Bangles, birds and bath tub races!

What a week! I've been a very busy (and happy) bee with all the orders I've had through both the sale on my site and that on notonthehighstreet. As well as the lovebirds I showed you on Wednesday, I've been busy making bangles of various designs and quite a few of my new 24k gold and silver pendants too. Add to that a couple of commissions and a magazine article to finish, and you can see why I had to ask my Mum to come over and help entertain B for a few hours on Friday! It's something that I know Mum is happy to do but not something that I like to ask very often as a) B is my responsibility (well, and T's too of course!) not my parents and they should be spending time enjoying their retirement and b) I like to spend the days that B isn't at preschool or his childminder spending time with him, not working. However, this week had to be different as B couldn't go to his childminder on Thursday as he was, very unusually for him, ill there on the Wednesday. Of course, he was absolutely fine an hour after I brought him home - isn't that always the way?!

Anyway, why have I got a picture of people dressed up and paddling strange boats on the river? Next Saturday 8th August is the annual Arundel Bathtub Race at Arundel (of course!) in West Sussex. If you haven't been to that part of the South Coast before then it's well worth a visit. It's only a small town but it's got a castle, a cathedral, a river, lovely pubs and things for the children to do too. The Bathtub Race starts at the Black Rabbit pub which is along the River Arun from the Castle. There's parking at the Castle, and a free minibus the rest of the way to the pub.

I'm having a stall in the grounds of the pub for the day, so if you're in the area come and say hello and see my new designs in person! There'll be lots of other events too, including a bouncy castle, face painting, vintage cars and birds of prey. The day starts at 11am and the race itself starts at about 2.30pm. The whole day is to raise money for Chestnut Tree House, a local chidren's hospice, and I will be donating 10% of my sales to them too. If you'd like to come along, you can find more details by following this link.

A great day out!

The Bathtub race at Arundel was a fantastic day out yesterday - a great atmosphere, great company, great sales, great weather and some hilarious bath tubs on the River Arun!! If you're in the area next year it's definitely worth a day out. The Black Rabbit pub (the hosts) is a lovely venue and they laid on lots of entertainment. B loved the bouncy castle, and was fascinated by the owls that were perched next to my stall!

Daisychain Jewellery stall

Going with the tide - the easy bit once you've got your bathtub to float!



The team from the Beresford Pub didn't get very far!

A river full of floating bath tubs

Coming back against the tide didn't look quite so easy!

Dave the Barn Owl

The photo of the Beresford Pub team was taken from the Arundel Bathtub website - if you fancy seeing more, have a look here!

Farewell Dear Shed....

I had many many days of bliss working in your shelter, hammering, soldering, sawing and teaching. You were warm, you were (more or less) organised, you were MY space. You will be missed.

The garden looks lonely (if bigger) without you. I hope that your new owners (thank you ebay) will appreciate you as much as I did - and as much as my family did as you kept my work out of the house!

But what's this? T's building an extension to the decking for a new, improved, twice-the-size workshed! Woo hoo!

It doesn't look much at the moment, but my super-star hubbie is working hard to give me a workshop large enough to teach two people at a time! (and to house my growing collection of tools). Little brother came over on Thursday as well to lend a hand - thank you!

Meanwhile, this is the state of the kitchen table - my current workspace. My mantra at the moment is something along the lines of "it won't be long now, I mustn't nag, he's doing this for me in his summer holidays and is being a star" but I HATE working like this!! All together now, "it won't be long........."

P.S. I hope this explains in part where I've been! The rest of the time has been taken up with general school holiday fun (painting pictures in the garden, visiting friends, trips out) and the usual magazine articles and orders. By the way, the Arundel bath tub race was brilliant fun - my favourite "boat" this year was the floating tennis court below. I think one of the swimmers pulling the tub along was getting bored and trying to pull one of the players in. I heard someone ask whether having swimmers pull you along was in the rules. I don't think that there are any rules - apart from needed a bath tub, of course!

P.P.S. Details of new tuition dates and prices for teaching two people at the same time will be available shortly, as will dates for new stone setting and Keum Boo workshops. If you would like to know as soon as the details are available please join my mailing list via the button on the left - thank you!

It's been a bit crazy here!

I'm here, I'm here - I've finally found time between rushing around like crazy and collapsing on the sofa or in bed to write a post! Life has been a bit hectic here over the last few weeks - birthday parties, end of school year activities, a weekend camping, lots of orders and magazine work are in the plus column. Being sick with a tummy bug and then a chesty cough are most definitely in the minus! Somehow, I managed to get the bugs going round preschool and they passed B by - not that I'm complaining about him not getting them you understand, but I wish they'd passed me by too! Anyway, I thought that rather than write a long post about what we've been doing I'd show you some pictures!

Larmer Tree Festival

Apart from summer Christian camps as a teenager the Larmer Tree was the first festival I'd been too -

and it was fantastic!

It's a folk/arts/crafts festival and there was always something going on - bands on one of the stages, comedy acts in the Lounge tent, street artists, buskers, crafts to try for both adults and children -

and everywhere we turned there was something else to see - 

for example giant wooden dragonflies and birds made from recycled bottles! 

It was really family orientated too.

The weather was fantastic too, perfect for camping. B's favourite part was sleeping in the tent!

It was the Larmer Tree's 20th year, and you can find more information about it here. 

Leaving preschool

B finished preschool last week - a day of very mixed emotions!

He has really loved preschool this year, and has learnt so much and grown so much more confident. 

He's only moving next door to the infant school, but it's going to feel like a big change. 

He's already done some settling in as they've spent time with their new classes.

Don't you love the 'graduation' hat he made on their last day? 

Preschool Trip

The day after the last day of preschool was the end of year trip to Adventure Wonderland near Bournemouth. Definitely a place to visit again! We also managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the airplane museum next door as well.

Tank Museum

This was our first trip out of the summer holidays - B loved the tank display but definintely wasn't as keen on the displays inside! The first part of the display, that you had to walk through to get to the other sections, was a life-size model of WWI trenches, complete with noises playing to you from the walls - a bit too much for my four and a half year old! Oh well, maybe when he's older!

Right then, off to do a bit more work before collapsing into bed - it's the Arundel Bath Race tomorrow and I've got a stall there again. The weather's supposed to be good so we're looking forward to a family day out watching strange bath tub boats trying to stay afloat on the River Arun - hopefully while selling my jewellery too!