Happy Dance!

I know I've been quiet here over the last week, but it has been for good reasons, promise! I've been really busy working on magazine articles (can't show you anything to do with those yet though, sorry!) and the ebook that I mentioned last week. That's been coming along really well (well, I think so anyway, and even T thought it was looking good!), and I'm hoping to be able to release it in a week or so. In the meantime though, here's a quick sneak preview of one of the projects that's in it....

But anyway, I want to tell you why I've been doing a happy dance, or rather happy dances, around the house over the last couple of days!

A while back I posted that I'd was one of ten designers nominated by the Beads and Beyond readers for the Readers' Designer of the Year. This afternoon July's issue of the magazine arrived ......and I won!! I am so amazed, and so chuffed!! Thank you so much those of you who voted for me! It means so much that people actually like the projects I write. As much as I love working in my shed, hammering away, it can be pretty isolating, so this really does mean a lot to me. Hopefully you can see from the (poor, taken with my iphone) photo that my lovely friend Rebecca Anderson came second out of the ten - personally I think her projects are more appealing to a wider set of readers as they don't need soldering kit etc to do!

And the second thing - yes, there's more! If you can remember back as far as last June I wrote that I'd submitted a project to a book for the first time and that it was accepted - and the book is now available to pre-order! 30-minute Bracelets is one of Lark's lovely books, and has over 60 projects by some fantastic designers such as Erin Prais-Hintz, whose blog I love to read. I haven't had my copy of the book through yet as it's probably still flying over the Atlantic, but I've seen the front cover on Amazon, and that's what started the happy dance, as you see the smoky quartz bracelet with the oak leaf clasp on the front cover? That's mine that is!!

Well, I think that's enough excitment for one day. I'm off to give Jamie his late night feed - that'll bring me back down to earth!