Merry Christmas!

The presents are wrapped and sitting under the tree, a mince pie, carrot and milk have been left out for Santa and the reindeer and I've even prepared the veggies for Christmas dinner.....it's time to sit and relax and enjoy time with my family, and time to say a big thank you for your support this year. Whether you have bought or commissioned jewellery, come to one of my classes, come for private tuition or downloaded a tutorial it is greatly appreciated.

I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas and I will be back again in the New Year with dates for private tuition and workshops, and information about an online course too - I'm very excited about that last one!

Merry Christmas!
Jo

P.S. For those of you who received discount codes based on your Christmas jewellery orders don't forget that they are only valid until the end of the month! Full details are here.

What a day!

The Winter Open Studios was a fantastic day, a great success - so much so that the studios have been rather quiet this week as we've all been recovering!

Our first visitor of the day was Father Christmas, and as soon as he settled into his colourful grotto the doors opened. I hardly stopped all day, talking to people about my tuition and workshops, showing some of the pieces I'm working on at the moment, discussing commissions and generally showing off my lovely studio! I also had a gratifying number of empty displays at the end of the day.

I had planned to take lots of photos of the open day, but in the end I hardly left my own studio and when I did I only got as far as Denise's studio next door.

Thankfully there are a few more on the Sorting Office facebook page here, and even a quick video tour!



We're all off to London tomorrow, a Sorting Office studios trip out to the Cockpit Arts Open Studios. A treat after our hard work, a day off from Christmas orders! I'm really looking forward to it - and hoping that I can do some more Christmas shopping!

Can I mention Christmas yet?!

Despite starting to plan new products for the Christmas season and Christmas events in the spring, I still dislike talking about Christmas too early! However, I heard my first Christmas song on Radio 2 this evening so I think it's time!

Unfortunately my favourite show of the year, Handmade Winchester isn't running this year but I will be showing my jewellery at two events - two different events but I am very excited (and rather nervous!) about both of them.

The first event is this coming Friday, 15th November - the Christmas Gifts Bazaar that a friend and I organise to raise money for the Wessex Cancer Trust each  year. This is our fourth year and we've got more stalls that before, live music, wine, mince pies, a raffle - what more could you want?! The reason I'm nervous is that we've worked so hard on this and I'm at the waking up in the middle of the night stage praying that it will be a success! I know that it will be as people have been talking about it and tickets have been sold, but that doesn't stop the nerves!

And the second event is our first annual Open Studios at the Sorting Office - the nerves this time are because I've never had to opportunity to open my studio up to the public before! I'll tell you lots more about this later in the week, but for now all the basic information you need is below.....

 

It would be wonderful to see you there!

Merry Christmas!

The mince pies, glass of milk and carrots are out for Father Christmas and Rudolph. The boys are (finally!) fast asleep, the presents are wrapped, the table laid for tomorrow - oh, and I've had a stinking cold since the end of term! We're spending the day with my parents and my brother and his girlfriend, where we'll probably spend most of the day helping the boys put their presents together and play silly games. 

I hope that you all have a wonderful day wherever you are!

Phew! Nearly there!

I'm not going to do the usual "where has the time gone" thing. This is a manic time of year, something that I'm finally getting used to! With jewellery and jewellery supply orders (thank you very much everyone!), craft shows, teaching - and of course two boys with birthdays either side of Christmas* - life has been very busy. I'm nearly there though. I finally finished my Christmas shopping today, I've just got a few more made-to-order pieces to polish and post, I've taught my last session of the year, and my last craft show was on Saturday.

I decided to change my craft show displays this year. I've made a few changes over the last couple of years - new table cloths that don't need ironing for example! - but this year I decided to do something to raise the displays up. I hunted for inspiration on pinterest and flickr, looking for ideas that would help me create displays that I could adapt to different sized tables, that I could easily take apart for transportation, oh, and wasn't too expensive either - and this is what I came up with!

A rare photo of me!

The shelves are oak floor boards that I got at a great reduced price as the box was already opened and a couple of the smaller boards were missing. They're not the lightest things to carry from the car but they fit on the small trolley I've got, and they were already cut to different lengths. And to hold the shelves up? Ssshh...don't tell anyone but they're tin cans sprayed cream! Jumbo hot dog cans to be exact, taller than normal cans and the perfect height. I also added in some painted canvasses and lovely wooden placemats to lay the jewellery out on, and I'm really pleased with the effect.

My new displays obviously helped my jewellery to catch people's eyes as my sales have been good, particularly at the show I did in Southampton on Saturday. I kept having to open up the Etsy app on my phone to take pieces out of the shop! I spent yesterday evening editing photos of new pieces list though, including the pieces below, so if you're still looking to finish your Christmas shopping my shop will be open until the end of this week!

These pieces, and several others, will be in my Daisychain Jewellery etsy shop tomorrow!

*birthday photos coming soon - it's been ages since I've shown you how much my boys have grown!

Handmade Winchester countdown

Just a quick post tonight as I've had a busy day creating the last few designs for my stall at Handmade Winchester this weekend. Well, I say the last few, but I'm sure I'll fit in a few more earrings at least before bedtime tomorrow! Although the event has been running a few years now, and I'm proud to say that I've taken part since the start, this is the first year that it's been a two-day event. It's also the first time that I've done a two-day event for several years, so I'm slightly nervous about the amount of stock that I'll need! If I don't spend all of tomorrow evening in the workshed I'll pop back on here and show you some of the new pieces I'm taking with me, although you'll actually see a couple of them tomorrow as Friday is the reveal day for two challenges that I've been taking part in this month (so many challenges in November!) - the Art Jewelry Elements' Component of the Month, and Erin Prais-Hintz's Challenge of Color.

See you tomorrow, but in the meantime go and checkout the tutorial I wrote on the Art Jewelry Elements blog today!

Made with love

Every halfterm Ben's class has a different topic, and all of the subjects are then taught around that topic. In the past we've had Superheros and The Night, and this halfterm the topic is one that has really caught the imagination of the parents as well as the children - Old Toys! The children have been comparing new and old toys, what they're made from, how they work etc, and had to interview a grandparent about their childhood toys. That homework came home the weekend of Jamie's birthday, which was perfect timing as Ben had four grandparents to ask!

Mum and Dad had a search through their loft and found some of my old toys for Ben and I to take into school yesterday. My parents moved six times (I think!) in about 9 years due to Dad's job so they've had to have a few clear outs, but they found some things I have very fond memories, including some Sindy clothes that my Mum and my Grandma made for me. Mum made the knitted jumper and skirt below, and Grandma sewed the rest. Grandma served an apprenticeship at a fashion house before the war, and it really shows in all the beautiful details in the clothes. Just look at the shaping on the bodice of the pink dress, and the layers in the skirt!

There are clothes for Sindy to wear during the day, made from material that Grandma saved from a yellow dress Mum wore as a girl and a pair of Grandma's trousers, party dresses made from a nightie and Grandma's and material from the suit she wore to Mum and Dad's wedding 40 years ago. How wonderful is that? And of course, every Sindy has to have a wedding dress, complete with veil! I remember Grandma giving me dolls clothes for several Christmases, and although I do remember loving them and thank her for them it's only now that I really appreciate just how much love and work she and Mum put into making them. I know that I have them to thank for my love of crafts and for teaching me to crochet and knit and sew - even though my sewing skills are very limited!

I don't have daughters to make dolls' clothes for, but I do have a God-daughter, two nieces and friend's young daughters who I consider to be family, so as they grow older (they're mainly preschool age at the moment) I will be adding to their dolls wardrobes. I made a start at Christmas with some knitted clothes for our eldest niece's Baby Annabell, and she loved them! She's already put her requests in for her birthday present!

This is the least blurry picture I managed to take of Katie at Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I haven't been hiding away in the workshop making jewellery orders all this time - I was allowed out for good behaviour every now and then. Well, seriously, I have been busy with lots of lovely orders (quite a few last minute ones!), but there have also been lots of family things going on too. And to be honest, I've also found it quite hard the last couple of months. The last operation I had at the beginning of November brought back a lot of bad memories that I didn't even realise I had from my big op and stay in hospital in February, and I've been hiding away a bit. But enough of that for now - this is some of the more fun stuff we've been up to!

• Ben is now 6! I know every mother says it, but where on earth has the time gone?!? He had a fab birthday weekend. His birthday was last Saturday and the school PTA had organised a trip to Peter Pan so we had a family visit to that, along with the families of his best friends. He had a swimming party on the Sunday. I'm not sure who had the better time there - Ben and his friends or T and the other dads who went into the pool and on the inflatables with them!
• Jamie is now crawling - and boy can he crawl! He had been bum-shuffling for a while and the week before last he just decided he could do it - and that he wanted the toy that was just out of reach badly enough. He is so pleased with himself.
• Ben was a wise man in the school play. He was so confident and thoroughly enjoyed himself, which I'm sure has alot to do with how encouraging his school and teachers are. Jamie got so excited when he saw his brother!

Add to that three more birthday parties, two sleep overs and a trip to the inlaws, and you can see why we've been busy! At least everything is ready now, Father Christmas's progress has been checked on the NORAD satellites, milk and cookies has been left out for him, raindeer food (oats and glitter!) has been sprinkled on the lawn, and both boys are finally asleep. I expect to be woken up very early tomorrow morning, for Ben to get over excited and for Jamie to think that the boxes and wrapping paper are the best things ever. I hope that you and your families have a wonderful day.

Counting down....

Just a quick note before I hide myself away in the workshed to get some more orders finished! Thank you for all the lovely comments about the challenge pieces I made last week. I've had lots of fun looking round all the other blogs taking part. It was great to see what everyone else made with my oak leaf clasps, and I've seen so many lovely designs on the Challenge of Color blog hop. The palettes that Erin sent us were gorgeous, and the good news is that she's got more challenges planned for the new year. I've got another couple of challenges up my sleeve too!

Before then, though, I've got to finish getting organised for Christmas and Ben's birthday. November is always so busy with Christmas commissions and orders, family events and Christmas craft shows that the start of December always seems to surprise me slightly - and then starts to panic me slightly as from now on until the end of the year it's a bit of a mad rush! Ben and so many of his friends have December birthdays, so this month we have as many birthday parties to take him to as he gets invited to in the whole of the rest of the year put together. The general theme for this year's parties seems to be sporty. One of his best friends had a party at St Mary's, Southampton FC's stadium, last Saturday. T went along with him as I was sure he'd appreciate the venue far more than I would! His other best friend is having a swimming party next weekend, and Ben is having a swimming birthday party the following Sunday, and then there are mid-week teas and a couple of sleepovers in between as well.

Right then, off to the workshed! I put the heater and the pickle pot on before I came on the computer so hopefully everything to ready to go! I've got photos to edit this afternoon as well, so I'll be adding more pieces of jewellery to the website this evening. There's still time to put in Christmas orders. The last date for UK orders for pieces that are ready for immediate dispatch is Monday 19th December, and for made to order pieces the last date is Friday 16th.

Happy New Year!

Yes, I am still here - and a bit horrified at how long it has been since my last post! My only excuses are that I've been lovely and busy with lots of Christmas orders and gallery orders and teaching, and that when I haven't been working I've collapsed into a heap with my absolutely massive bump.

Yes, Bump is still a bump! He or she is due in two weeks time - well, I say due, but they come when they want to, don't they? B was 12 days early, but we'll have to wait and see! Like every other expectant mum I know I'm torn between wanting the baby to hurry up and get here and wanting them to stay inside for as long as they need to - and so that they can have their birthday just a little further away from the Christmas and New Year holidays! I will miss the kicks and watching my tummy move from side to side (B thinks it's hilarious when the baby kicks), but I will most definitely not miss the acid reflux (I now actually like the taste of Gaviscon), the cronic back pain and pelvic problems (physio is helping thankfully!) or, of course, the constant need to waddle upstairs to the bathroom.

Anyway, before this turns into a pregnancy post with far too much information, let me wish you a belated Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! I shall be back in a few days when I'm feeling a bit more organised with photos of some of the things I've been making recently - lots of Christmas knitting!

What a week!

It's been a mixed week so far. Monday was very productive - I spent most of the day catching up with boring but necessary admin jobs but managed to set the stones in the part-made examples I'd put together for last Saturday's stone setting workshop. However, I tossed and turned all Monday night, and woke up on Tuesday morning looking like a cross between a chipmunk and a relative of the Mitchellin man - and a throbbing abscess on a tooth. If I hadn't already written and scheduled the tutorial this week it would have been very quiet here this week!

Thankfully, one emergency dentist appointment and strong (pregnancy friendly!) antibiotics later and I look and feel a lot more human. I even got some sleep last night!! Whether I sleep next Tuesday night, though, is another matter as I'm having the abscess drained on Wednesday! I had to cancel my classes on Tuesday night, which I hated having to do, but I wouldn't have got much teaching done without being able to talk.

Anyway, today has been alot better. Anna has been round for a day's silversmithing tuition to build on the stone setting skills that she learnt during Saturday's class. You can see the pendant she made on Saturday here, and she's popping back round to finish setting the stone tomorrow morning - I promise to take some photos when she's done as it's going to be a gorgeous pendant!

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day - it's the Christmas Shopping Evening! I've still got a few pieces I'd like to finish to take along with me (I always want to make more, just in case!), and I've also got to buy the wine for the drinks included in the ticket price and finish collecting the raffle prizes. Local shops have been very generous with prizes - we've got everything from vouchers for the local butcher to a gift basket from the hairdressers and a voucher from a great local photographer who I'm hoping will take some photos of our newly enlarged family in the New Year. If you're in the area tomorrow evening do come along - ticket sales have gone even better than we hoped they would, but there will still be some tickets on the door!

Christmas in November!

It's that time of year - the Christmas craft shows are nearly here and I'm busy creating new pieces to go on  my stalls. I've got two more stalls this year, one in Southampton in just over a couple of week's time and one in Winchester the next day - and then I think I'll give myself at least the morning off the next day!! I'm really excited about both events, but for different reasons.


The first show is the first one that I've ever had a hand in organising. At the beginning of the year I suggest to a couple of friends who also have their own small businesses in the area that it would be great if we could get together for a shopping evening before this Christmas, either at one of our homes or in one of the local church halls. We've finally put our plans into action - introducing our first every Christmas Shopping Evening on Friday 12th November, 7.30pm-9.30pm!

The venue is the Old Chemist, a beautiful old shop in Bitterne Park that's now a church office for the local evangelical church and a small community centre, and we've got seven different stalls, from gorgeous handbags, great traditional wooden toys, Pampered Chef, Vie at Home cosmetics, Phoenix cards, and, of course, my jewellery! The evening is also raising money for the Wessex Cancer Trust, who do a amazing amount of work helping cancer patients and their families in the South of England - more information about the evening can be found here! We're selling tickets in advance, with money going to the Wessex Cancer Trust, and the tickets include a glass of wine, mince pies and a raffle ticket. There will also be tickets available on the door.

The event the next day is the Christmas Winchester Handm@de show at the Winchester Guildhall on Saturday 13th November from 11am - 5pm. This is the third Winchester Handm@de show, and the first Christmas one that we've had. The first two shows were a great success, with beautifully unique handcrafted goods - some of which you can see here!

Happy New Year!

I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas break! Ours involved putting together lots of playmobil vehicles and lego sets - can you guess what B got for Christmas?! I actually really enjoyed playing with them helping B - my brother and I were always given a big lego set between us for Christmas but as lego was a "boy's toy" it was always kept in my brother's room and I didn't get to play with it that much - can you hear the violins?!

We've had a fairly quiet couple of weeks, lots of family time playing and seeing friends. It was just what we needed after such a busy term, but I am now definitely looking forward to getting back to work properly on Monday! Not that I completely stopped for more than a couple of days mind as I kept the website and noths shop open for orders and had to send those off. I've also used the time to make some changes to the website and to finish a few one-off pieces that had to be put to one side in the pre-Christmas rush.

Do you remember this post last year? I actually didn't do too badly with my aims for the year (I still don't like the word resolutions!). I met about 75% of the business aims I had, including doing more silversmithing teaching, finding new outlets both 'real life' and web based and doing more magazine work. Quite a few of the aims left over aren't relevant any more, so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. On the non-business side, well, my aim of knitting more definitely took off! The aim of swimming every week didn't go quite so well, so rather than focusing on that, how about I show you some of the Christmas presents I knitted?

Cabled cardigan for a friend's daughter


Cardigan and booties for our new (5 day old!) niece

There were a few other pieces as well, but in my rush to finish them and get them wrapped up, I forgot to take photos - ooops!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you and your families have a wonderful day!

I would have said a peaceful day, but if your household is anything like mine, it's going to get rather noisy when an excited four-year-old wakes up!

Tutorial Tuesday - Christmas felt ornaments

This will be the last Tutorial Tuesday this year, as I probably won't be blogging much over the next week or so. I obviously had to show you a Christmasy project, and as soon as I saw this one on Zakka Life I knew that this was the one - it's felt, it's easy, it doesn't need much sewing, it'll last for years, what more could you ask for?

The photos are lovely and clear, and the balls are surprisingly quick to make. I drew round a CD to make a template. Here are mine - I just need to find somewhere to hang them now!


By the way, if anyone else is like me and hadn't come across the term "zakka" before then have a look at the Wikipedia definition here and some google images of gorgeous zakka crafts here

Busy busy busy!

Just because the blog posts have been slow recently, don't think I've been slacking - it's Christmas, don't you know, the time of year when I spend a lot of time in my shed, thanking God that we (or rather Tony and Tim) insulated it well and I've got a good heater, making lots and lots of goodies to post all over the UK. There's been quite a few overseas parcels as well this year thanks to notonthehighstreet orders. More and more people have found my website too - thank you! I've done a fair bit of promoting this year, some of which, such as posting my tutorials on forums and writing magazine articles, didn't seem like advertising the jewellery sales side of my business, but it seems to have had an impact. Thankfully the bout of the flu I had last week seems to have been a fairly mild one. I started feeling ill a week ago Thursday, but I was fine, just very tired, by the weekend. I'm still tired, but I'm working through it!


Christmas also means that I'm busy making gifts for family and friends. I started earlier than usual this year, partly because I knew that I'd need to be ultra organised this year - I had been warned by a few of the other stall holders at the Winchester Handm@de fair that Christmas on noths is rather busy! - but partly because I really wanted to get started on knitting the patterns I'd found! Now, I can't show you all the things I've made as there are probably a few prying eyes looking for things they shouldn't be, but these are a few of the projects I've been knitting recently. They still need blocking, soI'll show them to you again in all their full glory and tell you about the patterns later on!

Today's tutorial is on it's way, but the way - I've got to polish the earrings I've made (well, there's a hint for you!) and finish some more photos for it first!

Made in the UK Advent Calendar

For those of you who haven't come across it yet, the Made in the UK blog is a blog full of, as they say themselves "wonderful and inspiring makes and how-to's from the UK Handmade team members". UK Handmade is a forum full of designers and makers, both people who do their crafts out of love and as a hobby, and those like me who do them out of love and as a business! Every day this month there will be a new Advent Calendar post with a tutorial or recipe for you, and the yummy cookies above are the first day's offering. If there is time before they are all eaten I will take a photo and show you the ones I'm planning to make with B tomorrow after school!

'Tis The Season....

To stay up late finishing commissions.

To wait for HOURS in the queue at the post office.

To wonder where on earth the last twelve months have gone.

To feel quite chuffed with how far I've come business-wise.

This Christmas season has been busy, but I seem to say that every year! I've been lovely and busy with commission, some of which I can show you here, but others will have to wait until the New Year when everyone has opened their gifts.

I am pleased with the direction I've taken the business this year. As soon as I got my hallmarking sorted I was able to start creating some of the designs in my sketch book that used more silver. I still can't quite decide what silversmithing techniques I like the best though! I love making bangles and soldering, but I've been surprised at how relaxing I find pierced (sawn) work like my daisy cuffs. And it's obviously been satisfying that other people have liked my designs too! There are some new sketches in my book that my fingers have been itching to start work on, but I've been good and concentrated on finishing my Christmas orders. I am looking forward to the New Year, though, as I've promised myself some time to work on them then. B will be going to his childminder for an extra half day after Christmas, and I've got plans for that time!

Tomorrow is the last day for orders in time for Christmas, and the last parcels will be posted on Thursday morning. Tomorrow will be the only day this week that I will not be standing in line for what feels like hours at the post office as it's B's third birthday and I will be slightly busy putting the finishing touches to a birthday party to which 12 children are coming - I must be mad!! I will let you know you it went and how much hair dye I need to cover up the resulting grey on Thursday!

By the way, the gremlins have completely and utterly eaten the photo that should have been in last Tuesday's post so I'm going to have to take another one when I've finished the party organisation!

A quick update

I've managed to get quite a bit of work done this weekend. T and I made a deal - he looked after B in the morning while I worked in my shed until lunch time, then we did family things - more of that later. I did manage to take some photos today but I haven't yet had time to smarten them up, so I'll post them tomorrow instead. In the meantime there's a couple of quick updates for you...


Firstly, the last day for orders of made-to-measure items that require hallmarking is this coming Tuesday, 9th December. This includes items such as cuffs and bangles (like the one above), although it is always worth double checking with me to see if I already have what you need in stock. The relevant products will have this information on their pages. The last date for all other items is still Wednesday 17th December.


Secondly, if you fancy a new pair of earrings for the New Year then have a look at the ones above! These are the pair for the December newsletter prize draw, gorgeous garnet briolettes wired onto sterling silver hoops. In case you haven't noticed, I'm enjoying using briolettes in earrings at the moment, and I was really pleased with these when they arrived from my supplier this week. If you'd like to try and win a pair then all you have to do is add your details to my mailing list by completing this form. If you can't wait until the New Year then you can also find them made to order on the website for as long as my supply of briolettes lasts!

Handmade Pledge

You may have noticed the Handmade Pledge logo over on the left hand side of my blog. It refers to the Buy Handmade campaign that encourages everyone to avoid the horrible Christmas queues in car parks, on roads and in chain stores and buy our loved ones something more unique and thought out instead. I'd love for everything I ever give anyone to be handmade, either by myself or by another crafter, but I've found that I can't give certain people something handmade every year - my Dad did love the cuff links I made him for Father's Day, and the children I knitted scarves for last Christmas liked them, but I don't think that they'd like that every year.

I've decided, though, that everyone will get at least one small thing handmade, whether it's fudge or a bookmark. And mass-produced, excessively packaged boxes of smellies and holiday novelties will once again be banned from our house!

So, why not join me? Don't worry, I'm not suggesting that you buy every present from me (although don't let me stop you if you really feel that you need to!) but instead of raiding the 3-for-2 gift box shelves at Boots, why not have a browse through some of the websites of some independent artists for something more personal? Etsy is a good place to start, and remember that you can narrow your search to shops in the UK or even more local to you if you want.