Thank you

Thank you to all of you for your support, your love and your encouragement this year. It truly has been a year of ups and downs. Jamie's birth at the beginning of the year was obviously the biggest blessing, and he and Ben have continued to be an absolute joy. Finding out that I had cancer 6 days after giving birth was not, however, part of the plan for this year, or for any year for that matter! The surgeons and all the hospital staff who continue to care for me and who got all of the tumour out (hurray!) are amazing, but I know that the only way that the family came through it all was with the support of our friends - and I include you in that. Thank you for your comments, for the emails and letters that I was sent while I was ill, and the prayers.Thank you for continuing to read my rambling posts!

Thank you too to everyone who has bought my jewellery on my main website or my clasps in my new etsy shop (64 sales in my daisychain extra shop in 7 months! So much more than I hoped for!), everyone who has come to a class or for tuition, or has tried one my magazine projects or downloaded one of my tutorials.

I have more plans for 2012, but in the meantime there is 

a thank you sale 

in both the daisychain extra etsy shop and on my jewellery website - 

10% off all clasps and findings and 15% off all jewellery. 

The jewellery website already has the discount applied, but to get the discount on etsy 

you will need to enter the code "XMASEXTRA"

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.

Challenge of Color blog hop

And here is my third challenge of the week! Erin of Tesori Trovati set the challenge of making a piece of jewellery with a palette of colours as the inspiration. The palettes she sent out after we all chose a colour family to work with are themselves absolutely beautifully put together and come from Jessica Colaluca's Design Seeds Blog. Jessica's blog is packed full of colour inspiration, and since the challenge started I've spent several happy hours on there. Her palettes and this challenge have definitely given me more confidence with working with colour mixes, and even the new colour scheme in our lounge diner have been inspired by one of the palettes - more on that next month!

I chose red as my colour family, and this is the palette that Erin assigned me - such gorgeous rich colours!

You can find the original palette here

With that rich raspberry red I just had to choose garnets for my design and continuing in my current liking for long dangly earrings this is what I came up with:

Decadent Earrings available here

All the metal components are made by me. The swirls connectors have been sitting in a pot on my desk for over a year, the result of a session teaching my friend Katie how to use silver art clay, and I'm really pleased to have used them finally! I made the settings for the rose cut (ie flat on the back but faceted on the front) oval garnets, and added light amethyst beads to represent the light grey/purple on the palette. Long elegant earwires complete the look!

The other Challenge of Color participants are listed below - I've had a quick look at a few of the blogs and the designs I've seen so far are really beautiful. Erin decided to give herself an extra challenge by picking a palette from each colour family and making a piece of jewellery for each - and they are each of them absolutely gorgeous! You can find her challenge pieces here.

1 Norma Turvey ~ Teal ~ Color Crave

2 Jeannie Dukic ~ Green ~ Mineral Tones

3 Mary McGraw ~ Teal ~ Embellished Hues

4 Jo Tinley ~ Red ~ Decadent Tones

5 Rebecca Anderson ~ Pink ~ Tulip Tones

6 Kristi Jaro ~ Red ~ Temple Entrance

7 Stephani Gorman ~ Green ~ Dew Tones

8 Melissa Meman ~ Green ~ Fruit Star

9 Kathleen Lange Klik ~ Teal ~ Silk Hues

10 Cynthia Riggs ~ Red ~ Autumn Comfort

11 Heidi Post ~ Teal ~ Flora Bright

12 Cece Cormier ~ Teal ~ Merino Teal

13 Amy Freeland ~ Gray ~ Cultured Tones

14 Alice Peterson ~ Blue ~ Island Play

15 Rose Noble ~ Gray ~ Autumn Stacked

16 Kristina Johansson ~ Yellow ~ Sunny Flower

17 Kirsi Luostarinen ~ Teal ~ Dragon Hues

18 Tari Kahrs ~ Orange ~ Citrus Tones

19 Mallory Hoffman ~ Purple ~ Petaled Dark

20 Molly Alexander ~ Brown ~ Peppered Tones

21 Regina Santerre ~ Red ~ Frosted Berry

22 Emanda Johnson ~ Teal ~ Color Purl

23 Amy Severino ~ Orange ~ Winged Tones

24 Bobbie Rafferty ~ Teal ~ Lime Hues

25 Tanya Goodwin ~ Gray ~ Pecked Tones

26 Lisa Lodge ~ Blue ~ Nocturnal Tones

27 Hope Smitherman ~ Blue ~ Bloom Tones

28 Linda Landig ~ Green ~ Cacti Dark

29 Ambra Gostoli ~ Teal ~ Perched Autumn

30 Lori Bowring-Michaud ~ Blue ~ Sharpened Blue

31 Pippa Chandler ~ Teal ~ Hungarian Hues

32 Keirsten Giles ~ Purple ~ Mineral Brights

33 Jennifer Justman ~ Blue ~ Autumn Rays

34 Sandy Richardson ~ Purple ~ Moroccan Brights

35 CJ Bauschka ~ Teal ~ Teal Air

36 Shaiha Williams ~ Teal ~ Sushi Hues

37 Kay Thomerson ~ Purple ~ Autumn Spectrum

38 Sally Russick ~ Purple ~ Golden Gate Tones

39 Cilla Watkins ~ Purple ~ Autumn Infused

40 Shirley Moore ~ Purple ~ Frozen Heather

41 Jenni Connolly ~ Gray ~ Paw Tones

42 Tamara Soper ~ Green ~ Field Tones

43 Sharyl McMillian-Nelson ~ Blue ~ Nested Blues

44 Jen Velasquez ~ Pink ~ Sweetened Tints

45 Maria Grimes ~ Red ~ Bright Bloom

46 Elisabeth Auld ~ Gray ~ Petaled Tints

47 Susan Kennedy ~ Pink ~ Zinnia Tones

48 Shannon Chomanczuk ~ Gray ~ Autumn Leaf

49 Holly Westfall ~ Yellow ~ Sprinkled Tones

50 Patty Gasparino ~ Red ~ Color Carton

51 Angela Little ~ Pink ~ Singapore Brights

52 Lizzie Zawinski ~ Green ~ Budding Hues

53 Kristen Stevens ~ Pink ~ Scooped Tones

54 Dawn Doucette ~ Brown ~ Jarred Tones

Oak Leaves revealed!

30th November seemed quite a way away when I set this challenge, but it's actually come round very quickly! At the beginning of the month I offered one of my oxidised copper oak leaf hook clasps to the first 5 people who accepted the challenge of making something with it and posting the results on their blog today. The five willing volunteers were

Melissa Meman                Art, Life, Love

Niky Sayers         SilverNikNats

Amber Boorman              Larksong Studio

Kimberley Roberts          Bahama Dawn

Rebecca Anderson          Songbeads

We've all got very different styles of jewellery design, so I've been really looking forward to seeing what everyone came up with! And a little nervous too, to be honest, as this is the first time that I've set up a blog hop myself! The biggest challenge for me has been working with copper as, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm a silver girl by nature. I kept trying out the clasp with different beads, but it wasn't until last night that it all came together! I did worry for a bit that I wasn't going to meet my own deadline as Jamie and I have both had a 24 hour tummy bug, but here it is, a combination of clasp and jump rings by me, lampwork by Mindy Macgregor (of course!), silk by Marsha Neal, Swarovski crystals and copper beads. I would have preferred to have used a blue silk, but I've run out so I may swap to that when my new silks arrive! I did consider adding more blue or purple beads to the mix as I love the combination of browns and blues/purples at the moment, but in the end I decided to keep to an autumnal theme to match the oak leaf.

I'm off to see what the others have made - join me?

Tutorial Tuesday - Leaf Green earrings

Thank you so much for the lovely comments about the earrings I made with Sue's gorgeous glass headpins! As promised, here is a tutorial for them. Once I'd planned out what I wanted to do they were actually very quick and easy to make, but to make them even quicker you might want to substitute the silver rings and the ear wires that I made for bought ones. I turned my silver rings into ovals using an oval triblet but if you don't have one the design would work equally well with smaller round rings instead.

You will need:

• two glass bead headpins from Suebeads
• two silver rings - mine were made from 1.2mm wire and had an inside diameter of 13mm
• two 7cm lengths of 0.8mm wire
• mandrels - I used the body of my 24mm wooden doming punch and an 8mm mandrel
• round nosed pliers
• nylon jaw pliers
• wire cutters
• hammers and bench block
• nylon hammer
• oval triblet
• needle file
• sanding pad

1.  Wrap the headpin around a large mandrel as show.
2.  Twist the end of the headpin around the wire just above the glass to form a wrapped loop.
3.   Use your fingers to pull the circle of wire into an oval.
4.  Make sure that the glass is facing the right way - see, easy so far isn't it?

5.  Holding the glass safely off the edge of the bench block hammer the steel oval to texture and strenghten it. Hammering the steel would have damaged the hammers that I use, so I used the one I keep for hammering the disc cutter and doming punches.
6.  Use a nylon hammer to shape the silver ring into an oval around a oval triblet - I made these ages ago and they've been sitting on my desk for months!
7.  Check the fit of your silver oval. Push it thinner with your fingers if need be and hammer it.

8. Start the earwire with a small eyeloop.
9. Bend the wire next to the loop around a small mandrel.
10. Hammer the front of the earwire to strengthen it and to give it a more finished look.
11. Use flat nosed or nylon jaw pilers to flick out the last 5mm or so of the earwire and file the end smooth. Make a second earwire, loop on the ovals and there you are!

Leaf Green earrings available on the website here

Challenge Time!

I'm currently taking part in three challenges, and they are all due this week so be prepared to see quite a few new designs! As well as the Color Challenge organised by Erin Prais-Hintz and my Oak Leaf Challenge (both due on Wednesday!) I've was lucky enough to be picked as one of four people taking part in Sue's glass headpin challenge - and today is the day we reveal our designs!

These are the headpins that Sue sent me - a beautiful shade of leaf green embossed with a flower pattern on steel pins. I've often admired glass headpins but I've never worked with any before, and I was determined that I was not going to go the more obvious route and make a pair of earrings with them. However, a friend was with me when I opened Sue's parcel and immediately said what a great pair of earrings they would make - so that was that!

And this is the pair that I made. I used the lovely long steel pins to create long oval shapes that I then hammered both to strengthen the shape and to give it a more finished look. I then added silver ovals inside the steel and hung the earrings from long silver earwires. I was going to oxidise the earrings but decided that the brightness of the silver was a lovely contrast to the steel and gave them a brushed finish instead. You can find them on the website here!

I took photos as I made the earrings, so do come back tomorrow for a tutorial on how to make them! And meanwhile please do go and have a look at what everyone else made:

Sue - SueBeads
Kay Thomerson - KayzKreationz
Kristi Bowman - Kristi Bowman Designs
Courtney Breul - Beads by Breul
Krisi Jaro - Curiosities by K