I Love Autumn!

You know it's been too long since your last blog post when your Mum asks you why you haven't written anything recently - oops! The start of the new school year was rather hectic (nothing new there then!) and I think that I just got out of the habit of blogging. It has been a busy month though (again, nothing new there!). Here's some of what I've been up to....

• kicking through the autumn leaves on the way to school.
• admiring the dew-decorated spider's webs with Jamie after dropping Ben off at school. 

My cool dude!

• taking Jamie to preschool for the first time. He loves it there! I asked him if I could come with him the first time. He looked at me as if I was crazy and said very clearly "NO!"
• starting the new courses I'm teaching for Eastleigh College this year.
• teaching lots of private students - I must post edit the photos I've taken.
• working on a new collection of jewellery - lovebirds, owls, rabbits and butterflies. Again, photos coming soon! One of my jobs today is to edit them.

• sending orders off to new galleries. This little lot went off to Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge at the end of last week. It's amazing how small the parcels are when the galleries don't need the boxes to go with the jewellery, despite the lovely large size of the orders!
• visiting Tent London, a great trade show, with some of my studio neighbours. You can see a photo of us all here on the Sorting Office Facebook page.
• organising the Christmas Gifts Bazaar a friend and I run to raise money for the Wessex Cancer Trust. There will be more details soon, but in the meantime I've set up a Facebook event page here.
• working on a new e-course and a couple of new tutorials.
• writing magazine projects.
• knitting! I've actually been knitting myself something for once - a lovely grey cardigan - and also gifts for some new babies.

Right then, I'd better get on with editing those photos so I don't leave my next blog post too long! Hope you're all enjoying your Autumn too!

Craft Show Countdown

 

Now it's November and the school halfterm holiday is nearly over I feel that I can mention Christmas! Although as I've been busy with developing new products for my made-to-order designs, ordering new business cards, a new stamp with my new logo and a new banner, and planning out improvements to my displays for my craft stall it feels as though I've been preparing for Christmas ever since we got back from New Zealand! You can read some of my plans for my craft stall in my Art Jewelry Elements blog post published yesterday, and there are lots of links to craft display ideas and tutorials for DIY displays in the post too.

I've got three shows this season, and the first is next week - which is rather a scary thought as a friend and I are the organisers! It's our charity Christmas Shopping Evening in aid of the Wessex Cancer Trust, and it's in it's third year now. This year it's going to be even bigger and better than before, with more local businesses and live music from a fantastic local jazz saxophone group - I know that they're fantastic as one of the member is our neighbour and they sometimes practise round at hers. I always leave the patio doors open in the summer evenings when they're rehearsing so I can hear them better!

If you are in the Southampton area next Friday evening it would be fantastic if you could join us to raise as much money as possible for this great charity, and to support small local businesses. It's a great way to get a lot of beautiful gifts under one roof! Tickets are £3, and include a glass of wine, a mince pie and raffle tickets. And you could also see what you think of my new craft stall displays on their first outing! For more details we have a Facebook event page set up here

Flap Your Wings

A month after Judy passed away, 31 designers have made jewellery in her memory, with Flap Your Wings as inspiration as that was the name of Judy's jewellery website. I gave you a little taster of what my design looked like last night - and here it is!

Lampwork disc bead by Outwest, lampwork spacers left over from other projects, silverwork and lovebird clasp by me

I took this apart three times! Three times! That is really unusual for me, as I usually have ingredients for designs lined up on my workdesk for so long that by the time I come to make them up I've usually already worked through all the kinks in my head, so making the actual finished piece is fairly quick. Not this time though! I knew that I wanted to use one of my lovebird clasps to fit in with the theme, and I wanted to use the gorgeous lampwork donut by Outwest (well spotted Julie, yes that's one of yours!), and I wanted to make a bracelet as I would normally use a donut as part of a pendant, but my original plan had been to soften the black and blue with either macrame or silk ribbon. Those were the attempts that I took apart as it just didn't look right - too messy, too many different looks in one small piece of jewellery - so I ended up wire-wrapping it all!

The clasp has a hook on the back of the bird to close the bracelet

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm auctioning the bracelet off to raise money for the Wessex Cancer Trust, a charity that raises money for cancer research (which helps all of us, no matter where we are!) and supports cancer patients and their families in the south of the UK. I'm also donating half of the proceeds from the pieces I made with my Bead Soup from Michi to the charity, but I'll post properly about those next week so there's no confusion!

The bidding starts at £15 (just under $24) for the Flap Your Wings bracelet - 

to enter a bid leave a comment on this post and let me know how much you'd like to bid,
or email me and I'll comment on your behalf.

I'll keep a running total on this post and the top of my blog, so keep coming back to see if you've been outbid!

There's no extra cost for postage, no matter where you are in the world!
The bidding will end at midnight BST on Thursday 19th April.
Please do make certain that you either leave your email address in your comment or have your email address linked to your profile - thank you!

Thank you so much to all of you who bid and spread the word about all the Flap Your Wings auction, and thank you especially to Lynne who won the bidding with her bid of £70 US$114!

And to see the other designs in the Flap Your Wings challenge please visit the blogs below!

1. Tania Spivey  (hostess)

2. Lori Anderson (auction)

3. Kashmira Patel

4. Gail Accinelli

5. Rebecca Anderson (auction)

6. Rebekah Payne  (challenge jewellery for sale)

7. Amanda Doyle Tibbetts 

8. Kim Ballor  (challenge jewellery for sale)

9. Rochelle Brisson (challenge jewellery for sale)

10. Sandra McGriff  (auction)

11. Lana Kinney 

12. Kym Hunter 

13.  Terri Wlaschin 

14.  Ginger Bishop (auction)

15.  Shannon Chomanczuk 

16.  Kelli Jacobson (challenge jewellery for sale)

17.  Patricia Gasparino (auction)

18.  Deana Hager

19.  Erin Siegel (challenge jewellery for sale)

20.  Deborah Wenske Brooks

21.  Lynne Bowland

22.  Alicia Marinache (challenge jewellery for sale)

23.  Pam Ferrari

24.  Shirley Jones Moore

25.  Joanne Tinley (auction - you're here!)

26.  Shanti Johnson (challenge jewellery for sale)

27.  Lorelei Eurto

28.  Antiquity Travelers

29.  Shelly Joyce

30.  Marlene Cupo (auction)

31.  Dee Torcherer Elgie (auction)

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!

Daisy Daisy

I've been very snug working away in my shed this week, despite the snow and ice! I've been cutting and soldering lots of lovebirds and bangles for orders, but I've also been able to finish some new designs - so, introducing the Baby Daisy cuff and the Full Bloom necklace!

The cuff is made of smaller daisies than the Daisy cuff, but is formed in the same way - pierced (hand sawn) from sterling silver sheet, lots of filing and sanding and then shaping around a mandrel. This is actually an older design that I've improved - I wasn't quite happy with how it sat before, but I'm really pleased with it now.


And I am delighted with how the necklace turned out. I actually started work on this before Christmas, but I didn't have time to pick it back up again until this week. It's one of those rare designs that worked perfectly from sketch to polishing. The chain is attached to either end of the daisy, and the clasp is hidden behind the flower itself. It sits beautifully, and I've got another one part made that is going to be for me as I like it so much! I haven't decided what stone to put in the middle of mine though, but the fun part is sorting through my slowly growing cabachon collection! The only reason the collection is slowly growing is that I keep using them!

The new designs are part of my Bloom Collection and a big THANK YOU to those of you who bought a piece from this collection in the run up to Christmas as I donated 10% of the sales to the Wessex Cancer Trust, a charity that provides vital support to cancer patients and their familes. I am delighted that £25 was raised for the Trust, and I have decided that 10% of all sales of the Bloom Collection will go to the Trust from now on. Why Wessex Cancer Trust? I know that there are many many worthwhile charities out there who need our support, but the Trust was a great help to a colleague of mine and his family, and I have seen the fantastic, often heart breaking work that the staff and volunteers at the Trust do. To find out more about their work visit www.wessexcancer.org!