Coriandr Express

Snapdragon Beads

1. Please introduce us to who you are and tell us a bit about your craft.
Hi! My name is Alice, often called Al or Bug by my close family and mamamamamama by my 14 month old daughter, Amelia. I live in Biggleswade in Bedfordshire with my long suffering husband Jon, Amelia and our two cats Lucy and Sophy.

I originally hail from Dublin but have been living in the UK since 2002 when I high tailed it across the Irish sea on completion of my final university exam. I worked in IT for a number of years until I had my little girl at which point it was more practical all round for me to stay at home.

I have been making jewellery of one kind or another for nearly 14 years and in the last 5 or so have concentrated on developing my off loom bead weaving technique as much as a full time job would allow.

My time is even more at a premium now that I am a full time baby wrangler but before I know it Amelia will be going to school and I've got to have something to keep me out of trouble ;-)

My love of crafts is definitely inherited from my mother who is a handquilter and embroiderer and my need to posses and horde beads (which take up an entire room in our house) is clearly genetic, as my mother has much the same problem with thread and fabric ;-)


2. How would you describe your style and how did that style evolve.
While I love to go mad sometimes with colour, the form of my pieces is very ordered, I like experimenting about with shape and repetition; this I attribute to my time studying for a mathematics degree. Even my multistrand semi-precious gem stone pieces might seem random and haphazard but there is still an underlying pattern to them.

This style has evolved as my spare time as diminished, I now have to make the most of a free hour I might have and the beaded circle motifs I now have down to a fine art and can make them without even thinking now, and like crochet or knitting the tension is very important but like those techniques it is something you can just feel and after a while your hands automatically ensure that it is correct.

3. Who/what inspires you?
In terms of colour and pattern designers like Vivian Westwood and Kaffe Fassett really help me be more bold and daring about my colour selections, and I like to think that that is something that my pieces are known for, being just that little bit out of the ordinary.

4. What do you do if/when you have a creative block?
If I'm having trouble starting a new colourway I might either have a look at Amelia's toys, to see if the bright colours help me come up with something, or I might either look through some of my art books or have a look at online colour trend resources.

If I'm feeling a bit down; if its been a particularly frazzling day, while Amelia is napping I might go up into the "work/beadroom" and do something simple like making strung bracelets or just watch an old movie, or Pride and Prejudice, or listen to some music or an audio book.

5. Where do you see yourself being in a year’s time?
In a years time hopefully a bit more organised! Amelia will be off to nursery so I should have a few hours a week to get a routine going for myself rather than snatching half an hour here and there. Then, with any luck, I can address selling online properly, as well as thinking about approaching some b&m shops.

6. What do you like about being a seller on Coriandr?
I love the look and feel of Coriandr, and as I used to work in web development, I'm very picky and this means alot to me. I like the one page listing. I don't have a huge amount of time to explore the forums as much as I should but from what I have seen there is a very positive and friendly atmosphere.

7. Which other Coriandr Sellers do you like?
I really like Dig The Earth's cards, his designs and colours really appeal to me. I love Kitty Ballistic's Felt Aubergine!
myfuroshiki is a fantastic shop and it is great to see this very eco wrapping technique get more exposure over here.
Lullaby Lilly's slugs are very cute as well even though I have a horror of slugs ;-)