Studio Conversion - Two Weeks In...

It's been a hive of activity since my last post on this subject. The windows went in last weekend and  everything moved inside the house and took over my life somewhat...

A beautiful sunny Monday saw a very full house with a team of plasterers putting in a long day to get the studio plastered before the fitters arrived to lay the flooring on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sadly the weather deteriorated rapidly thereafter into a grey, wet gloom and that, combined with damp plaster does not make for great photographs...

The flooring went down without hitch but as it's difficult to see here I've borrowed a photo from the manufacturers Amtico - I'm sure they won't mind a bit of free promotion...

http://www.amtico.com/commercial/flooring/wood/engineered-bamboo

The old kitchen also came out on Monday leaving me with this...what do you think - contemporary minimalist?

The fridge has gone as well now so my facilities consist of a tea making area on the kitchen window sill (the builders made sure of that one), a microwave on the dining room table and a cool box. Fortunately there is also a pub five minutes walk from my house so not so bad.

The rest of the week has seen the final fix on the electrics, architraves and skirting beginning to go in, new doors and radiators arriving on site and the start of the decorating. I felt so much better when this primer went up yesterday and brightened the whole room up - I really wasn't feeling the plaster pink!

My building team are once again working through the weekend and by the end of the day today the first coat of colour was on the wall and really brought the room to life. It's called 'Tadpole' but it's not like any tadpole I've ever seen. It's hard to reproduce the actual colour here but it's a kind of cross between lime and melon green - lovely and fresh and hopefully it will be a good colour for stimulating creativity.

I've also treated myself to some new kit this week with a new beading table, a high stool for the workbench and and a gorgeous cream leather ergonomic chair - the latter being a must have since I've spent a large part of this week almost immobilised with a back strain. I'm on the mend now though and hopefully this chair will help me stay that way.

The early part of next week will see decorating finished, doors hung and radiators plumbed in before the studio fittings and new kitchen arrive on Wednesday which means that this time next week (touch wood), it will all be finished and I will be in my new creative home. I'm so excited and I really can't wait!

I'll keep you posted and let you see the final result as soon as it's done because believe me, once I'm in there It may be some time before I come out again!

Lesley

Changing My Shop Name...

I've been thinking about this for a while and I've decided that the time has come to change the name of my component shop THEA too. When I opened the shop 15 months ago I decided on the name 'THEA too' as it seemed appropriate for an extension of my jewellery shop 'THEA jewellery'. Little did I know that it would take off the way it has and actually become the bigger part of my business so that now, the 'too' doesn't seem quite so fitting.

I also think the link only really works within the confines of Etsy and is somewhat abstract as a standalone name. Since I may be doing more shows and will shortly be shipping my first consignment to a bricks and mortar store I feel the name needs to work in the wider market.

So with this in mind I have changed the shop name to 'THEA Elements' - still with the link to my jewellery shop but hopefully more self contained and descriptive.

Some of you may have noticed that I've been playing with new shop banner designs recently and as part of this change, both shops have new banners in the same style and format but with a different colour...what do you think...? I hope you like them..






I'm not planning to change my avatars since these are widely used and recognisable across many social media platforms and for the most part haven't been linked to my banners anyway.

It will take me a little while to phase out business cards (I didn't want to put off the change any longer) and I will be redesigning my blog badge shortly.

Don't worry if you have THEA too bookmarked on Etsy as all links and favourites will automatically carry over and redirect to the new shop url...I made sure to check that with Etsy first and I have it in writing!

At this point I would just like to say a very, very big thank you to everyone who had supported THEA too and I look forward to sharing my new designs with you in the guise of THEA Elements.

Lesley

Studio Conversion Day 4 - I Have a Wall!

Strange thing to get excited about I know but after 3 days of dust and rubble the garage door coming out and the wall going up reassures me that my plans are taking shape...

Not even an exciting wall but it's my wall!

 Yesterday I went shopping for floor covering and of course I had to choose something that requires specialist fitters of whom there are not apparently very many. My options for fitting were therefore Tuesday/Wednesday of next week or the 24th of the month, the former being a little tight and the latter creating a long delay for other aspects of the work. Cue panicky phone call to my builder but he is nothing if not a problem solver and instructed me to book the fitting for next week and he would do what it takes to be ready. I am beginning to understand why building work can take so long - it's not the actual construction but the logistical nightmare of getting the various elements and trades to dovetail smoothly.

Anyway the upshot is they will be working all over the weekend to get everything done. I've been told it will be a manic few days so all I can do is keep the beverages and biscuits flowing freely and maybe go out for bacon Butties. This load bearing wall between the garage and kitchen is coming down tomorrow and a steel is going in so If I attempt to make them myself there may be some added roughage! The window, timber floor and plaster boards will also go in tomorrow - sounds like a good days work to me!

The kitchen will be ripped out on Monday as well which means maybe a week without one which could prove interesting. Fortunately there is a pub 10 minutes walk from the house so at least I won't starve.

I'll keep you posted on the predicted mayhem but in the meantime - wish me luck!

Lesley

Studo Conversion Day 1 - We're Off...!!!

 Yes - the time has finally arrived and work started on Studio THEA today which is great as I was beginning to think I was dreaming it all! Nothing very interesting to show at this point though. This is how things looked when I woke up at the crack of dawn - Christmas has nothing on this you know...

 And this is how it looks at the end of the day...

Much the same but with some tools I hear you say. Well, yes but there has definitely been some activity - I know because my ears are still ringing from the pneumatic drilling that made the entire house shake. The cat has taken refuge in a padded cell in the wardrobe and I might just join her if there's any more of it to come! As a result of all that drilling we now have the footing for the new wall...

And a big bag of waste - not the last I'm sure.

 

I was quite surprised when the electrician turned up but is seems he has a busy week so we had to grab him while we could even if it was day one - no argument from me as there's nothing worse than coming to a halt because you're waiting on a specialist. Consequently there are also now lots of holes in the ceiling (more drilling!) and lots of cables waiting to be run behind plaster board and under floors.

So as you can see we are well and truly underway - the bricks are coming tomorrow and the window arrives on Thursday and then it will begin to look like something is happening. It won't start to look like a studio until well into next week but I will post regularly to show you what's going on. I'll also set up a dedicated blog page so that all the posts can be read together.

OK - I'm off to remove a film of dust from the kitchen so I can prepare an edible dinner!

Back soon.

Lesley

AJE Component of the month - May reveal

Well here we are on the cusp of a new month and it's time to see what the AJE team and its guest designers have done with this month's component - these gorgeous ruffle beads courtesy of Sue Kennedy of Sue Beads...aren't they pretty.

The bead I received was the egg yolk yellow and turquoise one at the bottom right of the picture. I don't work with yellow very much but the turquoise is such a lovely foil for it and this bead has such a sunny disposition I couldn't help but smile. This was obviously going to be a summer piece and after playing around with a few ideas I decided on a necklace - a very simple design because I think it lets the colours and the shapes sing.

I managed to find some lampwork pumpkin beads that were a perfect match and wired the beads together with bronze wire to create a yoke. I used some pretty little Magnesite rice beads strung on waxed linen to hang the yoke from and completed the necklace with a handmade bronze hook clasp

And that's it - nothing fussy or flashy but very eye catching I think...

While I was working on this the John Denver song 'Sunshine on my shoulders' kept running through my head so I took this as a sign and named the necklace after it.

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy

Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry

Sunshine on the water looks so lovely

Sunshine almost always makes me high

 

Turquoise pumpkin beads by Tillerman Beads, yellow and orange pumpkin beads by Pebble Dreams.

We haven't seen much sun here in the UK yet but appropriately we do have blue sky and sunshine this morning so maybe my necklace could be the harbinger of summer - you never know...

Many thanksto Sue for the beads and you can see what the other participants have done with their beads by clicking on the inks below and I hope you all have a happy and sunny weekend.
 

Guest designers

Lorelei Eurto  http://www.lorelei1141.blogspot.com/
Birgitta Lejonklou  http://lejonklou.blogspot.com/
Heidi Post  http://www.expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com/
Lola Surwillo  http://beadlolabead.blogspot.com/
Kay Thomerson  http://kayzkreationz.blogspot.com/


AJE design team

Jennifer Cameron  http://glassaddictions.com/
Jenny Davies-Reazor  http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog
Susan Kennedy  http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com/
Linda Landig  http://www.lindasbeadblog.com/
Melissa Meman    http://melissameman.blogspot.com/
Rebekah Payne  http://www.treewingsstudio.com/ 

                                       Jo Tinley http://daisychaindesignsjewellery.blogspot.com/

Lesley 

AJE Earring Challenge - Reveal 10 weeks 19/20

It's time for another fortnightly earring challenge reveal over at AJE (Art Jewelry Elements) and I've managed to get my act together to do a post this time around and my earrings have a definite ocean vibe...

Here I've teamed up some natural sea glass connectors with some fabulous lampwork beads from Maya Honey Lampwork which have been etched to give the same sea glass effect and decorated with shell motifs. The accents are sterling silver as are my handmade ear wires. I love these but boy, do the very soft edges make them a pain to photograph!

My second pair for this reveal are great fun and quite kitsch for me...The handmade paper tube beads are by Gillian McMurray and depict mermaids in a vintage style print. It just seemed natural to add the little shells for her to sit on. The ear wires are hypo allergenic Niobium.

Available in my Etsy Shop

If you'd like to see more designs from the other participants pop over to the AJE Blog which will feature some of the teams favourites in today's post.

Lesley

Ready for Action...

Operation studio is almost underway and the finalised start date is 30th May...next Thursday...less than 6 days away!!! Can you tell I'm excited....

The garage was cleared today and and all that's left is my firing kit and a few odds and ends that I need to find temporary homes for.

This works out quite well as I still have a few things to fire for a consignment which I can do over the next few days but then I will be packing the kiln away for a well deserved rest. While the builders are in I'll be catching up with some jewellery making and hopefully dreaming up some new ideas to get to work on once I'm settled in my new home.

And of course I'll be blogging regularly on the evolution of Studio THEA so you'll be able to see how this unprepossessing space develops and how over excited I get!

It's the spring bank holiday weekend in the UK and I believe it's Memorial weekend in the US so I hope you all have something lovely planned and have a really great time.

Lesley