Happy New Year!!!

Wishing everyone a very Happy New year! Hope 2010 brings eveything that you want. Here's to more beading!

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Will probably take a break on blogging for a week or so (but whats new) and will have some of my holidays enjoying doing stuff I usually don't get to!

New Years resolutions..

Well I know it isn't even christmas yet and I am already making goals for next year. I suppose there never is a set time as to when to make them.

The biggest thing that I want to achieved next year is to complete my study so that I have my Cert IV in Mental Health. It will probably take me another 6months or so before I am able to compelete it due to the work experience hours and how limited I am in time during the week to do it. But I will get there.

I also have some beady resolutions. I want to learn how to do more techniques with my cabs. Some of the ladies on the beading forum have really inspired me with their jewellery pieces and I want to be able to do the same things as them. I also want to get a website/artfire up and running at the beginning of next year. I am hoping to work on it over my time off...which is what I have said numerous times before. I also want to sell more of my cabs next year. I definately don't see selling them as a profitable thing at the moment as most of the money made goes back on paying board or something like that anyway. However it would be great if it were a profitable business...maybe eventually :P

For my car I want to get my rims sometime in the near furture, just depends how quickly I can save up some money for them. I think I have about $200-300 at the moment so another $500 and I should be sweet to go. I also would like to get a spoiler for my car and get the scratches fixed on it. I actually saw a business van drive past me on my way to work yesterday who 'come to you' and do scratches/dents etc in bumper bars so it might be better to get someone like them to do it than do it myself and possibly stuff it up.

Last but not least is to just be fit and healthy. This year I have really let my fitness level slip. I have done barely any exercise but I have just started getting back into walking again with my boyfriend so we are doing that 2 times a week at the moment. Better than nothing!!

Well thats my list for the moment. I will make a proper one so I am able to check them off once I have completed something. Next year is going to be good!! But first...get christmas out of the way.

Christmas Present

I have finished my second beaded cab and it's going to be going to my Nan for christmas. I hope she likes it!! I was awake till almost 1am on Saturday night finishing it off, I just couldn't put it down hehe. I used one of my own cabs, blue/black/silver seed beads and some lovely blue swarovski crystals!



I have also been busy making a pair of earrings for christmas and just some odds and sods for me but I don't have pictures of them loaded onto the computer yet. Will post them at a later date!

I have almost finished my christmas shopping. I can't believe how busy the shops have gotten over the past couple of weeks. I work at a shopping centre two days a week and holey moley! The parking is getting worse and wose which sucks for me because as 'staff' we only get limited undercover parking as the rest is for customers. Boo to the cusomers, I wanna park out of the sun and the rain!!!!

I also plan to start getting a website together over the christmas holiday period, if not then I hope to have my blog made over and have my artfire account up and running. I don't start studying again till the start of next year so I am hoping to use this spare time wisely!

Holidays

Well on Saturday I came back from being on holiday for a week. Boy was I hanging for that holiday but it has gone way too quickly, doesn't even feel like I have been away apart from the leftover suntan marks lol We went up to Coffs Harbour which is Northern NSW.

However I have been doing some cab work lately, mainly for christmas pressies. I haven't taken any photos of them yet but hopefully I will get to before I drop them off to be annealed on Saturday. I have made some intial pendants with CZ's for daughters of friends, so I am hoping they like them. I am also hoping to get a cab made for my aunty which I will be able to bead around but who knows if I will get that done or not!!

Christmas is such a hectic time..well I should say December, not necessarily christmas on its own. I had a christmas party last night which was fun but got me back into the swing of things. I have acouple of lunches/dinners with friends for catching up before chrissy, a dancing concert, christmas shopping, jewellery orders, re-enrolling in my course as well as working still throughout the next 3 weeks. I only have 2 weeks off over christmas, I would really like to take more but the whole money thing stands in the way of that.

Anywho on another thing I am doing is on the Australian Beading Forum we have a Secret Santa thing going. I have to do some shopping for my SS but I have also made something for her as well. I haven't done this for the past couple of years but it's always fun to make something for someone else. It's also exciting waiting for the parcel in return.

OK well I think that is all from me at the moment. Need to go and check on some more cabs before I head off to work this afternoon.

Being sent to the UK & new items

Well this afternoon one of my lovely customer told me that one of the cabs which she has used in a pendant is being sent to the UK for Christmas!! So now I am up to two international cabochons!! One in the US and one in the UK. It is so exciting.

One another note I didn't have any work today so I spent some of my time making christmas stuff. I have made two bookmarks for my family and a necklace for a friends little girl who loved my ones I had on over the weekend.

getting back into glass!

Well the last couple of days I have been making a few things here and there which has been really nice! I should be doing my study but I just can't seem to get into it so instead of wasting my time getting nowhere with my assignments I just thought I'd do something else. probably won't have some pics up for a while but just a note to let you guys know I am attempting to get back into it!

Plus I have created a new banner for my artfire shop and also my yola website that I want to build. So I am hoping to get that up and running over the next few months..maybe a fresh start for the new year??

This is a small pic of what my banners look like. I will probably change my blog around a little bit too so that it all matches in with each other.


I also got a free offer for some new things called squiz cards which are plastic little cards, like the ones gyms hand out now. So I have some of them coming in the mail over the next 2 weeks which will be exciting. Only get 50 but thats better then nothing!!

7 weeks!!

Only 7 weeks till christmas!! Just thought I would make you all aware and rev myself up to get into gear and get my pressies done!!

International cabs!!

One of my lovely lady customers has made this gorgeous pendant with some of my cabs which she bought from me a couple of months ago.

and Guess What?? It is going overseas!! America to be exact. Very excited to know that I now have internation cab status! haha

First Beaded Cab

Well here is my first beaded cab completed!! Ta DA!! Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I didn't really find it that difficult either. Getting used to using such a fine needle had to take some practise but it's all good...

The cab was made by myself!

Big purchase!!!

Well unfortunately I can't say I have bought a heap of glass or beads. However something else that I have been saving for for awhile now. A NEW CAR!! Well it's not...new...new...but new to me. It's a little 3door black Yaris, 2007. Great deal and apparently great little cars. Plus the bits and pieces won't cost an arm or a leg if they need fixing. Thank god. Only sad part is I have to say goodbye to my little mazda 121 which I have grown attatched too over the past 8 YEARS!!!

Here is a pic of my second baby...not my NEW baby...but my second baby.



Hopefully in the near future I can add some nice rims, sports lights and maybe a funky exhaust. But one thing at a time...

WIP - First beaded cab

Well I bit the bullet and thought I would try my first beaded cab tonight. I couldn't hold out any longer! It took me a while to do the first round of beads, almost an hour to be exact but then took me about an hour to do the row of smaller red ones and the second black row. I must say that I don't hate seed beads as much as I used to. Doing this was quite relaxing but now my neck and back hurts a little but so this is where I am stopping for tonight.

You do have to excuse the finger prints in the photos. I really didn't think that they would have showed up that much haha in the pic below you can see one of the spots where I pricked myself with the damn needle. I think I must have done it about 10 times which isn't too bad I guess.

I should probably add another row of smaller beads to wrap it around the cab more but I'm not sure if I really want to. I think I might have some gold ones somewhere but that might look a but odd. Not sure...hhmmm

Re-homed Cab

One of the lovely ladies, Margie bought one of my cabs a while ago. She has just put up some pics of what she has done with it and I am over the moon. I think it looks just totally awesome and makes me want to get off my bum and start my own beaded cabs!!! I have everything to do it with I just need the time...and patience...lol

Anyway here are Margies pics of the beaded cab.


Love it!!!

If you would like to check out Margies blog then follow this link to Marlier Designs Lampwork Beads and Jewellery

Latest Jewellery

I am a little bit late posting these up however here are a few things that I worked on over the weekend.

When tiding up the other day I found this little flower which I had made randomly. I didn't know what to do with it so I decided to make it into a little hairclip. I love it!! It is just so cute. I wore it work on Tuesday hehe I think I'll make some more for me and all my little girl friends!


My mum had been bugging me about not having a blue bracelet. So I decided that it was time to make one. This wasn't exactly my first idea of what the bracelet would look like, I was hoping for some more chunkiness but I didn't have any bigger blue beads. So this is what I ended up with. It is acually quite nice and full but not chunky.

Spring Cleaning

well it is now Spring over here in Australia and whats the best thing to do when it's Spring?? CLEANING!! Over the weekend I thought I would get some much needed tidying up. I started with my dressing table and my desk and then came to my beading area *warning warning* I always tell myself to never let it get messy once I clean it up but somehow I just dump stuff here and there and it all just piles up again.

Anywho I have taken some before and after pics of my achievements. I do need to get some more containers as I have run out of them for my beadies. Just click on the pics for a bigger image.





Happy spring cleaning everyone!

Apologies

I am so sorry that I haven't updated my blog recently!! But to tell you the truth I have been so busy with work and with studying that I haven't even had time to make anything!! I am hoping to get some time over the weekend to maybe make up some cabs or something. I did buy some LSS and Ultrasuade so I should be able to start doing my first beaded cab soon, I just need to find the tutorial that I wanted to use.

However last Friday night we did go to a ball!! Was lots of fun and I love getting all done up for the night. Here is a pic of me and Scott when we got to the venue. It's a little blurry but you get the idea.

Website Building

I used to make all sorts of websites when I was younger and at school. I can't even remember what they were but they never seemed to be as hard as it is now to make one.

I am using a place called Yola and they basically have a free hosting section on their site which I am using. It isn't the best but it's good to start with until I get a feel of if I want to commit to a better website or not. I have done bits and pieces to get used to the site builder and it's not going too bad, just have to sort out how I am going to organise my cab lists.

Oh another note I am feeling a lot better than what I was yesterday. I am lucky that I didn't wake up with a terrible headache like I have the past few days but I can still feel something going on in my head which doesn't seem too good lol

Back to work for the next two days and off for a busy weekend of indulging myself in junk food...but oh well!! hehe

Start to another week

Well it is Monday here, yet another Monday. Haven't had the best weekend as I have had this terrible headache which doesn't seem to want to leave anytime soon and I am just so so tired today. I could go back to sleep but work might ring and I don't want to miss the call...zzz..z..zzz....

However on Saturday I did finish off my first bag! I am so proud. It looks great and even the two colours didn't turn out too bad either. Nice and bright for spring.

Hope you all have a good week!

Crystal Flower Hairclip

I am going to a Ball in 2 weeks time and usually I wear something sparkly in my hair and buy a diamonte clip but this year my dress is black and peach and I thought a nice flower would pretty it up a little bit. So I have decided to go with this rose and I just added some crystals to it from behind. I never noticed when I bought it that there were two big gaps where the petals weren't sitting so I guess it worked out pretty well to fill them in with crystal petals :P

You can see in this pic that I held it up to my hair so that you can see how the black tigertail disappears and it gives the illusion of floating crystals :)

Monthly Technique - Layering

Each month there is a different technique or style challenge posted up in the glass section on the Beading Forum which I am a member of. This month it was Layering and I had done this cab a week or more ago but didn't get around to post it until now (slack I know).

Basically my cab was meant to be smaller but my clear glass is quite thick and I didn't think of it at the time. My cab is made of up a base layer of lilac glass, green glass, aqua glass then covered with clear glass. On the clear glass is some little bobbles of aqua transparent glass. I fused my bobbles a little bit too much but it still looks fine. Sorry for the bad photos, I needed to take a pic before the end of August as this was a August challenge.


On another note it is the first day of SPRING tomorrow! I can't wait for the weather to get warmer and spend more days outside on the weekends! I might just make a little spring inspired cab.

Updated Flickr

Just a quick note to let you guys know that I have added some new pics to my Flickr album!

Also lately I have been looking at venturing into bag making!!!!!! I am excited about this but scared that I am going to fail miserably. But I will know sooner than later. Hoping to have my first bag made over the next couple of weeks when I get some time.

Oh...almost forgot. I have opened an ArtFire store!! Haven't put anything in it yet but I have signed up and done the athestics anyway. Will post a link once it's all up and running.

New Cabs

Well today I made some time to play with my glass. I hadn't done it in ages and had a few ideas floating around in my head. I haven't uploaded these cabs to the net anywhere as I haven't got them annealed yet although I don't think I'll be selling these ones. They are just too pretty. Although I might make some more hehe Just thought I would put them up on my blog for all my followers to get an 'exclusive' sneek peek!

The Big 24...

Well today is my birthday! Thought I would put a little post up. Opened all of my lovely presents and have got some great stuff. Some things I already knew and lots that I didn't. The weather is a great so I can't complain. Heading to the footy this afternoon but going to go down the beach tomorrow with my family and boyfriend for some yummy fish and chips!

Earrings

Just a quick update of some earrings that I made recently. Saw these lampwork beads in one of the discount shops and thought they were pretty decent. I got 3 in the pack so now I have one odd one which will have to go into a bracelet or necklace or something..who knows.

This afternoon I am off to visit a friend who has just had a little baby girl, Abbey Rose. So I will hopefully have some pics of her to post up too. Hehe bubbieeess *squee*

One of my sold cabs

Since I don't have any pics of anything I have made recently I thought I would post up a pic of what one of my customers has done with one of cabs! I love it!


This one was made by Kathy Wait. I love the bead colours that she has used, it really sets the cab off nicely. I have one similar to this cab and have used different colouring so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out compared to using this type.

Anywho I love it! I love seeing one of my cabs made into something pretty.

Blinging Up My Dress

Every year I have a ball that I have been going to for almost 10 years now, could even be 10 years! This year I thought I would go a little more understated in terms of dressing up. I bought this dress the other day for $50! Which is a steal considering most of my other dresses I have worn have cost at least $250 and up. But I thought that it needed a little something extra and have been looking at using some Swarovski Rhinestones on the black area of the dress. In the pic below you can see the colours that I have picked out which I think match my dress best. I like the idea of using a colour to make a nice focal decoration but I don't think I am experienced enough yet. I think the jet and black diamond would be a safer option but it'll still add some sparkle to the dress. I was going to go with diamonte straps as well but if I am wearing a sparkley necklace it might be too much......

....what do you guys think?

Been absent

Well I have joined the sick list which is why I haven't updated for a while. A nasty sinus infection struck me down last Tuesday night and really put me on the back foot. Luckily I caught it early and my anitbiotics have really made me feel better a lot quicker than usual. Although I was in bed for approx 3 days straight and it has done nothing for my back but thats another story. So I am hoping to get back into making stuff over the next couple of days. I did make a necklace for my little nephew who came to visit but I didn't get a photo in time. Might have to get his nann to take one for me of him wearing it. But I am feeling better now. I still have some conjestion in my sinuses and into my ears but I am hoping thats just the end of it and will be cleared up soon.

On a lighter note I did find these cute lolcats. hehe they make me smile.

Frit

Well I have been making a bit of frit lately from all little bits and pieces of glass that have been lying around. Generally my technique is to put the glass pieces in a plastic bag and hit them with a hammer. Only problem is that the bag gets holes in it and some of the glass falls into the floor and then the bag is ruined and I have to use another one next time. Not to mention that sometimes stray pieces fly out of an imaginary hole and almost under the wheels of the car!

So now I have searched for our old mortar and pestle! I read ages ago about using one of these for frit and everytime I kept forgetting about it! Thats my memory for ya.
I have to say that using this is a LOT easier then doing it in the bag. All the glass stays where its meant to as long as I cover the top with my hand and it's just generally a lot less messy. I need to wash the M&P after everytime I use it but that doesn't bother me. Now I should be able to chuck in all those stray pieces of glass that can't be used for anything and making myself some unique frit!

Cubic Zirconia Tutorial

Well this isn't going to be the best tutorial but thought I would post up some pics and info on how I do my cubic zirconias in my glass.

CUBIC ZIRCONIA TUTORIAL
This is my little set up. It is a takeaway container filled with water, the water has to cover the top of the glass piece plus some more just incase. I have my little permanent Sharpie marker and my little red cabs which I am going to be working on.
Here I have marked out on the glass where I want the dots to be. This just helps by giving me a guide in the water as to where the middle of the cab is. The marker does come off quickly once the dremel touches it so its important to make sure you have control otherwise you will have to mark it again. This is my bit that I use in my dremel to make the 'dents'.
This is how I hold my glass in the dish. I really shouldn't be doing it this way so I wouldn't recommend it. However I would recommend putting either some styrofoam or a thing layer of wood on the bottom on the container just incase you do drill all the way through by accident. You don't want water going everywhere.
When first using the dremel on the cabs it is important to keep a steady hand as it can slip and slide a little bit. Once the dent has been started just apply medium pressure into the glass and that should give you the best control over the depth. Voila! Here are my little cabs with their 'dents'.
As you can see in this pic the Cubic zirconia isn't sitting flush with the cab and personally I like mine to sit as even as they can before fusing. This is because when the cab is being re-fused it actually lifts the cubic zirconias slightly so they will end up raised. To make it sit flush I just picked up my dremel again and while drilling I also did a slow 'circle' motion. This makes the dent a little bit wider and allows for the stones to sit flush.
Here are my little cabs with all their bling! As you can see around the edges of the holes it is a little scratchy. This will disappear and become smooth again once they are fused!
Hope that was simple enough for anyone who is trying to follow it!