in the afternoon...

...nice light & birthday presents - a beautiful new watch from my family & a new pendant from...me - yup, gave myself a present this year :)

this, that & the next thing...

Just for fun, a few random facts about me:

1. I have lots of siblings - an older brother & sister, three younger brothers & two younger sisters
2. I love being up in the early morning - but not getting out of bed early
3. I love books & reading
4. When I was little, apparently I used to demand not one, but several bedtime stories every night (sorry Mum!)
5. I love learning new skills
6. I don't have sugar in either tea or coffee
7. There are four girls & four boys in my family
8. When my parents were naming me, Dad was determined that my name would end in 'ie'
9. I always do my best to spell people's names properly, because other people usually spell mine wrong.
10. I have European heritage - Polish, Latvian, Czech, German
11. I love baked goods, especially with lemon. Or chocolate. Or coffee. Or almond. Or fruit...
12. I love coffee, but it has to be real coffee, not instant
13. I love tea too, and drink way more of it than I do coffee
14. I'm currently reading Garment of Shadows, by Laurie R. King
15. I've just had my hair dyed a deep mahogany brown (not sure how well you can tell in the photo)
16. I've spent far to long trying to think of something interesting to write, so I'm going to stop now...

wanderlust { the teleidoscope }

oh, the places we will go - week #40 of The Teleidoscope - Wanderlust/Travel

on Flickr

window { the teleidoscope }

letting the light in - week #42 of The Teleidoscope - Window.

on Flickr

build { the teleidoscope }

building my knowledge....& a larger image - week #16 of The Teleidoscope - Build.

My first ever photo expansion... above is not the exact image I used, but shows the size/scale I started with. Below is an in progress shot - because the background is so bright, it's hard to see all the edges, but I used 12 images, plus the central one.

I followed this tutorial.

on Flickr

past { the teleidoscope }

once upon a time - week #15 of The Teleidoscope - Past.

& just because I rather like it...

on Flickr

presence { the teleidoscope }

only almost here - week #14 of The Teleidoscope - Presence.

on Flickr

newspaper { the teleidoscope }

the latest news - week #13 of The Teleidoscope - Newspaper.

before & after

on Flickr

height { the teleidoscope }

Reaching - week #12 of The Teleidoscope - Height.

& one extra, with wild hair :)

on Flickr

hair today, gone tomorrow...

...ah, sorry for the lame title, it's all I could think of  0_o


So, anyway, last week I got my hair cut:

I've had it this short before, but not for ages - I think the last time was 2007. Every now & then I just get sick of my long hair & get it cut.

Before:

After:

I'm rather pleased with the result & getting used to washing short hair again - it's always so weird the first time :)

hot glass...

Since I've posted about working with pmc, I thought I'd ramble a bit about making beads. The photos in this post are taken by my sister Amy, it being, as you might imagine, a little difficult to take my own during the process :).

To make beads you need: a torch, gas, glass rods, mandrels, vermiculite....this isn't intended to be a tutorial or anything, if I get you really interested, I suggest you find a class to attend :)

So....adding glass to the mandrel:


...heating the bead, to make it rounder:

...& rounder:


...adding some decoration (dots in this case, using stringer, which is a thin 'string' of glass):


...melting the dots in:


...& some more:


...checking to see if it's ready to be put into the vermiculite to cool down slowly (& looking rather serious in my stylish glasses) :


once the bead has cooled, I remove it from the mandrel, clean it & the anneal it in my kiln....& presto, beads:

New Skirt :)

My new skirt arrived from the gorgeous Fran (her etsy: lyptis ) today. It's totally gorgeous, comfy & fits well :) I love the soft, grey material & the length (just to my knees) is perfect. I can see that this skirt will get lots of wear.

Naturally, I took some self-portraits this afternoon in the nice light, including this weeks 52weeks photo. I took lots, so I thought I'd upload a few here :)

Purple-ness, purpleful, purplish :)

newly listed on my etsy, purple beads on deep purple cord. Experimenting with something a bit different (for me, anyway).