What I've been up to this month!

Well, January has been a busy month... hence the lack of blogging.  

There has been a bit of beading (possibly not as much as usual), but in with all the usual stuff (like work), I moved house too!

I've moved from this lovely terraced house in Swindon....

To this lovely (but rather cold) flat in Tidworth...

It is quite a change (especially in temperature), but I've done it for a good reason.  Towards the end of last year, I changed jobs, and ended up with a commute of just over an hour each way.  Although I had friends in Swindon, I just wasn't happy with the driving, and it was making me tired and run down... hence the move!

So, whilst moving, beading got pushed to the bottom of the priority list for a while... and I got behind on my earring challenge (I've challenged myself to make a pair of earrings a week for the whole of 2012); but since settling in I've dedicated some time to catch up!

Here are my January Earrings... 4 pairs of earrings, some simple, some sparkly, three different types of technique.

 Bead embroidery earrings for week one... (my first finished piece of bead embroidery)

 Super sparkly earrings - the tutorial was given to me as a gift by the uber-talented designer Ella Des (her tutorials are for sale in her Etsy shop  I was very pleased with these as they are totally out of my colour comfort zone, but I absolutely love them!

 These are my quickie wire work earrings... I found these buttons in a shop in Swindon called SewCraft.  I fell in love with them (along with some other buttons I bought at the time), and these just just spoke of simple elegance to me.

And these are the last pair of January earrings... the Satellite bead is designed by Heather Collin, and can be found in her ArtFire shop

I've been working on a few other pieces - the bangle from the cover of bead and button magazine (still a work in progress)

And a Tila bangle designed by Debbie van Tonder - her tutorial is available in her Etsy shop.

Let's see what February has to offer (except for my birthday!).