Hi guys! I'm finally back in the UK! I injured my back during my vacation and had to extend my trip so I could heal up. I'm feeling better now and to thank all of you for your well wishes and your patience, I'm having a 20% off sale!

From now until Sunday at midnight, GMT, I'm offering 20% off my Ready To Go - Beads!, Ready To Go - Jewellery! and Key Focal categories!! I'm still offering my Add On Jewellery Services but those are not included in the sale.

How it works: You make your purchases and pay via PayPal. I will then refund you 20% of the applicable total! Super easy! Remember: the prices seen on my website are the originals.. you will get 20% off those prices (except for Add On Jewellery Services).

Sale ends Sunday at midnight, GMT. What are you waiting for?!

Have a great weekend :)

Love,
keiara

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

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?!?

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

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/

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 :)

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 :)

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!

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*

My bead rack, that is! What did you think I meant?! My wonderful hubby, Steve, made me some GORRRRRRGEOUS mahogany bead display racks. I have four of the tall, upright displays, two spinning displays and two focal displays. You can see one of each in this photo plus all the bazillions of beads I had for sale at The Big Bead Show! I had a GREAT time! I met up with old friends, made new friends and have so many new, wonderful customers. My beads seemed to be quite a hit and I was ecstatically happy! It was also fantastic to admire other people's work from seed bead jewellery and ornaments to ceramic bangles (SO awesome!), fabulous jewellery and interesting hairstyles, tattoos and piercings. What a day! I'm so glad that Sam asked me to share a table with her and gave me the courage to do this show. Thank you, Sam! I will definitely be doing more shows in the future :)

It's nearly time for The Big Bead Show! I'm super excited (and nervous) and I just can't wait! Steve has made some truly gorgeous bead displays and I'm so proud of him. I'll post pics of them after the event!

Reminder: Email me using the contact form on my website to RSVP for the show and I'll give you a discount on all my beads at the show! Don't miss out on this as it will ONLY be available to those of you who RSVP!

I'll also be offering a fantastic giveaway to everyone who signs my book at the show! If you're going, find me and sign the book to be eligible!

I hope you're as excited as I am! See you Saturday :)

Love,
keiara

www.bykeiara.co.uk
www.bykeiara.blogspot.com

Happy Friday everyone! I'm still working like mad to get ready for The Big Bead Show. Yeah, that's me, plugging the show AGAIN! I've also had a few custom orders for necklaces lately (everyone just loves Diane's ribbons, of course!) and here are my two favourites (well, I have another favourite but I don't want to show it because it's a gift for a friend's sister - shhhh) Anyway! Above is my Golden Dream Tree Focal that I've turned into a pendant and hung from Diane's glorious ribbon. It is hard to see in the picture but the ribbon is a delicious variegated apricot with gold stitching. PERFECT for the Golden Dream Tree!

Hi everyone! I had a super busy (and fun) weekend.. I'm still recovering ;) On Saturday, Steve, Naomi and I all drove over to Glastonbury for the Avalon Faery Ball. As we were driving along what should we happen to spy on the side of the road.. STONEHENGE! I had never seen Stonehenge so we quickly pulled over and went over to see it. It is amazing! It was also quite chilly and VERY windy.. my dreads were whipping me in the face :( It felt so good to be standing so close to this incredible bit of history. I was surprised at the surroundings though. It really is standing in a field.. with nothing else around! You can no longer walk amongst the stones but it was an incredible experience. I got all teary-eyed! Then on Sunday, Steve and I went to a friend's house for a get together. I enjoyed myself and there was tons of wonderful food :) We had a great time but by Sunday night we were both soooo utterly exhausted. I could've slept all day yesterday.. if I didn't have beads on the brain! ;)

Happy October everyone! October is one of my favourite months because it ends with HALLOWEEN! YAY! I love Halloween and everything that goes along with it. I decorate the house, make spooky cupcakes, dress up and hand out candy to all the trick-or-treaters. So, in honour of one of my favourite holidays, I'll be giving away a Spooky Skull focal! Winner can choose the bow colour (or no bow) and whether you'd like it made into a pendant as well :) All you have to do to enter is join my mailing list! Go to www.bykeiara.co.uk and sign up using my Mailing List form. Easy :) Fear not, loyal friends, EVERYONE on the mailing list is entered to win. Winner will be chosen at random on Sunday, October 4. Happy Halloween!

Don't forget there's a few places to meet me and see my work coming up too! This Saturday, October 3, I'll be at the Avalon Faery Ball. My work will be exhibited by the wonderful Leigh of Magick Minx. I will also be an exhibitor at The Big Bead Show on Saturday, October 17. I'm running a very special offer for ALL my wonderful customers who will be attending The Big Bead Show. If you plan on attending, send me an RSVP email. In return I'll offer you a discount on all my beads at the show! You can email me at keiara@bykeiara.co.uk :) Just put RSVP in the subject and let me know you'll be there. I'll do the rest!

I have a very exciting weekend planned, how about you? On Saturday I'll be at the Avalon Faery Ball which I'm REALLY looking forward to. And then on Sunday I'll be heading over to a friend's birthday BBQ. I can't wait! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend too.

Happy October!

Love,
keiara

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

I had new dreads installed yesterday, YAY!! This is Sweet Dreams mixed with Lavender and I LOVE them! I was not too sure about the colours at first. I'm not a huge pastel girl (prefer brights) but I had some inspiration..

Yes, that's right.. I decided to install these dreads specifically to match my cupcake button jewellery by Collette at Noodlefish. Call me crazy, but could YOU pass up the opportunity?! I'm really in love with the new dreads though so it all turned out wonderful in the end :)

I've just listed these gorgeous Confetti Twist Lentils on Etsy! Hope you'll have a look.

They're quite yummy.. mmm. This is one of my favourite color combinations and I love the shape of these straight sided lentils. Add in the beautiful Rose Quartz (that's the name of the glass.. and quite apt!) spacers and it's heavenly :)

Have a great Tuesday!

Love,
keiara

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

Hi everyone and happy Monday! I had so much fun with the cupcake giveaway this weekend. Stay tuned next month for a Halloween giveaway! OooOOoOOh! And now on to business. Beautiful button business, that is ;) The jewellery sets here are all made by the one, the only, the wonderfully talented, super sweet and fabulous Collette of Noodlefish. I love this chick. BIG time! First up is this awesomely funky black and polka dot set. I had an idea. I emailed Collette with the idea. Collette made jewellery. And all was fantastically right with the world 'cause DAMN! See what she does? She drives me to curse! My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw what she came up with here. I LOOOOVES it! I originally ordered just the necklace.. but can you blame me for asking for a matching bracelet? C'mon, you know you wouldn't have been able to resist either ;)

Did you know this week is National Cupcake Week?! Well, apparently it is! In honour of this, I'm going to be giving away one of the cupcakes pictured above! If you don't create your own jewellery, I'll be happy to turn the cupcake into a pendant for you! These are my mega-sized cupcakes and stand around 22mm tall. How do you enter? Just sign up to my mailing list!

Go to www.bykeiara.co.uk and you'll see the mailing list application on the left. That's it! On Sunday I will choose a winner at random. Pretty easy, huh?

Happy Friday, happy National Cupcake Week and I hope you have a great weekend!

Love,
keiara

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

I absolutely LOVE these beads! I call them Confetti Twist and they are created on a transparent base with gorgeous pastel frit. I then heat them up and twist the center which creates the pretty swirl in the middle. I liked the beads so much that I turned them into a bracelet for myself ;)

I know I've shown the bracelet oodles of times before but, hey, I really like it! I threw the beads together, wired up one of my bunny bobble heads for the dangle and, voila, it's an Easter bracelet! Now, out of all the many (MANY) bracelets I own, this is the one that receives the most compliments. Yes, really. Something about it really intrigues people and so I decided I would experiment with this combination in a lentil shape.

I'll give you a minute to drink in the beauty of these bracelets. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Picked your jaw up? Wiped the drool off your chin? Ok then! This gorgeous pink butterfly cuff bracelet was created by the ridiculously talented Joey of Joey's Dream Garden. Joey is currently my personal hero. I bought the pink bracelet ages ago and loved it SO much that I immediately asked Joey to custom make me a purple and black one in a similar design.


This is the phenomenal beauty I was greeted with this morning! Oh how I wish pictures could possibly do these bracelets justice. They have so much detail, embellishments and the craftsmanship is outstanding. The purple one is actually lined with beautiful purple velvet but it simply will NOT let me photograph it.. lol. Every inch is covered in lovely stitching, beads, sequins, rhinestones, buttons.. there's SO much to look at!

Well, I'm officially setting aside my crown. Normally I am totally the Queen of Procrastination (and cupcakes, yes!) but I'm actually get TONS done for my upcoming show. Yes, I'm going to continue to plug the show until you're sick of hearing about it. Why not turn up in person to tell me how disappointed you are in my tireless self-promotion?! Anyway, so I decided I had better make some 'grown-up beads' in addition to all my whimsical yumminess. This set is one of my absolute favourites. Rosatta Trails is made with my very favourite glass in the world (called, of all things, rosatta.. ha!) and has trails (man I'm so creative w/these names!) of silvered ivory in what I call my Pollock style (gold star if that means something to you). I'm currently frowning at my overuse of the parentheses above but I'm just gonna go with it so.. MOVING ON!


www.bykeiara.co.uk

www.bykeiara.etsy.com

New bracelet kitties!! Whatcha think? I giggled the whole time I was creating these little cuties :) I've had so many requests for bracelet kitties and this is the first full set I've created. I enjoyed playing with the different looks and giving them all different coloured eyes.. heehee :) Keep an eye out for lots more of these to come!

And more Christmas beads today! I'm feeling very Christmassy and it makes me happy :) All these have already sold (can you believe it??) but I'm taking orders on more so feel free to contact me if you'd like a set or two :)

How was your weekend? I had a lovely weekend. On Saturday Steve and I drove up to Margate and went to the Shell Grotto which I thought was really cool. We also drove through Ramsgate which was very pretty. Ultimately we ended up in Folkestone town centre and I bought some cupcake socks (SO cute!) for myself and Kaia, some interesting bits to create bead displays and had some lunch at a cafe. We stopped by the grocery store on the way home to grab some strawberries which we turned into homemade ice cream for Steve's dad, Kevin. Kevin and Kaia share the same birthday! I baked a big batch of pumpkin muffins (one of Kevin's favourites of mine!) and then we settled in for the evening. It was a looooooong day! Sunday we went to the in-laws' for Kevin's birthday gathering. We brought along the muffins and ice cream (and some of my homemade cream cheese frosting that they all go nuts for) and had a really nice time. Everyone was there and at the end of the day we took some great group photos.

I really love this shot (I'm so hard to spot, huh?!). In this photo is Steve's entire immediate family including parents, grandparents, siblings and nieces and nephews.. also some cousins, spouses and partners.. and, in Sonya's arms (standing up 4th from left in red) the cutest Yorkshire Terrier doggie ever.. Millie :) They have the biggest family I've ever met! There's at least another 50 or so aunts, uncles and cousins not pictured here!!! I always wanted to be part of a big family and I certainly got my wish :)

It was also Kaia's birthday yesterday so I am officially the mother of a 14 year old now! I can hardly believe it! She had a wonderful day and really loved all the gifts I sent her. I made her one of my zombie kitties and turned it into a pendant plus made matching earrings. I also sent her some kitties from theothermousie which she went crazy over! I wish I could have been there and I can't wait to see pictures from her party :) I will be sure to share them.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! I'm off to melt some glass ;)

Love,
keiara

www.bykeiara.co.uk

www.bykeiara.etsy.com