Tuesday 17 November 2015

Events this Christmas - 2015



I've been busy getting things ready and looking forward to this year's Christmas events.
To get the season started I am having a mini Open Studio in my garden studio. This is a sort of preview of my new jewellery and decorations, as well giving regular customers first dibs!
Saturday 21st November - 9am - 12noon


The first proper event will be 'Quay Christmas Gift Weekender' which is at the lovely location of the Quay Arts Centre, Newport. quayarts.org 
Quay Christmas Gift Weekender
Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th November - 10am -4pm.

The next event is part of Isle of Wight Arts Open Studios. This year it is located at Tapnell Farm in the West Wight. It's not a place I've been to before, so I'm interested and excited to see what it is like. isleofwightarts.com
Christmas Open Studios.
Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th December - 10am - 4pm.

The last but by no means least event is 'Ventnorville' at the Ventnor Winter Gardens. I first had stall at this location last May and it had a very lovely atmosphere, which I'm sure will be enhanced further by all things Christmas. loveventnor.co.uk
Ventnorville 
Saturday 12th December - 10.30am - 4pm.


Monday 19 October 2015

Friday 25 September 2015

New Jewellery for the Quay Arts

Swirly Whirly Brown, Turquoise, Cream and Green 

While I have been working on some more spotty beads, my priority this week has been to get a new collection together to take to the Quay next week. quayarts.org. It takes a bit of time, consideration and balance on deciding what to include. After all these years I'm only just getting to know what their customers like. I need to balance this but still bring in something new to keep it fresh.
Anyway, here are a few that can be seen in the Quay shop from the end of next week.
Cubes

Cream with Spots

Bells to go with Blackberry Necklace

Mauve, White and Black Beads with Concentric Circles

Sunday 13 September 2015

New Spot Pattern.

I've been trying out a new spot pattern this week. I made fine stringer [thin stretched pieces of glass] to keep the spots small. I wanted to make black beads and I think this may just work.



Saturday 5 September 2015

Plain and Simple Cubes

Really Long Cube Bead Necklace

I wasn't sure how to include turquoise in my Autumn and Winter jewellery this year. Looking at the colours I was attracted to I decided it maybe good to go back to basics and make plain shapes. Some of the glass is variegated,  has a slight lustre finish or marble effect, so the beads are not completely plain.
Of course the big advantage with plain beads are that they are so versatile.
littlehousejewellery.co.uk

Short Cube Bead Necklace

Cube Bead Earrings

Turquoise Bead Stud Earrings

Small Glass and Silver Cube Bead Necklace

Cube and Cuboid Bead Necklace with Seed Beads

Sunday 23 August 2015

More Additions to the Autumn/Winter Collection

I've been working on grey beads mostly for the past couple of weeks. Here are the results so far. They're not all on my website yet, but I'm getting there!littlehousejewellery.co.uk
Grey Bell Flower Earrings

Grey Bell Flower Necklace

Twisty Black and Grey Bracelet

Grey Bubble Bead Necklace with Iridescent Bobbles

Black and Grey Earrings

Grey Marble Earrings 

Black and Shades of Grey Necklace

Grey Marbles Necklace

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Making a start on Autumn and Winter Jewellery


Cream with Moss Green Spiral and Metallic Dots Bracelet

I'm feeling happy now that I have made a little progress with some new designs and colours for the Autumn and Winter. I've also been de cluttering my website to make way for the new, which will be gradually added over the next few weeks. www.littlehousejewellery.co.uk
Here's a little taster-
Deep Mauve Bubble Bead Necklace

Small cylinder shaped bead on necklace

Deep Mauve Earrings

Coral Orange with Metallic Spots Necklace

Chunky Necklace with Spirals and Dots


Tuesday 21 July 2015

Summer Red

This Summer I've mostly kept colours soft, using white, green, turquoise and mauve. But no Summer should be without just a little red [my favourite colour!]. This year I have combined with 'fossil' coloured spots and beads.







Tuesday 14 July 2015

Open Studio Preparations and a Hysterectomy!

It's been a few weeks since I added to my blog. First I was due to have a hysterectomy on 25th June, which set me on a frantic race against time to get a lot of heavy jobs done in the garden. My surgery was then cancelled and re scheduled for 6th July. This was both good and bad. It gave me more time to get things up together for Open Studios isleofwightarts.com. On the other hand I was a little worried it would leave little time for recovery before the Open Studio weekend.

Well it is a week since I had my operation and I can honestly say it's a long time since I felt this good. The whole experience was nothing like I expected, it's a shame I  had wasted so much time worrying about it. I went into hospital and had my hysterectomy on Monday afternoon and came home later Tuesday afternoon, brilliant! The best bit is that I already feel better than I've felt for years. The hardest parts are not being able to drive and remembering not to lift or exert for at least six weeks, which are very small sacrifices.

Almost everything is ready for Open Studios which starts this Friday 17th and finishes on Monday 20th July. Jude Allman judeallman.com is coming to set up her ceramics on Thursday and Mark will be running around putting up bunting etc too [what would I do without him!]. He's already built a lovely new, non flooding path to the summer house.

So if you are in the area, please do stop by and see Jude and I.


Wednesday 17 June 2015

My Summer Garden

Toby likes to pose in all garden pictures. This one is the path to the Summer house

For the past few weeks I've been putting in a fair amount of effort to get my garden up together in readiness for Open Studios at the end of July. Usually I work around the garden at a slower pace. The problem with this is that as the weather gets drier, the ground get harder, making weeds more difficult to get out and newly planted shrubs difficult to establish. So although I'm still losing the battle with weeds, the overall impression I think looks quite good.
This shows some excavation work in readiness for  the raising of the path, to save me paddling in wet weather.

One of mum's lilies



I thought now would be a good time to take some photos, while everything is looking lush.
Pots waiting to find their Summer resting place.
A peony on the patio [and a purple sedum I rather like].

The next three pictures show the side path in Winter, Spring and now in Summer.
Winter pots

Spring pots [and another posing Toby!]

And the same pots in June