Colouring In.

I love a challenge, and colour matching jewellery is just my favourite thing.
A customer is interested in this necklace



But she would like matching earrings to go with it. Now I can't use lampwork, as the entire set of boro beads, made by the lovely Fiona Sands, went into the necklace.
So I colour matched the glass as closely as possible using a mix of gemstones and pearls, and created cluster style earrings, which not only blend in with the necklace, but would look great as wear-alone, summer jewellery.




That was my challenge for the weekend. I hope I've succeeded!
Nia xx

Settle Down With A Good Book

My lovely friend Mary is participating in World Book Night, and as a result, she has a stack of books to distribute amongst us book-a-holics. I'm lucky enough to be one of the recipients, so next week I will take posession of a copy of David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas", which has been on my Wants list of books for a while now.
To quote from the website:
"World Book Night represents the most ambitious and far-reaching celebration of adult books and reading ever attempted in the UK and Ireland.
On Saturday, 5 March 2011, two days after World Book Day, with the full support of the Publishers Association, the Booksellers Association, the Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, World Book Day, the BBC and RTE, one million books will be given away by an army of passionate readers to members of the public across the UK and Ireland.
The book give-away will comprise 40,000 copies of each of the 25 carefully selected titles, to be given away by 20,000 ‘givers’, who will each distribute 48 copies of their chosen title to whomever they choose on World Book Night. The remaining books will be distributed by World Book Night itself in places that might otherwise be difficult to reach, such as prisons and hospitals.
The twenty-five titles were selected by a wide-ranging editorial committee, chaired by James Naughtie."
Now, a lot of people, like myself, who are life-long avid readers, have been very much looking forward to this celebration of books and reading in general, which is wonderful, but I find myself increasingly concerned that "settling down with a good book" is a diminishing pastime, and even more sadly, has never figured in so many people's lives. Whenever I go to someone's house for the first time, I find myself scanning rooms for books. It isn't deliberate, really! I seem to do it instinctively, and when books are conspicuous by their absence, I invariably feel deeply sad. My father, who himself was an avid reader, used to tell me that his best friends were books, and that during the horrific years of the Second World War, he could forget what was going on around him, and what he had to participate in night after night, day after day, by losing himself in books.
And a good book really doesn't need to be "worthy", or "literary". I'm just as happy whiling away the hours with a blockbuster crime thriller from Stieg Larsson or Val McDermid as I am re-reading my beloved Thomas Hardy and Charlotte Bronte, with all stages of fiction in between.
While I've been typing this, I've been watching Book Night on BBC2, and I'm now desperate to get my hands on some of the titles mentioned tonight. Nothing, not even my favourite perfume or the aroma of bread just out of my oven, smells as good as a new book. I'm sure there are names for people like me!
Enjoy your weekend,
Nia xx

Coming Soon ..... To A Blog Near You!

The blog WILL resume soon. I promise!




See you soon!
Nia xx

Where To Start???

It's now been so long since my last blog entry that even I'm beginning to lose track!

Anyway, after a lovely holiday in France - the same place as last year, in the glorious Poitou Charente region, not far from Cognac, within days I was back to work, with a frantic rush to get ready for the first appearance - at the Malvern Autumn Show - of The Beads And The Birds, a coming together of lampwork glass artists and jewellery makers, in order to promote the cause of British artisan glass and jewellery.
The Birds consisted of myself, George Harper East, Julie Fountain and Vicky Prior, and while we didn't make a fortune in terms of sales, we had a lovely weekend, and the feedback from those people who called by our stand was incredibly positive - oh and a lot of customers went home with some lovely jewellery!
Apart from customers, some glass and jewellery friends called by to lend support, mainly Cath Throup and Lesley Gleeson, and by sheer good fortune, we found ourselves situated slap bang opposite the food hall. It would have been so rude not to sample the wonderful fare on offer, so Gloucester Old Spot pork pies, farm ciders, and Oggies really went down a treat!


(From left, Vicky, Julie, George, and me)

And since Malvern, I've barely had time to draw breath. It's been one endless round of Merched Y Wawr events - Drefach Felindre, Llandeilo and Clydach - along with a stream of customer orders, whilst trying desperately to build up my stock of jewellery ready for the run-up to Christmas.

Pearls are still very much in demand, but I'm also trying hard to concentrate on gemstones again, after an absence of quite a few months.






And now I'm off on my travels again, this time to Cheltenham, to the Ladies Association of British Barber Shop Singers Annual Convention, a three day event being held this year at Cheltenham Racecourse. I was approached by them earlier in the year to see if I would be interested in having a sales stand at the event, so I thought I'd try it out to see if it would be a good addition to my sales calendar.
I'll be back in a few days' time, so I'll tell you how it went!

Enjoy your weekend,

Nia xx

End Of Old Blog...

This is just a very brief entry, to say goodbye to my old blog. I had fully intended to start 2009 with a renewed committment to maintaining the blog, but just as I was about to tackle it again, my lovely Mum died, very unexpectedly and suddenly, and since then, I've felt absolutely no entheusiasm whatsover about the blog, my Flickr album, or even my website.
But some weeks down the line, life is starting to fall back into place again, so maybe it's time to get my act together and try to carry on where I left off, before Christmas.
So as a transitionary entry, I'll leave you with a few, very personal pictures, before I revamp my blog, ready for a fresh start.








See you in my new blog very soon!
Nia xx