Decisions decisions.....

Today was my first day back in the studio following a few days off - we had our friends from New Zealand visiting us for a few days. We would have loved for them to have visited for a few weeks, but they were only over here for 4 weeks and had lots of other people to visit, so we were thankful for every moment that we had. Saying goodbye is always the hardest part though.

I had some admin to catch up on today, a couple of magazine deadlines to meet, a few orders to finish off and some planning to do for the small group workshops that I've got planned for this term. This was some of the planning I was doing - new stud earrings examples for the workshop coming up in December!

I posted this picture on the Facebook page earlier today, and there were votes on which of the beads to choose! I'm afraid to say that I didn't go with the majority rule, but only because some of the votes came in after I'd finished the earrings! But don't worry, I have another pair started already!

I choose beautiful rough cut faceted rubies to dangle from the bottom of these long stud earrings, and gave them a patina/oxidised them too to show off the lovely texture. The texture came from a piece of linen that I sent through the rolling mill with the silver after I'd cut the shapes out. Usually I texture a piece of silver with the mill and then cut out as rolling metal through the mill distorts the shape, but if you line up a symmetrical shape like the one I've used here carefully the shape stays symmetrical and just gets a little bit longer.

So, these workshops..... I have organised a series of monthly workshops for this term, with the plan to have more in the New Year. The full details will be on the website over the weekend but briefly, the four workshops I have planned between now and Christmas will teach how to make bangles and chains, set stones, use your scraps of silver to create stunning earrings and perfect your soldering skills. Watch this space for more information!