I'm Runner Up in the British Bead Awards!!

Yipeee! After an age of having to keep quiet about my pieces being shortlisted I am delighted to say I came second place in the Metal Clay Category of the British Bead Awards! I couldn't make it down to the show as I'm so far away up here in Edinburgh - so I had to wait for the news to filter through and finally I got an email from Jean Power - Bead Magazines Editor confirming that I got second place. It was all judged anonymously and I'm totally thrilled!

Here are my beads - I believe that they were on display, though they didnt win any prizes. Full run down of all the finalists and winners will be in Issue 19 of Bead ! I cant wait to see it!

Bead Rings

I will post a proper run down of the conference and all its exciting goings on - including the new Art Clay Copper - as soon as I have time - meanwhile here are some of the bead rings that folks made on the Lamp work bead ring class with me. I think they look so great!! I felt like a proud mum seeing all these fun new rings being worn!

Day 1 - Art Clay Conference

Today we had our Master Class, which was really intreresteing and informative. We learned how to fuse copper and brass onto pure silver. The course was held in the building you can see above - right on the harbour. WE have been blessed with good weather, and we ate fish and chips at lunch.

Tonight its an early night for many of us as we check all our tools, our supplies and so on in preparation for our own classes tomorrow and Friday. More pics to come :)

Landed in Jersey!

Wow! Long time no blog post :) Been busy with my son, other things....

BUT I'm excited to tell you that I'm now in Jersey. I'm here for the Art Clay World UK Conference - and cant wait!! The plane here was easiest the smallest I've ever been on - but thankfully it was a smooth ride! This conference promises to be great, as always one of my favourite thing about these things is the fact I catch up with my friends - though there are also TWO new products being launched - Art Clay Coper being one of them! I'm really excited to hear all about it! As soon as I get to my hotel and rigg up my camera I'll take lots of pictures of this pretty place!!

Scottish Bead Fair

Its that time again, the Scottish Bead Fair! I'm so excited, I love it, the atmosphere, the beads, seeing friends I dont get to see very often! Oh - and I'm doing a demo too, on how to use art clay silver and "capture nature". I'm going to have a little microphone and and a camera on my hands which will be a new one on me! So if you are coming to watch please SMILE at me :) Expect lots and lots of pictures soon!

In the Magazines this month .....

This month you can find two of my lampwork tutorials in Making Jewelery and Beads & Beyond. In Making Jewelery the project talks you through how to make a beautiful bead with real gold. Its one of the smaller pictures on the cover - the first on the bottom left...

And in Beads & Beyond there is a tutorial that will allow you to practice your stringer control without the need to be perfect - handy seeing as stringer control can be so hard!

In addition this morning browsing the web sites I found my Lampwork Bead Ring tutorial that appeared in Making Jewellery Issue 4 is now on the Magazines Web site - as are my beads - look at the Readers Gallery!! You'll also find excellent tutorials from my friends and fellow Art Clay Silver Instructors Lesley Messam and Tracey Spurgin.

AND dont forget about "Bead" magazine which is still available and contains my Silver Shell Charm Bracelet tutorial! Great for the last weeks of summer!

Where have I been??

My goodness, its been ages since I blogged, which is really bad because I've been doing really blog worthy things!! Did anyone miss me lol??

Any way - here is what I have been doing. Two weeks ago I flew down to Bristol for the PMC Symposium. It was a weekend packed full of seminars, exhibitions and shopping. With fantastic sessions from Robert Dancik, Tim McCreight, Lisa Cain & Jeanette Landenwitch it couldnt help but be an informative and inspirational weekend! As always it was a joy to catch up with my friends, but it was especially nice to make new ones! We also had the privilege of viewing an exhibition of some of the work so far submitted for the prestigious Masters Registry! Blimey - the work is amazing!! Thats Lisa Cain and Bristol above.

Last weekend Robert Dancik came to Edinburgh for his Faux Bone weekend! It was incredible. Never before have I been taught by such an inspirational, kind and generous teacher. Everything about Robert is positive - and he has an effect on people that is very rare, as he seems to generate self belief. The Faux Bone itself is a wonderful material that I cant wait to work with more. Its so strong that its almost impossible to break making it great for adding strength to fine silver. Everyone made some really amazing pieces, being a very talented group!!

I promise to come back with pictures of some work just as soon as I've edited them!!