Saturday’s Lesson

I had so much fun teaching the lovely Emma from The Candy Tree on Saturday.
She had never worked with hot glass before and did a wonderful job! Here are some pictures of the beads she made (and a couple of buttons on top of that for fun). All of these were mastered in just four hours at the torch, she’s definitely a natural!

If you are around Edinburgh and interested in learning some lampwork, I offer 4 hour or 8 hour lessons. Feel free to e-mail me for more information.

Helen*

Little Doors

Beware, this is a very image-heavy post…

There’s a little fun project I have been working on for a few weeks now, a study of lovely colourful painted, rusting, graffitied and peeling doors around the world. It even inspired me to paint the studio door this week, which is looking good! Anyway, I found and old drawing of an orange door I did in Barcelona, and I had a wee search on Pinterest to find some more. I found some gorgeous images including these…

Source: flickr.com via Helen on Pinterest

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Source: going-barefoot.tumblr.com via Helen on Pinterest

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Source: fuckyeahcooldoors.tumblr.com via Helen on Pinterest

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They’re really pretty aren’t they? So they led to a sketch or two…

And after a bit of playing around, ten totally unique pairs of earrings were created! They are all made with hot glass on surgical steel backs, so they are totally hypoallergenic. The steel is attached in the flame so it is completely fused to the glass, and no glue has been used (I don’t trust glue). Its image heavy, and all of the pictures link to their listing in my online shop. At £15 each, they are a snip for a totally original piece of jewellery. I hope you like them!

I hope you like them, and have a lovely weekend!

Helen*

Well, Hello/ Made in Scotland

New(ish) Beadlets

What a little neglected blog I have! The festival has been and gone, and I have to admit heaving a sigh of relief!
The stall was crazy, really wonderful, and lovely to meet so many customers from all over the world, but my goodness, it was exhausting, and after 10 hours a day chit-chatting and selling away all I wanted to do was crash. But I’m back, and working on new projects, which is always when I feel most inspired to blog.

The next up and coming exhibition is one I am really excited about! It goes back to the very very beginning of my jewellery designing journey in fact. A long time ago (well, four and a bit years ago) I was lucky enough to land a job in the Little Bead Shop in Bruntsfield with the lovely Gil and Emma Baird, and learned so much of what I know now from working there! Emma was the one who introduced me to lampwork, and look where that took me! Anyway, I digress. The Little Bead Shop has been moving with the times and has now gone beyond beads and grown into ACS Jewellery Studio with five fully equipped jewellery benches through the back, and a beautiful gallery space at the front. I’m going to be in the next exhibition they are holding, ‘Made in Scotland’, which features some very talented jewellery designers including some new Duncan of Jordanstone graduates, a handful of ACJ’ers, and the lovely Emma! I’m so excited to be back there!

Made in Scotland

I’ll have to do a wee inspiration/sneak preview post of my work, but in the meantime, hold the date September 14th. Its going to be a fabulous opening night, and it would be wonderful to see you there!

Studio Shots…

Festival making is well and truly underway…

Spray Paint…