Little fluffy clouds

That's a song by the Orb, which probably dates me a bit. Anyway, that's what this heart makes me think of, being a mix of blue and creamy-silvery-white frit encased in really pale blue glass. Bullseye pale blue which is a lot paler than Moretti's palest effort. I've got these hearts as pendants in my website shop but this is a bead set so you can let your imagination run wild. So, what we have here is a 2cm heart, nice and plump and even. The centre is rolled in frit and then encased which means there is a really cool paper-weight type effect as you turn the heart in different directions. There are six spacers, 1cm from hole to hole; three frit encased and three in plain, matt pale blue glass (these are Moretti because I find Bullseye does not etch well) decorated with silver nail-heads.

If you want to own this, you can find it in my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/JoopyAndSmith

Rainbow Layered Bead

This is another layered bead; a nice round sphere. I love the colours in this; it's got a rainbow coloured core, then is built up with layers of very pale pink and lilac glass. Buried within is a streak of dichroic which gives it a lovely bit of sparkle. There are also some delicate plunged flowers and a series of bubble dots on the outside. I do love layered beads; they have so much depth. I think the photo looks great, but the bead in real-life is even more interesting.

This one has now sold but you can find others in my Etsy shop:

www.etsy.com/shop/JoopyAndSmith

Pink and Lilac

Pink and lilac are a match made in heaven. Or so I think with my bluey-purpley-pinky palette. This is another one of my 'Saturn' lentils, made with extreme patience and love! These take a long time to make as each one is carefully built up in layers, you have to estimate the exact amount of glass - too much and it overflows the press, too little and it doesn't press to the right shape - and you only get one shot at it!

This one is made up of a core rolled in pinky-lilac frit, gravity swirled, then built up in layers, with each layer enclosing some latticino, some silvered ivory or some silver mesh, and then pressed. Precision and patience is required, but if you get it right, the sense of achievement makes it worthwhile!

This is available at my Etsy shop - www.etsy.com/shop/JoopyAndSmith if you would like to own it.

What's this then?

I don't know what this is but a few weeks ago, the tree at the end of our garden dropped all of its leaves (seemed like a funny time of year for it, but there you are) and then bloomed. Amazing, big, red waxy flowers. This is quite a deceptive picture actually, because I must have taken it on the only day in the past 6 weeks when the sun was shining; otherwise it's been rainy and cloudy.

More tortoiseshell...

This is similar to the previous tortoiseshell beads, but with a nice whirlpool in the middle of the beads. These beads, are rolled in silver foil, then half-rolled in frit before being pressed into a lentil shape, or 'oblate spheroid' as my friend Steve would have it. They are then heated in the middle and the swirl created. I love mixing glass with silver because you never know what will happen. Here the frit has pushed the silver to the edges, which has created a lovely silvery rim around the frit. This frit mix is actually a pinky-purple.... but when you add silver in, this is what you get!

Beads available from Etsy if you would like them - http://www.etsy.com/shop/JoopyAndSmith

Tortoiseshell or peacock, or something like that...

I really like these. Mixing silver and glass, you're never quite sure what you're going to get. These are made of pink glass wrapped in silver foil, then rolled in a frit mix from Val Cox. It's created this amazing tortoiseshell effect, with added blues and pinks. The frit has pushed the silver foil aside so there's also a really cool mosaic effect. I really like these...and I'm offering a set of seven (5 tortoishell plus two co-0rdinating golden lentils, also wrapped in silver foil) over in my Etsy shop - http://www.etsy.com/shop/JoopyAndSmith . Loads of scope for all sorts of jewellery; I can see the large one (3cm in size) as a pendant, and the two little ones would make really nice earrings.

Beads versus jewellery...

I tussled with this one for a long time; whether to make jewellery from my own beads and sell that or whether to just sell beads. The thing is, more people want to buy beads than jewellery, I think, and once people start muttering that they want to buy your necklaces just to 'get at' the beads, one has to bow to the inevitable, I feel...! So here are a few of my offerings, available via Etsy at the moment and we'll just see how it goes. I will be keeping the beads I use for my own jewellery different from those I sell.