, the photo below is the Queens own cabin which as you can see is very plain and down to earth. Apparently she turned down the first set of interiors as "too fussy" in favour of something far more simple. Now the "jollies" are over it's back to business and I have a lot of days set aside over the coming weeks for bead making so watch this space....and the website of course!

I'm Blogging!!

Well, I've done it, I decided to take the plunge and blog! For all those of you wondering why bother, there are several lampworkers whose work I admire and whose blogs I follow. Sometimes they may seem to be fairly quiet in the lampworking world and yet if you check out their blogs they are busy with other interesting projects. Its just another way to keep your customer informed. As a customer myself I like to be kept in the picture.

My blog will obviously be heavily geared towards beads and all things glassy although you will probably find out other things from time to time that I feel either particularly proud of or that I feel may be of interest to you.

Hopefully I won't bore you!

What have I been up to lately? Not a lot! I'm not looking for sympathy here but I've been a bit poorly of late and have been very lazy as a consequence. It is my birthday this weekend and I am being treated to a lovely weekend in Edinburgh. A friend is holding the fort here and feeding all the animals including the kids so I can completely relax knowing its in safe hands. Hopefully once back and nice and rested I will be raring to go and next week will be nice and productive and full of things to show you, in the mean time here are a few pictures of my studio.