There's nothing quite like

a new diary to help me feel more organised and ready to tackle the world. I don't know why new stationery should make such a difference, but it does! I know that it might seem like a strange time of year to buy a new diary, but although I left school teaching four years ago I still haven't broken the habit of using academic diaries, so yesterday after church B and I paid a visit to Paperchase as I love their design with a whole page next to the weekly layout ready for my to-do lists. Sad? Probably. Feeling organised and ready to tick off those 'to-dos'? Definitely!

I've been ticking a lot of 'to-dos' off my lists over the last week or so, which is why I've been awol.
I have:

• finished a magazine project and drafted two more
• almost finished painting the garden fence (the fiddly bits partly hidden by the decking railing were not easy to get to)
• finished the wording for a new  masterclass for Beads and Beyond (need to finish the photos tomorrow)
• finished a couple of new designs (need to edit the photos tomorrow to put on here and the website)
• made two Daisy cuffs, a Leaf cuff and lots of bangles for orders
• nearly finished weeding the front garden
• planted more potatoes
• nearly finished my college marking - T is looking forward to getting the dining room table, as my students portfolios are hiding it at the moment!

There's more boxes of marking under the table! Help!!

I've also been making lots of these

as the July issue of Beads and Beyond included a project that I'd written using daisies cut from copper sheet. I decided to offer the daisies on the website for people who didn't have the time or equipment to make their own, and the orders have kept me busy. I need to visit my friendly local motorbike-mad metal merchants tomorrow to buy some more copper sheet. If you are local to Southampton and need any sheet of any metal that isn't silver, then do go and visit the Metal Mart - any woman (and some men!) who walks in there nowadays is greeted with "do you make jewellery?" and I've sent so many students down there for copper sheet for practicing their sawing techniques that they now keep small amounts pre-cut behind the counter! If you'd like me to make some copper daisies for you, then you can find all the information you need here.

This month's Beads and Beyond also included the first of four articles that I'm writing for the magazine on the legal issues of making and selling jewellery. This one is on hallmarking, something that it is easy to forget about when you first start to sell your jewellery! By law, all jewellery sold in the UK that contains 7.78g or more of silver or 1g or more of gold must be hallmarked, whether or not all the metal in a piece is actually soldered together. It's easy to see hallmarking as being an extra, unwanted business cost but to me it's something that is more than a legal requirement, it's a guarantee to my customers that my work is what I say it is, and it's a way of taking pride in my work. The article next month is on insurance for your jewellery business.

My hallmark - my maker's mark, the modern sterling silver mark, the traditional sterling mark, the Leopard's Head showing that my work is marked at Goldsmiths' Hall in London, and the date stamp.

 

To see more of what's in this month's Beads and Beyond, and Cindy Wimmer's gorgeous stamped jewellery on the front cover visit the magazine's website here.