Christmas Murrini Gallery...........

Good morning, a little post to show your some of the darling Christmas themed murrini that I have up for sale on www.fritnchips.etsy.com right now. I'm finding it hard to wrap my head around the idea that it will be December already in just a few days. This year has flown by like no other!

First up, I made this festive necklace using holly and berry murrini over pure silver foil with a heavy encasement of clear to magnify the detail.

Here is what the a single chip look like before it has been used in a bead -  you get 15 (plus a couple of spares) in every festive baggie of these lovely chips. I also have cute holly without berries too made with lush deep green glass.

This detailed Appletini Christmas bead set features a few of my gift wrapped present murrini - each design can be bought individually in sets of 18 (plus a couple of spares) or as part of a mixed pack.

 I also have a limited number of holiday murrini collections too, just  30+ detailed chips with a minimum of 4 pcs in each of my festive designs. 

The  last murrini I would like to show today are these cute button designs. Great for little seasonal snow folk  but fab to have in all year round to add a touch of whimsy and kitsch to your bead designs and critter folk.

You can get a fab selection pack of 25 pcs or a single colour pack of 25 pcs for just a fiver.



Thanks, Jolene x

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Free Form Sweetheart Murrini Tutorial

I know that many of us do not even have our trees up yet but for those of you looking forwards to your Valentines day making I thought I'd put together a quick and dirty photo montage tutorial on how I make my Free Form Sweetheart Murrini.

Enjoy, Jolene x

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jewellery and charm beads.

Latest batch of Amoebas

This is my latest haul of cheeky Amoeba beads, they are now all bubble wrapped up and packed for posting in the morning. I have made them to cheer up some very brave children on the Beads of Courage program in the UK.

The Beads of Courage program is a the most fantastic Arts in Medicine program, it is fully funded in the UK by a small family run charity called Be Child Cancer Aware. I do so love making these super simple funky fun and beads to donate and wrote a little tutorial for them on my blog a short while back. You can see it here.

If you make lampwork beads and have some that you would like to gift to Beads of Courage please download the donation form here. The details of where to send your beads is all there on the form.

Jolene x

Mini Mo' November 2012 - Button Brights and Button Blues

Both of my Mini Mo's for November are inspired by buttons, I remember spending hours as a kid sorting and sifting through my Nan's button tins - I thought button murrini would be fun all year round but especially cute for Christmas critters!

The first colourway, Button Brights is made with Effetre Crimson 432, Effetre Dark Yellow 412 and Effetre Light Lemon Yellow 404 with Sherbet Dib-Dab shards. The murrini are very cute, a yellow four hole button and orange ones with 2 holes!

This first set is made with Sherbet Dib-Dab shards, a limited edition hand mixed colour blend of bright oranges and yellows. I have doodled all over this set with fine black stringer work pictures of butterflies and flowers.

My next set uses Button Brights twistie to decorate the core, encased with a thick layer of Effetre 006 clear glass. I have finished his set with many layers of tiny dot decoration and complimenting spacers.

My third make using Button Brights glasswork is this cute mini snowman set. It uses Button Murrini for his eyes and nose. I have added a little matched pair of sparkly textured snowballs to finish the set.

Button Blues is made with Effetre CiM Glacier, CiM Celadon and Effetre Medium Lapis 424 with silvered Celadon Shards. The murrini in this set are a mix of Glacier two hole buttons and dark blue 4 hole ones too.

This set features Silvered Celadon shards which is a new staple colour that I have just added to my lampwork supplies shop. These shards are over CiM Appletini and CiM Sherwood and have been spot heated and twisted at the edges with lime stringer.

This set uses Button Blues twistie over a core of 006 which I have encased with a thick layer of Effetre 006 clear to magnify the detail. I have embellished this set with layers of tiny dot decoration and cobalt blue encased spacers.

This next mini set is a cutie pie snowman focal with two tiny button eyes and a big blue button nose. I have added a pair of sparkly textured snowballs to finish the set.

Jolene x

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Giveaway in December

Today I'm launching my Christmas giveaway competition, this one is for the holly encrusted lentil bead and mixed spacers pictured here.

For your chance to win them all you need to do is pop by and click like on my Facebook Page and leave me a lovely comment to let me know you have here on my blog under this post or on the pic pinned to the top of my Facebook page.

Of course it would be great of you subscribed to follow my blog by email too or shared this post on twitter or facebook but none of that is compulsory to be in the chance to win.

I will draw a name at random to win this bead and spacers set on the morning of the 1st of December form all the comments on here and on my blog and I will announce the winners name here on my blog that day. If the winner is also a lampwork bead maker then I will throw in a mixed pack of Christmas themed picture murrini too or if the winner is not a jewellery designer, let me know and I will make this bead up into a festive necklace for you.

Please make sure you leave me your CP, LE, FH or HAF forum or @twitter id. If I have no means of contacting you should you win I cannot accept your comment as a valid entry,

Good luck, Jolene x

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My November winner is....

Thank you to everyone who left me a comment on my Giveaway in November throughout October, the competition to win a set of my lush Caramel Creme beads is now closed and I am pleased to announce that http://www.random.org says the winner is lucky commenter no 4.....

DeborahD

Congrats, I will send you a message very shortly :-D

I shall head off now and put my thinking cap on as to what I would like to offer up as a giveaway for December - probably something jolly festive! So please do watch this space for more news on that......

Lastly a little note to say that these style beads are available to as a made to order option in my Etsy bead shop, I rarely offer made to order beads but these make me smile a lot and are a pure delight to create.

Jolene x

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A fab feature!

Good evening, I've had a lovely feature today, some of my work has been showcased in the latest Creation is Messy (CiM) newsletter. There are some pretty pictures of my beads and murrini and links to my blog posts about them and also some links to where my glassy things can be found online.

If you would like to be on the mailing list for news of new CiM glass colour releases, glass testers information and more then check out the Creation is Messy Artists registration page.



Also just a little note to let you know that today is the last day to enter my Caramel Creme lampwork bead Giveaway. I'll do the draw and give the winner a shout out on my blog tomorrow.

I hope you have all been having a lovely all Halloween,
Jolene x

Lampworking for Charity

I have a few special listings in my bracelet bead shop for Custom Name Beads. Writing with glass is a skill I have recently taught myself as I wanted to make and donate name beads to Beads of Courage - Be Child Cancer Aware and so it feels right to me that whenever I make a name bead for sale that the BoC project gets a little benefit from that too. I really appreciate the chance to help out a little bit just by doing the thing that I love to do anyway.

I am not the only bead maker I know that likes to lampwork for charity so the rest of today's post is going to be about some of those special beads and the brilliant people that make them and the charities that are dear to their hearts.



First up are these delightful minty lentils by Heather Kelly who has a special corner in her Etsy shop for OCD-UK (Reg. charity #1103210). Heather writes OCD-UK is the charity dedicated to improving the mental health and well-being of almost one million children and adults in the UK whose lives are affected by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. OCD can be so debilitating that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has ranked OCD in the top ten most disabling illnesses of any kind, in terms of lost earnings and diminished quality of life.





The next fab lampwork bead I would like to show you is this adorable pink dino made by Lauren May Mazursky. Lauren has a Dinosaurs for Diabetes section in her Etsy store and says - he's small but mighty, like a Type 1 kiddo I know. Proceeds from the sales of the mini dino beads will go to the JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) for a cure.











My last shout out for today is for Kat Newman who has designed kindness bracelets to fund raise for Team Jaxon.
You can also find out more about team Jaxon - FROG here on Facebook.

These are just a very few fabulous examples of people turning their creativity and talent into a source of support for causes close to our hearts and trying to make a small difference in our own way.





If you craft to fund raise for a charitable cause close to your heart please feel free to tell me all about it and post a link in the comments section below.

Have a great day, Jolene x

Blogtoberfest12 and HAF blog

I've been thinking for a long while that I'd like to become a regular contributor over on the Handmade Artists' Forum Blog but was hesitant to put my name in the hat, firstly being uncertain on what kind of regular feature I wanted to share and secondly wondering weather I would be able to find the time to make regular contributions. It would not be a nice feeling to commit to a project then fail to deliver. To prove to myself that I could achieve that goal I set myself a personal daily blogging challenge through October first.

Just a couple of days in to my challenge Kerry, one of my smart and talented Craft Pimp Forum buddies, told me that she was going to be blogging daily in October too for Blogtoberfest12 which is now in it's 4th year. I hadn't heard of Blogtoberfest before and so I signed up to join the fun too. It buoyed me up no end knowing that I was going to be part of 300+ strong group of people aiming to achieve exactly the same goal. Anyhow, I've thoroughly enjoyed this month of daily blogging.....and am a little sad that Blogtoberfest12 is nearly over. Now that I know that there is more than enough time in the day for a teeny bit-o-blogging I've officially joined the HAF blog team and have a proper intro post and everything :-D

Jolene x

Saturday night is fright night

Here is a little photo montage of what my Ruby (who has just turned 4) and I got up to yesterday evening....it's our very first ever try at making one of these :-D Roo did all the designing and quite a lot of the scooping and I did the grown up helper jobs...



And lastly I logged on this morning to see this spooky treasury by one of my fellow CPteam members and it is so dark and cool that I couldn't resist adding it to my Hallween post.

'On the dark side' by KilnFiredArt

some items for your dark side , mainly from the Craft Pimp team

Black, Grey and Whi... WINIBI $15.00	Vintage Button Wedd... iheartbuttonsu... $200.00	Edwardian Black Cor... LaBelleFairy $399.00	Handmade lampwork f... beadupastorm $22.50
Black shawl- Luxury... sweetknitting $78.00	Deep Red and Black ... KitzbitzArtBea... $14.00	Happy Halloween Fus... dawnturnerdesi... $36.00	Midnight Treasures.... flamingbeadies $25.00
beaded velvet eveni... HTandH $35.00	Topper - ring/penda... flamingbeadies $10.00	Midnight. Loopy bla... Clasibags $10.00	A Pair of Fused Gla... venusartglass $25.00
Sorcha CreepCrew $8.00	Black Surfer Neckla... DysfunctionDes... $9.00	Black feather epaul... AmorousCatsAtt... $19.00	Black Starburst Rou... ARJewellery $25.00

Happy Halloween folks
Jolene x

Colour Study - Violet Poppies II

I originally thought to create these colour study posts just during October for my Blogtoberfest challenge and I am really enjoying them for the creative process and challenge. I'm planning now to keep the colour study series as a regular feature on my blog.


This follow up post one is for my Violet Poppies colour study.

From left to right the glass I have selected is:

1. CiM Sherwood
2. Effetre Striped Pink 253
3. CiM Mulberry
4. CiM Canary
5. Reichenbach Mystic Grey

I love the set above, though is is more of a collection of nice beads than a cohesive single colour set. There are many reasons for this, all of which a down to my glass selection which in this case I think, was nearly all wrong. I did however learn quite a lot about some of the least used glasses in my stash. There  are two glasses in the quintet above that devitrify very very easily - despite this they both produce stunning colour.

The first I that would like to talk about is Reichenbach Mystic Grey which does not seem to stand up well to several heating and cooling cycles. It was impossible to use this glass as a base for further decoration as the surface between the dots devitrified, looking really quite ugly, as soon as it was reheated. As spacers it is delicious, very classy looking with natural striations and a pearl finish. Under encasement Mystic Grey looks much lighter, muted and silky and very elegant. The other hard to handle glass was the Effetre Striped Pink, at first glance in rod form it looks to be something like a cored cane little sister to notorious EDP (Evil Devitrifying Purple).....and I was right! It is hissy, spitty, bubbly and all round precocious! Thing is though that it looks glamorous all by itself under a clear encasement. The yellow I picked ot turned out to be too translucent and not orangey enough. The successful colours in this study were the CiM Mulberry and CiM Sherwood (fast becoming my favourite green opaque). I will definitely revisit this colour study in the future for a second pass so watch this space for Violet Poppies III!

Jolene x

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