new logo

Ah, I forgot to actually put in the pic of the new logo - so here it is:
Also, in December I'm participating in the Reveal Showcase over in Henley. Right at the top end of Henley's main street, the show is set in a lovely space. Do come and have a look at then afterwards you can relax in one of Henley's many fab cozy pubs! In the meantime, you can 'meet' the makers over on Reveal's organiser's blog here: http://laurenceramics.blogspot.com

plodding ever closer to craft fairs...

So now it's 2 weeks until the first of my autumn craft fairs - Festival of Crafts at Farnham Maltings. I'm still making things and will be sending off a hallmarking package soon.
I went to the Goldsmith's Fair on Monday but was too ill to enjoy it - just helped my friend and then went home again. Yesterday was worse, felt awful and had to get another friend to cover my evening class for me. Today is a bit better, after the long sleep and lots of medicine! I'm going again to Goldsmith's Fair on Friday so will have a proper look around then. What I did see all looked very impressive! In the meantime I have one more class to teach tomorrow and I have a lot to make!
My new website is finished apart from some tweeks here or there: www.machidewaard.co.uk. There's a new logo - same as at the top of this page! New layout and several new pieces of jewellery. It's neater and hopefully simpler for me to maintain!! I also sent out my latest newsletter - if you'd like a newsletter, you can sign up here.
In other news, my friends over at ToDryFor have been very busy indeed - and are opening a shop in Oxford! A real bricks & mortar shop! It's all super exciting and their opening is going to be in a couple of weeks (I'm crying into my tea that I can't make it to the launch, boo hoo!).
Here's a photo of my new gold ball stud earrings:

engraving...

Ok, not the best photo in the world, but here's a photo of my first go at engraving... Last night we had a lesson again and we started on our lions. This is what mine looks like so far... If you click on the photo, you can get a proper look, closer.

teaching again

This week teaching starts again at South Hill Park - have lots of plans and things to show, so besides some small preparations to go, I'm ready for that! Went and had a look at the Caversham Artists' show yesterday, lovely location and very nice display too. Sorted out a bunch of stuff yesterday so now just need to knuckle down today so the week doesn't get too hectic. It's going to be busy though, with the teaching and meeting people and the engraving course on Wednesday! I'm updating Etsy and Folksy, adding things a day at a time. I've been adding things that I already had but hadn't been on either site yet. Soon I'll start adding new items (some I have to wait because I still need to get them hallmarked). So here are a couple of photos of washi earrings now up on Etsy & Folksy:

mini pliers

Look at these super cute tiny pliers - a freebie from Walsh's at last week's Jewellery Symposium at Farnham Maltings:

Caversham Artists autumn show

Caversham Artists' next show will be taking place on Saturday 18th (11-6pm) and Sunday (12-6pm) 19th September 2010. The exhibition is housed in Mays Barn, a historic 17th century brick & flint building tucked away in the garden of 234 Peppard Road, Emmer Green, RG4 8UA.

Check out the details here: http://cavershamartstrail.co.uk/

inspirational week

Last week was packed with inspiring trips and new lessons and things. On Monday I went to International Jewellery London, which is a massive all-things-jewellery show at Earl's Court in London. The trip in was the usual London excitement, with the tube being sort of functioning - it had rained so hard that the gutters were overflowing and the water was gushing out of the cracks in a brick wall like a giant waterfall. I still got to the show, though, and was dazzled by the huge selection of gemstones and beads in what was only a small section of the event. There was lots to see and I got some useful information about boxes and display gear.
On Wednesday things got even better with my first evening of a 6 week course about hand engraving. The course is offered by the Hand Engravers' Association and in the first evening I learned a ton of things - even though I got home at 11.15pm I could hardly sleep for thinking about all the useful tips and things. I'm already looking forward to the next class this Wednesday evening!
And then to top off an already exciting week, on Friday I went to the Jewellery Symposium at the Maltings in Farnham. I took the chance at lunchtime to look around the New Ashgate Gallery, which had some amazing work in it. I went to three workshops - Reticulation & Heat Scarring, Keum Boo and lastly and most exciting, Polymorph and making a flocking machine. I'm going to try out all the things I learned as soon as possible! Polymorph is amazing stuff - you can heat it in warm water and then shape it to anything you like and then it cools and hardens to be like nylon. I can see the tool possibilities already!!
And last, but certainly not least, progress is being made on my brochure! I'll be updating my website, sending a newsletter and offering a brochure very soon...hopefully all by the beginning of October - so watch this space!

things are getting busy again...

Tomorrow is September again, which I can't quite believe. Where did August go? Today is a bit of a running around day and I think I better get used to it - might be a running around type rest of the year! This morning I had an exciting dentist appointment. I use the word 'exciting' here to mean 'not remotely exciting' which is exactly how I like my dentist appointments! Nothing wrong so then I drove over to South Hill Park and took down the students' show. Went pretty well, 6 pieces sold and I'll return the rest when the term starts.
I've started posting again a bit on Etsy and Folksy. Will be trying to increase that slowly. Also finally getting towards the end of a project I'm working on with Hello Wilson - just a couple more things to do and it's nearly finished.
You can probably spot the most exciting news at the top of my blog/etsy/folksy/twitter....see anything new???

want to learn how to make jewellery?

Click on the photo below for a closer look - take a jewellery class taught by an experienced silversmith and learn how to make your own creative pieces:

Summer course over...

The summer course is over now, I think it went quite well. We discovered some interesting things, one of which is that hollow items with no holes can indeed explode during soldering. It hadn't happened before and then it happened twice - it is loud, an enormous bang! Luckily there were no injuries!! I covered metal inlay and things that look like inlay, for example, amongst others:

So now back to making more things and very soon hopefully heading off to London to get more boxes, as I'm out of nearly every type of box. I'm hoping the supplier won't be too low on stock...

just randomly...

Just thought I'd point out these posts in case someone else finds these interesting. They are about the work life of one person in London in the 1940s over on Mary Portas' (of Mary Queen of Shops fame) blog: http://tiny.cc/3lhiu

cont'd

So Ernest Jones have agreed with no fuss to get the watch fixed, new strap and all at no cost to me. So now I just have to wait another 2 weeks. Sigh. Oh well, at least I didn't have to kick up a fuss.
The guys at The Watch Shop in Reading has been exceptionally helpful and polite. They went out of their way to help me get this sorted.
Anyway, in other news I am working on an order for a wedding gift - a collection for the bride & groom. I had one of the necklaces in stock, so I re-polished that:I've nearly finished a pair of the earrings, of which I had sold out:
And I just need to polish the cuff links which had also sold out:

arggghhh

So I have been working on jewellery and will stick a photo here soon of some new stuff. However, am now posting to vent. You know when you have a little task that should be super easy? And then it goes horribly wrong? Through no fault of your own? Wellllll....so I had a very nice watch. I liked it a lot. My mom had the same one. She liked it a lot. Hers broke by accident. She wanted the same one again. We searched and scoured the internet, could not find one anywhere. It's a lovely, slim line Skagen watch. Very minimal, neat and modern. In the end, I gave my mom my watch because it seems Skagen have stopped making any of their slimline watches for women. They have men's, but they are way too big.
So, I needed a watch. I went to John Lewis, thinking they might still have a Skagen slimline watch for women because they used to have one. No luck. All other women's watches either covered with diamonds, pink, or otherwise bling. Nothing minimal.
So, went online to a reputable shop and bought a minimal calvin klein watch. No numbers, no extra dials, no fuss. It arrived a bit later than I had anticipated because it was out of stock.
Anyway, lovely watch - far too big. Can't self-adjust it because it has links. Go into town for what should be a 5 minute job and go into Ernest Jones. Can they do it? Yes. Now? Yes. About 40 minutes later - sorry can you come back tomorrow, I can't get it back together. I come back the next day, manager hasn't been able to do it either. Watch in pieces.
Took the watch to another shop. They are amazed at the incompetence of Ernest Jones. Turns out Ernest Jones broke one of the pegs. Come back tomorrow....
Went back today, turns out Ernest Jones hadn't the foggiest what they were doing and took out the wrong peg, breaking the watch strap. I need to buy a whole new strap. I haven't even worn the watch yet. Arrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhh.
So, now another week to wait while this shop fixes the problem. Will be presenting the bill to Ernest Jones. Why didn't they just stop when they realised they didn't know how to do it????
Sigh. Anyway....apologies about the long post about this, needed to vent!!!

more cat action!

Thomas, who lives near us, made an extended visit today. (I'm also working on jewellery, but a cat photo for now...)

Peppy

Peppy, originally actually Pepe Romero (influence of a concert I'd just been to) is our family cat and he's nearly 21. He's still going strong and is super cute. Here are some photos to prove it!!

Summer Course at South Hill Park

There are still a couple of spaces left on my summer course at South Hill Park! See here for details: http://tiny.cc/i1gb8
It's a three day course from Tue 17 Aug - Thu 19 Aug 10.00am - 4.00pm each day.

fun photo

I just like this photo. It's a super close up of some laser hallmarking on a clasp for a piece I did which is part silver and part 9ct gold. You can't see this detail with the naked eye!!

engagement ring...

and here's another commission. Sterling silver with ruby, sapphire and CZ. Middle stone in 'mock' tension setting - ie there's a tiny bridge behind it to make it sturdier. satin finish.

more commissioned work

Here are some photos of a piece commissioned for a birthday. I think I said in a previous post, the hard part with this one was finding the right stone (checkerboard cut aquamarine). I found one and it looks much better than the photo the supplier sent. It also actually looks a lot nicer in real life than on any photo I could take. The light dances over the surface, hard to capture on a photo!! In any case, here is the final ring. Bezel set in sterling silver with a satin finish.

and more wedding gifts

And a chop of the couple's names on cuff links and a pendant...chop is actually upside down on the cuff links in this photo, sorry! These look fairly simply but they took a whole load of steps to make!