Happy New Year

I'm currently sitting with William part laying on me because he wouldn't settle with all the firework bangs.

We had a good day swimming then lunch at McDonalds. Played a bit of Monopoly. Watched a film called 'Fluke'. P and A didn't manage to stay awake till midnight. Hopefully you two will sleep in a bit tomorrow. I'm going to be very tired.

Right, it's gone quiet firework wise. I'm sure no one would start with them now so I'll try going to bed again. He's very settled though and a bit cute. Earlier he panted and barked a little and generally didn't know what to do with himself when I tried to go to bed.

Goodnight.
X

Hi

P, I am in bed and you are downstairs with Dad and D watching Liverpool play. It's almost ten at night. You seem very grown up at times recently.

Today we saw Cinderella.



I loved looking over and seeing you both smiling while you were watching it.

William came too and was very good. We had lunch and met the cast who were lovely to us. This year we even got lollies at half time which was very kind.

Dad and I are loving that now D is older we can walk William together sometimes. It's so lovely for us to get out together. We chat about all sorts of things while we are walking.

Love
Mum
Xxx

More progress

It's gone well so far. I have two bags of clothes for charity and my wardrobe currently looks like this.




There's an awful lot of stuff on these shelves though



And I'm not great at getting rid of things.

Ohh well. I'd better plough on.

He's still here cheering me on




Xx

Progress

It's empty




But this is the pile I need to sort out.


These are the shelves.



He's still here






Sally
Xx

Lampwork beads - encasing

Just found this in my drafts. I need to get cracking so will just post it rather than checking what I've babbled about.

Xx

Hello Everyone

I made these beads a little while ago and haven't got around to showing you them yet.

I read Corina's words on encasing in Passing the Flame. I definately improved thanks to her words of wisdom. I also took the opportunity to practice a bit more stringer work:


I made one transparent amethyst bead. Can't remember why:


I had another go at one of these. Corina talks about encasing without distorting the design underneath. I've not mastered that skill yet as you can see from this bead:


More stringer practice and trying out a colour combination that Corina talks about in Passing the Flame:


A very complex cane I made up. Complex because there were a lot of colours that included some goldstone stringer. I quite like these colours but would have liked more depth. I think there should have been more transparent colours and I really do need to write my colours down:


These are just some beads I made from twisties. They are small ones:


Another complex cane that I like very much. The encasing is ok here. It's very even but I would have liked to have kept the wrapped rounds more in tact. They got a bit squashed as I added the encasing:





I was practicing encased dots. They are as hard as Corina says:


That colour combination again:


I was trying to copy some beads Corina has in Passing the Flame. They are white and clear and look great. I did ok with these but they need a dark background:





More encasing and stringer practice:





I've now properly run out of bead release. I've been eking it out for ages and have come to the bottom of the pot. It's not a good time for me to be spending on anything other than the essentials due to some expensive dental work I need.

Hopefully I'll get some soon though do I can crack on with my lessons. Although it's a tad hot at the moment to sit with a kiln and a blow torch!

A Challenge

Hi

I know it's been ages. Today I want to achieve something other than my usual pottering and I thought that if I told you about it I wouldn't feel so daunted. Who knows how far I'll get but I want to try. I have until 2:30 so let's do this.

I want to clear the bottom part of this:




That's my wardrobe. Bit messy. My plan is to clear the bottom half so that I can fit my craft stuff in and get rid of the shelves downstairs. It's a big job and I'm stalling the start of it.

Stage one is to get everything out and be selective in what I put back so that hopefully I only need the top space.

This guy is rooting for me



In his own way.

Sally
Xx

Beads and a bit of art

Hello everyone

Here are some beads I made recently.

I'm especially pleased with these:



The smaller beads are turquoise blue and I managed to get them all the same size. I'm really pleased about that. Although I work with my flame just right I think, in terms of it being neutral, one of the small beads has a darker streak which I think happens if there is too much propane in the flame.


The large beads have Corina's complex cane from Passing the Flame wrapped around then encased. I love the look of depth the cane gives the beads.


I made some more tiger beads. These are again from Corina's Passing the Flame book.


With this bead I was doing a bit of stringer control practice. I seem to be improving. The photo doesn't do the colours justice.


This is another type of stringer wrapped around a bead.


I like the ends where I feel it resembles a Spirograph picture.


And here's the art:



I love this picture so very much. It's been on the wall in my daughter's classroom for ages and I've admired it each time I've gone into the class. I'm thrilled to have it at home now.

Have a lovely week.

Sally
Xx

Isn't You Tube Brilliant

Hi

Don't you think that You Tube is just brilliant. Today, with the help of a very nice man, I fixed a puncture on P's bike. I have never done it before and wasn't sure I'd be able to but I wanted to give it a try. Here I am proudly holding the tyre I'd just liberated from the rest of the bike:



P took the photo for me. I look very pleased with myself because I am very pleased with myself. I couldn't have done it without the help of the pink hammer my dad bought me for Christmas.

That's my birthday t-shirt by the way.

Here's my work area with the helpful man on my iPad telling me what to do:



I also made chocolate chip cookies from an Ocado recipe. They went very flat but taste nice:


I made banana bread too but don't have a photo of that.

I cut these peonies from my garden. The open one smells amazing. I normally don't bring them inside but each year I usually get one flower and that's it. I thought that I'd try cutting them this year to see if it meant I got more flowers.






I finished this rabbit today:



I am so pleased with it. It's for A. Her favourite animals are rabbits and dogs. It took me quite a while and was really fiddly. It was fiddly because it's really small.


The pattern is from here: http://makezine.com/craft/craft_pattern_spring_bunny/





Here she is next to my massive cone of yarn from Yeomans. This yarn is lovely and what a brilliantly massive load of it I have now. £12 for all that isn't bad I don't think. I'd like to build a bit of a collection of these colours. I like how it's not shiny like a lot of crochet cotton.


I forgot to post a photo of these beads the other day:



I was attempting rainbow colours and practicing my stringer work too.


I am very low on bead release now but will hopefully be able to buy more soon.

A made this recently. She drew all little things for inside the igloo. There are medals, a bed, pants, glasses, books and all sorts. I love her art. This one makes me think of hyrogliphics. I haven't spelt that right, sorry.



I'd love to hear what you've been making.

Sally
Xxx

Forgot to say

I forgot to tell you something I've told A about six times. I'm booked on a course in September to learn to be like Tilly.

I'm so excited. I'm booked on Beginner Dressmaking. I've wanted to do a course ever since I got my sewing machine a couple of years ago. It will be brilliant. I'm going to so enjoy meeting other people with similar interests as well as learning how to make clothes.

I'll write on here how it goes. Apparently there will be homework so that must mean I'll be bringing what I'm working on home and will be able to take photos. I will mostly have a measuring tape draped around me like I've seen professionals with.

Sally
Xxx

Beads

Hello

I can't believe the children are off school again next week.

I've been out for two shed sessions since I last wrote.

I've done more stringer practice following some instructions by Corina:



The lines are getting straighter and I'm getting more used to where to hold the stringer in relation to the flame. You are suppose to move the bead rather than the stringer which I find very tricky.


I've been trying to make my beads more round rather then donut shaped. I'm not that great at it though and often end up with holes that don't have the dimple they should have:


The hole should have a dimple like this:


Without the dimple they don't look as good when strung to make jewellery and will be more likely to cut through whatever stringing material you use.

I moved onto shapes. These are 'tabs':


This is a cone but it's not brilliant:


And looks like a Darlek!


These are cubes that went quite well although it's hard to get sharp edges. When you flame polish off the chill marks the bead rounds off a bit.


These are cylinders which went quite well:






These beads use Rubino Ora which is a pink glass. Pink glass is expensive because it needs bits of gold. I've not bought any pink for ages because the price has tripled.


The one on the left was going to be a poked dot one but the bead release cracked so I abandoned it.

Here's a bicone that went well:


More stringer practice there.

This is another cone. I'm pleased with this one:





More stringer practice.


There was a twistie tutorial. I made one and wrapped it around a bead. Consistency of size was a bit of an issue here:


Corina has a tiger bead tutorial in her book and these have been very much admired by other people in the past. I made this one following my new improved skills and it's my most tiger like yet:


The shapes section includes a heart tutorial and following it has led to my best two hearts yet:


I have a heart press but find it very difficult to get good ends when I use it. These two hearts follow Corina's freehand heart tutorial and I'm really pleased with them.





It was my birthday recently and P and I went Ape. It was really good fun and great to do something just the two of us. A and I do lots together but he and I don't so it made it an extra good present.

A and I have discovered loom bands and been making a few of those. I started with a cheap loom but bought a proper one when I decided I really liked doing it. A is next to me now making one. There are some great videos on You Tube.

We've also all been Minecrafting a bit. I have a pretty good cave all dug out with a bed and what not.

Big d made a delicious meatloaf yesterday. It was met with great suspicion by the children. A isn't a great eater anyway and she wasn't keen. P ate all his and really liked it. D ate it very unenthusiastically.

A invented a new word when she said "I'd like to bring this chair in but I don't know how to unwet it".

Have a great week.

Sally
X