Busy couple of weeks.

I've had a couple of busy weeks, getting some pendants in the gallery ready for the Christmas rush ...we hope. Also doing another 35 pendants for stock, for when I'll be doing my website in the new year hopefully. I've also done a first for me, a tempered glass mosaic, this will be one of many I'll be doing I hope as I've got tons of idea's for mirrors and panels. This one is bright and colourful so it's been called a rainbow mirror. I've included a photo at the end of my blog for you.

Along with the pendants I've made ready to go in the kiln tomorrow, I've also made a panel for us for the front room. I'm praying this comes out ok, which there isn't any guarantee's. Glass has a mind of it's own once you put it in a kiln and heat it up, and something that looks great before it's fused, can sometimes come out looking a right mess lol. Fingers crossed this won't happen to this one, as our walls are still looking quite bare here. I've put a before photo of the panel, and good or bad I'll put an after photo up later in the week too. To add some interest to this panel, I've used, metal inclusions and also some copper collars which are usually used by plumbers. I've filled these collars up with frit, which I hope will add some more detail.

The last couple of weeks has seen us hit by torrential rain and gale force winds as has most of the country. The rivers have turned into raging torrents and I'm sure the waterfalls up in Snowdonia will huge. We went to the beach a couple of times for high tide and it was spectacular. The waves had crashed so much against walls and rocks the whole part of the top of our favourite beach was smothered in foam, which flew up and onto the path and made it look like it had been snowing. I've taken a few photo's so I'll put them up with my next post. Now its all calmed down and I've seen the first sprinkling of snow on the mountains, quite early really compared to the last few years.

My first tempered glass mosaic mirror


A close up of the mirror


The panel for my front room ...I hope


A further photo with the flash

Long time no blog

Yet again real life took over and I've neglected my blog badly :o( However .... slowly but surely we're getting things made for the house, and it's starting to look more homely.

Last Tuesday saw us doing what we thought was going to be a flying 2 day visit, to my oldest daughter in Bromsgrove. As always the best made plans and all that fell by wayside, and we ended up staying 5 days. I have to admit I was pretty reluctant to leave our new little house, but I'm glad I did, as we had a great time and loads of laughs on the way.

On the Weds we went to see a friend of ours we hadn't seen for a quite a while, we had loads of laughs and it was great to catch up with all that's gone on in her life. We left with promises to go and visit again soon, and next time my daughter Jenny would take her tattoo stuff and do tattoo's for my friend and her fella.

From there we headed off over to Acocks Green to met up with my son Ben, and mates Martin and Mandy. Mandy had invited us for a meal and we were all looking forward to that, as Mandys well known for being a great cook !! On our way there by sheer fluke we spotted another of my sons Jed, and had a quick kiss and cuddle with him too, with promises to try and get back and see him while we visiting. The meal was gorgeous and we had lots of laughs as always when we're there.

The next day we'd arranged to go over and visit a friend of mine Vikki, that I'd met on a forum we both use. Vikki and I have similar lack of mobility problems, so I mentioned a few things that I thought I might help make her life a bit easier from day to day. So hopefully she'll get some much needed help from occupational therapists in the near future, as her house really wasn't geared up for someone that has trouble getting about. Sadly her husband Julian was away on a buying trip in France. He buys beautiful old wood burners abroad and does them up in his workshop and sells them on. Next on the visit list, was to go and see my oldest grandson Martin and his girlfriend.After his girlfriend had told us how excited he'd been about us visiting, I felt quite guilty that we hadn't got there before now :o(

Friday saw us heading for Ikea in Wednesbury, somewhere I really wanted to visit as there isn't a store anywhere near us. Even getting there was a mission in itself. We couldn't use the sat nav as my daughters lighter socket wasn't working, so what should have taken about 1/2hr actually took us more like 1 1/2hrs lol. We seemed to be going round in circles and went through the same town not once, nor twice but 3 times in the end. Luckily my oldest daughter eventually spotted something that looked familiar, and we eventually managed to get there. It was a wonder we never got kicked out, we laughed and messed around so much. I was the butt of the laughter at one point, when we needed to go down an escalator. I have a terrible phobia about going down these dammed things, and despite my daughter Jenny holding my hand like I was kid, I still couldn't step on to it, so I ended up having to use the stairs. It doesn't sound funny put into words, but trust me it had my two daughters howling with laughter !!! By the time we left, the weather had turned really nasty, torrential rain and very windy. My oldest daughter was driving, and I have to take my hat off to her, at how well she coped considering she's a learner.

Saturday morning we headed back home, and the weather hadn't improved much then either. Torrential rain, made the spray on the motorway so bad we could hardly see where we going at some points. But at last we arrived home safe and sound back to our little house. How I loved sleeping in my lovely big bed last nite !!!

Wow what a week

Last week saw us having 12 visitors, more than we usually have in a year lol. But it was good fun and it was really good to catch up with some people I hadn't seen for quite a while. It did put pay to any work getting done around the house, but what the hell, sometimes you just have to hang up the paint brushes and enjoy the company.

One visitor had a camper van, which needed some restoration to put it mildly. It used to have a kitchen but that went flying one day while going round a corner quite quickly lol. So everything was taken out of the van and scattered all over the car park behind out house. There was a pile of keep me's, a pile of rubbish and a pile of this might be useful. Once the pile of rubbish was deposited at the local tip, it was the start of rebuilding the kitchen again. This time it was all screwed together properly, and attached to the side of the van too. On a test run we went over speed humps at some speed, lurched round corners and gave everything every chance to go flying. But it all stayed exactly in place !!

My youngest son came round last Weds, and had a tribal tattoo done on the back of his neck. Then on Saturday a friend called freaky Mark (please don't ask why lol) came round and had a pentagram on the back of his neck. My sons one needs a bit of touching up, but the one on Marks neck was pretty much perfect and he was really pleased. Considering Mark had large portion of his body already tattooed my daughter was really pleased when he said it was the least painful tattoo he'd ever had !!

Once the last visitor had left, I got out a canvas I've been itching to paint for days now. I drew on the abstract design on the first night and started doing the initial painting the 2nd day. This is the largest oil painting I've ever attempted do to at 40" x 30" but it's a challenge I'm enjoying. This painting is for above the fireplace on the feature wall, which is a deep aubergine so one of the best things about painting your own picture, is that you can incorporate a touch of the matching colour to tie everything up together. Which is exactly what I've done of course lol.

My son's tribal tattoo

Freaky Marks pentagram