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Laura has been making jewellery since 1990, originally repairing and restyling pieces donated to the charity shop where she worked, until her interest grew and her talents developed, requiring more supplies than the shop could provide, around 2003 she started attending craft fairs, as a fundraising tool for Against Breast Cancer, a charity focused on research into the secondary spread of breast cancer. Laura combines many techniques such as stringing, knotting, mixing beads and crochet techniques and she enjoys trying anything new that doesn't involve specialized equipment. When returning to her native Italy she enjoys seeking out unusual materials and inspirations. Her work has been featured in the Meller Art Gallery , Witney and in many editions of the UK 's first beading magazine, “Bead”, which also ran a profile of her work in 2007. She believes that a piece of jewellery should complement and enhance the wearer's clothing, not make a statement in its own right and she therefore tends towards simple and classical styles with the use of colour playing an important part. The underlying link in her work is an economy in the use of material, dictated as much by tastes as by necessity as all the takings from her sales go to Against Breast Cancer. This year she has joined a group of friends to form Spare room Arts and together they attend local carnivals and fairs as well as organizing small specialized jewellery craft fairs. |
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I couldn't resist the bow shaped hand made glass, but I found it more difficult to work with than thought, so it ended up being a focus bead set off center on a double string of 4 mm iridescent cut glass beads. |
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I often work with recycled materials and pearls of all quality seem to be the most common material, unfortunately I don't particularly like pearls, that is until I started playing with wire and made this set. The beads have been worked in a cluster with 4mm silver plated wire and mounted on a choker made with the same wire crinkled. To complete the set there are a brooch and a barrette. |
The sparky brown beads were brought back from India specially for me by a friend. They have a very luscious oriental feel, almost too much for this country, but worked with seed beads are just perfect for an organic looking set. |
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10mm Snake skin checks beads, wonderful finish but very heavy, need to be used sparsely and with some strong threading material. The look and material are of definite Italian inspiration (I was actually in Milan when I made it) |
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Wire wrapped semiprecious stones. The stones were a present from another friend (I have very kind friends that help me source unusual material as they know I am trying to raise money for 'Against Breast Cancer' with my work) and I wanted to try out my newly acquired wire wrapping skills. |
Opaline glass leaves have been worked in a flower pendant and mounted on tiger tail of different colours to match the beads. |
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Just a few odd beads crocheted with fishing line to make a bracelet, perfect for summer, allergy free. |
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Again I had the challenge of using the few blue leaves beads, I made a flower and mounted on silver and blue tiger tail |
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My experiment with encapsulated glass, made using a friends (another one!) kiln. The pendants are mounted on a web of wire a set off by beadholics plated PVC cords
A pretty crocheted bracelet, 0.2 mm pink copper wire and iridescent glass beads.
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| Meet the other Designers | ||||
| April : Sarah Shea | ||||
| May : Sue Hawkins | ||||
| June : Avril Edwards | ||||
| July : Nikki Mortimer | ||||
| September : Amanda Boreham | ||||
| Oct: Rhi | ||||
| If you would like to be featured in a coming month please contact me | ||||