Variety is the Spice of Life

First came my Sunbaked beads - simple, etched, doughnut-shaped beads in a huge range of different colour combinations.

Closely followed by Sunpots.

Then there were half sets, and custom sets - sets to fit Pandora bracelets too.

Then came Rolling Stones - similar to Sunbaked beads with a smaller hole and a more rustic look, every set features creamy ivory with toning colours.

Oh and don't forget Rolling Stones to fit Pandora bracelets! (These have been my Christmas 2009 best sellers - especially to America!)

Now I'm really having fun with Stonebaked beads - Sunbaked colours, Rolling Stones shape. I've just added two fresh sets to my website, Marine and Berry.

Christmas Prize Draw

Its that time of year ... time to be jolly and give stuff away!

I'm very happy to have an easy peasy pendant project in the new January 2010 issue of Beads & Beyond magazine, so I'm giving away two focal lentil beads just like the one in the mag.

All you have to do to enter is visit my website and use the Contact Me page to send me a Merry Christmas message. I'll draw the names of two winners at random on Saturday 19th December, just in time for the last Christmas post!

Only one entry per person please.

End of Day Beads

I keep part used rods in jam jars, one for purples and pinks, one for greens, one for blues and one for spicy colours. They're all getting a bit bunged up with "long shorts" in the bottom so yesterday I tipped out the Purple jar and forced myself to use up the bits to make some "End of Day Beads". I made a couple of lentil focals like this one

and some round focals

And I even managed two Rolling Stone style sets!

Now my Purples jar is much tidier and I'm really pleased with the results!

I'm hoping to tidy up the Blues tonight ... and update the website tomorrow (Friday)!

A point about Peacock

I've never really used Peacock Green as I heard it needs a different annealing temp - but I've now checked it with my filters and it appears to have annealed just fine at my usual temp of 520 degrees C.

I noticed its a spreader. The pic on the left shows white dots on a Peacock base, the white dots have been swallowed up by the Peacock and have a little dot in the middle -

see how the white dots on the Kryptonite bead on the right are unaffected.

So then I tried it the other way round - a white base. The bead on the left has Peacock dots over white, the Peacock has spread out and honeycombed across the base. The Slytherin dots on the right hand bead are more 'self-contained'!

Interesting ..... I tried a little experiment, using Peacock in one of those reactive spreading patchwork style beads (a la Emma Baird and Sarah Hornik Think Pink)

CIM Peace base, Peacock dots, then CIM Cranberry and CIM Lapis - not the best bead or photo but it could be good to play with this a bit more.

Slytherin Swirlies

Just want to slip in another pic of the wonderful Slytherin!

Check out Laura Sparling's new Roly Poly tutorial.

I heart Sangre

Of all the reds in the glassy world, CIM Sangre is my absolute favourite - its passionate, bright, vibrant, glowing ...

And it "strikes", which means the colour develops the more the glass is

worked in the flame, so you can get wonderful variation from transparent yellow to deep rich red, like in these wings.

Ooooh, glass with feeling!

My Messy Testing question was "We designed Sangre and Oz to be the perfect Christmas red and green. Did we succeed?"

I'd say .... "Yes!" Festive enough for fairy lights!