Saturday 20 July 2013

Catherynn'e Treats is evolving and expanding

Hello lovelies :-)

Gosh it has been soooooo long since last time I blogged I am so sorry.

Finally though after about 8 months of planning and working my little bot off making things, arranging things and hardly sleeping properly as I had a million things all bumbling around my noggin at daft o clock two weeks ago I married Mr Treats so I am now Mrs Treats :-)

The day was amazing, the sun was out and everything went perfectly.
Everyone loved the day and can now say that I am a very happily married woman :-)

Here we are before we almost melted in the sun!!!


So after all that had passed and I had sort of returned our house back to normal and had put away all the wedding bits and bobs we brought back I found the last little bit of money I had been saving up for my lampwork kit.

A while ago in April actually I took myself off to SilverStone Circuit, not to see the Formula 1 unfortunately although I did see some very swishy cars that made my little heart race.
I went to an event called Flame Off see this blog for more details Lampwork beads and silver stone circuit.

Anyway (yeah I know I am good at talking and getting sidetracked, aren't most people???????) I have been saving like mad to buy a kit to make my own glass beads and whoop whoop last Saturday it came!!!!!!
Some of you may have noticed I have been a bit quite over on my page well that is because I have been super dooper busy with work but also having a play with my kit making some beads :-)


Until I can save up again and buy a shed to work in and keep everything set up all the time for now I have to keep it all packed away until my daughters are in bed and then put it all away again when I am finished.

So your next question is what does all this look like. Well I can answer that for you!

This is where I work.
The long things on the black slate is the glass rods I melt. they come in a million amazing different colours. The silver thin things in the green vase are called mandrels. They are what I wind the molten glass onto to make the beads.

 This is my torch lit. It is soo noisy when it is on, it honestly sounds like an aeroplane taking off!!!




This is one of the rods being melted ready to make a bead. You have to melt the glass into a blob at the end of the rod and when you think you have enough you pop onto the next picture :-)





Here I have wound the molten glass onto the mandrel ready to be made into a bead.











Here I have ( here is a technical term, are you ready ) 'squished' the bead to make a tab shaped bead.
This actually turned out to be the spikey middle monster bead below.


What tends to happen is that so far because I am just at the moment playing about with the glass seeing how it moves, how it reacts in different places of the flame and just generally having a play and figuring out what I am doing. I start to make a bead and then it totally changes from my original idea. I suppose that is half the fun as I never know what I am going to end up with :-)

I do know that I am having the most fun ever making these beads and I promise that my jewellery will be filled with my own beads really soon.
I have a few techniques I need to perfect a bit before I can introduce them onto my work but soon I will be selling the beads in sets as well as making them into beautiful jewellery for you all to buy!

So on that bombshell I will leave you with one more picture, last one I promise.



This is one of the beads I made today that I have made into a necklace for myself using some crystals and spacer beads and a fabulous polymer clay bird from Bead Me Up Buttercup a fabulous artist that I love and have now 4 of her birds in my own collection of jewellery at home!
I love this necklace. It is simple and perfect to wear as it is light and is quite long so hangs beautifully on the waxed Irish Linen it is strung onto and oh so pretty :-)


So that really is it for me for this week.
I promise now our wedding is all done and dusted I will be able to keep up with my blog :-)
So till next time take care and speak soon 


Catherynne xxxxCatherynne's Treats