Happy 4th Birthday!

I almost missed my blog birthday again!

I feel like a very neglectful blog mother.

It's not that I don't love my first born (the blog, I'm not actually neglecting any human children), it's just that I seem to have acquired a whole brood and it's hard to devote enough quality time to all of them at the moment.

They are all latchkey kids by necessity right now, which I try (and often fail) not to feel guilty about, which is crazy... as I'm under no obligation to look after them at all, but my first born, well she's special - and she is a she for some reason.

So baby, Happy 4th Birthday, you're always in my thoughts even if I don't make it home in time to write you a bedtime story these days.

Help me share the guilt...

What would you love to devote more time to that you're not at the moment?

Blogging, buses & beads!

Searching for some more of that blue sky!

Hi everyone

Hope you're all well and fabulous on what is a very grey, wet and dull day here in our little corner of Yorkshire.  I just thought I'd pop in to say sorry for the delay with the goody bag post, I really didn't mean to leave you in suspense for this long!!

Enjoying some time away...

I went away for some adventures in my bus shortly after the last post, resulting in some great "over a glass of wine" tales of "you wouldn't believe what happened next", followed by some fantastic sessions with fire (lampworking, not the bus thankfully!), combine all this with a busy day job, and it's left me little time for writing.

If you follow me on Twitter, or Instagram you might have seen some sneak peaks of what I've been making... if you don't... here's a pic!

Trollbeads Copper Bangle & Stoppers
with one of my beads!

So, in my absence, I hope everyone has enjoyed World Trollbeads Day, indulged in some City Beads, bagged the gorgeous Ohm's Limited Edition Cave In bead, picked their favourites from the Sunbeam Kit (haven't they sold out quickly in a lot places - caught me out this time!), got excited by Ohm's new stoppers, enjoyed looking at Elfbeads new releases coming up, got excited by Turquoise rubber X and been experimenting to see if you do, or do not react to copper! And, er, anything else I've missed whilst I've been away!

I shall be back once I've caught my breath, and decided what to write about first... although I think I better finish that goody bag post this month before somebody lynches me ;)

Speak soon,
Mars xx

How I almost went to the Beaverbrooks and Trollbeads Beadmaker Event...

Photo courtesy of Beaverbrooks - Please do not reproduce

Regular visitors to Curling Stones will know that my boilers have been the bane of my bead buying life...

Around the time I started this blog, my already ancient boilers were starting to fail... and it wasn't a case of simply buying a new boiler or two and swapping them over; the set up in my (also very old) house needed changing around completely.

For several years I've been saving up, whilst also trying to build up my bead collection; two goals that have often been at odds with each other!  

The beads have often won out over the boilers (in case you hadn't noticed) but from January I had a renewed sense of purpose... also known as the central heating failing massively!!  We eventually got it working (kind of) but that was 3 plumbers later and quite a lot of bills.

The time had come, we HAD to get it done this year!!

So savings achieved and raided, plumbers/builders booked for the first two weeks in May.

All was well with the world...  Then my most wanted Blogger Invitation was issued.

"Would I like to attend and cover the
Beaverbrooks and Trollbeads Beadmaker Event?"  

Of course the answer was a resounding YES!!  I had my fingers poised over the train ticket booking system - what's the date? 8th May...

AAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

...came my strangled reply.  Right in the middle of the first of the two weeks of my Boiler Event!

Now perhaps hardened bead fans would have delayed the work at this point, but my plumber is quite in demand and I knew my failing system couldn't wait any longer!

So as I watched the event via Social Media from afar (the Beadmaker Event, I was up close and personal for the Boiler Event!) I plotted and hatched a plan to bring the Beadmaker Event to you!

Tune in tomorrow to see how that fared... in the meantime... RIP my Boilers!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Curling Stones for Lego People!!

Curling Stones for Lego People has reached it's 2nd anniversary of being in existance and I can't believe how much the blog has grown since last year, let alone this day 2 years ago!

Blooming Sunflowers from my trip down South earlier this month

In the last year I've collected some of my long term wishlist beads (and ones I thought I'd never have), I've had the pleasure of live blogging a Fashion Show with a lovely group of bloggers, met and worked with some amazing jewellery makers & retailers, completed the AtoZ challenge, pimped my bead box, attended my first blogger meet, finally stopped buying jewellery long enough to replace my boilers (yippee and boo all at the same time) and worked to showcase some great new brands whose jewellery just happened to fall into my shopping trolley... oh yeah and in case you were snoozing yesterday, I also bought a bus!

Sunset from the Bus

As you're reading this, I've actually headed off to experience another sunset on the bus, complete with my bus bracelet from yesterday and the number of the breakdown firm!

So raise a glass, a mug or a bottle of water and see you on the other side for the start of Year 3!

What are you most pleased about from the last 12 months,

stop by a while, share a tale or two and spread some joy around!

A to Z 2014 Reflections Post

My original intention was to write my reflections post in time to publish for Monday 5th and to join the linky list.  However, the reality of completing the A to Z Challenge whilst starting to research and blog Hull Fashion Week, meant that two major projects overlapped, multiple candles were burnt at both ends until they met in the middle, and quite frankly after the Finale Catwalk Fashion Show last Saturday I pretty much flaked out for a couple of days.  At this point life outside the blogosphere, boilers and the day job took over.

Now that the house is (almost) a little less upside down and I've finally found myself with some time, I can have that space to reflect upon the challenge, and more importantly write it all down before the details fade and I forget.

Taking the questions posed by the team as my starting point, here goes!

Did you accomplish your goals?
Yes, at least I hope so!

I wanted to write my A to Z series from the normal point of view of Curling Stones for Lego People, but to try to make it more accessible for any reader popping in from the A to Z Blog Hop and without repeating or making it too light for my regular readers who like more "straight in there" bead/modular jewellery posts.

Sometimes it got a little lost in translation but hopefully most of this got discussed within the comments section, so yes those are worth reading!

Did you post every day?
Yes, I had an aim that I wanted to publish by 8.30am every day of the A to Z Challenge.  I managed that most days, W and Z were a little late but were still up before 10am.  I'm really proud that I managed to keep to this schedule 24 times out of 26!

Did you make new friends?
Yes, this was another of my goals, to step outside my comfort zone and interact more with other bloggers and their blogs.

As a fairly niche blogger, there aren't as many of us around in my genre, so it was a great opportunity to hook up with bloggers that I wouldn't normally know/find out about.

The Twitter chats were a great way to meet people chatting under the #azchat hashtag, although the times were a little challenging here in the UK, especially when we changed our clocks and I ended up in the chat an hour early confused as to why there were only 2 other people in there!!  I made a couple of the late night/early hours of the morning ones but only because I didn't have to work the next day on those weeks...

Did you enjoy the Challenge?
I did, it was hard work, especially towards the end, but then again it isn't called a challenge for nothing!  I actually managed to blog about a few things I had been meaning to cover for ages and I really enjoyed thinking up fun ways to cover some of the letters.

I've also bought 3 books because of the challenge, either because someone else was talking about the author or because I had visited their blog or spoke to them on Twitter during the #azchat each week.  I did keep a note of (I hope) all the blogs I've visited and will certainly be returning to several of them as a regular visitor.

Overall Experience
Getting ready for the A to Z Challenge really helped me to concentrate on some long overdue blog housekeeping.

I wrote my "About" section for starters which is something I've been meaning to do for ages; I also worked out how to "publish" it eventually, no good if only I can read it.

I tidied up my sidebar to put up the badges, turned off my CAPTCHA which is staying off as my spam filter seems to catch the majority of it, and attended to a few other minor matters.

I also added other ways to follow the blog and hopefully now the bits visitors need to find quickly are more obvious?!

I really enjoyed chatting with people on my own blog and doing likewise on other blogs and although I prewrote a lot of my posts, if I was joining in again I'd definitely try to prewrite all 26 before April.  As it was I managed to write just under half my posts before the challenge had begun and with the exception of about 5/6 stray posts, I'd mostly got each week finished in advance.

With experience, I now know that I'd like to concentrate more on the blog hop part and visiting/commenting and replying to comments.  Despite not prewriting all the posts I still managed to visit and comment on over 150 blogs - wow until I counted them up I had no idea it was actually that many!

With hindsight I would have taken the day off from my day job on the first day of the challenge as I found I really wanted to spend longer blog hopping and making the most of my time reading those first entries and discovering blogs that I'd like to follow for the whole challenge.

Suggestions for improvements - the only improvement I could think of would be having one easy place to report broken links or non-participating blogs to, when you find them.  A handy place to be able to copy the url to bring it to the attention of the team, so you can then leave them to do their thing, rather than save it and try to remember to report it to one of the team, which I was rubbish at doing retrospectively!

Speaking of the A to Z team - I think they all did a cracking job, they were full of encouragement and support.  Indeed the support of all the participants created a very welcoming and inclusive atmosphere to the Challenge, especially to a newbie such as myself.

Hopefully I was able to support and encourage others that I came across too.  I was really pleased when 3 of the Bloggers I met up with at a Blogger Meet decided to join in too; it was great having people I'd just met in real life along for the ride and I loved reading their A to Z Challenge Posts.

Would I do it all over again?  Well if I told you I hope to pick up another Survivors Badge in 2015, then I think that might just answer the question.

If you want to revisit any of the posts or take a random blog hop through the letters, here you go!

A is for Anticipation (and Anxiety for iPad readers)

B is for Budgeting, Beads & Blogging

C is for Collecting

D is for Dragons

E is for Elephants

F is for Florimania vs Floricide

G is for Guest Bloggers

H is for #HullBloggerMeet - Part 1*

I is for Iceblink

J is for Jewels

K is for Knobbly

L is for Lampwork

M is for Mars

N is for New Year's Bead Resolutions Update

O is for Organisation

P is for Pac Man, Pandora & Prisms

Q is for Quid Pro Quo

R is for Rebeligion

S is for Stacking

T is for Trollbeads on my Travels

U is for Unexpected

V is for Vernier Scale

W is for Writing a Blog

X is for X by Trollbeads

Y is for Yardarm

Z is for Z for Zachariah

What Next?
Now that the A to Z Challenge and Fashion Week are over I intend to return to my normal blogging schedule of 1 to 2 posts a week and approach blogging life at a slightly less breakneck pace!

I have *so* much to tell and show you at the moment, that there is a huge temptation to continue blogging at speed, but I do need to remember to conserve candles!

Mars xx

Behind the Scenes of #HullFashion Week - HUGH RICE the jewellers

If you follow my twitter feed you might have become increasingly confused by my "Fashion" retweets... fear not, my official status as one of the Hull Fashion Week Bloggers just means that I'll be showing you even more jewellery as we go along!

If you read yesterday's post, or follow my twitter feed you'll know by now that Fashion Week in Hull kicked off last Saturday, which for me, was my day to go out and do some research into the local jewellers and clothes retailers who are taking part.  As I was walking around from meeting to meeting the buzz in the city centre was amazing, unfortunately for me there was no time to stand and stare.  Down to business!

HUGH RICE in St Stephens HULL

HUGH RICE the jewellers
HUGH RICE are a local jewellers in Hull, who unsurprisingly were started by one Mr Hugh Rice, and although he has since retired, the company are still very much in familiar hands, both from a business perspective and on the shop floor with family members popping into the conversation everywhere.

HUGH RICE stock the usual jewellery brands you'd expect to see in any high street jewellers as well as being an authorised Pandora retailer with specialist Pandora Outlets as well as in store.  They also buy and sell preloved jewellery (which I didn't realise before) and many of their customers are lifelong; coming in to upgrade their stones in their existing jewellery as well as purchase new pieces.

When chatting with the staff about how HUGH RICE grew to where it is today, you can't help but be impressed by the story.  Hugh Rice himself started out in the infamous Carmichael's in George Street and now they have shops in Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Harrogate and Beverley.

Despite walking over this several times I only noticed this as I was leaving, always look down as well as up!

It was at their fabulous double fronted store in St Stephens, that I met up with the HUGH RICE team to talk about what they might have in store for us on Saturday at the Finale Catwalk Shows.  The final lists hadn't been decided when I visited, so I can't show you any sneak peeks, however what I can show you are some of the possible contenders!


From the Swarovski Range
These are very sparkly as you'd expect and my favourite rings are shown first, I adore this colour!  These were in the sale, along with a few other pieces and I'm pleased to report that my willpower stayed intact as I only photographed them and didn't walk out with one on my finger.

From the Michael Kors Range
This is not the kind of jewellery that I personally wear so I hadn't really paid much attention to Michael Kor before, but I can really see how this would work very well as a fashion brand, and I confess that I did linger over those silver rings a bit longer than necessary!

From the Thomas Sabo Range

When Abi asked me about Thomas Sabo's Karma Beads last month I didn't pay too much attention until I saw the catalogue.  HUGH RICE helped fuel that interest as I was let loose to photograph them in more detail... I fear it may not be long before I succumb!

Fear not if Skulls and this style of jewellery are not your cup of tea; I also discovered some lovely colourful wraps for your charms!

Wraps from Thomas Sabo

I really like the bottom set of wraps and I can guarantee I'll be going back for a few of these!  I also thought the bracelets were pretty cute, I love the bottom set in particular!

An offer HUGH RICE have on at the moment is they have some Gift with Purchase items for Thomas Sabo, gifts will vary depending on how much you spend and when they're gone they're gone!  HUGH RICE allowed me to give you a sneak preview so get them whilst they're still in stock!

So my mega long post is almost finished, I hope you've enjoyed a look at a tiny fraction of what HUGH RICE has to offer.  Just before I go to get ready for tomorrow's big finale at Hull City Hall, let me share a few more things you might be interested in...

HUGH RICE still repair watches just like they did when they started, along with other repairs as well as offering a design and commission service, all at their Service and Design Centre in the back of the shop at St Stephens.

Watch repairs are still carried out on the premises

I also need to let you know that HUGH RICE have got 2 main offers running at the moment.  

1. Pop into the shop and talk to the staff about the chance to enter and win either a male or female piece of jewellery from Thomas Sabo.  
2. Running until Saturday (3rd May) there is 10% off selected brands for customers who are purchasing from the store (not available online - sorry!)

So if, like me, you missed them at the Business Breakfast event on Thursday, pop by the store and take a look at some of the current offers!

Hull Fashion Week Finale is live at Hull City Hall, Saturday 3rd May from 11am - 4pm

You can also catch HUGH RICE on the catwalk... so what will you be doing tomorrow?

Behind the Scenes of #HullFashion Week - Oresome Gallery

If you follow my twitter feed you might have become increasingly confused by my "Fashion" retweets... fear not, my official status as one of the Hull Fashion Week Bloggers just means that I'll be showing you some "Oresome" jewellery, and, er, the regular kind of awesome jewellery as we go along.

Fashion Week in Hull kicked off on Saturday 26th April, which for me, was my day to go out and do some research into the local jewellers and clothes retailers who were taking part.  As I was walking around from meeting to meeting the buzz in the city centre was amazing, unfortunately for me there was no time to stand and stare.  Down to business!

ORESOME GALLERY
My first port of call was to Oresome Gallery, an independent jewellery workshop where Nicola Fidell Chapman and Victoria Prince both work creating beautiful pieces of jewellery.

As part of everything the gallery has to offer, they can also be found guiding students on their steps to becoming budding jewellers (whether as a one off session or the start of something more), hosting benchspace in their workshop and retail space in the Gallery to those more experienced practitioners of the craft.  Oh and they stock Earl Grey tea in their kitchen cupboards as standard... these are my kind of jewellers!

Oresome Gallery in Hull's Fruit Market

Situated  next to Hull Marina, in the fashionable up and coming Fruit Market Quarter, they command lovely views around the gallery, into the gallery and back out again.  No matter where you are, inside or out, workshop or gallery you can always see something that catches your eye, even before you spot any jewellery.  It's a great spot to be in... providing people know you are there!

Oresome Gallery next to Hull Marina

Oresome Gallery - Learn how to make your own jewellery

Oresome Gallery - as you enjoy your tea, you can also enjoy the view!

Oresome Gallery Workshop - Great views even from the workshop!

Whilst being shown around ahead of Sunday's two taster workshops, a day of silver ring making and an afternoon of paper jewellery, Victoria patiently explained what they do, I say patiently, as by this stage I was drooling over their cabinets and had to keep asking her to repeat things.  Oh dear, my "ooh shiny" mode had kicked in!

Jewellery from Oresome Gallery - Beautiful Ring
Photo by Oresome Gallery, please do not reproduce without crediting

Jewellery from Oresome Gallery - Silver Flower Earrings
Photo by Oresome Gallery, please do not reproduce without crediting

I will be talking about the taster sessions in more detail in one of my upcoming posts but what I need to tell you today, is that you can talk to Victoria yourself, at Hull City Hall on 3rd May between 11am and 4pm, as Oresome Gallery are one of the stall holders at the Finale Event!  

Victoria from Oresome Gallery
Photo by Oresome Gallery, please do not
reproduce without crediting

On the day, Victoria will have available 2 special voucher offers.  

1. Have 1 piece of jewellery repaired (which includes a clean and polish) and you can get a 2nd piece cleaned and polished for free!
2. If you have an idea for a commissioned piece of jewellery, whether treating yourself or someone else, Oresome will do the initial quotation for free!

So pop by and say Hi, get a voucher if you want one and have a look at what they do.