SPECIAL LAUNCH OFFER

All of my little ladies!
Originally uploaded by aurorabeadz

To celebrate the relaunch of my Belita beads I have put together a little offer for you all.

Buy any 2 Belita beads and get 15% off OR buy any 3 Belita beads and the bracelet and get 20% off.

They are available through my Etsy shop here. You will need to go through Paypal and pay the full price as usual but I will then refund you the difference.

I am quite excited to be able to offer these gorgeous little charms. They make a beautiful gift and can easily become a little heirloom to be handed down. They can be changed to reflect the outfit you are wearing and are simply fab to wear! I wear mine loads!!!

I would love to hear what you think of these so please feel free to pop a comment in you never know one of you may just get a little surprise!!!

TTFN xx

Eeek I am sooooo sorry!

I have been really poor at blogging lately and simply this is due to the fact that I have not got a huge amount to share with you. What with my new job and all that I simply have not got any beads made and there is only so much you guys wanna hear about my life eh ;o)

Life is good still I am very happy and settled. I would like more bead time but that will fall into place and I am not gonna get stressed about it cos that ruins my mojo when I do get into the shed! My 2 girls are fine. Imogen is 13 in June and Savannah is 5 in June...doesn't time fly! Both ages bring with them a different set of challenges but we seem to be doing good right now they are both doing well at school and not getting into any difficulties that I am aware of.

Tony is fine the talk of redundancies that was being banded around 3 or 4 weeks ago seems to have gone quiet so we are keeping our fingers crossed that all has settled and now the weather is improving work will start to come back in. All in all things are plodding along!

I am loving my new job very much. I swore I would not go back to shifts and weekend working but actually it is not to bad at all! I seem to get a little more time to myself like if I am on a late shift then I have the morning to myself. Not really enough time to get into the shed but enough to do a bit of housework and keep on top of things, I get into my shed in the evenings still for a few hours a week. Working with patients again is so brilliant I have a real sense of achievement after each shift. The people I work with are fab and have made me feel really welcome.

I am hoping for some shed time tomorrow evening so hopefully more bead pictures will be on their way soon. I have made some rose murrini which I am playing with still so I hope to have some bead sets with roses on them to show you soon. I am waiting for my silver core stuff to arrive and then I will be making my Belita beads again to see as per my last blog so I am still beavering away just not as high profile as usual!!

I hope you are all well stay with me guys things will pick up again soon and I will have eye candy for you to drool over LOL

TTFN xx

Green fingers

No beads in this post but some general musing. I want an allotment. Now for those of you who know me you are probably laughing very hard right now!!! Sam....a gardener ha ha ha !!!!!! BUT....I have a fairly big garden and it would not be a major biggie to lose some of it to a little plot where I can grow some bits and pieces that I can use in my kitchen! It would be fab for the girls and would help a little with the shopping bill and enough with the "Good Life" jokes!!!

I believe the waiting list for allotments is quite big cos they are very trendy right now and TBH I am not sure I have the time to give an allotment the care it would need but a little plot in my garden is feasible! It was sunny earlier so I have been out and tidied up a bit and successfully pulled down my rotten fence which has now started me thinking that the time is ripe for some serious thought about a veggie plot! The weather is warming up the frost risk is pretty much passed and it will be nice for me to have something to do with the girls!!! They could weed and help keep it clean.

The question now is what to grow....suggestions please very welcome and if anyone knows of a blog or a website that they think may be helpful I would be grateful I need all the help I can get! Off to take some pictures of the garden so if it happens I have some before and after to show you all.

Other news: Happy Mother's Day to all the mum's out there. I hope you have all had a lovely day and been spoiled by your kids. I got a bacon sarnie and tea in bed and a plant and a great big hug which was lovely. Imogen is home tonight so I hope to get another hug later from her.

My new job as junior sister at my local hospital is going very well I am really enjoying it and hope that I am gonna settle in nicely. They are a great bunch and I am proud to be part of the team there.

I am getting into a routine slowly which means that the bead making is slowly coming back on line! I miss getting up to the shedio as often as I did but I am finding that the ideas are flowing a bit better when I do so a happy medium has been struck. I have also made some Belita Beads (my silver core beads for Troll, Pandora and similar bracelet systems) which I hope to core this week so keep an eye out for them.

I have some bits a pieces that have been languishing for a while so I feel a sale may be in the offing soon, watch this space.

Right best be off dinner to cook an all that

TTFN xx

Way back when...

Sometime last summer I got into making silver core beads and I approached "Swag" jewellers to see if they would like to sell them. they have had 3 of my beads since October but sadly today they returned them and have said that they are not following up the possibility of selling my beads at this moment. This is a bit sad in that I was really hoping to sell them but possibly a blessing as well as I am not sure I could move into mass production of silver core beads with my "proper" job committments. Still worth a go and does not mean I can't do it in the future. I am still planning to re launch my Belita Bead collection and have a couple of ideas in mind so watch this space!!!

TTFN x

Belita Beads

I have my own collection of beads called Belita Beads that fit onto bracelet systems such as Troll and for some dumb reason I completely forgot to include these in my January sale. This has now been recitified and they are all 20% off (Aurorabeadz). At this moment I do not sell bracelets that fit my beads but I have some friends who make their own bracelets to use with these beads so please feel free to ask me and I will point you in their direction.
Anyway that is all will post more later, have a good day
TTFNx

Silence is golden..

...for my family but not for me!!! I love to talk and enforced silence is like a form of Chinese torture :-) The voice is well and truly gone so I really have to rest it so ensure it comes back soon! I am pretty convinced it is purely a viral laryngitis but I have never lost my voice completely before. On top of that I have the hugest cold sore on my bottom lip so well and truly run down I think!

Enough medical information what other news!

My party went well last night. I made a goodly sum of money which will get loughed back into stock pretty fast! My friend Kirsty came along as well and sold a few bits that she made hopefully she found that a real confidence boost her stuff is lovely. It was fab when she bought it round for me to look at the other day but the improvement since then is fab. It is so hard to say that without sounding patronising but encouragement is so important and the best compliment is someone buying your stuff. Thats why I enouraged her to do it boost confidence an all that!

My koil kutter is on order and I am seriously researching aspect ratio etc for my chain maille so watch this space more chain maille coming I think. If I can get jens pind cracked then I want to use it as the bracelet for my Belita Beads which I want to re launch after Christmas cos they have gone quiet to be able to provide the bracelet system has got to figure highly in this so that is my aim for the new year. Another aim is to crack encasing for my beads I am loving my lampworking at the moment there is no real pressure attached to it and I am having fun. Gonna load my Folksy shop and my website over the next few days so have a look.

Final news I have got a "Credit Crunch" range watch this space and I will let you know, very simple affordable beautiful jewellery coming soon!

The big bead show.

You are reading the blog of a very excited and worried lady this evening!!! I have just laid out the beads and jewellery that I am selling for "The Big Bead Show" and you can see it above. I have never done this before so I have no idea if there is enough stock here. It looks to little to me but I have no time now for making anything else! D Day is looming and time will tell, this is a learning curve as well. I should go off enjoy it and learn from it.
TTFNx

Today is my day off...

....yipee!!! I have gone part time in my "Day Job". For those of you who don't know my other job is university lecturer. I have been doing this for 6 years full time and before that I was split 50:50 with the hospital I worked in. My other trade is nurse! So beading is quite a long way from being a nurse but you would be amazed at the amount of nurses I know who are arty! Intriguing!

So anyway today is my day off and what have I planned. Well...nothing actually. I am waiting for the postman (again!) cos he should have some goodies for me from Martin Tuffnell (one of the people I buy my glass and lots of other stuff from). If it arrives I will have a fab evening in the studio (shed!) tonight. I have managed to keep production up despite struggling for ideas a bit. I have made 5 Belita beads and all 5 survivied the core process which is brill cos just before the summer my success rate was dropping and I was getting a bit despondant about them!

I went to Greece back in May for a friends wedding and whilst I was out there is came across loads of tourist stuff with the "Evil Eye" design which is basically layered dots. Anyway I have had this image in my mind for ages but wasn't sure if I could use it for a design I liked and then I made a bead using the design very basically and I have a lovely set of beads! I have not taken pictures yet so I can't show you but they will be photographed soon and put up on the site.

Cos my shop has very little stock and I have the Big Bead Show in November I have to get my butt in gear and get making stock so this is a poor time for my mojo to go off! But at least I can do dots with my eyes closed (not literally!!! thats asking for trouble, flames an all that :-) ).
Gonna play with some etching as well I think I quite like that effect so maybe things are not quite as dire as I thought.

Anyway off now so will catch ya later, thanks for reading my blog!
TTFNx

Later...I have added a photo of a few of the beads I have made this week for your delectation. they are not on the website yet cos I need hubby to take decent pictures! But a few to get your interest piqued.

Minature Railway

Hiya, sorry I have been a bit quiet this week. My OH has had a week off and we have all tried to spend a bit of family time together. Tuesday was a bike ride to Reculver (my backside is still a little tender!!!) and today we went on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Minature railway. Follow the link for further information! http://www.rhdr.org.uk/rhdr/home_flash.html

My OH has never been on this despite living fairly close all his life. My grandparents and parents all hail from that neck of the woods so it was nice to revisit old "stamping" grounds!

I have managed to get some bead time in sneaky preview above. The picture is not that fab but I hope you get the gist! My OH has also been busy making a little bead rack for my Belita beads (silver core beads). This is a minature version of one he made for my bigger beads. I am exhibiting at a bead show in November so this will come in very useful for my beads!

Anyway, gotta go been a busy day will catch up soon.

TTFNx