Meet The Team

I thought it was high time that we FHFteam admin volunteers introduced ourselves (mug shots and all!). We keep things ticking over by doing all sorts of administrative tasks, trouble shooting with technical stuff and the general kicking around of promotional ideas for FHFteam.

Jolene Wolfe

Billie Jean Little

My name is Billie, I am a self-representing artist handcrafting flameworked glass beads in my home studio in France. As well as UK publications, my work has been featured in Step by Step Beads magazine (collaborative piece with Lynn Davy/Nemeton), and can be seen on pages 46 and 125 of the Kimberley Adams/Michele Sauvelle published book - Verre et Flame: Creation de Perles de Verre. I sell my work predominantly through The Art of Good Taste gallery in Limpertsberg, Luxembourg and on Etsy. I am SRA and SRAJD registered, and a member of GBUK. As well as being a glass artist, I am mum to two beautiful girls - Daisy (aged 6) and Ruby (aged 4), wife to James, and carer of two house rabbits - Twinkle and Lulu. www.billiejeanlittle.etsy.com

Julie Haveland-Beer

Three little people call me Mummy. Some friends call me Jules. But most people call me simply Julie :D I speak with an accent, and probably type with one too - it originates from the beautiful west coast of Norway. In 1996 I married a true Devonian, and we live in Westward Ho!, where every day I wake up to the sight and changing moods of the Atlantic Ocean.

I started bead making two years ago, after several years of creating jewellery using chain maille techniques, PMC and fusing. When Jolene initiated the Frit Happens! Etsy street team last year I saw that as a great opportunity, opened an Etsy Shop and joined.

My main admin duties within the team have been to help with the layout of the team blog and making sure all our members’ Etsy shops are linked to it. I have also assisted our members in setting up twitter and hootsuite to work for them.

Emma Mackintosh

I'm Emma, I live in the heart of the Lake District with my partner, several rapidly growing-up children, cats and ducks. I am a lampwork artist working with borosilicate glass to produce beads, knobs, cabochons and other items. My work has become increasingly sculptural and off-mandrel and my aim is always to produce work that is useful in some way as well as looking good. One of my lampwork knobs was featured in the Flow Magazine Spring edition gallery, having won second place in the Glass Challenge Sept/Oct 2009, and my work is for sale through Etsy and from my website, www.theflyingbead.co.uk

Jolene Wolfe

My name is Jolene, though most people call me Jo and I have been smitten with lampworking since June 2007. I think of myself as a tame pyromaniac. In April 2008 I took a week long class with Sally Carver and Diana East, July 2009 a class with Dora Schubert and in April this year I spent two days on a glass master class with Andrea Guarino.

My Daughter Ruby arrived in September 2008 and she totally changed the direction of how I approach lampwork. I often feed my addiction to melting glass by making twisties, shards and murrini, projects that could be picked up and put down to suit baby nap times. my website for glasswork is www.kitzbitzartglass.com I do also make beads sometimes which I sell on Etsy I am expecting our second baby in October this year.

I started FHFteam last year after seeing that there were quite a few people on Frit Happens! who were interested in belonging to an Etsy Street Team and now my jobs for the team involve general admin tasks, new member info and managing the FHFteam Etsy Hub Page.

I also do a lot of blogging about the team and run the team twitter feed.

Rachel Elliot

My name is Rachel and I have been working with glass since 2000. I have a degree in it from Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 2007, although it took another 18 months before I bit the bullet and went into business for myself with my own studio in January 2009. There are very few glass disciplines I have not tried and I've even mastered a couple of them too! The studio is mainly equipped for kiln work with a few torches thrown in for flamey fun. My work can be found in various exhibitions in the UK and sometimes abroad, with details of current events on my website and I also sell from my Etsy shop too. My website also has details of any workshops I'm teaching as well as my CV, which has full details of all my past glassy deeds, if that's of interest!

My role within the FHFTeam is basically living in the world of Facebook and helping others to use it to full advantage with various easy yet effective activities. I'm also happy to help in any way I can with all things glassy having a knack for being able to troubleshoot my way out of most problems!

Lynn Davy

I'm Lynn and I make things out of beads - mostly tiny seed beads. I love lampwork and use lots of 'lampies' in my designs, although I'm too much of a wimp to torch myself ::) Colour is my 'thing', preferably lots of colours put together in an interesting and possibly random way, although recently I've been experimenting with more monochrome and structural ideas too. I've had quite a few projects published in various beading magazines since 2006, with more in the pipeline, and I sell tutorials, kits and the occasional piece of finished beadwork at www.etsy.com/shop/nemeton. This year I made it into the finals of the US 'Bead Dreams' competition for the first time, and was a finalist in the Ugly Necklace Contest for the fourth time in a row - kind of 'from the sublime to the ridiculous'! But that just about sums up my approach to beading ;D

George Harper

I'm George - not Bob - and I'm primarily a metalsmith and mailler. I work with mainly with silver, but with other metals too, but have a passion for glass and love to combine it with other materials.

I worked in advertising for nearly 20 years before having my daughter, and wanted to get back to making things with my hands, which led me through paper and mixed media to metal and beads. As well as making jewellery, I make a range of specialist findings for other designers and makers, with many created especially to compliment lampwork beads. I sell on Etsy and through my own website www.designedbygeorge.co.uk and I am hugely proud to be the inaugural chairman of the Guild of Jewellery Designers
Making lampwork beads is my hobby - I don't make beads to sell, and don't really want to, but I do occasionally sneak a few of my own beads into finished jewellery.

Featured Artist - Rachel Elliott

Rachel Elliott Glassworks

Hello, my name is Rachel and I am a glass-aholic / full time glass artist! I have been working with glass for nearly 10 years now since discovering stained glass through an evening class and then deciding to study it formally as a degree at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 2007.



I've been running my own business, full time for just over a year now and I guess the ultimate goal is to be able to make enough of a living from the small gift glass that I make and teaching classes, to be able to attend at least one workshop a year and also have time to make sculpture. The main thing about the sculpture is I don't want to have to think about whose going to buy it or where it will go, I like it to be all about the free expression, which is difficult when you are aware that you are spending time on it when you should be making money.

I now work in my own studio, which is a 200 square foot unit I have rented since October 2008 and renovated from scratch to accommodate the equipment and workbenches I use on a daily basis. I also teach from there but it's really too small to share permanently with anyone else who isn't working on exactly the same things as me, at the same time.My inspiration comes from all over the place, but mainly I work with the realistic and representational. Of course there are subliminal meanings behind much of my work but I like everyone to 'get' it on some level, I don't like art that isn't accessible to people because they don't understand the back story of it. I also like people to smile at my work, it's the greatest feeling in the world to see someone come to your plinth, space or stall and beam at what they find in front of them. I know it's really cliche‚ but there are so many other people's work I admire, both in glass and other materials that I couldn't begin to list or even narrow down favourites. I admire all those that strive to create something unique and share both their creations and knowledge with the world.

I really enjoy making and the challenge of figuring out how to make a piece too, sometimes it can be a real struggle to continue to be engaged with a piece once I've overcome those obstacles and usually one a piece is finished, I don't like it and am usually already embroiled in the next one.

Having said that, I really like my 'Storm Troubled Sphere' bead which is in the Tempest bead exhibition. It was a chance opportunity that came at a unique time when I was undertaking work experience at John Hardman stained glass studio in Birmingham, who allowed me the 3 weeks it took to make the bead, as well as my constant holding of tiny pieces of glass in front of the painters asking 'Do you think it needs more detail?'



Colour, hmm, colour and I have a difficult relationship. My favourite material is clear lead crystal as it is great for making the things I want to from. I love the idea that I am creating something that exists yet is transparent, a ghost of a thing. When I was a kid, I remember telling myself, if a picture isn't coloured in it doesn't exist and I think that was quite perceptive of me as that is how our eyes perceive the world, through the light which reflects back into them. So yeah, I have a real problem using colour as for me I have to ask myself, why am I using it? Is it the colour the thing is in real life and does it need to be? So I usually revert back to the clear safety net!

My kilns are all blue, I have 3 and they are called 'Big Blue', 'Little Blue' and 'Wee Blue' for obvious reasons. The studio is littered with inspiration and I have a strange collage on the back of my fold up cutting table which features Myra Hindley and always raises an eyebrow!



Usually the more methodically I'm working, the more I get easily sidetracked by other little projects, for example during my latest sculpture, my glass allotment, there have been cars, police boxes, Mo'ai and submarines sneaking into the firings to distract me! Deadlines are the biggest deciding factors to the work pattern too, the week before one, its bedlam. I think that's one of my failings, that even if I know something is coming up and I have X number of weeks, I still won't start something till the last possible moment. I also find it impossible to delegate anything to anyone else, or ask for help with things either.

However I do take a pride that everything I make, whether it's jewellery, a bead or a sculpture has been painstakingly made by me and I work very hard to ensure that the piece is unique and not available from anyone else except my studio too.



My main website is http://www.rachel-elliott.com and there are links from the home page to my various other web presences; Facebook, Twitter, Etsy and the like.