Rushing - but trying to relax!

Thank you for all the lovely responses to my last post - it seems that the word "relax" hit a chord with more than a few people! In the past the word always made me feel a bit, well, guilty, as if I was relaxing then I wasn't making the best use of my time, and as I've always got family, house and business job to do then what on earth did I think I was doing relaxing?! It took me far too long to realise that if I don't relax sometimes then I'm not recharging my batteries and I'm not going to be able to do my best at everything else. Unfortunately I seem to need to relearn this lesson periodically.

Thank you too for the lovely compliments about the cuties in the photos. I have to own up here and admit that I can only lay claim to two of them - the little girl pictured is Gracie, my beautiful God-daughter, but she is just as much a part of the family as my nephews and nieces. I always tell Ben that there is family that you're born with and family that you choose, and as Katie, Gracie's Mummy, and I have known each other since we were 10 and Gracie and my boys are growing up together they, and Katie's husband (T's partner-in-crime!) are most definitely family we have chosen. By the way, this birthday party was only relaxing as it was just family, not lots of children, and for once I had decided not to stress about making a cake myself but bought one. My baking skills are good, if I do say so myself, but I put too much pressure on myself about decorating each one perfectly! I did feel a few twinges of guilt for not making a birthday cake for one of my boys for the first time ever, but only until I saw Jamie's face light up at the sight of Peppa Pig! He does love that pig!

We had another family day this weekend just gone. I spent Saturday teaching privately in the workshop at home, but I can't show you photos of what Brenda made yet as she's coming back later in the month to complete her projects. Sunday, however, my brother and his girlfriend came over for a lazy Sunday lunch as they hadn't been able to make it over for Jamie's birthday the weekend before. They arrived complete with the giant balloon you can see above which both boys think is fantastic!

So, that's family caught up with, what about jewellery making? After all, that is what you've come here for, isn't it? Now that I've got caught up with ordering materials and new boxes and bags etc (always a good sign as it means that I've been using them for orders!) this rest of this afternoon is going to be spent cutting out some new designs I've had planned for a while, preparation for college for the next two nights and also making sure I've got everything I need for tuition for the next two days. It is another busy month for teaching, which is great! A couple of things to share with you though...

Firstly, I wrote another blog post for Artisan Whimsy at the weekend covering one of my favourite topics, hallmarking - you can see it here!

And the latest issue of Beads and Beyond is out, with a simple but elegant pair of earrings that I made from bending wire into teardrops. There's also a gorgeous project by Rebecca Anderson in there as well, so plenty to keep you busy!