a week from today!

It's just one week from today that I'll be on a plane to Florida!!! I can't WAIT to see everyone :) There's this super cute face that I miss so much.. my daughter, Kaia. She'll be travelling down from Tampa to stay with me at my mom's house during the Thanksgiving holiday. I can't wait to squeeze her until her eyes pop out! Hey, you would too.. don't you SEE that face?!?

And I'll be seeing Mom and my sister, Leah. Hopefully Mom will take us to Jaxson's again which is where this picture was taken. Leah just moved into a new house with her boyfriend, Eric, and I can't WAIT to see her new place! I'm so happy for her :) Mom is also doing pretty good and has recently been getting back into the dating game. Good for you, Mom! I can't wait to give them tons of hugs.. and to eat lots of Mom's fabulous cookin' :) Leah even bought me a ticket to go see the Rangers game (ice hockey)!! What a great sister <3

And no visit would be complete without some quality time spent with my best friend, my anam cara, the other half of my soul.. Emi. It seems aaaaages since I've seen her.. even though it was really just in April! Emi has three kids (which are basically like my 'second' kids lol) and I can't wait to see them too. A big 'thank you' to Emi's fiance, David, for always putting up with the two of us :) In April when I couldn't travel to see Emi, David arranged for all of them to come down and stay near my mom's house! What a guy, huh? I can't wait to see you, Emi! <3

As far as what this means to you, my lovely customers and friends: My website shop will be on hold starting this Friday and will return on Friday, December 4th. My Etsy shop is also 'on vacation' until my return. I WILL be accepting custom orders while I'm away though! All orders will be on a first come, first served basis and will be created upon my return. This means that I will START all custom orders received during my trip on Friday, December 4th. Please note that my lead time may be slightly longer than usual but hopefully still within 5 - 7 business days. If my lead time gets longer than that, I will notify you PRIOR to accepting your order, so no worries :) I hope that all makes sense ;)

I have new Ready To Go - Beads! and Ready To Go - Jewellery! in my shop right now! I also have some lovely new key focals up for grabs! All orders received up to Friday will be mailed before I leave.. so if you see something you like, feel free to snap it up ;)

I suppose I should probably start getting things together for my trip.. but I'm still so busy making beads! Speaking of which, think I'll light my torch now.. ;)

Have a great day!

Love,

keiara

http://www.bykeiara.co.uk/

http://www.bykeiara.etsy.com/

November Giveaway - WINNER!

Thank you so much to everyone for entering my November Giveaway! I'm pleased to announce the winner:

Terri said...
Roll on Summer - looks good enough to eat!! Yum Yum
05 November 2009 14:45

Congratulations, Terri! Please email me to claim your ice cream cone :)

Have a great week, everyone!

Love,
keiara

www.bykeiara.co.uk
www.bykeiara.etsy.com

November Giveaway!

Hi guys! It's giveaway time!! This month I decided to give away one of my yummy ice cream cones. This bead is appearing in the latest issue of Bead magazine which is coming out soon! Would you like to own it? All you have to do is follow my blog by clicking on the 'follow' button at the right and leave me a comment below! Super easy :)

As always the winner can decide if you'd like me to turn it into a pendant for you :) The winner will be picked by random number generator on Sunday, November 8th! Giveaway open to everyone, everywhere!

Good luck and have a great day :)

Love,
keiara

http://www.bykeiara.co.uk/
http://www.bykeiara.etsy.com/

ask and ye shall receive.. PIGTURES!

Hi guys!! As promised here are some guinea piggie 'pigtures' :) First up is Cupcake. She is quite shy and sticks her head out repeatedly before she feels confident enough that the weird woman with the purple hair isn't going to have her in a sandwich :P It takes her several minutes to get up the courage to come out of her little hidey home :)

But it's worth the wait! Isn't she lovely? She's such a dainy little girl and such a sweetiepie. Her sister, Muffin, could not be convinced to make an appearance today :( You can just about see her bum through the entrance to the tunnel in the upper left of this pigture. (You know I'm ALWAYS gonna use that term from now on, right?! Pigture.. *cracks up*) Cupcake LOVES broccoli and was happily munching away. She stopped to make sure my camera was not a threat and then continued chowing down ;)

And here are my sweet, sweet boys! They're happy to eat out of my hand (which is the odd looking thing in the upper left.. sorry, bad angle!) and here they are munching some parsley. Excuse the action shot.. that's how much they love the parsley!

Here they are minding their table manners a bit more. Ginger Nut (left) and Chips are warming up to me quite well so far. They don't seem overly scared when I put my hand in the cage and they'll even sniff at my fingers (if there's food involved of course!). The boys are really adorable and don't seem to fight at all! They sleep together in their little hidey house and don't seem to argue over food either.

The girls on the other hand!! The girls seem to be having some 'top pig' issues. Muffin (the shy one) won't come out of her tunnel when I'm around (although she DID take a bit of carrot from me yesterday.. but she cheated and only poked her head out of her tunnel) but she also won't let Cupcake IN the tunnel! Whenever Cupcake tries to enter the tunnel, much squeaky protests sound and Cupcake comes running back out. They sleep separately and I have not seen them share food at all. Muffin just tries to nab Cupcake's food if Cupcake happens to wander too close to the tunnel with a bit of veg. It's bizarre! I'm hoping the girls settle in and Muffin starts coming out of the tunnel more. I've read up and it says to give them about a week to settle in before really starting to handle them so that's what I'm doing. Let's hope a week is enough time for Muffin to quit being such a moody pig.. LOL ;)

A parting shot of Ginger Nut. He is SO adorable! I just love his little face and his pretty colouring. I can't wait til these little piggies start bonding with me more!

Lots of piggie hugs and love to all of you! Have a great week ;)

Love,

keiara (& the piggies)

so much new stuff.. where do I begin?!

Hi everyone!! I hope you all had a wonderful, spooktacular Halloween! As you can see, my Halloween dreads DID arrive in time! WOOT! Naomi installed them and they really looked great :) These are synthetic hair dreads and they are SO much heavier than the wonderfully light wool I'm used to though! Still, I think they looked very festive :)

I've done a HUUUUGE update to my shop as well! I've added many new categories including: Ready To Go - Beads! This category contains all the beads that are already made and just waiting to go home with you :) Many of these will be availabe as made to order too so if you see something you like but want it in a different colour, just contact me and I'll be happy to create a lovely bead to your specifications.

I've also added a new Key Focal category! I know many of you were really diggin' the keys at the show so I've given them their very own category ;) I've also added an option to turn a key into a ribbon necklace!

Last, but not least, I also added a new Ready To Go - Jewellery! category. This category contains jewellery that's ready and waiting to adorn your ears, wrists and neck :)

In other news: I've adopted four baby guinea piggies! Pictures to come soon :) They are so sweet and adorable! This morning I had all four eating carrots out of my hands.. it was heaven!

How about you guys? Anything interesting happen over the Halloween weekend? Anything fun planned for the week? I'm busybusybusy but that's a good thing!

Off to make more beads.. hope you check out all my new shop changes!

Have a great week :)

Love,

keiara

http://www.bykeiara.co.uk/

http://www.bykeiara.etsy.com/

Happy Monday!

Hi guys! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I got into a bracelet-making mood and here are two of my favourites from Saturday :) Above is Candy Corn Halloween bracelet (candy corn, for all my British friends, is a quintessential American candy that is practically mandatory at any Halloween gathering - interesting side note: I can't stand the stuff but it IS really cute!) I created this bracelet with three of my handmade candy corn lampwork beads and gorgeous felt beads from Debbie. Her felt beads are FANTASTIC! Well, everything she does is fantastic ;) The beads are beautifully formed, light and easy to string. I really enjoyed working with them and I will definitely be making more felt bead jewellery!

Next up is Jester Halloween bracelet. All my Halloween jewellery this year is black, lime green and purple to match my new synthetic dreads (which I've just been told have not shipped yet even though I received an email last week saying they were going out Special Delivery.. PANIC MODE ON!) *cough* I'm going to be optimistic and believe they WILL arrive in the next couple of days. Anyway! This bracelet is all Debbie's felted beads with simple Sterling silver spacers. I am so in love with these beads! Comfy, cute and handmade by a darling friend. What more could you ask for?!

I'll have to do another post later this week showing off all my Halloween jewellery. I REALLY spoiled myself (if I may say) but I think I deserved it after all my hard work for the show last weekend ;) In the meantime, I'm off to bake Halloween cupcakes.. MMM!

Have a great day, everyone!

Love,

keiara

http://www.bykeiara.co.uk/

http://www.bykeiara.etsy.com/

I LOVE MY FRIENDS!

Yes, I do. Why? Because my friends send me awesomely cool Halloween stuff like this!!! This is a big reason why I love what I do so much. I mean, it's great and fun and wonderful all by itself PLUS I get to meet lots of other amazing artists who make lots of ridiculously cool stuff! Case in point: the above picture. My fabulous friend, Laura, made me these fantastic Halloween-themed brooches (am I the only one who always wants to say 'broach'?!) and the adorable card too. The Nightmare Before Christmas brooches are actually from last year but, hey, they deserved to have their pictures taken too! How awesome are these?! I LOVE them. To say that my jaw dropped when I saw the Dia de los Muertos (sugar) skull is an understatement. And how freaking cool is the Oogie Boogie?!? *swoon*

Not only did Laura send me an awesome package today.. but so did Debbie! I've talked about Debbie loads of times before. She's my go-to girl for felt jewellery, beads and her own handmade dolls and trolls too. Her work is incredible! I asked her if she could make me a pair of Halloween bracelets with some embroidery. This is what she came up with!! The lime green bracelet has fantastic, delicate embroidery featuring spiders and the black bracelet has sparkly stars (which don't show in the pic) and an AMAZING black cat face charm! This picture SOOOO doesn't do these bracelets justice. They are just phenomenal! I'm so in love with them :)

I've officially decorated my house for Halloween (pictures soon) and I'm planning a Halloween-themed dinner party! OooOoOOo! I can't wait :) Halloween is one of my favourite holidays. OH! I've also ordered some gorgeous black, lime green and purple synthetic dreads! I hope they arrive soon.. I can't wait to see what they look like installed (pics of that to follow too).

I have all my Halloween jewellery sorted including a button jewellery set from Collette at Noodlefish, a ribbon jewellery set from Mel at Poor Robin and these wonderful felt bracelets from Debbie of Wychburydoll. I suppose I should probably at least wear ONE of my own creations too, huh? Spooky Skulls bracelet it is, then!

How about you guys? Anything fun planned for Halloween? Trick-or-treating? Dressing up? I'll be baking up a bunch of ultra spooky cupcakes for hubby's office (as I do every year) and I have some GREAT ideas! I hope they turn out as cool as I'm envisioning ;)

Off to make more beads. Hope you're all having a great day! I know I am after receiving all these fantastic Halloween gifts!

Love,

keiara

www.bykeiara.co.uk

www.bykeiara.etsy.com