All grown up!

How does his hair grow so fast?! Time for another haircut!

It's a day of mixed feelings today, as any mother will understand. Part of me is so sad at the thought of my boy growing up so quickly, part is excited about the new experiences he is going to have, and part (the part that's feeling guilty!) is excited for me at the thought of the extra jewellery making time - and, you never know, the time to put my feet up for an hour or so each week!

Yes, today is B's first day at Big School - he's there just in the mornings for the first couple of weeks, and then full time from then on. We walked down there this morning - or rather, I walked, he skipped! - actually got to the playground early, and then when the doors opened he merrily went in to be greeted by his new teacher. They are really well organised and welcoming at his new school, and he's already used to the building as his old pre-school is only next door and they share some of the same facilities. Once B saw the toys and a couple of his friends he gave me a quick kiss and he was off! I've been very good - I didn't cry once despite going down there with plenty of tissues, just in case! In fact the morning has been a whirl of cleaning the kitchen, writing emails, magazine work and packing up new orders - and now it's time to go down and collect him!

Our latest 'project'

It's time to let you into a little secret - or rather, a secret that has grown rather big. Some of you that I know "in real life" or chat to via email or I have taught recently already now, but now that everyone who needed to know first (including my boss at college who I finally told yesterday before term started!) knows, I can share it with the rest of you....

I'm five months pregnant!

And I am so excited - and little scared, but a little less so each day, as, you see, something else that I haven't mentioned here on my blog before is that I've had three miscarriages between having B and being pregnant this time, all three of them within a year of each other. The first was May last year, and I posted here that I'd had to have a stay in hospital but didn't really go into the details of why because this blog is supposed to be about nice things like beads and jewellery and so on. So why am I mentioning it now? Partly because you won't be able to understand why we're so excited but still so nervous otherwise, but also because I know just how many women are affected by miscarriages.

When I was pregnant in May 2009 I was very aware that out of the ten family and friends that I knew who had had their second child in the previous year, only one of them hadn't had a miscarriage between their first and second successful pregnancy. That statistic was very much in my mind when I had my first midwife appointment back then, and was definitely one of the reasons that we told family relatively early into the pregnancy - I knew that if the worst came to the worst, I would need their support - and I definitely needed (and am so grateful for) their support. They eventually found a reason for the miscarriages - "sticky" blood that was too thick for a young fetus. The solution has been to take a low-dose aspirin pill each day to thin my blood a little bit. I'm not saying that that would work for everyone, and it's only something I did after long chats with my doctor, but it's worked for me.

So, I promise not to turn the blog into nothing but maternity posts, but expect to see some baby related posts in the near future! The baby is, in theory, due on 15th January, but B was 12 days early, so we'll see!

And now I'm going to have to go and get a tissue as I am just so happy to be able to write this news!

Tutorial Tuesday - Risk Assessments

The latest issue of Beads and Beyond magazine has just popped through my letter box, reminding me that I needed to upload a new pdf file to my website. This issue included the third in my series of Focus articles on the legal issues of running your own small craft business, and the topic this month is Health and Safety - the last article was on the different types of insurance a business needs, and there's no point in having insurance if you don't do all that you can to minimise the risks in your business otherwise if you do need to claim on your insurance the insurance complany may not pay out!

The pdf file I've uploaded onto the website is a section from the Risk Assessment I have written for my craft stall. Risk Assessments, as their name suggests, are a way of looking at all of the hazards associated with your business and working out what you can do to minimise them. For example, one of the hazards of my craft stall is the electrical cables for the lighting. Minimising that risk is easy - I hide the cables under my tables where possible, or tape them down so that members of the public don't trip over them. The file can be found in the Tutorials section of the website here.

I've also got a silversmithing project in the magazine this month that shows you how to make large oval textured chain links for a necklace - I forgot (again!) to take a photo of the finished necklace, so you'll have settle for a photo of the magazine page instead!  I love the project on the front cover of the magazine too - it's one that I immediately thought "I wish I'd come up with that idea!". The Swarovski flowers are a very effective but very simple idea.

A lovely Sunday's work

Yesterday was my first day teaching in the new workshop. Fiona and Hannah came out for a day's silversmithing tuition to celebrate Hannah's birthday, and despite the fact that neither of them had made any jewellery before they both made some really beautiful pieces of jewellery - just have a look!

They both made bangles from square wire - Hannah's is round and Fiona's is an oval bangle. Square wire is harder than oval or round wire to file to form a really neat join, and they both did great jobs. And they both decided to texture their bangles with my favourite hammer - old and dented to give a gorgeous texture!

Fiona spent the afternoon making stud earrings- one pair that I've had sketched out as an idea for ages but never got round to making, and one pair made by melting scrap silver. I think she got rather addicted to the fun of melting silver!

Hannah made a stunning necklace. It uses the same wire as we used for the bangles formed into five rings, two of them textured to match the bangle. I couldn't get all of it clearly into the very quick photos that I took before the girls left, but trust me, it looks even more stunning worn!

New tuition dates!

New tuition dates are at last on the website and you can find them here!

I've been through my diary and blocked out dates in September, October and November for tuition. December dates will be available later in the autumn. Most Tuesdays and Thursdays are available for either half or whole day tuition, some Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are available for half day tuition in the mornings, and there are some weekend dates available too. B starts big school this term which has meant that I can offer more tuition dates than before during the week. I've been trying to find more weekend dates but as we've got family visiting, I'm teaching at Artisan, I've got craft shows before Christmas and I'm teaching another stone setting workshop too (more details on that later this week!) there are only a few weekend dates available - so grab them quickly before someone else does!

The news that I'm really excited about is that, thanks to the fantastic space in my new workshop, I can now offer one-to-two tuition. This is something I've wanted to do for ages, and something that I've had many requests for, so I am really pleased  to finally be able to do it! A whole day private tuition for two people costs £190, compared to £120 for one person, so if you'd like to spend a great day with a friend or sister (or anyone else you'd like to bring along!) then you can save yourself some money as well as make some unique jewellery, learn some new skills and have a lot of fun!

To book a tuition date please email me on info@daisychainjewellery.co.uk or use the contact page on my website.

The photos above are of jewellery that students made before the summer holidays:
1. Kate made this gorgeous ring for herself as a graduation celebration - isn't it beautiful? The stone is a deep green tourmaline, and, believe it of not, it was the first piece of silversmithing Kate had ever done!
2. Linda made her beautiful flower pendant as part of her most recent tuition session. Linda has been for classes a couple of times now.
3. Debbie has been over for tuition a couple of times as well, and made her lovely daisy pendant set with a sodalite.
4. Adrian came to make a special ring for his girlfriend - and thankfully she loved it! I always get nervous when students make something special as a gift as I feel responsible for the outcome, but everyone always loves what it made for them, at least in part because it is made just for them. This was the first piece of jewellery that Adrian ever made, and he designed it himself.

Splat!

We've been having fun in the garden this afternoon, taking advantage of the sunshine!

Getting ready

Splat!

What a mess!

It's amazing how much fun you can have with leftover wall paper, paints, pieces of old sponge and a couple of old kitchen utensils!! It's a good job the paint is washable though as some of my bushes have very odd coloured leaves.....

Tutorial Tuesday - Toggle Clasps

Our internet connection went down last night as I was trying to up load my new tutorial to the website - typical! Oh well, here it is now, the first tutorial photographed in my new workshed!

I've been meaning to write up a tutorial on how to make your own toggle clasps for ages, ever since I started teaching them to the beginners classes at college. I find it useful to be able to direct students to my website to download a free tutorial to remind them of the techniques if they lose their notes or miss a couple of lessons. And, of course, I like to have a variety of tutorials available for the rest of you to download too! This tutorial shows you how to make your own simple toggle clasp from silver wire, and gives you some ideas on how to adapt the design to suit your own jewellery. It's free to download - all you need is a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat reader which you can download for free here. The tutorial itself can be found here!

I've got a couple more tutorials photographed as well. They're projects rather than techniques this time, and will be available as soon as I've written up the instructions.