I am so pleased with how these turned out. These are the little goddess charms I have made as trades for Artfest:

water goddess	fire goddess
earth goddess	air goddess

A couple of people have asked me about the little face beads. I made them with a mould, I know it was called tribal, but I don't know who makes it. I used Lumina airdry clay and then glazed them with acrylic inks diluted with Diamond Glaze, and for the air goddess I used twinkling H20s. TFL Kel x

What a wonderful day I had on Saturday! Harrey's friend Lorraine took us to all the bead shops on her regular bead binge route.

Location: Near Neal's Yard
Name: lost somewhere in the mists of time
Finds: very cute happy cat beads, vaguely creepy girl heads, silver metal leaves and keys

Location: into Neal's Yard
Name: Bead Aura
Finds: Lovely atmosphere, loads to look at. I bought some wire, some fixings, more flat metal bits - keys and leaves again, some storage (a tin of cute glass topped tins) and pliers - I love love love my multi-use pliers that crimp, cut, loop and close jumprings, but these have bigger posts for rolling jumprings. Oh, and leather thong for the Mother's Day presents at school.

Location: Tower Street, near Covent Garden
Name: The Bead Shop
Finds: Beautiful shop, with lovely old-fashioned wooden bead trays displaying a huge selection. Less relaxed atmosphere, and some woman dragging her poor dog around the shop. I bought boxes of plastic jars, more wire (2 colours, 3 gauges, ha!), more fixings, some beads with chopstick style designs of bamboo, frogs and dragonflies. And yes, I believe, more flat metal leaves.

Location: alongside Chinatown
Name: erm, something and something
Finds: metal hearts and leaves or keys! and little plastic bags for my ArtFest charms which I left on the counter because the staff were so rubbish I lost the will to live, or at the very least, the will to buy charms!

Location: Carnaby Street mall
Name: Buffy's Beads
Finds: So beautiful and classy. I am not really up to that standard yet, so just bought a jade leaf and some shell leaves.

After some gorgeous Japanese food, we headed home. We suddenly realised that we have no time to see each other before I go away, so Harrey managed to let some friends down gently, and we went back to her place and ate pizza and drank beers. I made more charms (still 59 to go!) and she played with the beading book I got her for her birthday present, along with a selection of Indian lamp beads.

Pictures of the charms to follow...

PerplexCity party last night to celebrate the finding of the cube by one Rand0m AKA Andy Darley. Check out his Cube Hunter's Tale, the rest of his blog is worth a look too.

I was explaining to my mother-in-law what is so compelling about Perplex City and realised that there are five main factors (in no particular order):
1) the ARG - Alternate Reality Game - the backstory and detail that make Perplex City real for us and make us care what happens there;
2) the points. People like points. Why else are pedometers so successful?
3) the Cube. The big prize. An exclusive, sought after item worth £100,000.
4) the puzzle cards - beautifully designed, shiny, colourful, clever puzzle cards. I have never been a great collector or trader but these are luscious.
5) the social side. PXC brings together all shapes, sizes, ages and quirks of people. Cube parties are friendly and welcoming and I have made some friends that I hope to keep at them.

Bring on Season 2! Embrace your inner geek!