Hi there,

I'm Beth, the newest member of the Beading & Jewellery admin team and this is my first blog to the site, so please bear with me! I'm really looking forward to sharing thoughts and ideas about anything and everything beading with you all!

I'm really inspired by beaded bags at the moment and love the pretty, delicate look you can achieve by combining beatuful beads with shimmering fabrics. I love the range of styles and beautiful colour combinations that Dorothy Wood has used in Simply Sensational Glass Beading, one of my favourite beading books.

Check out these gorgeous little bags used on the cover of the book. They are made up with crushed polyster fabrics, a mixture of brightly coloured complementary seed beads and bugles and finished off with stylish beaded tassels. They would be perfect to brighten up any gift!

I'd love to see any other ideas for beaded bags that you may have!

Bye for now,

Beth

OK, I am just about to talk about something that is not about jewellery or about beads but what the heck, i think it is inspirational so it counts!

I love wire, I know a lot of you use wire either cause you have to or because you love it and I love it. way back when I was a student studying jewellery I would spend hours and hours twisting it and bending it to see what it told me it wanted to do. My creations were similar to the picture attahced although not so big or so monumental. This amazing piece comes from a book called Heavenly Metial, Twisted Wire by Lisa Brown. I love the way the wire works here and the way the lights take the place of beads (more a fact on being the light rather than catching the light)

When I was at the trade fair last week (see last week's blog) there were also a lot of new wires around and a lot of crazy colours going on. I would love to sit down and spend some time with these new materials but I don't seem to have the time. I would also love to tell you about some of the fantastic jewellery we have in this office right now. It is for a new book but I can't tell you about it yet - a shame cause I would love to share, safe to say it is amazing, inspirational and original. Watch this space for more information as as soon as I can I will put some pics up to wet your appetite.