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 :)

QR Codes (more exciting than they sound – read on!)

Followers of my blog will know that I love gadgets and technology, so when I discovered an app for my iPhone that reads barcodes I was in my element. There are lots of similar apps, but I downloaded RedLaser to play with. It works on the premise that while out shopping, you scan items, and are immediately presented with details of where you can buy the item, and how the price compares at different retailers.

So, of course, I set to work zapping everything in my kitchen cupboard. The barcode reader worked really well and scanned everything I presented to it. However, although the app is supposed to support us here in the UK it is clear that its catalogue is just not as well developed as one would have hoped. But I had fun and learned more about bar codes than I ever knew there was to learn!

This led me to the discovery of QR Codes, or ‘Quick Response’ Codes. I’ve often seen little square codes on the backs of products, or in magazines, and even on the front page of Moo stickers, but I’ve never understood their potential.

Of course, I may be way behind the rest of you in learning about this technology, but for the uninitiated QR Codes are 2 dimensional barcodes. This means that unlike the barcodes we are more familiar with, like the one above, they carry information on both the horizontal and vertical planes. By carrying information in both directions, QR code can carry up to several hundred times the amount of data carried by ordinary bar codes.

QR code was developed by Denso in 1994 and has been used in wide variety of applications, such as manufacturing, logistics, and sales applications. In terms of common everyday use, QR Code is now being used in all kinds of ways. Look out for it printed on paperback spines, or at exhibitions and events.

Ok, so now we know what they are, but so what? How can I read them?

To read QR code you need a QR Reader. Many of the Japanese smartphones actually have an inbuilt QR Reader, but for those that don’t there are plenty of downloadable readers to choose from, many of which are free. I chose i-nigma, by 3GVision Inc for the iPhone. You just launch the app, scan the code through the phone camera, and you can then retrieve the information contained in the code. If the information is a link to a website you can launch the site directly from your mobile.

This technology has massive potential. In Japan and the US QR codes are now being displayed in the corner of movie posters. Scanning the code will take you straight to the movie trailer. Brilliant!

You will by now realise from my blogs that for me pretty much everything eventually comes around to beads and jewellery, and you’ll be pleased to read that this blog is no different! The Spring Fair & Jewellery Show at the NEC in February will make use of QR Codes in a massive way.

They will be using QR codes as a method of accessing http://m.springfair.com, which is the mobile event site. QR codes will be displayed prominently on Spring Fair signage and other marketing collateral enabling visitors to access the site directly from their phones. They list the benefits of this technology as;

• Convenience for visitors of comprehensive event and exhibitor details in the palm of their hand.
• Ability for visitors to plan the day’s schedule of exhibitor visits, presentations and seminars.
• Convenience for visitors of all exhibitor contact details and product information still at their fingertips once they’re left the show.

All too often new technology, while very impressive, actually has very little practical application. I think the reverse is true in the case of QR code. It’s quite incredible really that although it has been around for over 15 years it’s not used more in this way. I guess as more people migrate to smartphones QR code becomes more accessible, so perhaps we’re on the verge of something that will grow and grow. Who knows?

So, the next logical step was to create my very own QR Code for my Bumpy Beads website, and here it is;



Scanning the code will reveal that it points directly to www.BumpyBeads.co.uk. Brilliant!

The next step will be for me to reproduce the QR code onto the reverse of my business cards. Stickers with my code can be placed on the backs of my jewellery boxes. Imagine it printed onto a t-shirt and worn at a Bead Fair! Or on a vinyl car window sticker, or a tote bag... or... well... anywhere really!

It is also completely possible to direct the QR code to a different place each day, so one day someone scanning it would be taken to my website, or another day to my Etsy Shop. I could point people to a different beadmaking or jewellery making tip each week, or link people to my favourite site of the week. So my business card would become so much more than just another business card. It would evolve, and be exciting, and worth hanging on to!

Scanning the QR code below will point you to my Etsy Shop, but scan it tomorrow and it may well point you somewhere entirely different. How exciting!



The possibilities are endless, so I’m just going for a lie down now I’ve worn myself out thinking about them. But look out for QR code on my website, in my blog, on my business cards and wherever else I can use it!

Happy scanning!

New Year, New Beads!

My first blog of the year, so I'll begin by wishing you all a Happy New Year. It's been a very odd year so far and off to a bit of a slow start, mainly due to the snow. And we have more forecast for this Wednesday. Now I love a bit of a snowy sprinkly to prettify the place, but come on now... enough is enough! It's amazing how quickly the "magical sparkle" of the snow can turn into a "tedious slushy mess". I blame myself really. I wished for it. Two hours later we had three inches of the stuff and I was struggling to get up the hill I live on.

The moral of this story must surely be "Be careful what you wish for"!

So here are my first beads of the year. I have another Taj focal, this time a lentil shape, with some lovely detail;

Then there is a set of wavy beads, so I'm cleverly calling these, ummm... wave beads!

I love the shape of these. They really demonstrate the versatility of glass.

Finally a set of beads inspired by the night sky and star gazing adventures through my telescope.

The Pinwheel Galaxy is a spiral galaxy about 27 million light-years away and about twice the size of the Milky Way.

This set of Pinwheel Galaxy beads was inspired by the fabulous swirl of this beautiful galaxy. Droplets of real silver on the surface of the bead represent the starry masses that hang in the galaxy's gravitational sphere.

All of these beads are listed in my Etsy Shop.

I'm busy making some jewellery for a special project at the moment, but I'm hoping to be making lots more beads again soon.

Tutorial in "Making Jewellery" Magazine

I have a tutorial published in the current issue (10) of "Making Jewellery" Magazine, so I just thought I'd let you know! It's a really simple tutorial that shows some easy techniques for making your jewellery more versatile so that you can wear it in different ways.

They have also featured some of my pieces in their Readers' Showcase, so I'm quite pleased!

It's a great issue this month and it comes with a fab 2010 calendar, so don't miss out.

On sale in all good newsagents now! I hope you enjoy the tutorial.

What a result!

Wow, what a result! Just over £2500 was raised from the auctions of my jewellery for the David Shedrick Wildlife Trust. I am staggered! With just six pieces being auctioned that's an average winning bid of over £400 per piece.

If you placed a bid - THANK YOU! The Trust really needs the funds to help continue their incredible work rescuing orphan elephants and raising them until they're ready to return to the wild.

If you were one of the lucky bidders THANK YOU for your generosity and I hope your jewellery gives you as much pleasure as it gave me to make it.

If you're still looking for the perfect Christmas gift for someone who has everything, why not give an elephant? Yes, a real elephant! You can find out how to foster an elephant for a gift for someone, check out this link.

New Beads!

It's been too long since I listed new beads, but I have listed some on Etsy today.

I have a Taj focal bead and a Taj bead set. These were an experiment with some colour reactions from some special effetre glass, and I'm quite pleased with the colours that emerged. I've called them "Taj" because they remind me of indian sari silk for some reason. I've etched them so that they're silky soft.

Then I've made more of my "All Washed Up" beads in purple and the palest pink.

The pink beads have been hand-shaped into little nuggets and I really like how the light catches the flat facets of these beads.

The elephant auctions are doing amazingly well, with bids now having reached over £1000! There are just a couple more days to go before they end, so don't miss out!

I almost forgot! Look out for my project in the January issue of "Making Jewellery", which will be on sale later this week.

Have a great week.