Tag - im it !

Was the lovely Kerry Boulter of KEBO Jewellery subtly trying to tell me it was about time I updated my blog when she tagged me ?. Maybe, but even if she wasn't its still its given me a reason to get my thumb out! Thanks Kerry.

Its an 8 Tag so here we go :

8 Things I am looking Forward too.....

1. Christmas - I love Christmas, enough said.
2. Being a stone lighter by Summer
3. Summer - and all the new clothes ill be able to wear (see No.2)
4. Building my new studio - its going to be mahoosive.
5. My little fella starting school in September
6. The new Terminator movie
7. Going to London and maybe meeting a friend for the first time.
8. My Birthday, this years the big 30 for me. Im trying to convince myself im okay with it !.

8 Things I Did Yesterday...

1. Cleaned my kitchen
2. Visited my mum
3. Went to Bingo in the first time in over a year - won £15 on a line !! Rock n Roll.
4. Took some old furniture to the tip.
5. Messed around with the back end of my website.
6. Made a new ring.
7. Finished a necklace for a bride to be.
8. Started on a new design.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do....

1. Deliver Babies
2. Cook
3. Spend more than half a day in the studio.
4. Drive a really fast car round a race track.
5. Go on holiday to exotic locations
6. Dance. Salsa and Street
7. Eat lots of cake and not put on any weight.
8. Have an attention span of more than 5 minutes.
8 Shows I Watch....

1. Lost
2. Fringe
3. Eleventh Hour
4. Skins
5. Inbetweeners
6. CSI
7. Hero's - mmm Sylar !
8. Battlestar Galactica - I know its finished now, but I'll just start watching it again from the beginning.

So those are my 8's. My turn to tag you. Here's the rules, just in case you want to follow them:

1. Mention the name of the person who tagged you.
2. Do the lists of 8.
3. Tag 8 bloggers of your choice.
4. Let them know that they have been tagged!

And heres who ive tagged.

Jo - Daisychain Jewellery
Laura - Beads By Laura
Amanda - Kitschy Coo
Beady Pool
Jelveh - Jelveh Designs
Mel - Kookie Designs
Ali - All About the Beads
Tina - Tinas Lampwork Beads

Huzzah, texture at last !

It had been a while since I used my rolling mill and Ive had it about a year now. You see I have tried to use it, lots, but for some reason it and I just don't seem to get along. Unless its used for flattening out wire or straightening out some sheet its just not been playing ball. Over the past few months I have tried, unsuccessfully to roll different textures on to silver, and me being the impatient so and so that I am have just walked away mumbling to myself that it was no good.

Well last week I figured it was time to try again. I must of got the settings just right as when I passed some scrap sheet through it with a bit of fabric it took really well. So I jumped at the chance and ran a bigger piece of silver though and then proceeded to make these lovely earrings.

Named Linen after the fact that its a fabric texture, they have been curved slightly to sit perfectly on the ear. They catch the light beautifully and if you look closely you can see the cross hatch pattern. I made two pairs, a dinkly little pair and a pair slightly larger, both can my found on the website and I reckon they would make a great gift for a special mum !.



Yesterday was really productive. I enjoyed a full day in the Studio, something that I haven't had in a long time. Even if its a bitter sweet situation where I should actually of been at work it was nice to really get my teeth into some new ideas that I had over the weekend. Ill get some photos of them done tonight and show you tomorrow.

So, how did it go ?

I had planned on blogging about this as soon as I got back from it on Sunday night, but as you'll see things became a little bit eventful.

Sunday went extremely well, I arrived in good time and set up my stand. As I mentioned it was my intention to have dry run through the stand as I was doing it a different way to what I normally do but unfortunately I didn't get round to doing it so ended up playing around with it once I got there. With 2 hours to set up I wasn't too worried about it and managed to pull off what I think was quite a nice display.

With people already queuing up, doors opened at 11am and it was every stall holder for themselves lol. I'd promised myself that I would make a real effort to drag myself out of my shy shell and chat to people as at these type of events are not about making sales on the day, but getting people to remember you.

Straight away I received compliments on my display and jewellery, which was extremely encouraging, this made it very easy to slip into conversation and explain to people what I do, and what surprised me was the amount of people who didnt realise that it was completely handcrafted.

I became more confident throughout the day, and had lots of really good conversations with brides to be. They had lots of fun trying on different pieces and discussing ideas and all things wedding based.

The organisers said it was the best show yet, with around 750 people coming through the door, obviously they were not all brides but it now explains how I ran out of my lovely flyer's and had to start handing out my business cards instead - note for next time - get more flyer's !.

4pm came round extremely quickly and I was soon packed up and heading home by half past (how come it takes 2 hours to set up but only 30mins to get it all away?). I was looking forward to getting home and having some dinner, putting my feet up and blogging. How wrong could I of been.

I came home to a screaming 3 year old, turned out he had fallen and banged his wrist. He was in such a lot of pain and would hardly let you touch it. Quick call to my sister (remember shes a nurse) who popped round, took a look and said that we should take him down to casualty.

So off we trotted, much to the disappointment of the little one who was insisting that we stay at home, got booked in and then proceeded "the wait". You know the one, where your in a room full of injury inflicted people, you scout around trying to work out who looks worse off. The wait just to see the triage nurse was over half an hour. When we got to see her she wasn't convinced that it wasn't broken and that he would probably need an xray.

Now normally at this point you get given a card and told to go down to the xray department, have an xray, then come back to the waiting room until the doctor gets round to see you, BUT as the little one is under 5 he needs to be assessed by a doctor first. That means waiting, and watching all the bigger ones, who have already had their xrays go in before you.

After 3 hours we were eventually called in and to cut what is even longer story short, were sent for an xray (he was so good, as we told him all about how it was a special camera that took pictures of your bones) and he hadn't broken his wrist, thank goodness.

Got home about 10 after stopping off at the golden arches as none of us had any dinner (yeah that's another thing, vending machines in A&E, why are they full of rubbish, the healthiest thing i could get was a packed of Mini Cheddars!!!) and after getting him to bed i got to put my feet up at last.

Phew, and if that wasn't enough, I had work the next day and then it was up to Oxford in the evening to see Laura. I havent stopped!

Fridays Child is....

.....Soo tired, and slightly off course !!

Today I was supposed to have a run through of my display, except I spent all day running around doing silly little things that shouldn't of taken as long as they did. Remember I needed some printer paper ? Well would you believe that i went to 4 big shops and all of the had "just run out" someone obviously has a fetish for paper and decided to beat me to every shop and buy it all. Luckily I was able to borrow some from a friend and get all my printing done. Hubby's just finished folding them all into booklets (thanks hun xx)

I also made up my crystal and pearl sample stands this afternoon, it was a bit of a pain but so worth it in the end. As you can see they've turned out pretty cool, i know they will look great on my stall.

Talking of stalls, I have this vision in my head that I cant seem to shift about how its going to look. I want to make it look like a dressing table with a big mirror and a jewellery box and other dressing table stuff and then position the jewellery around the table. I really wish id been able to give it a go today, as if it doesn't work ill end up resorting to my normal stand which isn't very wedding like.

I also have to pack all my kit up and tidy up this bomb of a house. I'm sad to say i haven't lifted a finger round the house this week and its starting to stress me out. I know it will get done next week when its all over with, but I find it so difficult to work in a mess.

Well I havent finished yet, so I had better get to. Hope you have a great weekend.

Thursday - Just

Woah, nearly missed this one, I ended falling asleep this evening as I had a splitting headache, luckily the snooze and watching an episode of CSI has sorted it, but now its late and I really should be heading for bed.

I took much pleasure in ticking all of today's tasks of my list, Yay! All that needs doing is to buy some, higher than tesco value, printer paper (great for kids, not for paperwork) and 2 A4 frames so that I can mount the Swarovski crystal & pearl samples I have.

I even managed to squeeze in a hair appointment today, I've gone from having past shoulder length to a layered jawline bob with fringe. I also had my highlights done so I'm feeling all flouncy and bouncy with my new hair !

Right, im off to bed....... roll on tomorrow.

Wednesday - Kinda Done

So today I had to take photos and price and label everything up. I'm halfway there having taken about a gazillion photos but I'm yet to do the pricing. Ill have to do that this evening now as the kids are home from school and have already started fighting over the remote control (I cant wait for the warm weather to get here).

I managed to nab back the cuff links from my dad so I could take a couple of photos for my records and to show you. My Dad is a big Star Trek fan, which in turn was passed down to me. I remember when I was a child having a bath and getting out just in time to watch the Original Series (re runs obviously) and loving it. Even hubby is a massive fan and were all really looking forward to the new film coming out this year, which is made even better by the fact that Zachary Quinto is playing Mr Spock.

So, what do you think ?

Change in Course

Work is going well on the Bridal jewellery I mentioned the other day, and I managed to snap this arty studio shot yesterday before I had a quick tidy.

Right, today I want to ask you about something..............Deviation.

I normally begin my creation process by sketching out a few ideas and then taking them in to shed, I could have various different ideas but obviously ill start off with something. I then find that as I'm creating lots of different ideas start popping into my head on how it would be good to do this or that or to even change my original idea altogether.

Now this can obviously be a good thing on occasions, but sometimes its down right frustrating as I can end up not even creating the original idea. I also find myself thinking if I only had xyz skills that I could do this, and this, or that and it always seems to happen when I have deadline !

Now is this something that many of you find you do, does it help the creative process or hinder it ? If you do find yourself deviating how do you deal with it ?

And relax..................

......So how was it for you ? Ive quite enjoyed the past few days of nothing-ness playing with a few of my new toys and baking cakes and biscuits for me and the kids.

But alas its not to last long as tomorrow I must start back working again. In 3 weeks ill be attending my first event of next year and I'm insanely not ready for it. It will be my first wedding fair where I intend to launch my range of made to order jewellery.

I've been to quite a few, eyeing them out and seeing how it all works and there are virtually no one selling jewellery apart from tiaras and the like. So either that's a really good thing for me and I will be filling a void or it's a no go and I'll find out the hard way.

I was going to upload a picture of the cufflinks I made my Dad for Christmas but just realised I left my camera round my parents house..... agh !

Newsletter Draw Winner

Its about time I drew the winner of the Newsletter give away, for those of you who don't know, anyone who signs up to my newsletter is entered into a monthly draw, you can read more about it here.

This months prize is this pair of Stud Hoop earrings. And the winner is ..................................

..........................................Ann-Marie!

Congratulations Ann-Marie, I will be contacting you shortly.

Recommend A Blog

One of my favourite things to do on the Internet when I'm not working is checking in on the blogs I have subscribed to, I love stopping by and finding about how people are doing either in their work or personal life, learning new things or even just enjoying a beautifully written post.

I don't blog as often as I would like to and I'm amazed at how some people are able to do it everyday, and I'm glad that they do otherwise I get withdrawals (you see I'm reading other peoples blogs rather than writing my own).

As I only have about 15 or so in my reader sometimes it can get a bit quiet, and that's where you come in, assuming that somebody is reading this I would like for you to recommend a blog that you really enjoy reading. It doesn't have to be jewellery related or even craft related. Any blog that makes you smile, laugh, think, ponder; you get my drift, and yes if you have your own and Im not subscribed be sure to link to that too.

Below is a list of blogs that I'm already subscribed to, hopefully there might be one on there that you haven't seen and you'll enjoy reading it too !


Amari Jewellery

Bead Nerd

Beads By Laura

Daisychain Jewellery

Fede + Design + Textiles

Florspace

Heavenly Jewellery, the making of

Isabella Dean

Kab's Creative Concepts

KEBO Jewellery

Kerrie Slade

The Funky Felter's News & Tips

The Kutuu Studio Blog

Watch Me Create

Ssshhh.... Listen

.... can you hear that ?? ...... silence......the school holidays are over !

Is it bad of me to be happy ? I love my children and of course I love spending time with them, but boy 6 solid weeks of "muuummmmmm" "I'm hungry" "i want to watch xyz" etc etc has to drive even the most patient mother insane.

So, yes I'm happy that the children have gone back to school (big one is at school and the little ones at the childminders). Ive had all morning busying myself with paperwork, website tinkering and now blog posting without having to stop to get someone a drink or break up a fight. Bliss.

I would say its now back to normal, but with a brand new routine (the one I arranged before the holidays) coming into play, the selling/buying season just around the corner and several shows coming up I need to get a move on.

So for all you mothers out there who have just been released by the SHM's (School Holiday Monsters!) take a minute to listen to the silence and enjoy.

Hallmarking Headache

Ive received a few emails this week from people asking why I haven't put any of my silver jewellery up for sale on the website yet, so I thought it best to come here and explain why.

One word.........Hallmarking !

After my silversmiths course I decided that if I wanted to be taken seriously (and not to court) about my silver pieces that I would need to register myself a hallmark. By law jewellery that contains over 7.78grams of sterling silver needs to be hallmarked otherwise you can not sell it as sterling silver. I will point out here though that items under 7.78grams can still be hallmarked but its not required.

Now the world of hallmarking does seem to be a minefield. It was easy enough to register and as I had done a part-time course I was eligible for the discounted registration fee, but the pricing structure is like something out of the dark ages and the best cause of a headache.

Basically there is a price per piece but there is also a minimum price that you will pay regardless of size so it is more cost effective to send as many pieces as you can at the same time. Then adding on the registered post there and back, handling charges, excess bagging charges (whats that all about?) and vat it would be extremely expensive to be sending them off a few at a time. I can now understand why jewellers launch "collections" rather than a few bits at a time !.

So I've been stock piling up my work, which I hate to do as I want to get it out into the world, but 20 or so pieces whizzed off to the Assay Office on Wednesday we just have to wait and see how long they take to come back, but they have all been priced up and had there pictures taken, so as soon as they are back with there new marks they will be up on the website.