A few changes

Hello, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year etc!

I'm just doing a quick post to let you know about a couple of bead tweaks I'm making. In February I am starting a full-time distance learning degree in Archaeology with the University of Leicester. This means I will have to make a couple of Beads By Laura changes. (I will explain this archaeology development in a separate blog post.)

Firstly, I am not offering tuition for the foreseeable future. I am teaching at MangoBeads at the end of this month (and there are a couple of places left) but after that, I am taking zero tuition bookings.

Secondly, I am cutting back on the amount of bead 'sets' I make. There will still be sets but I am going to sell some beads as singles. That way I can make a bunch of beads in one design and you can buy one, a pair, or several of them. And if you're thinking "No way am I paying a couple of quid for one bead and then £1.99 postage on top!" then panic not; I am now offering FREE Royal Mail 2nd Class postage to UK addresses.

It's going to take me a while to get into a routine; I have an idea in my head of how studying for a degree alongside running a business might work, but until I actually start doing it, I shan't know for certain. The best way to keep updated with beads is to regularly check this here website, or to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. You can also sign up to my mailing list for sort-of-monthly updates and discount codes.

The photo at the top of this post is of some 'Stormcloud' beads which are currently available as singles. There are a few other beads for sale too. All of them can be found in my shop.

Little Somethings

I'm calling these my 'Little Something' necklaces as they are just that – a little something extra to complement an outfit, or a little something as a gift, either to yourself or someone else.

Each one consists of three of my lampwork beads—one decorated and two plain spacers—threaded onto a sterling silver rolo link chain.

The beads slide up and down the chain, which is great for jewellery twiddler-fondlers, but whilst the necklace is being worn the beads naturally sit in their little trio.

My Little Something necklaces are £13.00 each and I'll be adding them to my website on a fairly regular basis, so do check there often for new styles.

I've also got some Luminobeads in the shop. I was feeling mighty autumnal when I made these so that's why they're made in rich copper and amber shades.

The CiM testing continues

I'm still trying out the new Creation is Messy colours and I'm writing about them. Recent additions to the Tumblr are Painted Hills, which is pictured above, and there's also:

Denim

Quetzal

and Class M Planet

I've still got a few more colours to test yet. I hope people find the posts useful.

CiM Testing

I'm working my way through a bundle of new Creation is Messy glass colours, writing up my findings and thoughts as I do so. The first four testing posts are over on my Tumblr. The colours I've twiddled with so far are:

Bashful

Mockingbird

Envy

and Aloha.

All of the test findings can be found on my Tumblr blog, which is also where I keep a record of the glasses I use for all my beads.

Taraxacum officinale

This past week I've spent my evenings putting dandelion clock seeds into beads in order to make my Wishful necklaces. It's very time consuming. I sit there with the telly on, tray of dandelion clocks and beads 'pon my lap, and with a pair of tweezers I pluck a seed from a clock and then add it to a glass bubble, carefully feeding it through the 3mm hole. I keep on doing this until the glass bubble is full of dandelion fluffs.

Dandelion seed, or 'fluff' as I like to call it

Blown glass beads, wet from their bath

Beads, filled with seeds and made into pendants

Because I handle every dandelion seed separately, I've noticed how much they vary. Not all dandelions are equal. Obviously they are different sizes which means that the seeds from one clock head can be shorter or longer than the seeds from another. The fluffiness of the fluffs is also determined by when the dandelion was picked and how long it has had to dry out. The colour of the seedy bit of the seeds also seems to be affected by this. The older the seed, the darker the seedy bit is.

I've become a bit of a dandelion weirdo. I reckon this could be the thing that gives me 'local character' status. I'll be known as 'Dandelion Woman' or 'Her, You Know, Her, Who Picks Dandelions'. I'm constantly scanning grass verges and patches for dandelion clocks. I never leave the house without my dandelion collecting pot and as soon as I see a fluffy lollipop I dash over and pluck it.

In my head I have a map of where the big yellow in-bloom dandelions are because I know that in a week or so they will have transformed into clocks and then I can go back to collect them. I don't pick all of them; I always leave a couple there so their seeds can do the nature thing and float away to create new dandelions.

Now, in the style of a Year 7 science project about dandelions, here are some fun dandelion facts for you:

• The name 'dandelion' comes from the French 'dent di lion' which means 'lion's tooth' and this refers to the jagged leaves of the plant
• Dandelion seeds can be carried on the wind for as far as five miles
• In Victorian times, dandelions were grown by rich people and the plants would be eaten in salads and sandwiches
• Dandelions are rich in calcium, iron, and vitamins A and C
• The roots of a dandelion can grow up to half a metre long
• The leaves of the dandelion plant can be used to make purple dye
• Dandelion tea can be used as a mild laxative but don't be drinking it if you have gallbladder issues as it can also increase the flow of bile
• Dandelions are food for the caterpillars of several types of butterfly and moth
• Dandelions open at about five o'clock in the morning and close at about eight o'clock at night, hence the term 'clock'; they were once used as indicators of time

And of course, as with many flowers there are many myths and meanings and old wives' tales surrounding them:

• When you blow a dandelion clock the number of seeds left represent how many children you will have
• Another theory states that the number of seeds remaining post-puff indicate how many years you have left to live
• Dreaming of dandelions represents happy unions
• Some people think that the dandelion represents celestial bodies; the yellow flower is the sun, the seed head is the moon and the seeds are the stars
• Dandelions in a wedding bouquet will bring good luck
• Burying a dandelion in the north-west corner outside your house is said to bring favour and fortune
• Dandelion root tea can aid psychic abilities and prophetic dreaming
• In Victorian flower language, dandelions represent faithfulness, happiness and love's oracle
• You should make a wish before you blow the seeds off a dandelion clock

A lot of those are probably twaddle and I reckon if you bury a dandelion anywhere you'll just end up with lots more dandelions as opposed to favour and fortune. Actually, I am going to do that. Not the burying-it-to-bring-me-favour-and-fortune thing, but in order to intentionally grow dandelions. Most people try and get rid of them but no, I'm going to grow me some so that I can have a good supply for my necklaces. Right now I have enlisted friends and family for dandelion-picking duties and my necklaces contain Hampshire, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire dandelion seeds.

There you go. More than you ever wanted or needed to know about Taraxacum officinale - the common dandelion. I've come to love these flowers. They're absolutely fascinating and I refuse to call them weeds. Hurrah for the dandelions!

Oh, and if you'd like to order you very own Wishful necklace, please head right this way.

Flower power

*Monty Don face*

Welcome to the blog post where I bore you with news of my uninteresting garden. Don't worry, there are some beads too, but first, let me show you my munchkin pumpkin. (Oooh, Jeremy.)

I grew munchkin pumpkins for two reasons:

1. The name 'munchkin pumpkin' which I sing to the Oompa Loompa song as "Munchkin pumpkin, pump-a-di-doo"... obviously.
2. Because who can resist the idea of growing an actual tiny pumpkin?

The plant itself is like a triffid; massive leaves and curly-wurly tendrils aplenty. I was starting to think I would never get any pumpkins because it's done loads of flowers but those just wither, leaving no offspring behind (which I can totally identify with because that's how I'm living my life) but then I read about it and they have male and female flowers. Nature.

My sunflowers are an embarrassment. I couldn't get the same seeds that gave me the amazing ones I grew last year so I have eighteen weak and wimpy sunflowers that are no more than three feet high. I did intentionally grow micro sunflowers, though, (I'm clearly all about the miniature garden stuff this year) and they've turned out really well.

My favourite plants this summer have been my poppies. There's one at the top of this post and look, here are some more:

Poppies making the grotty fence look nice

Poppies refracted in raindrops

Raindroppy poppy

I've also grown chillies and tomatoes and wild strawberries and mint. All the mint. Mint-mint, peppermint, spearmint and watermelon mint. So. Much. Mint. Oh, and catnip, which I'm having to grow in hanging baskets out of Nigel's reach as he goes totally Renton for catnip.

Anyway, beads. These are flowery too.

I made these beads ages ago. I rescued them from a jam jar of odd beads I found in the cupboard under the sink. I don't know why I 'rejected' them. (See? That's how annoying my pernickety faff brain is; I can't even remember what I thought was wrong with them.) The only reason I can see is that a couple of them have small, harmless bubbles in the encasing but that's pretty normal for encased florals so I'm fine with that. For today, anyway. They're in the shop as I type.

I don't want to be a premature idiot, but I'm pretty sure I can smell a slight whiff of autumn. Something about the weather's mood has shifted and I like it. Don't get me wrong, I think there are some summery days left to come but there's something different about the morning light and the coolness of the breeze this week.

Now I must away to the shed where I will spend the day blowing glass bubbles and chair dancing and singing along to Lucius.

Have a great Friday! (Of course you will. It's Friday.)

Necklace full of wish

I'm well aware that I'm not the first person to put dandelion seeds in a glass bead/globe/bottle, but it's such a lovely idea I wanted to turn some of my blown glass beads into dandelion pendants.

Hang on, I've not mentioned my blown hollow glass beads, have I? Long story short, I make them on a 3mm hollow mandrel that has an air hole in it. By building a bead up either side of the air hole I can then inflate the bead by blowing air down the mandrel. This allows me to create a nice thin, even wall and I can deflate and re-inflate until I am happy with the shape. It's a bit like blowing a glass bubble. I'll go into it in more detail some day soon.

Me, blowing a hollow glass bead

Anyway, the 'Wishful' pendant is made from a blown hollow bead which I have filled with seeds from a dandelion clock. There are many myths and legends that surround dandelions but I think we're all familiar with the one that tells you to make a wish before blowing the seeds off a dandelion clock.

I'm not saying that this necklace will make all your wishes come true, but its delicate prettiness is sure to intrigue people.

If you'd like to order a 'Wishful' necklace, they're £15.00 and available on my website.

MangoBeads Class

(I'm just going to ignore the disgustingly long gap between my last blog post and this one and pretend it never happened. *ignores the gap and pretends it never happened*)

Hello! Alright?

I'm here to tell you about the brilliant time I had teaching my class at MangoBeads in Devon. 

The class was over two days on the 9th and 10th of July and what a fab group of people it was.

Manda's workshop in Barnstaple is just so lovely. Spacious and comfy and oh so glassy. I loved it. I want to live in it. Look at all that space. And it's so tidy and organised.

The class I taught was a kind of 'improvers' class. I don't have a signature bead to teach as such, but I do have twelve years of glass-melting experience under my belt, so I went through encasing, stringer application, dots, gravity swirls, implosions and much more. Everyone did so well and they all made some great beads. We had lots of fun and many giggles. (Bertie, I will never forget your badger story for as long as I live.)

I stayed with Manda and David and they made me feel so welcome. Manda was one of my first bead customers back in the days when I used to sell my beads on eBay. We'd only met once before – fleetingly at the first UK Flame Off – but the minute I stepped off the train and into Manda's car it was like we'd known each other for always. (I hope she feels the same way or I'm going to sound like a right full-on weirdo.)

Max doing his best Princess Leia "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" pose

And this little fella is Max, Manda and David's adorable dachshund. We got on well too and on the final night of my stay Max got proper flirty with me on the sofa and snogged me. No really. He got very very face-licky and at one point he managed to lick the roof of my mouth. Manda and David found the whole me-trying-to-escape-the-amorous-sausage-dog-that-was-attached-to-my-head situation highly amusing.

Manda has invited me to teach again at the end of January. Again, it'll be an improvers class. If you can make a basic bead and want to have a go at encasing and other techniques to take your beads up a level, this one's for you. It would be an amazing Christmas present idea. All the details can be found on the MangoBeads website.

Big thanks to Manda and David for having me, and thank you to everyone in the class - you were so great and you all made some fabulous beads.

Factory reset

I've been in a bead funk. A long, dark, woebegone, frustrating bead funk. I've cried, I've moped, I've thrown things, I've sworn and I've cried some more but I think I can finally see a chink of light at the end of this miserable bead tunnel.

The Oatmeal did a comic about making things – in his case, creating content for social media – but if you swap that for creating beads then his comic pretty much describes how making stuff (or not) works for me.

I think I may have mentioned before that when I have one of these I-just-want-to-set-fire-to-the-shed-and-make-cake-and-eat-the-cake-whilst-huddled-in-a-corner times, I find that going back to my personal 'factory reset' colours of black, white and clear (non-colours really, I guess) helps to start the unfunking process.

My friend and fellow glass melter, Kathy (who is also known as Practical Kat and you should definitely go and look at her glassy makings) has been listening to me drone on with my bead woes and she suggested I make spacers. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated - just spacers. So I did. Black, white and clear ones. And okay, some of them have spots and stringer but the fact that I wasn't putting pressure on myself to make beads that were more complex enabled me to at least make beads, which is way more than I've been able to do this past week or so. Cheers, Kathy. You're cosmic.

The resulting 'Magpie' Beadlings are available in my shop as strands of ten.

There are also some 'Peach Tea, Blue Sky' spotty Luminobeads...

...and I dug out my ancient straight-sided lentil press and made some 'Aegean' beads. Just a little pair. Fab for earrings.

All the beads pictured can be purchased in the usual place.

I think I really am reaching the end of the miserable bead tunnel now. Well, I flipping hope I am because moping about is very tiring and unproductive. I just don't have the time or patience for it!

Thanks for reading.

Rant, jewellery, lovely calming strawberry flower

Occasionally I get an urge to make jewellery with my beads. I often feel bad about this because a while back some delightful Facebook commenter told me I should stick to making beads and leave the jewellery-making to other people. Wasn't that so very lovely of her? Yeah yeah, love, I know the jewellery I make is the basic-looking, plain-strung, unfancy, not silversmithed, no PMC, no clever knotting, no additional stones or crystals or whatever kind of jewellery, but I make the sort of jewellery that I like to wear, and I have always loved wearing simple and unfussy jewellery, OK?

*clambers 'pon soapbox*

Seriously, people need to think twice before giving unsolicited advice, or passing 'helpful' throwaway comments on the work created by craftspeople and makers. Whatever you think of it, that person has made something with their hands and their heart and they've had the balls to put it out there for the world to see, and therefore judge. Unless the maker is asking for advice or a critique on their work, people shouldn't give them negative feedback. If you have nothing nice or encouraging to say to someone about what they've made, hush up and move on. The brains of creative people are often weird things and they can be pretty flipping sensitive and over-analytical, making their owners doubt themselves and their abilities. Creativity is easily damaged or affected by thoughtless words, including ones about pricing.

*gets off soapbox*

Anyway, I pushed that commenter's words aside in my brain and this weekend I let myself make a couple of bracelets.

For some reason I made even more of those spotty red lentils (I think I'm just in love with their redness) so I decided to turn some of them into a bracelet and matching earrings.

I also made some little 9mm diameter spacer beads in sea glass colours of pale aqua, pale green and clear.

I used hair-fine grey stringer to wrap each one with a trail of glass. The beads were then tumble-etched to a satin finish before I turned them into a bracelet.

All of these pieces are currently in my shop.

Sorry to have got a bit ranty on you there. I didn't intend to. I only sat down to write a blog post to show you my jewellery but I let my fingers type out the festering irkedness I had in my brain about the whole jewellery making thing. Ah well, better out than in and all that.

May your Tuesday be as sunshiny as the one I'm currently experiencing here. I think I'm going to mow the lawn, carefully avoiding the wild strawberries I mentioned in my last post.

I've been reading about how to transplant wild strawberries into pots so I might give that a go too. *Carol Klein face*

Have a good rest of the day!