just some nice pics of cornwall

brrrrrrrrrrrr

Happy 2010! It's a new year and after a very lovely holiday it's back to normal. All the snow has melted around here, but it's still pretty darn cold. My fingers are freezing and my toes are numb. Much tea and thicker socks are needed! And back to the bench I go. I have several custom jobs to work on and a batch of items to send off for hallmarking today. It's all systems go and my teaching starts next week as well. I'll be posting more photos of custom jobs soon as well as attempting to put new items on my Etsy and Folksy sites. For anyone around this area, I have a bunch of work available over at Norden Farm now, so if you're over that way have a look :-) For now, here's another photo of all the snow that we had over Christmas!

happy holidays

lots of snow

This is more snow than I've ever seen here in Reading! Loads! White stuff! Fluff! Everything looks really lovely and I really like the quietness that comes with snow. The cars are muffled, the people walking by is just a soft crunch, etc... Anyway...here's a photo of the snow beginning and then how it is now, we reckon a good 2 inches fell at least just here.

phhhhhhhhhew

Phew - last craft fair of the year over. Christmas tree decorated. Snow falling. Temperatures falling. Presents ready to be wrapped. Only a couple of custom jobs to do before the weekend. Rage Against the Machine single purchased*. And commissioned piece turned out really nice....here's a photo of it - 18k yellow gold peek ring with ruby:
* there's a group on Facebook trying to get everyone to download the single "Killing in the Name" by Rage against the Machine so it can beat the latest Xfactor dross to be Christmas number one. I support the sentiment - a "handmade" song over a manufactured bland one!

Post for Christmas

Have you seen a pair of earrings that are perfect for your friend this Christmas? Or cuff links for your dad? You can order direct from me or see me at a craft fair (see side bar for details).
Just a quick reminder of the deadline dates for posting items before the Christmas holidays:

Rest of world (including Australia and New Zealand): Thursday 3rd December
Japan, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe: Wednesday 9th December
Western Europe: Thursday 10th December
UK: Friday 18th December

Photos

My cousin's wife...would that be my cousin-in-law? Well, in any case, her name is Vivian Keulards and she does some stunning photography. You can see her work on her website here.(www.viviankeulards.nl) I personally like the series of children who are studying ballet. The photos are of the children in ballet poses but in normal environments with regular clothes on. It's quite ethereal and well worth a look. Just look under "portfolio" and then "ballet" to see those photos.
Speaking of photos, I've downloaded my holiday snaps and although I know there are approximately 10,000,000,000,000+ photos of the Sacre Coeur in Paris, I thought my photo turned out quite well, so here it is for your entertainment:

home

I'm home - back from Holland where my family celebrated my gran's 90th birthday. The party was enjoyed by all, especially my grandmother, who just loved having the whole family there. There were 48 of us, I think. I also went to Paris with my parents and had a great time walking around and soaking up the sights. We had fabulous weather with heat and sun and a lovely breeze. We went to several museums, including the Musee d'Orsay and Jeu de Paumes. I had some fantastic creamy chevre and we ate at my dad's favourite brasserie. All in all a very enjoyable holiday. So now I'm back and I have heaps to do, including fixing up a bracelet of my aunt's that is starting to suffer from metal fatigue. I'll anneal it and get it back into shape and send it off hopefully by the end of this week. I have loads of photos so will be trickling them up on this here bloggy and will take some photos of the bits of jewellery that I got. It's always fabulous to get bits of old and broken jewellery from people. I love seeing all the pieces and hearing where they came from and so on.

street art

I just got back from a fantastic weekend in Berlin - such a cool city!! There are lots of things going on, lots of new things and it's got such a creative vibe. I saw a lot of little boutique stores with new ideas. And the street art was really impressive. There were HUGE murals and lots of impressive graffiti. I like graffiti when it's creative, ie not just a tag. So I took lots of photos of these things and here are some of them:

easter goodies

So I mentioned that my grandmother had sent me a box of goodies for easter...she knitted them all herself (she's 89!) and I love them, they are super fab. There are two rabbits, a bunch of chicks and then those little hats which are perfect as egg warmers. Egg cosies? I'm not sure what the right word is. Anyway, so here's a photo of most of the stash...there were loads more of those little hats but I didn't put them all in the photo.

middle-of-the-week-iness

Well, I meant to take some photos of some fabulous knitted rabbits and chicks and egg warmers that I got from my grandmother. But I'm not sure where the camera is. Ok, I know where it is, but it's just too much for today. I'll get around to it. Then you can see the fabulous goodies that I'm going to use to decorate the table for easter breakfast. I don't think I've had easter breakfast for years...maybe not even since I lived with my parents. But this year it's going to happen, because I have stuffed knitted rabbits and chicks. Oh yes.
So yesterday I managed to get quite a bit done, including finally finishing 7 pendants I was working on for a big project which involves approaching a local business to see if they would like to sell my jewellery. I'm nearly ready to approach the store, just need to get my plan on paper so that they agree it's a genius idea. I'll post more about this once I've spoken to the store.... (ooo the suspense)
This weekend we're doing the end-of-tax-year stock take. That's going to involve making sure the stock sheet is accurate (I don't think it is, because sometimes I forget to take items off once I've sold them) and reviewing prices. I need to review prices because the silver and gold prices have changed, as they do, and increased loads again. Anyway, I like organising so I'm actually looking forward to this big stock take! And today I need to work on my commissions...so off I go...
ALSO - if anyone out there knows how to add a label cloud instead of just a list of labels on blogger, can you please tell me. It should be easy, but for some reason I can't figure it out.

Northern Ireland

We went to Northern Ireland to visit some friends over the weekend and on Saturday we walked over to Giant's Causeway, which is a weird natural rock formation. Follow the link if you want to see some photos of the Causeway...otherwise, here are some of the best photos from our walk there:

welcome 2009

Happy new year to everyone!! I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday and enjoyed themselves!
It is cold, cold, cold and I just looked out the window and it's snowing!!! I had a lovely break and am all ready to go for the new year. It's 2009 - in September, Dougs & I will have been together for a decade already! wah, time flies!!!!
I made some jewellery during the break, of course. One of the things I made was a pendant for my mum. It's made with a piece of mangosteen - that's a tropical fruit and happens to be my mom's favorite. She cut off the top of it and flattened & dried it. I made a silver pendant to hold the piece of mangosteen. Instead of gluing the piece into the pendant or using bezel, I made some rivets to hold it in place. Here's a photo:

christmas tree

This is a photo of our small christmas tree. It actually looks nice with the lights and things...but it was hard to get a decent photo. Oh well, anyway, that's the tree. It was grown potted, so hopefully it'll survive and we can use this one again next year. Which reminds me, I haven't given it any water yet...

holidays....

It's so close...only a few more days and then it's really Christmas holidays! hurrah! Strangely it has gotten quite a bit warmer again, so it's not as wintery cold as it was a couple of weeks ago. Ah well, so I guess I can forget about snow on Christmas day then.
I did a ring for someone, better not say whom just in case, and it's one I have on my website, but a bit wider and hopefully more masculine looking. Here's a photo:
I was going to have photos of a new necklace, but I sold it on Friday, so I will have to make another one and then make some photos. I'm working on another new necklace which hopefully I'll finish today. I'm not sure yet how it will turn out, so I'm hoping to figure out how to do one of those polls on this blog so you guys can let me know what you think. Ok, I better go work on it!

dark at 4pm

oh yes, it's winter alright...dark by 4pm....
I've been putting up loads of new items on Etsy, Folksy and Dawanda...check it out :-)
Finished a ring for a friend today and have been working on two new necklaces...photos soon to see what people think of them...
hope everyone's having a good winding-down-to-Christmas week!!! Nearly the holiday....

mince pies

When I first moved to the UK, I thought mince pies were pies with mince meat in them. A sort of shepard's pie, meat pie, etc. I'm glad someone (probably dougs) showed me they are yummy little sweet tarts with raisins and currants! ha! I just ate one...hmmm yum! Mince pies are filled with mincemeat. You'd think that means there's meat in them, but there only used to be. Nowadays, mincemeat is, according to Delia (the TV chef Delia, I mean):

8oz (225g) Bramley apples, cored and chopped small (no need to peel them)
4 oz (110 g) shredded suet
6oz (175 g) raisins
4oz (110 g) sultanas
4oz (110 g) currants
4oz (110 g) whole mixed candied peel, finely chopped
6oz (175 g) soft dark brown sugar
grated zest and juice 1 orange
grated zest and juice 1 lemon
1 oz (25 g) whole almonds, cut into slivers
2 level teaspoons mixed ground spice
¼ level teaspoon ground cinnamon
good pinch freshly grated nutmeg
3 tablespoons brandy

I just looked that up because I wondered what all was in mincemeat.

Anyway...in other news, the craft fair was a complete dud. Oh well. That'll happen. Happily online sales are going well, so there's that. Now only 10 days until Christmas!! We tried to get a little xmas tree yesterday, but the shop was completely sold out of trees. Sigh. I think we'll go again later this week and see if there are some more.

13 days til Christmas

Oooooh it's miserable looking outside today. Drizzle and about 2 degrees C. brrrrrrrr. Yesterday I managed to get to the post office and post heaps of things (ok, 11) on Etsy, daWanda and Folksy. That involved a lot of picture-taking as most of it was new stuff that I hadn't photographed at all yet. So we'll see how that goes online. I still have some little earrings and a pendant and some more things to add, but that will go up slower since I have to wait until after tomorrow - which is the last craft fair for me for this year!!
I suspect I'm going to be rather on the tired side after this last craft fair so the plan for Sunday is fun - sort out some holiday things. We're going to go find a Christmas tree and make lists of what we need to have in the house so we actually have food when the shops are closed. So that's pretty relaxed. Over the holiday I've promised myself to make time to make two things - one is the ring with a big pearl that is going to be my gran's 90th birthday present - I think it's safe to say that because I don't think she reads my blog, ha! The other is a gold ring that I've been meaning to make for myself as a replacement-of-sorts for the ring that was stolen at the beginning of the year. I've been meaning to get around to it, but because it's for me there has always been something more important to work on! So it will get done this holiday!!!

Home again after a week on a narrow boat!! The weather went from terrible - rain and cold - to fantastic - sunny and warm!! This weekend was great. Friends came to join us on the boat and we pottered up and down the locks along the canal. The boats go about 4 miles per hour, so it's all at a lovely slow pace. I will post some photos very soon, took loads!

Along the way we stopped at a lovely little town/village called Hungerford. It was a kind of funny little place with mostly either antique or second hand shops. I usually don't even look at antiques because I'm more into modern, minimalistic styles, but I looked in the window of an antique store and saw this miniature desk which was just amazing - a completely working desk but only about 8 inches high. So I made an effort to go to the shop the next morning before we set off to see how much it cost. The woman in the shop told me it was an 18th century Dutch desk made from walnut wood. I thought it would be between £200 - £500 but when I asked I was shocked to find out it was £1450!!!!!!!! wah!!! That's a lot more than I thought it would be - not that £500 would have been ok, that's still way too much for me. Oh well, it was interesting to see!

Now it's Monday morning again and I have loads to do!! Lots of sorting out and making a to-do list for the week.

It's nearly Christmas! Just wrapped the boy's presents, with poems. Nearly everything is ready for our party this evening. The tree still looks great. Nearly finished with the big secret project for the boy!!!!!!!! Will post some photos once he's seen it.
Going for a jog this afternoon, then last minute preparations for the party and then it's officially the holiday! hurrah! I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday break!!!!! :-)