Lampwork Bead Giveaway!

Look at all those lovely glass beads, and they could be yours to turn into some fabulous jewellery. 

Laura from Beads By Laura is having another giveaway, this time it's this rather generous strand of her Lonelies beads, that's a whopping 41 beads!  Laura's Lonelies beads are one off creations, experiment beads and leftovers from sets, all top quality, and this bunch needs a new home. 

All you have to do is leave a comment on her blog, and if you have a blog and want to blog about it and link to her giveaway post, she'll enter you into the draw twice.  It's open to anyone anywhere in the world and you have until 7pm (UK time) on Friday 4th June to enter.  So head on over to Laura's blog for your chance to win. 

IF: Early

Little is known about the Bouffant-a-saurus, but it is said to be the early inspiration for the bouffant hairstyles seen today.

Magnets

I've been working on magnets recently, something else I like to make.  I've got a few different types, beaded magnets in the shape of flowers, cupcakes and flip flops, magnets based on some of my illustrations and I'm currently working on some magnet sets which will be made using resin.

I've started to add a few to my Etsy shop and will gradually be adding more.  For sale at the moment are a beaded flower, beaded flip flop, beaded cupcake and an illustration magnet.

My beaded magnets are made using tiny glass seed beads which are individually sewn onto fabric, then glued onto some funky foam to make it nice and sturdy, then a good strong magnet is glued to the back. 

And here's a sneak peak at my designs for the resin magnets, they will be sold in sets with different themes, here's a sample from my baking, fairy, monkey and knitting sets.  Each will be given a resin coating which will be slightly domed and then affixed to a magnet of the same size.  I can't wait to get these made, I think they'll look great once they're done. 

And now for something completely different......

.....well sort of.  Instead of my usual illustration posts of late I came across some old paintings I did as part of a course years ago that I thought I'd show you.  They're abstract paintings, not my usual style but I like the freedom of creating a random picture and seeing what happens as you go. 

Here's what I came up with.

This is my favourite, I was really pleased with how this one turned out.

Can you see a monkey face in this one?  It wasn't intentional but I can see it in red above the three white splodges at the bottom of the painting.

This one looks a bit like a landscape to me, or reflections on water?

This was done using the same technique as the red and green one above, but using four bold colours.

All these paintings were made using acrylic paint and without a paintbrush in sight, only a palette knife, so lots of scaping paint over the canvas in various directions, it's amazing what effects it can create. 

IF: Cocoon

What goes on inside a caterpillar cocoon?  Preparing for the big change of course!