Thank you!

Ladies, thank you for your kind comments on yesterday's post, I really appreciate them! We are all feeling a bit better today although I'll be laying off the crafting for a few days as my right hand is pretty sore. At least my son is happy, lots of sweets & DVD's for him today, all is now right with his world!

Scary Experience

On the way home tonight, our car lost control downhill and we crashed into 2 cars. Thankfully we are all OK. The damage to the cars doesn't seem too bad & the insurance were pretty good on the phone. People saw us careening from their windows and came out to help with mobiles in hand ready to call the ambulance, I think they were shocked that we didn't need them. I'm not normally big into religion or spirituality but I truly do believe that someone was watching over us tonight, it's amazing that we weren't hurt!

The 3 B's - Beads, Boots and Ballet.

I have had an amazing day today, girly day out with friends! First was a trip to Crystals & Ice bead shop in Cardiff as I wanted to get some bigger beads as I am teaching 2 visually impaired ladies to bead next week. I decided to teach them a basic RAW bracelet using 6mm druks and 8mm fire-polished as the difference in size and texture should make it much easier for them, I managed to pick a few things for myself too, including gorgeous galvinised gold miyuki cubes.

Next was a spot of shopping, whilst in one department store I spotted a pair of Carvela boots that I had wanted in October but at full price they were out of my budget, but they had my size(which can be difficult to find as my feet are canal barges in disguise) for half price so I snapped them up quick!

Then there was the ballet, the first I have ever been to, the ticket's were a birthday gift from my friends. The ballet was Sleeping Beauty performed by the Russian State Ballet and it was wonderful! I especially loved the bluebirds! I shall certainly be going again. We finished up with a lovely meal and a few drinks, including a glass of champagne in a lovely hotel bar. I feel very lucky, thank you to those that shared the day with me, and the one who was too ill to come, you were missed. We'll just have to make sure we do the same again next year!

It's snowing!

I spoke too soon Sam, as I type the nasty white stuff is falling outside. Kiddo is thrilled, me, not so much. I am legendarily unco-ordinated when there is slippery snow & ice around and once dislocated my shoulder when I fell in school. I think I'll stay in & give in to kiddo's demands to do some arts and crafts. I'm also in the process of setting up a shop on folksy, so I've got a lot to do for that.

The calm after Christmas.

Phew, Christmas with a five year old is very exciting but very tiring too! Santa brought everything my son wanted and a few extra too, where to put it all now, though? Some highlights of the day were Kiddo exclaiming that it was the best Christmas ever when opening his stocking before he had even seen the rest of his pressies and him singing an alternative version of jingle bells that had the line Uncle Billy lost his willie and didn't know what to say, at the table in the middle of Christmas lunch with my all his grandparents in attendance. My mother-in-laws face was a real picture!

Now that things have calmed down, I have actually been beading hooray! It'll be nice to get some new pics up on the blog soon.

If you are curious about what I look like there is a picture of me with the lovely Sam on her blog
http://themusingsofsamboy.blogspot.com/2009/12/party-pictures.html, I couldn't work out how to copy it here, bless me! Sam is about the only person I know in real life as well as blogland and she takes great photo's, check out her photography blog too!

Hope you all had a fab & peaceful holidays!

Belated Show Review.

I realised that I didn't really say much about the Welsh Bead Fair that I visited on 4th October and since I haven't taken any photo's for a while I thought I could break my blog silence with a quick post about it.

The Welsh Bead Fair was held at the Village Hotel in Cardiff and is run by Stitch n Craft Beads which is one of my favourite online bead stores. The show was smaller this year as there was a larger Fair being held in England on the same day & a lot of traders had obviously decided to go to that one instead.

There were about 15 stalls which included 3 great seed bead stalls; Stitch n Craft, Spellbound Beads and Oaktree Crafts, I bought from each of them of course, my favourites being some matte denim blue 11's from Oaktree, cranberry lustre 11's from Stitch n Craft and some lovely kits from Spellbound which I plan to blog about as they are completed. The lampworker Ray Skene was there and I bought a few beads from him, he was very nice to talk to and gave me a lovely leaf pendant for free with my purchases! There were various other stalls there including one showcasing knotwork, Wellhead books with an amazing selection, Anita's Beads and Precious Sparkle Beads which had wonderful semi-precious strands but I stayed away from there as I wanted to focus on the seedy side of beads. Another highlight was the Beadworkers Guild stand which had some lovely Saraguro style beadwork. I love the Saraguro collars that I have seen, in particular the ones designed by Chris Prussing and I plan to make one one day, maybe when I am retired, as they look like a serious amount of work!

While it was smaller than many other bead fairs, I still had a lot of fun and bought too much! I love the fact that it is so close to my birthday as it gives me a good excuse to treat myself!

Catch up!

Wow, a month has flown past since I last blogged! I don't have much work to show, but I have been very busy as it was my 40th birthday and I had lots of celebrations and lovely things to do! I went to the Welsh Bead Fair & bought far too many seed beads, I also had some beads for my birthday including a fab set of lampwork beads by Lush Beads from my lovely friends (you know who you are & I know you read this!) and Rachel Nelson Smiths fabulous book Seed Bead Fusion. I will share some photo's of my new goodies later this week.