A New Venture

I must admit to having a bit of a thing for seed beads.

I kind of like them ... a lot.

And I buy them, lots of them, in all different colours and shapes and sizes and finishes. On the face of it there isn't any good reason for me to have so many, I make precious little in the way of jewellery, nothing at all really beyond the very rare custom order, maybe a wrap bracelet or two and I keep my mum in earrings because as much as she loves them she's forever losing them.

And yet I've drawers full of tiny little glass beads. It was time to use them.

They're like the little work horses of jewellery, almost always there, playing supporting roles to bigger more impressive beads, tying everything together and they're mostly overlooked.


Maybe that's why I like them so much, hard at work and getting very little credit. They're a bit like the wadding in the quilt, all the glory goes to the gorgeous fabric, but it just wouldn't be a quilt without the wadding.

They're fairly time consuming little things to make, usually with anywhere between 200 and 400 individual beads to sew, but I enjoy making them.

They're a bit too different from what I usually make to sit comfortably in my shop, so I've opened another. So far I've been wrapped up in brooches but have plans for pendants and maybe some earrings too.


You can find them all now at 100s and 1000s on Folksy, well all apart from the leaf which is eagerly awaiting the arrival of a little ladybird.

How awesome is it

that when I get stuck in work with my two arms the one length, twiddling one's thumbs so to speak my first thought is to give you lovely darlings the chance to win a little bit of springtime bling?

Awesome, I know!

So would you like to win some springy broochy goodness?

You would, well of course why wouldn't you and as if you even needed another reason to enter, I've even gone and made it super easy for you too:)

And if you win, you even get to choose which brooch you'll be sporting this Spring.

Pink

Yellow

or even Green

All you need to do is pop over to my shop, have a nosey around, then come back here and have a guess in the comments which item has had the most views.

You can even have a second entry for tweeting about the giveaway, but you'll have to remember to come back here and leave a second comment, otherwise it's hard for my poor brain to keep track.

You can even copy the following to make it all the easier to enter twice

I just entered @seethewoods fab Spring Brooch Giveaway http://tinyurl.com/yj9tubx Join me!

If someone gets the right answer, then clearly they'll win, failing that I'll just pick a name out of a hat on Wednesday, how's that sound?

***Only comments on this post will be taken as entries***

UPDATE - We have a winner:) Betty's Place guessed correctly and it was in fact my Autumn Brooch which has the most views and favourites too, only just pipping my pincushion rings to the post. Betty if you'd like to choose a colour, your new brooch will be off in the post to you asap:)

Chin up my lovelies, there will be more giveaways to come!

Coming around

I almost hate to admit it but I'm really starting to get excited about our little camping trip. Maybe not the seaweed baths, but the camping is starting to sound good.

It'll come as no surprise that I love the sea and being anywhere near it, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still the big jessie who will run like the clappers out of the ocean if a bit of seaweed wraps itself around my ankle. I'm not sure why, it could be a genuine fear of seaweed because my brother once slapped me around the side of the head with a handful of the stuff. It could be a fear of something completely different, perhaps because of the time my friend (?) dropped a huge dead jellyfish on my chest while I lay sunbathing. Who knows! Come to think of it, it's amazing I like the beach at all.

My biggest concern about camping was the space. Chloe does like to have her own space and I had visions of arriving down there, pitching the tent, managing to get through one cramped night and then her insisting on going home and refusing to enjoy the rest of the holiday if we insisted on staying, but I don't think that's going to be a problem.

I mentioned we have a brand new two man tent, still in the packaging (and I'm glad to hear we're not the only ones btw), but Robert decided to crack it open yesterday and pitch it in the living room. It's big! Really big, the three of us had no problems at all fitting inside it and it's pretty comfy in there.

My mum has said we can take their four man tent with us, so any worries about having enough space are gone. Now all we need is a Chloe sized sleeping bag.

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In other news I've been busying myself making new stock for my very depleted Folksy shop. I promise to try not to plunder the shop stock for local orders, as I've been guilty of treating my shop as more of a catalogue for local customers lately, but I'm going to make more of an effort to keep the two separate.

I've started with some lovely new brooches (if I do say so myself) and you can find them in the usual place.