Up before dawn.........too early for me.....

Dichroic glass pendant - transluscent green
Green Goddess
www.LibellulaGlass.etsy.com

Up too early this morning - our recent guests from the UK wanted to leave by 6am to drive all the way to the port in the north of France to sail tomorrow. Too early for me, but an early start means I can get down to making some more jewellery today.

Yesterday spring became winter again with wild winds, rain and a drop in temperatures, but we were cosy beside the log burning stove.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant, Chez Divine in Mouthoumet, Corbieres, 11 Aude. The only restaurant for miles around here and fortunately it serves good food and quite cheaply. The decor leaves a little to be desired, having changed the old fashioned chintzy wallpaper for fake plastic beams and stick-on fake stones last year. Ignor this thogh and enjoy the food.

After that I was giving a demonstration to the 'Troisieme Age' - the pensioners group here. They had asked to know how I made canes in Fimo, polymer clay for decorating little yogurt pots for making candle holders. The candle holders will be used on the tables during the village fetes this summer.

I taught myself to make canes by finding links on the web, they can be easy or complicated, either way they make spectacular designs and are really impressive.

I prefer to work in glass now as polymer clay requires too much kneading, pushing and rolling which affects the arthritis in my hands. Glass, once the cut is made is much easier on hands anf joints. I found a pistol shaped glass cutter from a mosaic website here in France which is easy to hold and use. Shop around as the prices are very varied.

Rural postal services...............?

Dichroic Glass - Slider pendant - Mardi Gras - multicolored dichroic glass mosaic:

www.LibellulaGlass.etsy.com or contact me on www.libellulaglass@yahoo.com

I have a blog on French Blogger and one in english on Blogger.com, they seem to have linked themselves and I have been posting on one and it has come up on the other.

We have visitors here at present and I have not checked any mails for 2 days, so it was a great suprise to look on line and find I had sold three items on Ebay, so I am about to do battle at our little village post office here in France......On saturday I checked the opening times of the post office and went to the next village. The post lady was outside talking to the postman. I went up to the door and she moved aside and said the post office was shut.....she was ill (?) and there was no one to replace her that day.......she had jsut walked across to put a notice on the door.......so no post was sent saturday. I am now about to go again, Monday to the same village, it is supposed to be open today from 3 - 5, of course the post for day has already been collected, before the post office opens, so anything left there today will not even get into the system until tomorrow at 2pm......Oh the joys of country living.......

Hurricanes and power cuts.....

I had to cut the last posting short as the wind is terrible here and we had three short power cuts, that usually means the next one will cut the power off for the rest of the night.....Oh the joys of living in the wilds.

Launching shop on ETSY.....www.LibellulaGlass.etsy.com

Phew, I was holding my breath while adding jewellery items to my new Etsy shop - nerve wracking, and having to invent names for each piece too so much time.....is this essential I ask myself??? I will have to jot names down in a notebook as they come to me.

As my flash on the camera is jammed I had to take the photos outside - surrounded by chickens again.....I have now made up a small 'studio' on the table inside, and the photos can be readjusted on Photoshop, so I think I will get better at it.

I received some new glass pieces from Warm Glass UK yesterday so I will be making up some new items this evening. Etched glass is interesting, but etched, dichroic glass is spectacular. There are some dog tooth check designs and animal prints, which could give me some more masculin designs.....