brainwaves

Before I fall asleep at night I think about jewellery. I either go over the design and building of a new piece I'm working on, or I think about new designs. I find it useful to turn the design over and over in my head, mentally building it so I can spot potential difficulties before I actually sit down at my bench. Last night I was thinking about these earrings, of which I've only made one pair. They have sold now, so I was thinking about making some more and creating a necklace, bracelet and smaller earrings to go with them. I will get around to that this year, I hope, but I have a lot to do still with existing collections! I need to make sure I have enough for the craft fairs and I need to replace a whole bunch of different items that have now sold out. I might manage to sneak in a small version of these earrings and put them on Etsy to see if they go down well, though :-) So, it's going to get busier and busier until Christmas!

ps. I'm posting some new earrings on Etsy today - new design and texture!

ruby pendant

I had a commission to put a ruby in a small, silver pendant in the shape of a teardrop. I've finished it and here are the photos:

to continue a theme

And while I was on the subject of cats, my friend has a super cute cat too. He's called Maurice and right now he's a cat teenager so when I do see him, he tries to bite me. But when he was a kitten, he was still all sweetness and light. Here's a photo of little Maurice when he was but a young wee kitten (click on the photo to get a super close up of Maurice cuteness):

Pepe

I really, really like cats and when I was little, we had a cat at home. When we got Pepe, I was allowed to name him because I was very upset about our old cat (who was called Gnoes) passing away. So, having just seen the Romero brothers (classical Spanish guitar), I named our new kitten Pepe. Full name Pepe Romero. Ha!! I think it took about, oh, say approximately one nanosecond for Pepe to be converted to Peppy. He is peppy, and he's very cute. He's a very relaxed cat and he's still going strong. He's now 20 years old and still chilling out in Houston. He's about to move in with my sister in California. Anyway, basically this is just an excuse for me to post some photos of Pepe (aka Peppy). For your viewing pleasure:

nearly the weekend?! wot?!

Ack, this week is flying by! And I still have so much to do! Could it have anything to do with my dear husband having yesterday off? No, no, nevermind that I did no work whatsoever yesterday. Oh, wait, I did post an Etsy purchase package. But that's all I did. So now I am feeling a slight rising panic about when I am going to get everything done. But I have a plan of attack and I'm going to have a very productive weekend getting lots of things done, so next week will be all shiny and new and I'll be ready! Hopefully this weekend I'm going to be building the backdrop frame for the Craft in Focus show at the end of October. That's the only show that requires me to bring a backdrop, so it's a lot of extra work. It would be fabulous to get that done this weekend so it's ready to go and I won't have to worry about doing it too close to the show. So hopefully that'll happen. Plus I had the genius idea of sorting out the garden by ordering 200 flower bulbs. Yes, it was a special offer, a mere 5 quid for 200 bulbs!! But of course now I have to plant them all....and do the weeding first so there's even room to plant them. So, it's going to be a busy weekend.....with hopefully the reward next spring of a ton of lovely flowers....maybe something like this:

Monday...oh, wait, no it's not

So today is September 1st - which means I've been in the UK for TEN years! A whole decade! I'm now officially schooled in the art of pints, bangers and mash, music festivals, London trips, Guy Fawkes day, bank holidays, rubbish trains, good trains, rain, understatement, etc etc etc. It's been a mad, mad ten years. Well, here's to the next ten years, then! And for Lina, here's a photo of the moo cards :-)

mooooooooo

These are the images that I used for my moo business cards:

new earrings

So I mentioned some new earrings which I shall put on Etsy soon (hopefully today)....I thought I'd give you a wee preview here with a photo. I made some with black beads too and of course they can be made in any colour. The pins that the beads are on are handmade because the beads are tiny, so don't fit on the regular headpins.
Also I received my new batch of moo business cards today and I'm really pleased, they turned out really well! Hurrah!
Anyway, here's a photo of the earrings:

curry & a pint

Tonight we're going out for a friend's birthday to have a curry. A curry goes hand in hand with a beer. Or a pint. of something. Pint of lager, pint of ale maybe, pint of cider. I'm just making this up, but I reckon a curry and a pint goes together like a two pints and a packet of crisps. You don't have to, but it's nice.

monday and rulers and coriandr

Hello again! So it's Monday morning, everyone's favorite time of the week. I was happy to see that my earrings made it to the front page of Coriandr today, which is a nice start to the week. It's going to be a very busy week. I have loads to do, including the super exciting task of doing my taxes. At least I can just do them online. Hopefully it'll go smoothly and there will be no grumbling, shouting and shaking of fists. I also need to do some supply ordering, some making things, some polishing things, some thinking about commissions, and some ordering of stickers and business cards.
I was going to write some witty post about how my rulers are my three best friends. They are, during the day. I find it amusing how I have my rulers carefully laid out. Obviously there's the steel ruler at my bench. I can't imagine how I would get by without the steel ruler - for cutting paper, for marking lengths on silver sheet, for checking and rechecking if pieces are indeed square or rectangular as intended. Then by the computer I have my transparent ruler and my Snoopy ruler. Essential for measuring items to describe them on Etsy, Folksy, etc. This process, by the way, makes me dislike using inches - I find it pretty useless to describe things in terms of 19/32ths of an inch. I guess it's what you're used to. I think by now I could probably draw a ruler with the metric system freehand pretty accurately. Anyway, rulers are my friends. The end.

it's friday

It's nearly the weekend! I hope everyone has fun plans. Congrats to Dr H, who won the free earrings I was offering earlier this week. They'll be in the post soon :-)
I'm off to stock up on boxes! I need to buy a decent stock of boxes so I don't run out halfway through the craft fairs.
In other news, I have some new earrings which I will be putting up on Etsy soonish. I say soonish because it seems to me that Etsy is in super slow time, seems like this is mega holiday time! Well, I'm pretty sure it is. Plus next weekend is bank holiday weekend here in the UK, so it's down time. In any case, those earrings will be up on Etsy, Folksy, etc soonish.... !!
Have a lovely weekend...

make make make

I've been busy on the production front. I've made new cuff links that turned out really well (photos soon, but it still needs to be hallmarked). I also made a new large necklace. I need to make it a bit longer, as it turned out a touch too short. Also in the works have been long earrings, post earrings, and more cuff links. Today it's finishing the cuff links and moving on to cuff bangles. I'm working on a plan so I can update my website with a new collection and also send out a newsletter about all the new items and shows. I made a new pair of long earrings, which are on Etsy at the moment. I like the way they turned out, they have a certain Indian quality to them. Here's a photo:

give give give

I'm going to try doing a giveaway on my blog for the first time today! woo! I ran a small "earring bar" at a friend's party over the weekend. I showed people how to make a basic pair of earrings with headed pins and fishhook ear wires. People really seemed to get into it and in the end all the people with pierced ears ended up walking around with new earrings made by their own two hands! It was fun and of course I had to make a some examples. This pair turned out quite cute - sparkly, simple, with a little tiny bit of detail in the bronze coloured decorations on either side of the bead. So, I'm offering this pair of earrings to someone who comments on this post :-) I'll pick someone randomly from the comments and let you know by Thursday. (The ear wires and pin are silver plated.) Here are some photos:

Coriandr and Etsy

(click on photos for a closer look!)
So yesterday I was all excited because one of my earrings was picked for the front page of Coriandr:

Today I'm keeping a close watch on Etsy because I have a pair of cuff links on the accessories showcase:

utrecht

I studied for a year in Utrecht, many moons ago, and I think it's a lovely place with lovely buildings and generally lovely atmosphere. So today, apropos of nothing, here's a photo of Utrecht for you:

socks and tea towels

I wanted to share two things with you. The first is a shop that a friend introduced to me in London. It's a wonderful store with every manner of sock. Yes, it's a sock speciality store! It has socks, leg warmers, toe socks, toeless socks, ankle socks, middle of the foot socks, socky sock sock.... I'm telling you, it's an awesome store. I was tempted to buy lots and lots but in the end I remained somewhat calm and restricted myself to getting a gift for a friend. Anyway, they happily have a lovely website, so you can look at their fabulous socks here (http://tabio.com/uk).
In other shopping news, my friends over at todryfor (you know you need a cool tea towel, so go have a look) now have a blog - check it out (http://blog.todryfor.com/). You'll see an amazingly useful tea towel on there - a list of when what vegetable is in season!! How handy....a multi-purpose tea towel. Can it get better than that?

ouch

Mweh...the pitfalls of bench work: yesterday I added three slices and one puncture to my fingers. snif. I even had to scrounge around for a bandaid for the second time in a week. It's because I'm filing the thin edge of a disc and that gets quite sharp when I'm doing the filing. Then I occasionally slip, and wham, another little slice in my poor fingers. poor me! ok, not really. Something randomly interesting is that in the US, the bits of sticky stuff you put on a cut are called bandaids. That's a brand name, like q-tip or hoover or kleenex. Here in the UK, they are called plasters. Which is fine, but I thought it was interesting, as the word in Dutch is pleister (not sure if that's spelled plijster, but i think it's pleister). Anyway, that makes me wonder if in the US more brand names are used as a generic term than in the UK. So, to test my theory:

UK
cotton bud
hoover
plaster
tissue
sellotape

USA
q-tip
vacuum
bandaid
kleenex
Scotch tape

Ok, I can't think of any other examples off hand, but with the exception of hoover, all the UK ones are not brand names. Anybody have any other examples?

Norden Farm Centre for the Arts

Good news - I will have my jewellery on display and for sale in the foyer cases at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts! That will be from 28 December of this year until 1 March of 2010. The building is worth a visit just for itself, it's quite beautiful. There's a gallery with changing shows and films are shown at the centre as well. The address is Altwood Road, Maidenhead SL6 4PF and if you would like directions to get there, see here on their website.
The opening hour details are:

The Box Office is open 10am - 8pm, Tuesday - Saturday; 2pm - 8pm Sunday.

The Gallery is open 2pm - 10pm, Tuesday - Friday and 10am - 10pm Saturday and Sunday.

The Cafe Bar is open 10.30am - 11pm, Tuesday - Saturday and 10.30am - 10.30pm Sunday.

Norden Farm is closed to the public on Mondays.

Coriandr

So I have ventured into another fabulous handmade online shoppe, which is Coriandr. It's a UK based site with much the same ideas behind it as Etsy, Folksy, etc. I thought I would give it a whirl and see how it goes on there. My shop on Coriandr is http://magpienest.coriandr.com
- please do have a look :-) I'll be adding things over the next couple of days....it always takes a while to list all the items with appropriate photos and such. It's a lovely site, with a nice layout and at the moment not overwhelming amount of stuff on it. It's a pretty, browsable site. Any opinions or experience with Coriandr? Do let me know in the comments....

finished products

So about that ring from yesterday. I thought I'd be tidy about it and also show you a photo of the ring once the stone was properly set back into it. So here it is: