Faux Bone Bangle Tutorial Available online

I'm dying with the cold, it was only a matter of time.... but I'm never too ill to check out my favorite web sites like the Making Jewellery Magazine web site where I noticed that my recent Faux Bone Bangle Tutorial is available online.... FOR FREE!!! Check it out here.

Over Christmas I am going to be tinkering with my word press blog and eventually changing over to Word Press. For the time being I am duplicating posts on both blogs - and then I'll blog on this blog that I've posted on the other with a link. The girls at the Little Bead Shop are excited as they will inherit this blog. The blog may still interest you when they take it over as it will still be all to do with jewelery making - thats what beads are for :)

Hattie Sanderson Master CLasses

Its taken me a while to get around to blogging but last weekend was just great!! THREE packed days of classes from the wonderfully talented Hattie Sanderson. My poor head took a week just to switch off from all the new design ideas I had in my head! I’ve yet to photograph my own work – but meanwhile I can show you a finished ring by Lesley Messam (above) and Helen Chalmers, featuring one of my very own beads :) (Below).




Hattie will be back with Art Clay Scotland next June - details will be up on our main web site asap!

Making Jewellery Christmas Issue

Making Jewellery magazine seems to be going from strength to strength. Clearly I'm a little biased as there is some of my work in there :D including my tutorial on how to make the above Bracelet from Robert Danicks Faux Bone & Art Clay Silver, and my fun swarovski bling ring tutorial.

I'll try to remember to pop a photo of the ring on once I've collected it from the post office!

Metal Clay Artist Magazine

Nothing like really exciting news to get me back to blogging!! All our copies of Metal Clay Artist Magazine have arrived and it looks fantastic!!! The worlds first magazine dedicated to Metal Clay this eagerly anticipated magazine really does look fantastic. I've already claimed my copy :)

If you want one then it will be available in our online shop very soon :)

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!!

Time for a change??

I'm toying with the idea of moving my blog over to word press. Its partly due to the desire to change my blog name - when I started blogging my intention was to blog about beady things to do with The Little Bead shop - but as time has passed my blog has become more about me and my own work and focuses on things other than our shop. I think this is a good thing, and has been a natural blogging journey - but my blog name no longer feels like a good fit.

I'm tinkering about with my "other" blog, seeing if I can add my favorite gadgets! I'm having problems with that - so who knows maybe I'll stay put. One thing I cannot find to have on a word press blog is the followers box that you can see on the right hand side of my blog. I like it, and love seeing that I have a new follower every now and then. I'd miss it. I also cant add a box linking to my new favorite thing - the Face Book Art CLay Scotland Fan Page. But even so - there are some undeniable pulls towards the other side !

If you are a follower and actually do read my blog every now and then I'd love to hear your comments about following me over.

Gizmos & Gadgets

I've been seduced by the lure of the Face Book Fan Page. Now you can keep up to date on all thats happening on the Art Clay Side of things at the Little Bead Shop by becoming a fan of Art Clay Scotland on Face Book. There is fan box now on the right of this blog, if you would like to become a fan! Now lets see If I can be really clever and and put the fan box in this post...

Art Clay Scotland on Facebook

Faux Bone & Ginga Squid

Now I'm settled back home I'm getting excited about some of the things that are happening in the next couple of weeks. First there is the PMC Symposium, and then on the 15th & 16th of August there is our Faux Bone weekend with the amazing Robert Dancik. I've been thinking about how I can incorporate the Faux Bone into my work, and have been sketching designs into my book to take with me to the course. Imagine my delight when Daily Art Muse featured the work of the amazing Ginga Squid and drew my attention to the fact that Vicky T. Hunt uses Faux Bone in her incredible creations. Just looking at her work has made me smile and has helped me think "outside the box". I'm now full of ideas of how incorporate Faux Bone into my work in a more creative way, and am so excited about the course. Its still not too late to book - and there is now a generous discount for students too!! See here for full details.

Vicky of Ginga Squid is an incredible artist and I thought I'd share some of her work with you here. All of these pieces include Roberts Faux Bone.

You can see the Ginga Squid Blog here. Her web site can be found here.

My work in the Magazines this month....

Just a quick shout to tell you where you can find my tutorials this month. As I've already blogged about you can see my tutorial on how to make my "retro" lentil Beads in Augusts edition of "Beads & Beyond" - you can see my beads on the cover above in the little picture - far right.

I have an precious metal clay tutorial in Issue 17 of "Bead" - a sea shell and freshwater pearl charm bracelet. I never tire of making bracelets like these. There is something so nice and tactile about them! Finally you can find another Lampwork Tutorial in the Lampwork Supplement of Issue 5 - "Making Jewellery". The tutorial gives the recipe for these beads on the cover and introduces you to the special glass by Double Helix. I'm delighted to make the cover of the supplement only a month after gracing the main magazines front page!

And finally I have to tell you that I'm really chuffed to make an appearance in the American Publications "Art Jewelry" & "Bead & Button" - even if it is only because my jewellery features in the latest advertising campaign for Art CLay World USA :)

Refelections on the MCWC Chicago

Well, I'm not sure how to even sum up the Metal Clay World Conference - It was amazing! Myself, Lesley Messam & Lynda Cheney all met up at Heathrow on the Saturday to fly out to Chicago. We arrived at 8pm or so even though we left at about 6pm, the time difference acting in our favour. So on Sunday we had the chance to do some sight seeing.....

Monday saw us start our two day Pre-Conference Class Caged Glass Beads with the lovely Cindy Pankopf. Amusingly though we all decided to go to the conference independently of each other FIVE of us British girls chose this class! I was interested in it naturally as a lampworker and metal clay artist, and I wasn't disappointed. I did how ever find it tricky .... and couldn't get them finished how I'd of liked in the time (I'm not very speedy!) Anyway - here are my two beads followed by a class photo.

On Wednesday several of us had a free day as we hadnt booked into another Pre-Conference Class, so we went off to Chicago to do more sightseeing. We were joined by Cindy Pankopf and Michelle Loon, and we all had a blast up the Sears Tower! Here is me on the Sky Deck...

The VIP event was that evening so we headed back to the Hotel to get ready (this is where I last posted). When we arrived the wine was flowing and people were mingling. I was delighted to finally meet Hattie Sanderson and talk a little about her upcoming trip to Edinburgh. I was also introduced to some other renowned artists who were interested in coming to Edinburgh.... how exciting! This was also the evening of the Charm Swap. I was a little nervous, would anyone want to swap with me? But I shouldn't have worried, there were plenty of charms to go around, and I made mine up into a lovely bracelet the next day.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were jam packed with Seminars, breakfasts, lunches and shopping breaks. There were raffles, prizes, speeches and competitions (including the mystery brown bag competition which thankfully I didnt get to enter). I attended Hattie's seminar on ring construction techniques found it inspiring (with an added bonus of seeing my very own bead rings used in her slide show!), and I also enjoyed Holly Gage's Seminar really interesting too! And I'd never miss an opportunity to attended one of Gordon Uyehara's classes or seminars - his was informative and amusing! All of the seminars were great but these really stood out for me.

Jackie Truty, Katie Baum and the rest of the team did such a great job organizing this conference! Congratulations! I think everyone had a great time, and made new friends. Thats what makes it so special, the people! I cannot wait to meet them all again next time at the MCWC in 2011.

If we are really lucky you can all meet some of them even sooner, when they come to bonny Scotland!! :)

Conference- off to the VIP night !

We are having such fun, with hardly a minute to blog -the class with Cindy was just incredible (top pic) and sightseeing in Chicago is great too!! We have had an hour after shopping to get ready for the VIP reception and the Chrams Swap. I'm hoping i can find 32 people who like my charm enough to swap with me :)

Caged Glass Beads!

We are up - about to have breakfast, and head off to class..... I'm so excited about this!! I met a few lovely people last night at dinner and so far am having a blast!! Hope Cindy wont mind me taking pics :)

Chicago - We Have Landed!

Well, we have arrived safe and sound in Chicago! It was a long day travelling for me, (up at 4am - body clock thinking it was 5 am by the time we went to bed) but I'm just so excited to finally be here! Today is a free day with our course starting tomorrow, and another free day on Wednesday for exploring! Once I rigg up my camera expect lots of pics! I've even brought my video camera!!

New Metal CLay Magazine!

How exciting! A new Metal Clay Magazine is to be launched late October! A free sample issue will be available at the Metal Clay World Conference - so hopefully I'll get a copy of that! I'll be really interested to see what its like, I'd imagine a magazine dedicated to Metal Clay Will be great! To find out more click here!

Bead Ring Tutorial - your rings!

One of the lovely things about doing tutorials for magazines is getting to see that people actually do them! Here are two great rings that have been made following my tutorial in "Making Jewellery". The top one is by Julie Haveland Beer. This is a sterling ring band - but its riveted in the same way. Isnt it pretty!! The bottom one is by Lucy Spencer and is metal clay. I think they are GREAT :D Anyone had a go at the lampwork tutorial I did...... ?

Beads & Beyond - August Issue

As I was looking on the Beads & Beyond web site for an image of their July Issue to update my blog with (I have a BronzClay Tutorial in there) I came across this lovely and vibrant cover for their August Issue. And if you look closely that picture on the top right is of my beads. A little while back my retro lentil beads as I now call them came second in my category of their fantastic lampwork competition. Here they are -


In this latest issue you'll find my tutorial on how I make these beads - hope they appeal to somebody to have a go at. :D

Countdown to the MCWC is ON!

With only 10 days to go the countdown to my trip to Chicago is ON! I've lots to do, including making charms for the Clay Trade, where artists get together and swap a little charm attached to their business card, figuring out what I'll take with me for the "Taste of Home" event where everyone takes some food or delicacy from a local factory, (I was thinking Scottish Whisky, but maybe Edinburgh Rock is a better idea!) and deciding what clothes to take! (Oh - and how many pairs of shoes. :) - I'm such a GIRL). We have a free day on the Wednesday and plan to take a trip into Chicago - and hope to do a boat trip - though I have no idea which one! I'm really excited!

Robert Dancik comes to Edinburgh!

If you are one of our regulars then chances are you have already booked your place on Robert Dancik's Faux Bone weekend on the 15th & 16th August. I'm so excited about this I cant begin to tell you (though again those who know me know full well how excited I am)!!

If you havent heard of Robert Dancik or Faux Bone then rest assured you will. Check out this interview with Robert on the Art Jewelry Magazine web site here - you'll have to create an account but its free.

The weekend course is dedicated to exploring Roberts Faux Bone. Its a new, easy to use and very versatile material. Oh - and its CHEAP! You can cut it, carve in it, saw it, sand it, file it, hammer it, drill it, stamp in it, inlay with it, dye it, put resin in it, paint it...............get the idea? You can do pretty much anything with it!

You can also heat it with an embossing gun and bend it - just look at this beautiful Tribal Cuff by Angela Baduel-Crispin. I absolutely adore this piece and love how its accented with silver. You can see more of Angela's work here.

You can also choose your finishing, sure it can look like bone, but you can also make it look like aged ceramic, or like ivory. Or you can simply polish it to a pure white. And for metal clay users it may interest you to know that you can Faux Bone can easily be embossed to make texture plates!

But really, the most exciting thing for me is the opportunity to spend two days being taught by Robert. I'd take a class with him in ANYTHING! He is literally oozing with positivity. Just read this (taken from Art Jewellery Magazine September 08) -

"By redefining what I used to consider a mistake, I find that I rarely have any. An errant hammer blow, a scratch, or a misaligned edge are now considered another piece of visual information. The trick for me is to embrace the new information, enhance the new direction, and make sure all the marks, forms, and surfaces look intended"

Roberts happy to chat to anyone that may have questions about the course. The last time I came off the phone after talking to him I felt totally inspired! He kind of has that effect. Ask anyone! You have been warned!

Roberts Web site
Booking Information