I recenly made these Leaping Hearts earrings, as a gift designed for my friend Jane,who likes Africa. I had bought some of her gorgeous Hare greeting card packs but Paypal hadn't worked properly. I couldn't have them for nothing so these were her payment! I hope she likes them.

Yesterday I received a letter from Delhi, from Exotic India where I bought some semi-precious and silver bits a few months ago. It tells me I can get discount of 25% off my next order woohoo!

How much is 15 Rupees?

I've been gradually making things over the (very wet) summer, and squirelling them away. OK, I admit this has been mostly earrings, because it's where I started and where I am still most confident in.

Next I needed to construct a means of hanging earrings nicely instead of them sitting in a heap! They always look best when suspended, after all. I used a fab lightbox and my wonderfully faithful Canon S5IS, in natural light so you can see the true colours as close as possible.

I wasn't sure I'd remember how to use Mr Site (I've spent far to much time on Flickr  lately!) but thankfully it came back to me and adding the shop items was easy. Deciding which ones to put up was a bit more difficult, there are lots more where those came from but I think I've put a good mix up there for starters.

I've also had some cards printed at moo.com and they are fabby little things, I got them to hand out to friends etc but it would be a bit pointless if the site was empty when they got here, eh!!!

Hope you enjoy looking around and I mean it when I say contact me if there's owt else you fancy but the stuff here ain't quite right ... I love a challenge and together I'm sure we can work something out.

Cheerio the noo

The one and only Bead Shed is relocating ... I'm posting this as a favour to those who live further afield and don't get the illustrious Gazette...

Please sponsor me at http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/suzanneforster - thanks!! :-)

I bought some random orphan handmade lampwork glass beads from my friend Tania Grey in Cornwall. (They give them the description "orphan" to make you feel sympathetic to the poor little beads and give them a home!!! - it works...)

I wasn't expecting to have any matching pairs but there are a few; the first ones I found were crying out to be dangled.

The main beads have a background of purple transparent glass, with bright areas of turquoise, amber, green and ivory. The silver spacers are Karen Hill Tribe silver beads I rescued from a bracelet; the black discs are haematite and I've hung the whole thing on sterling silver ear wires.

This is a very traditional earring shape I used successfully for years and years... it's well-balanced and and shows off the focal beads at their best.

Watch this space to see what else I do with my Tan beads!

A couple of years ago, when I was doing some online shopping (as you do) on eBay, for some reason I noticed that the item location was Carlisle... and after following a few links discovered there was an actual real-life bead shop in town, and I hadn't heard of it!

Granted, I do go around with my eyes shut, but I couldn't believe this "gem" had passed me by. So I paid a visit ... now it sounds likes a cliché but it really was an Alladin's Cave. Anyway the owner, Sue, set up a forum which tends to attract customers of the ebay version of the shop, TheBeadShed.

Sue decided to gather every local beading soul together for a curry, I was totally up for it! So we went out last night, I met another load of like-minded creative types but to be honest, we didn't talk about beads much ;)  

Hi, and welcome to pebblesfromheaven...

I've recently launched this new website and I wasn't sure whether I'd do a blog on here or redirect people to my existing blog at www.pebblesfromheaven.blogspot.com

I think it might be useful to put creative thoughts and information on here rather than on the other blog - but if you want to see what else I get up to you'll have to go over there...!

thanks

pebs