Teachers' Presents

I've just been editing some photos and I realised that I haven't shown you the thank you presents that Ben and I made for his teacher and classroom assistant. He liked the clasp I made for the poppy bracelets and asked if they could be necklaces  - yes, my eldest has a good eye for jewellery and is very complimentary when I show him a new design! He knows how to get into my good books :)  He had asked a while back if he could come and make something in my shed, so on the last weekend of term he and I spent a brilliant afternoon working together.

After the obligatory talk about how many things there are in Mummy's shed that could hurt him if he didn't use them properly and that he was only to touch something if I told him that he could etc etc he hammered out discs (yes, those flower petals start out as perfect circles!), domed them and helped to hammer them into shape, chose the balls for the centres from my pot of melted scrap, watched from a safe distance while I soldered them together and polished them. We decided to oxidise the one for his classroom assistant as it seemed to be more of her style, and I wanted the pendants to be slightly different as well. He was so good and careful, and so pleased with what he had made! And most important of all, both recipients loved their presents!

 I loved teaching him how to use some of the tools - I'm so proud of how careful he was and how well he concentrated - remember he's only five and a half!   I think what Ben loved the most though was showing off the photos of him making the pendants and explaining what he had done. He's already decided what he wants to make next - a necklace with a train on it!

BTW

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to get into the workshop on a Wednesday, but T took Ben out for a couple of hours this afternoon while Jamie had his nap so I nipped out and did some work on an order for one of the galleries I supply. Lots of doming, filing and sanding discs and sawing out lovebirds and then starting to apply 24k gold foil to them. I've still got more Keum Boo (applying the gold) to do, but they should be on their way to Brighton by the weekend. Now I've got to go and tidy everything away as I've got two ladies coming for tuition tomorrow!

Getting ready to party!

It's Bead Soup Party time again! I'm really excited to be taking part again, especially as I had to miss the last one as Jamie was so little. For those of you who haven't come across the Bead Soup Party before (where have you been?!?), you can read more about it here, but basically Lori Anderson decided to set up a bead party on the internet where partners sent each other bead soup ingredients and had to make something from what they were sent as she didn't live close enough to other beaders to arrange one in real life. It has grown so much! I took part in the first two which had about 80 and 100 people respectively - this fourth party has nearly 400 people from all round the world! Lori has worked so hard to pair us all up and to make sure that we all know what we're doing. She does the pairing up herself rather than allow a computer programme to do it randomly to make sure that we all have partners who will challenge us.

My partner this time round is Janna Harttgen and you can find her blog here http://palimpa-lim.blogspot.com. As you can see from the photos above our styles are very different - as Janna described it I like shiny and she likes more unusual rougher materials! Janna uses a beautiful mix of materials in her jewellery, and is far more adventurous than I am - I hope that some of that will rub off on me! For example, Janna described the gorgeous earrings above as "I riveted links of an old amber bracelet of mine onto the halfs of a found bottle cap and added indonesian glass beads and matte onyx drops" - I would never have thought of doing that! I can sometimes find myself making the same style of jewellery over and over and losing a bit of spontaneity from my work, especially when I've got a lot of orders from my NOTHS shop or from a gallery (for example I've got 20 keum boo pendants to make this week for a gallery), so I'm hoping that Janna's bead soup will challenge me and get me creating something very different from my usual style!

My bead soup ingredients went in the post this afternoon - fancy a sneak peek?

I do love playing about on picnik!

You can also see a sneak peek of what Janna has sent me on her blog here. You'll be able to see the soup ingredients in their full glory when we've received them, and you'll be able to see what we've made on 17th September!

Happy Anniversary

To my wonderful parents - Happy Ruby Wedding Anniversary!

It was a lovely day sitting, eating and chatting in the garden today. Thank you for everything you do for us, especially everything this year.

Spreading the jewellery making addiction

Take two friends with hopes of setting up their own jewellery business, silver, hammers, saws, torches, a few files and me in my workshop and this is what you get.....

Sunday was my first day of private tuition since before Jamie was born, and it was lovely to be back - in many ways it was as if I'd never had a break! Susie and Julia made a bangle each and then a pendant in the afternoon. Julia's pendant may look simple but it takes a good eye and careful filing to achieve a smooth symmetrical shape like her tear drop. Susie decided to make a pendant with a more organic feel, with silver balls forming the centre of a flower.

I taught on Thursday this week as well  but as Anna and Syd were both working on more complex pieces they haven't quite finished yet - I'll show you the pictures when all is done and polished! All the tuition dates for August have now been booked, but I have three dates in September with hopefully a couple more to come when Jamie settles into going to the childminder's on Thursday. The dates I have so far are Thursday 1st September, Saturday 10th September and Sunday 11th December. More details of private tuition can be found here - email me if you would like more information or to book a date!

And the giveaway winners are....

Cilla for her comment on the giveaway blog post and

Lynda Taylor for signing up for the newsletter

I'll email you ladies!

Home again

Well, so much for my new resolution of blogging more often! I came down with a horrible bug just before the end of term and, unusually for me, spent most of three days in bed. This bug seemed to be doing the rounds at school, but not amongst the children - it was the mums at the school gate that seemed to be coming down with it! Thankfully I didn't miss any of Ben's end of term activities though. I can't quite believe that it's a while year since this post and Ben has now completed his foundation year of school. He's excited about going into Year 1. He's still with the same class of children and the school have done a really good job of preparing them for next year.

I did take my laptop with me on holiday to Suffolk last week and planned to do the giveaway draw then and inflict my holiday photos on you show you what we were up to, but the advertised wifi in our accomodation was very hit and miss! At best I could get a slow signal in the corner of the garden. I do love Suffolk though, mainly because parts of it are still in the 1990s! We had a great time - met up with family and friends, visited all the places I used to go to when my brother and I stayed with our grandparents during the summer holidays and generally relaxed. Ben loved it all, even sharing a room with his teething baby brother, and Jamie just loved all the cuddles from family and friends. I'm not going to inflict all our photos on you, promise, just the highlights of my favourite day of the week - a day out at Aldeburgh with my friend Kate and her children.

Ben and Ben daring the waves - and my Ben losing!

I gave up trying to get a shot of all four children looking at the camera

!

Chilling on the beach

The best photo of all

Normal service (whatever that is!) will be resumed tomorrow with new jewellery and the giveaway draw at last! 

I've just seen on the post I linked to that I got a bug at the end of last academic year too - hopefully it's not going to be a recurring theme!