I know that last night I said I would make mobile phone charms, but I ended up making this jewellery set instead when I found my stash of pink peruvian opals. Funny enough, my bag of irregular fresh water pearls were right next to the opals, and that called for inspiration! I’m so in love with this set that I’m keeping it. I have similar earrings available on etsy though if you’re interested ;) (click on the read more link below to see the earrings)

You can check em out here! 

As you all know I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands this past week and the initial plan was to make as many beads as possible. I’m disappointed to say that I haven’t made as many as I had hoped to, but the good news is that there IS new stock coming your way on to my website! The new stock will be made available once I’m done with the redesign of the website which I’m hoping to finish by the end of next week. To prepare for the new stock, I’ve made room in my store and have moved all the old stock (except for 1 focal bead) into the clearance section. So if you’re looking for a bargain now’s a good time to check it out.

Note: If you happen to see some freaky changes while shopping around in the store just ignore it, it’s probably just me playing around with the layout.

I’m off to make some mobile phone charms now, so good night all and catch ya’s later! Happy beading :)

Well final exam is finally over… was a dirty rotten exam, most people left with an hour left to go and many had very blank (or the ‘oh sh*t’) look on their faces during reading time. Probably my worst exam ever! Now just need to wait 2 weeks for the results to come out. It’s funny, I just spent 3.5 years at uni and I still don’t feel relieved or like I’ve accomplished anything. If anything I feel more accomplished when I make a good bead! I’ve just come back from a 5 day break at Nelson Bay and it was blissful. Nothing felt better than to wake up, lounge around by the shore and make jewellery on a comfy couch while watching girly DVD’s. It’s finally sinking in that I’ve got a lot of free time in the next 2 weeks and it feels GREAT! Of course as soon as I got home this afternoon all I felt like doing was sleeping but I feel the urge to make a bead or two tonight. Hopefully I can make a few and maybe have some up on offer on ebay sometime soon. I had been looking forward to being able to make beads after the working day once I commence my full time job but it turns out that I won’t be able to do that for another week after I start work. I was contacted by my employer and told that I’ll have to go to Brisbane for a week, on the same day that I start my new job. I don’t know if that’s something that I’m looking forward to or not  as I’ll be on a plane and in a hotel with a group of Graduates whom I don’t know at all, but I guess that if I’m going to be working with them on this program for 18 months I might as well start getting to know them on a plane. It feels like I’m going to school camp all over again, the only difference is that I have some kind of freedom to roam the streets of Brisbane after 5pm.  No solid details have been given out yet, but I do hope that the hotel has internet access!

Also, I’ll be updating my website and giving it a new look in the next few days so make sure to keep an eye out for it.

I’m off to take advantage of this long break. I’ll be back next time with beads.

1 more exam tomorrow and my undergraduate program is complete! Providing I’ve done well in my exams I’ll be receiving my Bachelor degree in Information Systems in September. Boy I cannot wait until I have freedom!!!

I’m procrastinating so bad, I just can’t get myself to start reading over these notes.

*one more day, one more day*

In other news, I’ll be up at Nelson Bay for a well deserved holiday from Wednesday until Sunday so if you contact me I’ll get in touch as soon as I get back. Ciao!

As promised last Tuesday, here are the orphans:

Make sure to go check em out here! Unfortunately I’m still passing time studying my brains out on Technology Management and Advanced Databases/Enterprise Systems. I’ll be listing a few new things up on etsy for now and once I’m on my break I’ll be listing things on my website. Make sure to sign up to my newsletter if you haven’t already so that you can be one of the first to be notified when new listings are made. On the agenda are plenty of frog beads, detailed twisty and lace cane beads, and many more pandora beads!

After receiving an email update on Sarah Hornik’s blog, I am very very shocked to read that half of the students held in her workshops in Brisbane are not wearing safety/didymium glasses. It’s also somewhat embarrassing (and maybe even disappointing) to hear that she has only ever seen this happen in Australia. There is so much talent here and it’s so upsetting to read that people are under-valuing their personal safety. All of the students at the Akihiro Ohkama workshop that I attended in May had safety glasses, so it just shocks me that this has happened in Sarah Hornik’s workshops. It makes me wonder now what people are doing for ventilation here as well and whether or not they think that their lungs are just as valuable as their eyes. We’ve only got 1 pair of eyes (and lungs) so we really should be doing everything that we can to protect them. For those lampworkers who may think that safety glasses are an expensive investment, trust me… it’s worth it. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t even go near my torch without my glasses on. I can’t even teach someone how to wind glass around a mandrel (standing behind them) unless I’ve got a pair on as well. It’s important. It’s very, very important.

In other beady news, I spent an hour this morning cleaning bead holes for a somewhat large orphan set, and a regular 8-bead set. They’ll be listed on eBay on Thursday morning Sydney time, so make sure to watch out for it. Of course I’ll let you all know once it’s up :) I’ve got 2 more exams next week so the rest of this week will be spent focusing on study (I’ve already spent last night procrastinating and building up a massive cubic zirconia wish list from Pehnec involving 6000+ CZ’s). But I promise that there’ll be plenty more to offer afterwards :)

I had intended to make beads all day today but it just didn’t happen. And while it isn’t even 7pm yet, I feel so tired and exhausted. I managed to do nothing but lie around the house all day, do 2 loads of laundry, and bake a cake. I should probably be studying for my exams but I can’t get myself around to do so. Thing is, I always end up like this around winter time… my bed time in summer is usually around 11pm-12am and my bed time in winter becomes around 8pm-10pm. Not to mention I also feel very lethargic. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to make some beads and have them ready to show to you by next week. Alright I’m off, I’m going to try and get myself motivated to read notes on ‘Advanced Databases and Enterprise Systems’ wooooo, fun!

The exam period started today and am I glad or what that I studied my bum off for today’s exam. I’ve got 2 more in a week’s time then it’ll all be over.

I received my job contract in the mail today from my new employer and it’s suddenly hit me that I’m growing up and heading into the real world. No longer are the days of bumming around and sleeping in or doing all nighter group msn sessions to complete assignments (it was fun - really). I guess working full time also means that I finally get to fall into some kind of daily routine, and in doing so I can actually fit regular time into my routine for making beads and jewellery. Studying full time can take it out of you so much, and the days are simply unpredictable… Some days you feel like you’ve got all the time in the world (and plan to get creative) then quickly realise that you have an assignment due tomorrow morning (and that’s when you go ‘oh sh*t!!!’). Exams tend to be the best time for me to come up with new designs and ideas because I’m too busy procrastinating on that rather than studying so my notepad has been filling up with plenty of designs that I’m dying to play with.

I’m even thinking about writing a book, but I might leave that idea as a surprise for you all later.

You all may have noticed as well that the previous images that were loading up in this blog have disappeared. Reason being I cleaned up my host and didn’t realise I had linked the posts to the images which I had deleted (big whoops there). Never fear, the website is going to be updated soon enough which also means that the gallery is going to be updated with new beady goodness.

Anyway, to make up for lost time here’s a new bead set which I made following Ms. Corina Tettinger’s video tutorial on her Butchard Garden beads… she’s definitely one talented lady.

Ok I’m gonna head off and fill up an online shopping cart with more seed beads and a new found obsession, rivoli’s…. Just when you think you’ve got yourself sorted another addiction comes along… This should keep me going for a while I think! Next on the shopping agenda are Swarovski crystals (I’m definitely not looking forward to seeing the total cost on THAT order!)

I’m very sorry for the lack of updates lately. I’ve been so busy finishing up on my very last semester at uni as well as my other work-related commitments. I officially finished uni last Thursday and am going into exams from next week for the next 3 weeks. Once that’s all done I’ll be free for 2 weeks before I commence full time work. I’ve scored myself a position with a large bank as a 2009 Business Technology Graduate, fortunately though I’m able to start this July instead of the usual intake which starts in February 2009. I’m very excited about this - it’s definitely good news for my career progression. All the hard work at uni has finally paid off. Although I can honestly say that I’m more excited about the 2 weeks of freedom coming up… I seriously can’t wait! My days will consist of gym workouts and beads, beads, beads! The extra cash will finally help me fund my big-girl torch set up and purchase an oxygen concentrator. I’ll be using the 2 weeks for the opportunity to stock up on beads for the website and ebay. While I’m on that topic I’ll also be giving my website a major overhaul-make-over once uni exams are out of the way. I’ve finally figured out how to create website graphical layouts in photoshop then ’slice’ them up in CSS. What this means is that the aesthetics of the website will be done entirely through CSS with HTML only containing the content. Did someone just call me a nerd? Damn straight! Studying a multimedia production subject for an entire semester would also help one realise that tables aren’t a good practice in HTML anymore, so off the layout of my website must go!

Also a few weeks ago (almost a month now) I attended a workshop with Akihiro Ohkama in Melbourne and boy was he fantastic! Here are just a few of my fav pics (selected from very many):

Anyway that’s it for now… I hope you’re all doing well. Many beads to come in around about a weeks time! Hopefully I’ll also be able to update this more often from now on. Happy beading :)

Massive update coming soon. I promise.

Life is hectic at the moment (in a good way). Tell you all about it later.