Thank you

Thank you to all of you for your support, your love and your encouragement this year. It truly has been a year of ups and downs. Jamie's birth at the beginning of the year was obviously the biggest blessing, and he and Ben have continued to be an absolute joy. Finding out that I had cancer 6 days after giving birth was not, however, part of the plan for this year, or for any year for that matter! The surgeons and all the hospital staff who continue to care for me and who got all of the tumour out (hurray!) are amazing, but I know that the only way that the family came through it all was with the support of our friends - and I include you in that. Thank you for your comments, for the emails and letters that I was sent while I was ill, and the prayers.Thank you for continuing to read my rambling posts!

Thank you too to everyone who has bought my jewellery on my main website or my clasps in my new etsy shop (64 sales in my daisychain extra shop in 7 months! So much more than I hoped for!), everyone who has come to a class or for tuition, or has tried one my magazine projects or downloaded one of my tutorials.

I have more plans for 2012, but in the meantime there is 

a thank you sale 

in both the daisychain extra etsy shop and on my jewellery website - 

10% off all clasps and findings and 15% off all jewellery. 

The jewellery website already has the discount applied, but to get the discount on etsy 

you will need to enter the code "XMASEXTRA"

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I haven't been hiding away in the workshop making jewellery orders all this time - I was allowed out for good behaviour every now and then. Well, seriously, I have been busy with lots of lovely orders (quite a few last minute ones!), but there have also been lots of family things going on too. And to be honest, I've also found it quite hard the last couple of months. The last operation I had at the beginning of November brought back a lot of bad memories that I didn't even realise I had from my big op and stay in hospital in February, and I've been hiding away a bit. But enough of that for now - this is some of the more fun stuff we've been up to!

• Ben is now 6! I know every mother says it, but where on earth has the time gone?!? He had a fab birthday weekend. His birthday was last Saturday and the school PTA had organised a trip to Peter Pan so we had a family visit to that, along with the families of his best friends. He had a swimming party on the Sunday. I'm not sure who had the better time there - Ben and his friends or T and the other dads who went into the pool and on the inflatables with them!
• Jamie is now crawling - and boy can he crawl! He had been bum-shuffling for a while and the week before last he just decided he could do it - and that he wanted the toy that was just out of reach badly enough. He is so pleased with himself.
• Ben was a wise man in the school play. He was so confident and thoroughly enjoyed himself, which I'm sure has alot to do with how encouraging his school and teachers are. Jamie got so excited when he saw his brother!

Add to that three more birthday parties, two sleep overs and a trip to the inlaws, and you can see why we've been busy! At least everything is ready now, Father Christmas's progress has been checked on the NORAD satellites, milk and cookies has been left out for him, raindeer food (oats and glitter!) has been sprinkled on the lawn, and both boys are finally asleep. I expect to be woken up very early tomorrow morning, for Ben to get over excited and for Jamie to think that the boxes and wrapping paper are the best things ever. I hope that you and your families have a wonderful day.

Counting down....

Just a quick note before I hide myself away in the workshed to get some more orders finished! Thank you for all the lovely comments about the challenge pieces I made last week. I've had lots of fun looking round all the other blogs taking part. It was great to see what everyone else made with my oak leaf clasps, and I've seen so many lovely designs on the Challenge of Color blog hop. The palettes that Erin sent us were gorgeous, and the good news is that she's got more challenges planned for the new year. I've got another couple of challenges up my sleeve too!

Before then, though, I've got to finish getting organised for Christmas and Ben's birthday. November is always so busy with Christmas commissions and orders, family events and Christmas craft shows that the start of December always seems to surprise me slightly - and then starts to panic me slightly as from now on until the end of the year it's a bit of a mad rush! Ben and so many of his friends have December birthdays, so this month we have as many birthday parties to take him to as he gets invited to in the whole of the rest of the year put together. The general theme for this year's parties seems to be sporty. One of his best friends had a party at St Mary's, Southampton FC's stadium, last Saturday. T went along with him as I was sure he'd appreciate the venue far more than I would! His other best friend is having a swimming party next weekend, and Ben is having a swimming birthday party the following Sunday, and then there are mid-week teas and a couple of sleepovers in between as well.

Right then, off to the workshed! I put the heater and the pickle pot on before I came on the computer so hopefully everything to ready to go! I've got photos to edit this afternoon as well, so I'll be adding more pieces of jewellery to the website this evening. There's still time to put in Christmas orders. The last date for UK orders for pieces that are ready for immediate dispatch is Monday 19th December, and for made to order pieces the last date is Friday 16th.