Spirograph Art

When I was little my Spirograph was one of my best ever gifts. But why should something as fabulous as the Spirograph set be reserved for children? I have dusted off my set and had great fun creating these Spirograph Art cards.

You will find them in my Etsy shop. They are not printed reproductions. They are the genuine article, drawn by hand, individually, in ink. I am selling them in sets of five, wrapped in ribbon and cellophane, so buy them for yourself or as a unique gift for someone else.


Spirograph was invented by Denys Fisher, a British Engineer. It is made up of plastic cog wheels, with rails and circles for them to run along and around. The Spirograph’s wheels are of different diameters, with holes for the pen tip at different distances from the centre. With the turn of the wheel, the pen traces out hypotrochoid and epitrochoid curves. I don't understand what that means at all, but it sounds very clever and I can pretend I'm actually doing something deeply mathematical instead of just making pretty patterns for fun!



I remember that there was a version of spirograph for younger children, called Spirotot. My sister had one of those and I wish we'd kept it!

Spirograph is still being made today, but unfortunately it is nowhere near as good as those produced in the 60's and 70's. There is also a pretentiously named "Hypotrochoid set" available in a nifty tin, and while it does the job it's still nowhere near as good as the original Spirograph.

Oh they don't make things like they used to!

I'll be listing some more sets in various colour schemes shortly, but I have to say that I rather like the classiness of the monotone set.

I have a set of beads to list too, just as soon as I've wrestled them from the mandrels and cleaned them. Now if only I could produce a spirograph design on a bead. Now that would be cool....

New Beads & Other News

I have new beads to show you this week at long last!

This first set is called "Andromeda"

and the second set is one of my favourites; "Lyme".

I plan to be producing beads a little more often than I have managed over the past few weeks, so keep checking my site and my gallery for new beads.

Despite the lack of beads, I have been busy making beads and jewellery for a very exciting fundraiser event in New York. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust are hosting an Elephant Gala Fundraiser at The Wild Horses of Sable Island Gallery, and I was asked to make two pieces for the charity auction. So I have made pieces for two special orphan elephants; Chaimu and Turkwel.

Now this is the exciting bit! Their guest speaker is Kristin Davis, of Sex and the City fame, and she is (hopefully) going to be wearing one of the pieces for the evening. Gulp! Kristin was involved in the rescue of Chaimu, a male baby ele when she was visiting Kenya. I'm hoping Kristin might like the Chaimu piece enough to place a bid! Well you never know ;)

I will post some piccies of the pieces I made once the auction details are in the public domain, which should be soon.

I was asked to send a copy of my Bumpy Beads logo for them to add to the event Sponsors page, which I duly sent. It is quite bizarre to see my little logo displayed against some big brands, particularly the iconic Vespa brand. I think I could get used to it though!

I was wandering around the website of Making Jewellery magazine yesterday evening when I stumbled across some pictures of my beads and jewellery. These particular pieces featured in a recent edition of the magazine, but I didn't know they were online too! My beads are the ones at the bottom of the page, on the left. I'm sharing the page with some of Laura Sparling's delicious cupcake beads.

The other thing I have to tell you is that I went all sequins and sparkles a couple of weeks ago and went to see the Strictly Tour at the NEC. (Gon on, click the link - you know how you love THAT music!) It was fab!

I am a massive fan of the show and was in my element with Len, Arlene, Craig and Bruno. Kelly Brook is stunningly gorgeous, and the dancing hobbits, Chris and Ola were cute! Ali and Brian were in love, Ricky Groves was funny, Natalie Cassidy did a brilliant quickstep and Austin Healey displayed a marvellous chest, which justified the ticket price all by itself ;) Mark Ramprakash won the trophy the evening I went. I haven't enjoyed a night out so much in ages.

I'm back at the NEC again tomorrow, but this time to visit the Spring Fair International. It should be fun!

Have a great weekend :)