A trip into Central London today to meet the lovely Michelle Douglas from Northern Beads and Shona Bevan to see the new Swarovski new colours etc for 2018 and hopefully to be inspired by what we saw.

There was some beautiful colours and shapes and that and the sunny day soon had me wanting to bead in brighter, springier, pastel colours. That was emphasised by these amazing Christian Louboutin shoes. I really recommend you check out his site (both the men's and women's collections) for inspiring use of colour, shape and texture. Just beautiful.

After so much inspiration we were in need of a drink and so headed to the always great Hawksmoor where they indulged our love of their cherries as we put the beading world to rights and talked beads and beading until we were exhausted.