St Luke's Hospice Summer Fair Saturday 12th June

I will be volunteering on the jewellery stall at St Luke's Summer Fair this coming Saturday.  The fair starts at 12 noon and as parking is an issue at the hospice there is a free park and ride scheme operating from Tesco's on Abbeydale Road.

I have donated a lot of my handmade jewellery to St Luke's and will be selling that on the stall along with donations from other St Luke's supporters.  I know from personal experience when I lost my Dad three years ago to the big 'C' what a wonderful job all the staff do for the patients and their families at a time when they desperately need support, so am trying to do a little bit to pay them back.  I do hope you will come and support them - they get so little government funding and have to raise millions each year just to stay open.

Keep your fingers crossed that the rain stops by Friday as predicted too please......

Bank Holiday Weekend Beading Project

As I sat to watch our usual slaughtering on the annual Eurovision "we're an island with no friends" contest, I thought I had better have something to distract me from my frustrations at our numerous 'nil points' scores so I decided to have a go at a rather complicated beading project that I've had for a while.

It is a bead weave bracelet, in pretty shades of green, blue and purple made up of 4mm bicones and seed beads.  The pattern looked pretty incomprehensible to begin with, but once I got into the rhythm of the count I only made 3 mistakes.  I wished I'd done it on fireline rather than nymo as I split the thread unpicking one such mistake half way through but I managed to knot in a new piece where the knot shouldn't be noticeable - you need arms about 3ft long with these projects to stop the long lengths of thread from kinking :-)

Anyway, mishaps aside, I think the finished piece turned out pretty well....  (you may need to click the photo to enlarge it to see it properly as it hasn't come out that well once blogger has resized it to fit the page)

Beaded Jewellery Classes

This coming saturday, I will be teaching my first ever jewellery class, at the Craft Den on Loxley Road from 1.30 - 3.30 pm.  We will be making this triple strand silver foil lined glass bead necklace - if you want to learn how, email sales@craftden.co.uk or contact Lynne on 234 0732 to book a place.

More classes will follow for different beaded jewellery projects so keep having a look at the Craft Den's website or follow my blog to make sure you see the updates.  Please note places are limited and the first class is almost full already.

Yesterday's class seemed to go down really well - great bunch of ladies who were very patient with me while I found my teaching "wings".  Thanks ladies - hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and that you will all enjoy wearing the lovely necklace and earrings we made.

The next scheduled class is 1.30 - 3.30 pm on Saturday 3rd July.  We will be making a set of jewellery along the lines of the pieces pictured below along with a matching bracelet and learning some new techniques.

Bookings can only be made via the Craft Den and not through my blog. 

Addy tude loves her 'tinis

I made this card for my friends birthday a couple of weeks ago but have got behind on this whole blogging mallarky...... This is a tiddly inks stamp from Stamping Bella and I just love Addy Tude - this is the first of many purchases from this range I'm sure. It's coloured with copics and the glasses are glazed with glossy accents and the fur trim is sparkling with ranger rock candy spangles.

To go with her present (a saute pan) I made her a little something more personal, a jewellery set made with the gorgeous Elzybels floral stamps and shrink plastic. I've never had much sucess with shrink plastic in the past, but these worked beautifully.

I just love the dandilion clock in this set, so started with that, and used a brayer and rainbow big and juicy ink pad to get the soft graduated colour effect. Here's the before and after effect on the earrings.

This is the before shrinking shot for the bracelet, a mix of three of the oblong stamps from the set, with holes larger than required, pre-punched with my trusty crop-a-dile. The colours look really soft on frosted shrink plastic but they darken when shrunk as you can see in the second image of the finished bracelet. I used a thin coat of glossy accents on the inked side of the plastic once shrunk to ensure it didn't smudge when worn.

If you like these gorgeous floral stamps - and who wouldn't right? Then stop by Elzybells store over the Easter Weekend (2nd - 5th April) for some great Easter discounts http://elzybells.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/03/easter-special-offers-limited-time.html