On a recent bead shopping trip I came across some bright silver, metalized ceramic beads. Like all things shiny, they immediately attracted my attention but they were rather expensive and without a clear plan in my head as to how I would use them, I passed them by. But as I wound my way through the shop, I kept finding myself back at the table these little beauties were on and I decided that that was no coincidence - a little voice inside my head was telling me that I should take them home. Luckily, I listened to that little voice and I don't regret it for one moment. There's a 3 step process to making these beads. First, the ceramic beads are fired. Then they're dipped in copper and fired again and finally the silver coating is applied. It's a long process but the resulting beads are just gorgeous! On that same shopping expedition, I found a lovely selection of glass cane beads in shades of pink, orange and red. By now an idea was starting to in my head as to how I mi......

Whilst finding new places for things in the studio (yes, I'm still unpacking..... and reorganising), I came across a few pieces of marbled Friendly Plastic which I hadn’t coated in resin yet. And as I’ve been casting with resin a lot lately I thought it was high time they got coated. So today I’m sharing a Friendly Plastic necklace with you. The colour combination in this piece is a little bit unexpected – blue with shades of orange – opposites on the colour wheel. Complimentary colours are always striking when used together but when you use variations of those colours (like peach and apricot with blue) they will play off against each other without competing. And so it is with this piece…. together the colours give off a lovely warm glow. I’ve teamed the Friendly Plastic heart with glass beads and vintage lucite flower in similar colours to the oranges and pinks and finished the necklace off with rose-gold findings. I really like the softness of these colours. But when it came......

Well, as promised, here's that cute little frog made up into a charm bracelet. He is absolutely gorgeous and my younger daughter has already put her hand up for it. She likes it so much that she even suggested the name for this post! I like these frogs so much that I thought I'd show you another close up of the beads (the silver disks are his lily pads!)....