This Tutor Focus blog is all about the awesomely talented Vivien Hussey. She is our Beading tutor for the Curious Creatives Craft Retreat in the Cotswolds from 18th to 22nd July 2022.
Vivien is very used to teaching jewellery making and is a fabulous beaded jewellery designer. She regularly appears on YouTube delivering live lessons for Spoilt Rotten Beads. I'll share some links at the bottom. For Curious Creatives Craft Retreat, Vivien has designed completely bespoke jewellery exclusively for us. This is truly wonderful and I feel very honoured. It also means that unless you attend the retreat you won't find a tutorial anywhere else! Vivien's style of teaching is very calm and relaxed. She's captivating with her knowledge and passes on her skills beautifully. Her course is suitable for beginners and experienced beaders alike.
Here's a few of Vivien's stunning pieces that she's shared on her social media.
Vivien has shared a lot more information about herself so that YOU and I can get to know her a bit better. Have a read below...
How old am I and where do I come from?
I think I am old enough – age is a strange thing. Sometimes people I know to be much younger than me seem to be older and sometimes it is the other way around, but I am beginning to feel grown up.
I was born in Essex although I am not sure that is a good thing to be admitting to. If fact I was born in Brentwood, subject of TOWIE.
I was born on the common which is not nearly as interesting as it sounds – there was a maternity home on the edge of the common – and the midwife, who I met when I was grown up with children of my own - was tiny – so tiny she had to stand on a box to deliver babies!
Essex is a much-misunderstood county some of which is really the outskirts of London and some of which is beautiful countryside. Something for everyone! I now live in a village between Ely and Newmarket, just on the border between Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.
For what in my life do I feel most grateful?
I am grateful for a lot of things, I had lovely parents and a wonderful childhood. I have two amazing children, who teach me more about the world, themselves and myself almost daily. I can pay my bills and eat well with a little money left over for beads, stones, and wire (and Jack Daniels and Pepsi Max – oh and wine). But the thing I am most grateful for is that
I get immense pleasure from simple things!
Sounds corny but a beautiful rainbow will do it, a young child, amazing cloud formations, a summer rainstorm, the mist lying low on the fens in autumn and trees – I love trees. I have 'down' times like everyone, but in the main I find joy and peace in simple beauty, and I am very lucky.
I have two favourite words
spoon and haberdashery
both of which are just lovely to say.
I love cooking and luckily other people love me cooking too so I don’t have too much trouble getting people to come round for supper. A wonderful thing friends getting together to be creative, share food possibly wine, possibly more wine (wine not compulsory) chatting and laughing. Beading is usually better done before the wine – but not always. 🍷
I love continuously learning and improving and I am a great thinker. Sometimes answers are just in my head from who knows where but often I like to think through a situation before racing in with a solution. That is how some of the best discoveries are made.
I think that because I love learning I also love teaching.
Teaching is the best way to understand and improve your own knowledge while trying to find the best way to help people to learn and understand. You also always learn a lot from the people you are teaching. The two go hand in hand.
I really missed the real, in person, workshops over the last two years. Zoom workshops are good but there is nothing quite like being with a group of people sharing and learning together. I do get very nervous but no-one ever believes me as apparently I always seem very calm and relaxed on the outside.
What makes me laugh
Sarah Millican makes me laugh. My sister makes me laugh. My daughters make me laugh. My friends make me laugh. Sometimes I make myself laugh so much that I cannot say what it is that is so funny. It can be anything, mostly everyday things, I love laughter and am happy to find it wherever and whenever it is on offer.
What do not many people know about me
When I was a child I had a bike called Red that was really a horse (in my head). Red could jump (up and down curbs) and had some qualities of a circus horse (you could ride him bareback with no hands). I only got to ride a real horse on holidays when I owned Red but was working and riding regularly at a local stable by the time I had grown out of him.
I say working – all the stables ran on free child labour and probably still do. I was never one of those bold, do anything, riders but I loved it and have managed to continue riding in bursts throughout my adult life.
I think it is unlikely that I will ride again but never say never. I have a lot of scar tissue at the top of my left femur as a result of my last fall when I landed on a steel girder – it has possibly robbed be of the little nerve I had left.
What don’t I do enough of.
When I was younger – homework and piano practice. 😊
Now - housework? Define enough...
I think my house is clean enough to be comfortable in but I certainly don’t hoover dust and clean every day and actually I am not sure I am very good at it.
I know that some people are good at it and get pleasure from it. I could do with more of that gene, but you have to live with what you have got.
On the other hand clean sheets and towels are just lovely and cleaning up after friends have been to supper is best done that night. That can be relaxing and no-one wants to walk into the kitchen the next morning with it all to do. Are you getting the recurring theme about food, friends, sharing? I am not a size 10 person. 😉
I love crafting, mostly making jewellery but also sewing and random crafts. We have a group that meet up (sometimes even without food) and we try out new things – we take it in turns to turn up with a project.
I also am discovering the gardener in me
– a fair weather gardener at the moment but I hope am learning fast.
I really like what Vivien has shared with us. She's a beautiful soul who is going to bring sunshine to the retreat - I sure you agree!
You can watch and follow Vivien and Spoilt Rotten Beads on these Socials
Grab your place on Vivien's course before it's too late!
Click on the pink button below
Want to know more about ALL of the TUTORS and the COURSES? Take a look at www.curiouscreatives.online/retreats where you can discover more about all of them.
Have a read of the Tutor Focus Blog featuring Sarah Patterson, Seamstress Extraordinaire
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