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

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

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

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

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

Blimey - is it Christmas already!

Cor blimey - luv a duck!  Is it that time of year again?!?

I realise it's probably a side effect of getting old - along with wrinkles and a penchant for warm socks, but crikey this year's gone fast!  And sorry for the delay with all things beady - it's been a bit of a busy few months.  Work's been absolutely mental and there's not been a lot of time for glassy exploits...or well anything really.

Having said that - I've pretty much finished all my 'proper' work - huzzah!  Just got shed loads of other stuff to do now.  So in need of a break, I skived off into Manchester yesterday for a scout round the Christmas Market, and the amazing Dazzle jewellery exhibition at the Town Hall.  It was all wonderful, so glad I went!  Here's a dodgy picture I took, sorry for its rubbishness and inadvertent flat cap content (by 'eck it's grim up north!) - I was far too busy man-handling a warm German sausage to concentrate on my camera!  LOL! 

But I digress - you'll be glad to hear...hopefully, that I've finally managed to get some melting done, and I'm about to upload a whole load of new stuff on my site.  I realise you've probably all already spent up for Christmas, but if you fancy a nosy, feel free to head over for a shufty.  It'll be nice to see you, pull up a chair and I'll get the mince pies out.  ;-)

HP xxx

And the winner is........

Evening all!  Yes I know what you're saying - who's evening all? ;-)

But I've just announced my BeadyBugs Prize Draw winner over on my homepage, so thought I'd share it with you here too. I donned my best spangly frock and white gloves, shut my eyes, and gave my big blue bowl a good old rummage.  And the winner of my first ever BeadyBugs Prize Draw is.........

**** Carol Hartnell! **** 

Congratulations Carol - I'll get your beady prize off in the post to you ASAP.  A big thanks to everyone who entered, I'll definitely do another one when I get chance. :-)

Have a good weekend everyone.

Best wishes,
HP xxx