The beginning!!!

Here we are, at the beginning.

The beginning of what? - I hear you ask.

The beginning of my adventures in the land of bead making. This blog will chart my progress through my experiments in bead making. Glass, ceramics, silver and polymer clays are my materials of choice.

I hope you will enjoy following this blog through all the ups and down of my progress, and get to enjoy the beads first hand. I will record the failures and celebrate the successful. As things progress I will offer the beads for sale via my online shop (when I have set it up) and there will be regular competitions and offers as well. So come by regularly and get your friends and colleagues to follow as well.

I have already made a start. I am practising my lampworking 2 or 3 times a week and making decent progress and I will soon be offering my glass beads via my online shop. So keep an eye out for news of that.

Porcelain beads. I am working on several ideas with these and will have some ready in the very near future - hopefully by the middle of next week.

The more technically difficult Faience or Egyptian Paste is still very much in the experimental stages. The first trials had mixed results and a second batch is on it's way to the kiln. They should be ready by the end of this week. Fingers crossed.

Polymer clay. Have been working with Cernit polymer clay that I bought from Emma Ralph at EJRBeads. Much softer than Fimo in the making stage but is making some very nice beads indeed. I have made a bracelet which has been entered into the Making Jewellery Forum - February competition. This was made of Cernit polymer clays, sterling silver wire and finished off with a Tibetan Silver toggle clasp. I have loaded a picture of said bracelet here and would welcome all your comments.

Cheers for now

Terri