New Thermostat, New Beads, New Shop!

Well what a funny two weeks this has been. Since I wrote my last blog, so much has been happening I haven’t had much time to get too much done. My heating went wrong, in that the thermostat decided it wasn’t going to tell the boiler ‘ok you can stop now we’re hot enough thank you’, and so the boiler just kept on going. Needless to say we only noticed when it became like an oven in here and the heating kept on going even when I turned the thermostat down to 0.  So I reset the timer to ensure it would come on every two hours for a short burst, which kept it ticking over nicely until the landlord came and replaced the thermostat. Apparently it was brick dust in it from all the works we had done, and as the thing is on the wall outside the wetroom door, it was plastered in breeze block dust from when they removed and widened the door, and concrete dust from when they took the floor up. I’m surprised it kept going for another two months after that. All’s well now though.

We’ve been involved in the anti-bedroom tax protests, peacefully I might add, we’re not anarchists. Even though it won’t hit us as is, if we had taken the option of moving to a two bed flat across the road last year, instead of having the works done, we’d have been forced out to find a one bed flat again, as many are, in spite of need and disability. It was so cold though, most people only lasted an hour, then enough was enough.

But I’m not here to get all political, that’s not what this blog is all about. We’ve also had meetings with local community organisers who have offered all sorts of help to get my partners social charity group going, and lots of contacts have been put our way. I’ll talk more about that at a later date, but for now, you can find it on facebook HERE.

So besides that, what did I do with my rose cane? Well not much that I got photos of. There are lots of lovely beads made, but not put together into jewellery yet, but I did manage this compact mirror.

I also bought some of the new super-duo twin holed beads some weeks back, and this week I decided to give them a try. I began by following a free tutorial for a pendant, just to get the feel of them. I undid that, and made a pattern for some leafy earrings. I would like to write a tutorial later, but need some decent software to produce the pattern sketches. It’s not really something you can do with photos alone.

  

  Then I decided a rivoli would look gorgeous in the middle, and made a sample pendant, which worked out really well. I have to be careful here, so I scoured the internet to see if someone hadn’t already developed one just like it, and success! They haven’t, so this is my design. Again, I hope to write a tutorial at a later date, but for now, here are the pendants.

 

There is also a bracelet using the same beads. I think they are gorgeous, with the shapes they produce.

Besides that, I have now joined WowThankYou, following a recommendation. The initial fee is £40, which covers advertising and promotion, and I’m told the advertising goes in the right places…to the buyers. I am the 1000^th seller to open a shop on there too. So far my experience has been nothing but good. Listing is free and for as long as you want, you only pay a fee if there’s a sale, which is 10% I believe. The home page of the site is full of recently listed items and a little seasonal promoting, so customers can see right away what’s new. On asking a few questions by email of the owner, Tracey, I have had only honest and candid answers in a way which makes perfect sense to me, which after experiences with one other site I sell on, which shall remain nameless, whereby anything not working properly was down to my browser, operating system, cat or the local bin men, anything but them.  It was like a breath of fresh air let me tell you!

I will set up a shop tab on here eventually, but for now, you can view what’s uploaded so far HERE.

Thanks for reading, and don’t be afraid to add a comment, I don’t bite