[Sea and Sky]

New home

I have a new home on www.sea-and-sky.co.uk/blog

So far I've just moved all the posts from here and the bead blog but will be moving everything else when I get half a chance!

If you link here - please update your links!

Back :)

Apologies for neglecting these three blogs for a while, but it was our 10th weedding anniversary at the end of last week and I was just a bit pre-occupied! Should be back now with things to say and beadwork & photos to share :)

Bits :)

So... I have all the beads for my summer necklace. I now also have the findings. AND even more importantly I have a rough design!

I'll hopefully start work on it at the weekend

Breeding beads

In an e-mail conversation I was having with Su Poole of Tillerman Beads she mentioned how her local sorting office was infested with seed beads following an incident with two lampwork beads.

I suddenly realised today that I had left my lovely new beads in a rather dark and secluded environment whilst I finished one project and worked out what to do with them. Very, very nervously I went to where I had stored them and found... well, it took me quite a while to sort all the offspring out before I could pose the family for the picture you see (click on it for a larger image)

On the plus side, I do now have all the beads I need to do a fresh summer necklace and earrings!

Micro photo story

There is the first part of a micro photo story up on my photo blog. Parts 2 and three have been set to go up at 11pm on Friday night and Saturday night respectively

Captured Light

I was flicking through an old book (The New Beadwork, don't have the ISBN details to hand) in search of inspiration. It's a coffee table book rather than a how to book, although it has some basic instructions at the back. It also has an introduction titled Captured Light, and it struck me how apt a way of describing beads and beading that is. That beads resemble (to me) small drops of light and colour is one of the major attractions. I am drawn to, and respond to, light and colour in a way I find difficult to explain; but the right shade of turquoise in the sea sparkling in the right tone of sunlight can make me almost physically drool with the sheer gorgeousness of it.

Neglect and new beads

I'm writing up the way I made the crystal ball earrings - I've discovered I haven't got any suitable clipart yet for bicones so am busy creating that first!

I missed Lingfield beadfair this year as we were in the New Forest having a mini-break, however, on my return there was a note saying a parcel had been delivered. I collected the parcel today and found I had a small box. Nestled inside in a bed of tissue paper were some well-bubble-wrapped lampwork beads from Tillermans (link now on the side) - they are absolutely gorgeous and I'm looking forward to creating something with them.

Another mini-break

We headed down to the New Forest again for a long weekend - and had a thoroughly relaxing time. The weather was mostly good - it rained a couple of times, but never when we were out or wanting to go out. Photos will be up as soon as I've finished sorting them out, culling the bad ones and post-processing the decent ones. The journey down was, for a change, completely event-free, even though it was late at night when we went down.

We seemed to spend most of our time walking along the beach, although we did head over to Hurst Castle on Sunday (and met up with some online friends and fellow bloggers, Tim and Sarah, plus their two girls Rosie and April. April, the youngest, is a very active 19 month old girl who specialises in given everyone "Paddington Bear Hard Stares"!). We explored the inside then had a wander around some of the outside before deciding to take the ferry home. We were told there was a larger (94 seater instead of the normal 12 seater) leaving from the beach in front of the lighthouse, and we could see it was almost at the shore, so we waited, wondering how on earth we would board. There was a floating pontoon thing, but it didn't seem long enough. Plus the crew were having a lot of problems getting it anywhere near the shore. It turned out that an angler (or some-one) had cut one of the lines, making it far harder to land. The journey back was fortunately uneventful, although many of us got an impromptu shower as the boat turned and the wind sent a wave across into the boat! (My camera got caught in it, but somehow no salt water went inside it)

We got home around 1 am this morning!

DIY air cooling

Going on the basis that most portable, home air cooling units are air blown across a chilled/frozen element I thought I'd attempt a DIY version, just for my desk at home for when I'm beading or on the PC.

You need:

• Desk fan (mine is 9" diameter)
• Bottle (I'm using an empty Volvic bottle, about a litre capicity - adjust depending on size of fan, or use multiples)
• Enough water to almost fill the bottle
• A freezer
• Shallow dish to stand bottle in.
• Ideally you need two or more bottles.
• Fill bottle(s) almost full and put in freezer til frozen
• Stand bottle in shallow tray in front of fan - you may need to raise it so it's in front of the fan
• Turn fan on (I have mine on high)

It's not brilliantly effective, but it does make the air in front of the fan cooler so it is ideal for when I'm sat in the same place for a while

Messing around with blogs...

I've moved beading books and other bead-related stuff onto my beading blog (link is on the right, along with my photo blog link). The bead blog also has a snazzy new banner - if you use IE or Safari the banner is centred courtesy of a bit of CSS that Dave helped me with. Firefox, for some reason, keeps it over to the left. It will get some more content soon - I'm currently rather engrossed in making beaded flowers for a necklace kit Dave got me for Christmas(!)

Tropical Crystal Earrings

Swarovski crystal and Miyuki seed beads were used to make a beaded bead which I then suspended on chain and put on hooks to make the earrings.

Welcome!

Welcome to Just About Beads, my blog dedicated to beads and beadwork.

New beadwork

I've just done another pair of crystal ball earrings - will post a pic soon. Will also put instruction on the beading blog by way of getting it off the ground!

Explorers of the New Century

I've just finished reading "Explorers of The New Century" by Magnus Mills. I've nearly missed 3 tube stops, have sat looking like I was punched in the stomach at one point, have walked along the platform with my eyes glued to the pages.

It's classic Mills in many repsects, but is probably also his most accessible work to non-devotees. It's dark and darkly humourous, but the surrealism of some of his other works is toned down a lot in this.

I would strongly suggest that you read it before you read any reviews more detailed than this. Some books are worth not knowing much about in advance. This is one of them.

Ch-ch-changes...

Actually, I'm not going to change how THIS blog looks. I will have a bead blog and a dedicated photo-blog up very soon though.

More new photos

I've just uploaded new photos in the Milford, Plants and Sea and Sky albums. Mildford-on-Sea and Sea and Sky have the newest photos at the top, to go straight to the newest photos in plants, click on the link above, then use Next to navigate through them.

More cactus flowers!

I noticed one of the buds has opened, so just took a couple of pics, which are under plants.

Cactus in bloom

I noticed one of my cacti is budding, and thought I'd try and get a picture or 3. The results are on the right under Plants.

Cuff bracelet

Three new pics and info in the beadwork gallery of the following bracelet.

Update in beadwork gallery

I've just uploaded a larger picture of these earrings into the beadwork gallery, along with how they came about.

And all I ask is a tall ship...

We've just got back from a short break at Milford-on-Sea. I've only put one set of photos up so far - that of the tall ship "Tenacious" - there's more information about her in the gallery on the left.

We were visiting Hurst Castle, and happened to look out a window in time to see her skirting around The Needles. I very informatively yelled "Oh! Ship!" - as it's clearly not what you'd expect to find on the sea. I then amended my description to "tall ship!", and am actually quite chuffed I got it right!

If you're interested in the Jubilee Sailing Trust, who own and run her, they have a website, complete with more details about "Tenacious", (the site uses frames, so the previous link won't have the navigation bar on the side) including a deck plan as a pdf.