I made some organic looking beads with some reduction frit so they are an odd mixture of shine and stone (which ought to be matt). I loved the beads when they came out of the kiln last week. I immediately made them into a bracelet, pendant and matching earrings.

I didn't get time to photograph them (see below), and the first customer who saw the earrings last Saturday on the Art & Craft Market instantly bought them and the matching pendant. The bracelet sold a bit later in the day. I am desperate to have one of the bracelets and earrings myself!

The reason I didn't do the photography is that it has been such a hassle lately as I have been using my husband's professional S2 digital SLR (he dabbled with professional interiors photography for 3 years a while ago). But it has so many settings and is so big, I have to use these big Elinchrome lights instead of flash and then Geoff has to download them as my computer doesn't like it (it doesn't like our printer either) so I have to wait for him to have time to do that and then transfer it to a memory stick or CD. However, I have very recently acquired a much smaller simpler digital camera ... basically Geoff bought one for himself for photographing sites - he is back in the building game now - and I nicked it! Tough luck darling!

Yesterday, I made a big repeat batch of the same beads. There are enough for me to have a bracelet for myself too! And here is what they look like ...

Not a bad first effort with the new camera, I was aiming for the ones at the back to be out of focus as I have admired pictures of beads like that in the past - I think it looks arty and so I have been reading the manual and messing about with Arperture Priority and other such boring things. I'd rather be making beads but in order to get reasonable photographs we have to learn about such matters.

Tomorrow I am planning to make some recycled beads with a dark blue bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream and a similarly coloured empty bottle of aftershave which one of my regular customers saved for me.