When I was a kid I would spend hours with lengths of embroidery floss making friendship bracelets. I was always delighted when I learned a new knotting technique and intrigued to see how it would look in different colours. I suppose not much has actually changed since then only now, instead of embroidery thread, I have an abundance of seed beads.
I was browsing Pinterest and saw pictures of these ‘old school’ friendship bracelets and it struck me how each little knot looked like a bead so I decided that my dusty beading loom needed digging out (by that I mean get it from the back of my beading trolley!).
I wanted a beachy boho type of look.
Different finishes on the beads gave a totally different look. I have made myself one in purple, pink, blue and a soft green and teamed it with black thread. Not the summery look I was going for but I love it.
In other news I did a little Redbubble shopping. I have a few illustrations up on there but I had never bought anything. My daughter wanted a bag for swimming and wanted one with my seahorse illustration on it. Seemed like a good excuse for some retail therapy.
I bought myself a travel mug with my Toucans on it.
I tried a quick snap of the bag before it disappeared off with my daughter.
Did you spot my cheeky son? He always manages to sneak into photos.
I have to say that I was really pleased with the quality of both items and, much to my relief, the illustrations look good. The travel mug really keeps my drink hot and has no funny taste (I have had some mugs in the past that tasted of plastic and in one case bamboo as that was what the mug was made of). The bag is a really thick fabric and has an internal zipped pocket. I can see both getting a lot of use.
Anyway, that turned into a much longer blog post than intended.
Hope you are having a great week.
Hannah x
The Artisan Duck 
Boys!! Love the swimming bag, just perfect. Your bracelets are just right for the beach. So much talent and skill.
Thank you so much. I was pretty pleased that with all the choice my daughter had she asked for the bag with my picture on (partly because she is unicorn mad and most things in her life are covered by them!)
The bead work is really pretty nd the seahorse bag is great.
Thank you. My daughter tells anyone who comments ‘my mummy drew it’ š Nice to know that even now, with her being nearly 11 years, that I can still do something right š