Thursday 18 June 2009

Just a quickie!

Morning all!

I just thought I'd better let you know, that I'm heading off for a couple of weeks R&R. :-) I hope you have a good time in my absence, and hopefully there will be some new beads after I return.

Laters!

HP xxx

Friday 15 May 2009

Something for the weekend!

Hi all!

Gosh, another week just hurtled by and another weekend's upon us!

Speaking of weekends, I thought you might like to see what I got up to during the last one. I spent a wonderful day with my friend Angela, who is the lovely lady I had a silversmithing lesson with a few months ago. We spent the morning working on some photography for her website. Then in the afternoon I was a very lucky bunny, and Angela showed me some of her more advanced silversmithing techniques. And (with LOTS of help cos I'm such a silver newbie) I created this zingy bezel set sterling silver ring from scratch, featuring one of my handmade lampwork cabs. It was great fun, and I learnt so much, thanks Ange! I can't wait to break the silver out again and have another go. :-)

And just in case you aren't familiar with Angela's beautiful handcrafted silver jewellery, here is one of the photos she took after she let me loose on her photographic setup. ;-) I love this pendant especially, and can assure you it's even more stunning in real life! If you get chance, I'm sure she won't mind if you pop over to her site for a nosy.

On a slightly more boring technical note, there appears to have been progress on my email problems. My ISP seems to think they've sorted it thank goodness, and at least I've not had any more delayed-bouncy-error-type-thingies...(technical term)...over the last few days. Woohoo! ;-)

Righty-ho I'd best go and get myself sorted, cos I'm heading off into the wild blue yonder for a few days. So as usual, any emails, orders or queries will be answered after my return next weekend. Have a good one peeps!!

HP xxx

Friday 8 May 2009

Techno troubles!


Evening all! I hope you're looking forward to a good weekend!

I just thought I'd better let you know that I've been having major email troubles over the last couple of days. So if any of you are wondering why I haven't got back to you over the last few weeks about something, or you didn't get my last Beady Bulletin, I did send it, it's possibly just bouncing around in the ether somewhere like a little lost pigeon???

I started getting weird Mail Delivery Failures yesterday, of emails I sent (in some cases) weeks ago! I've no idea why, and after 40 minutes mainly on hold to a chuffing helpline, I'm still no nearer a solution. It doesn't seem to be just my website that's affected, it's my work email too, so I'm assuming it's my ISP and I'm hoping they can get to the bottom of it soon!!!

Sincerest apologies to any of you that have missing emails. I do appear to be receiving emails ok, it's the sending bit that seems to be the problem. :-(

Anyhoo - fingers crossed it gets sorted soon - I'll let you know. Have a good one!

HP x

Thursday 30 April 2009

Away to the hills!

Evening all! I hope you've all had a good week? Not much to report on the beady front at the moment unfortunately, as I've been rather busy, but I'm hoping it won't be long. In the meantime, here's a little bead I've been intending to make for ages, and finally got round to the other day. I hope you like him - meet Percival Panda.

He has a slightly wonky bottom unfortunately, and I still have to work on the positioning of his black and white bits, so he's gone to live on my bracelet. :-)

I hope you've got some good plans for this Bank Holiday weekend? It will probably involve wellies and a brolly if you're going out, but whatever you do, I hope you enjoy it! I'm off to a friend's place for a few days, so I will answer any emails when I get back next week.


Have fun, and don't dance around too many May poles...makes ya kinda dizzy. ;-)

HP xxx

Tuesday 14 April 2009

I've been a whittlin'!


Morning all! I hope you had a good Easter Bank Holiday, and haven't overdone the chocolate...if that's possible? Mmmm Green and Blacks, it was a tough day. LOL! ;-) And on a chocolatey note, I don't know if any of you watched Willie Harcourt-Cooze's program about his wonky chocolate factory, but I so want to try some! Anyone out there sampled it yet?

Anyway - just a few little teasers for all my lovely blog readers, to let you know I've been at my torch and kiln again and have made some new goodies. There are lots of new silver cores, dread beads, and a few lampwork beads (including a rather overdue easter set, oops), and even some new jewellery too. There's the large blue disc silver core pendant (pictured above) that I've rather fallen in love with. It has a handmade silver bail that lets the bead hang flat on a chain, whilst allowing it to spin round freely. Oh and some little silver cupcake earring studs too for all you cupcake fans out there.


Righty-ho, I should be updating my site at some point over the next day or 2, depending on how long all the pesky web work takes. And as usual, I will send out an email to let all you folks on my mailing list know when I've updated.

Have a great tuesday!

HP xxx

Monday 2 March 2009

New beadies!


Morning all,

Just thought I'd share with my blog readers a little preview of some of my new beads that will be going up on my site at some point over the next day or two. Well, with the hint of spring in the air, and easter hurtling towards us, I had to go with chickens and bunnies, there's also going to be some normal beads, and a fair few new dread beads too. My mojo finally seems to have come home, a little weary and hung over, but sporting a sightly patchy good old british tan. You know the one, lovely tanned forearms and lower legs, with a rather spiffing white t-shirt and shorts effect over the rest of the body. ;-)

Anyway, please don't forget, if you want to know as soon as there are new beads available, feel free to join my mailing list, as I send out an email the moment they are uploaded. I hope you're all having a good monday. :-)

HP xxx

Saturday 14 February 2009

Hi Ho Silver!

Afternoon all!

Hope you're having a good weekend. Well, I've been off playing with silver again. This time I did a great one day silverclay course with Rebecca Crabtree in Knutsford just a few miles down the road from me. It was a fab day and there were a few fellow glass fans there including Caroline. We all got to make some lovely pieces of jewellery - here are the pictures of mine.

In the morning we made some little textured pendants to get us used to handling the precious metal clay. Then in the afternoon we got to make whatever we fancied. The shield shaped pendant started out flat and with a bail, but because numpty-knickers here spent too long chatting on the day, I had to bring it home to fire. But then, running true to clumsy form, here's the series of events:
1. Got back from course, walked upstairs to put it in the kiln.
2. Dropped it, bail fell off in one piece, swore a little.
3. Repaired, left to dry.
4. Carried it to the kiln, dropped it again, bail in several pieces, swore a lot.
5. Gave up on bail, sanded it down and fired it before I had chance to drop it again. ;-)
6. Hammered it in a doming block and soldered a hidden bail on the back, hoping I wouldn't be able to knock this off. LOL!

I think somebody somewhere was trying to tell me not to put a bail on it, and to be honest, it does look much better without one. And then when I got home all enthused, I had another play with some silverclay and made some little silver stud earrings, as requested by my brother's little girls.

Anyway - I'm hoping there will be some more new beads soon - my mojo seems to have gone on holiday at the moment, but fingers crossed it will come back soon with a tan, sombrero, and some duty free. ;-) Hope you're having a good weekend and all the snow has finally melted.

HP x

Tuesday 13 January 2009

Shiny happy peephole!

Hehehe!  ;-)  

Belated Happy New Year to you all, I hope you had a good one!  And Father Christmas brought you everything you wanted.....not too many Gyles-Brandreth-type-jumpers....showing my age now.  ;-)


Anyway - I thought you might like to have a little look at what I got up to at the weekend. I was lucky enough to get a place on a one day silversmithing workshop taught by Angela Kennedy, who makes gorgeous jewellery, and we got to try all sorts of silversmithing techniques.  These included: cutting, sawing, planishing, soldering and punching to name but a few.  And after 'a few' chocolate biscuits and plenty of banging, sanding and polishing we all created a lovely set of hammered dangly earrings and a domed 'peephole' pendant with bail.  It was a wonderful day and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  These are my efforts shown in the photos - hope you like them?

And on that note, please excuse the dodgy photos, silver is an absolute bugger to photograph - I think I need to refine my stick it on a piece of paper technique.  LOL!  I must try and take some better ones when I get chance.  But I can't wait to have another go with my hammer - and maybe incorporate more silver work into my jewellery making.  

OoooOOOooo the possibilities!!  :-)  Have a good week bead fans!

HP xxx