Improved photos of an old design

I re-made a couple of old designs the other night, and managed to take a better, more close-up photo of them, so you can actually see what they look like.
My 'Confetti' necklace and bracelet are made from rose quartz nuggets, amethyst, pink freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystals. It's a very pretty, girly set, and I love the combination of pink and purple it's just really feminine.
Working on some new designs over the next xouple of days - got some very pretty, unsually cut stones, and some gorgeous handmade glass beads to have fun with. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

It can't be Autumn already!!

I have lived in flip flops and short sleeves for the last six months, I've not had the heating on in the house since March, and I've been able to dry my washing out on the line. Horror of horrors today - I've had to put on shoes!! No bare tootsies for me now - I thought I'b be able to string out that summer feelin' until October, but alas no. Although I put on shoes today, I came to work without a jacket (yes, 'you who shall not be named' I know you're shaking your head and muttering about that) and my arms are all goose bumps and are the colour of corned beef!

I love Autumn, when it puts in a proper appearance. Not all rainy and miserable, but when you get those sunny, chilly days when the leaves fall from the trees, and the fields and foliage are colourful. I was thinking of these colours when I put together this little bracelet - 'Autumn Gold' - using Carnelian tyre shaped beads, and handmade glass beads. It' a lovely rusty colour that just made me think of Autumn.
I'm off to Egypt in a couple of weeks for my holidays (I am just showing off telling you that), and I thought of all the lovely golds and bronzes of Egypt. Seems I have timed my trip there just right, as by the time I get back, Autumn will be in full swing here, and I'll be able to apply all the beautiful Egyptian colour palette to the nippy Scottish Autumn (and I'll be able to squeeze another week out my flip flops before they are retired for the winter).

A couple of new ones

I have been looking to new places for new inspiration recently - normally I find inspiration in our lovely local countryside, or dreams of holidays, but at this point, I've not been on been on holiday for ages and the local countryside is a bit grey just now. So while trying to get inspired, I came across a Dulux colour chart - one of the massive trade ones with all the colous on little sticks. Seems this is a great source of inspiration! Gave me lots of ideas for new colour combinations - matching and complimenting colours, or clashing them entirely ('Barely Sage + 'In The Pink' = gorgeous, 'Naval Grey + 'Egg Yolk Yellow' = revolting!). Anyway, it got me working on a few new things, using new textures and colours.

Have a couple of new ones on here today, and lots of new pieces on the way (just waiting on lots of new colourful pearls and stones!).
This coral and pearl necklace and bracelet uses two different types of coral. Pretty peachy-pink, polished little rounds of coral, with a high shine finish, and big rugged rounds of natural coral, not polished, leaving the porus surface visable. They are so different but are the same material - I love this sort of variation in a natural product. I''ve teamed them up with creamy white pearls, so it's a 'classic with a twist' necklace.

This pearl necklace with cut-crystal quartz pendant is a bit like the old style thirties glamour necklaces - my gran used to have jewellery a bit like this. I'm sure she was a glamour-puss in her day!
I've also made these cute little earrings, using fossil jasper and Swarovski crystals. They are beautiful quality stones, and have been polished to an almost glass like finish. I love the fossile patterns captured inside them too.
I will return to the Dulux chart and hope for more inspiration this evening (or hope for better weather so our landscape looks less like a mudbath!).

All of these items are available at Artery Gallery in St Andrews, Fife.

It has been some time since my last blog....

I have abandoned my blogging - oops! I will make excuses for myself - it's been a really busy summer, I've been busy making new designs....Big Brother was on!
In all seriousness, it has been a very busy couple of months for me and my jewellery. I've had lots of orders, and unfortunatey by the time I've completed my orders, I've not even had time to photograph my work to get it on here!
I have designed a few new pieces, and when I make the next batch, I will make sure to put them on here to show them off. I've tackled some designs which have required new skills (hand-knotting pearls on silk) and which have required the patience of a saint (saint Debra), and have also made a few pieces which I've regretted once I started making them - handmade silk pom-poms (what was I thinking?!They take HOURS!!). All said and done, it has been a useful and productive time for me.
I'm keeping my first day back on blogging short and sweet, with just a photo of one piece which I was commissioned to make. My sister in law has a wedding to attend at the end of September, and needed something to go with her gorgeous black and pewter grey dress, so we settled on a chunky multi-strand pearl bracelet.
It's made from fat, round black pearls - really chunky ones, teeny-tiny peacock black nuggets, some top-drilled pewter pearls and some bright silver ones, with the odd silver ball thrown in. I must admit, what I thought would be an easy project took much longer than expected, and there may have been a little foreign languages used in the process!

I've added a close-up of the pearls so you can see the variations in them.

Summer colours and themes

Summer has me in it's grip, and after spending some time at the beach, and a bit of time lazing around my garden like a cat in the sun I have produced some new work.

Inspired by summer (again!) I have chosen a few ideas and colours that I have been thinking about over the last two days.

You know when it' super hot sunshine - you seem to get two different skies. Where I live in Fife, when it's really sunny with a clear sky, you get that vivid, pure, deep blue sky, that seems to make all colours brighter and bolder. I used to stay in France a lot when I was little, on the South coast, and there when it grew very hot, the sky looked almost bleached. The blue seemed to fade into a white haze, and everything is washed in a bright white light. These two colour schemes gave me two ideas to work from in terms of summer colour - bold brights, and washed, pale pastels.

I've made little agate earrings in red, banded agate, with vivid orange crystals just to liven them up a bit. The bright orange crystals made me think of blazing sunsets at the end of long, hot days. I've also made a pair of natural turquoise nigget earrings with the same bright orange crystals. I love this colour combination, as it makes me think of turquoise blue seas and hot sun....bliss!

I made a variation on my 'Starfish' necklace - pale sandy pink heishi coral bead, with turquoise and a white and gold glass starfish. It looks like it's been washed in the sea and bleached by the sun. I could imagine finding it washed up on the beach, so I've called it 'Seychelles'. (see top left)

I love that golden wash of sun you get at the end of the summer, when you get a real Indian summer, and it's baking hot, until the last gasp of summer. I think as the sun is lower in the sky then, the sun seems to look golder, and not so bright - around six or seven in the evening is my favourite, when the heat tempers a little, but it still looks beautiful. This necklace 'pecky keen' is made from rice pearls in cream. shades of gold, and peach. This looks like that lovely sleepy colour of summer, when it's almost worn out. I really don't think the photo does justice to the gorgeous gold coloured pearls.

I found some seashells on the beach the other day - they were little pink clam shells, which had been washed to a powder pink - almost white, and the colour reminded me that I had some jasper discs in the house in really subtle, powdery pinks and pinky-greys, and some small ever-so-pale pink pearls. They are the colour of those pale, pinky, peachy, grey-ish wisps of clouds that you see at sunset.

Well, enough dreaminess of summer, as I have been writing this, it has sneakily changed from sunny to thundery. This concerns me slightly, as in my fit of summer fever this morning while I was getting ready for work, I put on a pair of flip-flops (also couldnt find anything to go with my outfit , and flip-flops go with anything). Bit of a mistake really, as they have both decided to snap, so I am now barefoot, and have to run for the bus in bare feet. I looked like a big enough wally before, but now that it's raining, I just look crazy.
Gotta love the British summertime, eh?

Busy bee, busy me

Well I have kept up the momentum since my last blog, and have been creating lots of new work, new styles, and re-working old themes. It has been quite unlike me to stay this productive for so long - usually I am distracted from work by the most ridiculous things - Eastenders is one of the worst culprits! I also usually favour cleaning as a form of procrastination, but as I have dedicated myself to making new jewellery, the cleaning has fallen by the wayside, and my house now looks like Stig of the dump lives in it (how can one person make so much mess?! I astonish myself!).

I have re-worked a couple of previous designs - my glass starfish necklace which has been so popular has had a re-vamp, and is now is fine, deep red coral branches, with chunkier pieces of turquoise. It looks like a much bolder piece this time round, and with the richer colour, it would be more of a night-time necklace I think. Some time ago I made a necklace from pale green new jade, which I have had another bash at, and given it a face lift. Again, I've enhanced the colour by going a bit richer, using freshwater pearls in a mint green to liven it up, along with green Swarovski crystal, and alternated the jade squares with green aventuring ovals. I've called it my 'dew-drop' necklace, as the colours look like the dew-drops on all the gorgeous, lush green plants and bushes at this time of year.

My new work is a bit of an eclectic collection - I have drawn inspiration from different places and ideas so there isn't a connective thread between all these things.....who says there has to be a theme?!

My 'Highlander' necklace is made from multi-coloured India jade and little green peridot chips. Last week I made a lariat called 'heather belle' and it got me thinking about the Highlands, and gorgeous they are at this time of year. I always used to go up to the Highlands for my summer holidays, and it looks so different in that part of Scotland, compared to the East coast where I live. I love the 'patchwork quilt' effect of the fields and hills there - all different earthy tones, patched together. These stones remind me of that - there are deep greens like the coniferous woods of the hills, plums and pinks, like the heather,and sandy, orangey stones, like the wind burned fields.

This necklace, called 'Nile' is made from pressed (sponge) coral, and turquoise. I love this combination of colour, it's so rich and vibrant, and makes me think of the gorgeous coloured neck-pieces and crowns of the ancient Egyptians. I love Egypt - I love the colour and history of it, and how everything seems so exotic there (even ordinary things like crisps - they had lime and chilli crisps there! that's exotic!).

I also made a set of earrings to go with some of my necklaces - they do look great as a set, wearing the necklace and earrings together, but I think they earrings look fab as a piece you can wear on their own too.

I have made a couple of pendants as after some thought, I realised it was something I didn't really offer people, so I thought I'd give it a bash.
I have made two in very different styles - 'San Francisco' and 'Abyss'.

'San Francisco' is a really youthfull, fun pendant, string onto linen cord. Its a gorgeous piece of turquoise (obviously my fave at the moment) enhanced by a little millifiori heart, glass beads, and Swarovski crystal. It's got lots of movement in it, and once I made it, I came up with the name as it made me think of flower power, and hippies, and that song about San Francisco and wearing flowers in your hair! I went through a bit of a stage of that in my teens, of wearing big floppy hats, and flower power shirts, and hippy flares. Maybe my fashion sense has grown up a bit, but in all honesty, I'd love to still dress like that.

The other pendant I made is totally different - really simple and hung on a fine silver chain. The pendant is a big chunk of polished and cut fluorite, but the stone did all the work for me here. It is a simply stunning stone - a deep, rich teal colour, with hints of bottle green, and a band of deep purple through it. This stone has great transparency, so it just looks amazing. I love the fact that fluorite develops these colours naturally, and it is not dyed to look like this. I think when nature can do that, it really shows that we just don't match up with things like that - man made never looks this good. The colour reminded me of the colours you see underwater on TV, hence 'Abyss'.

My 'Lily' necklace is just a pretty, delicate, girly number. It looks really feminine on, and really unique. It's made from crackled rock crystal chips, Swarovski crystals, and white rice pearls, with a beautiful, polished fluorite pendant. The fluorite is amazing, as it looks different in depending on how you move - it has blues, and greys through it. This necklace reminds me of the old-school crystal necklaces that my Grandma used to wear to church on sundays! I love alittle bit of girly glamour, and her generation knew how to do it just right!

On a sea-inspired train of thought, I also made a necklace called 'Rock Pool'. This one is just a bit of fun, and so cute for the summer. I used freshwater rice pearls, in a lovely sky-blue colour, and some glass seed neads in a pale blue, to space between the pearls. Then as a pendant, there is a baby-blue Swarovski crystal starfish. I think the little starfish pendant breaks up the string of pearls so it doesn't have such a traditional feel about it (as pearls so often can).

So you can see I have been a bit busy of late! No wonder my house is a tip, and my garden is a field! I think on my days off next week, I'm going to lay off the jewellery, and chill out with a bit of house-work....how sad is that?!!

A few new pieces to see

I have had a surge in productivity recently - which is rather inexplicable, because by my own admission, I am not always the most motivated of folks. Really built for comfort, rather than speed.
I have been dedicated enough to actually sit down every evening and make a few pieces of jewellery, and in doing this, it means that my days off now consist of lazing around in the sunshine, rather than fiddling about with beads.

I have made a few summery bracelets, which although are all quite different from each other, all look pretty good together too. If I had my way, I'd grow more arms so I could wear more jewellery - bracelets being my favourite.

I have also started to use a new pearl supplier who has provided me with some beautiful and unusual pearls, so I was really excited to get started with them.
The first piece out of my new pearls was this multi coloured pearl necklace. The pearls are beautiful rich colours - berry reds, golds, topaz, azure blue, and a gorgeous rose-gold colour. I have interspersed them with little gold glass beads, and they seem to tie it all together. The finished piece is called 'Bedouin', as it made me think of those beautiful colours of bedouin scarves and clothes, and spun gold and the richness of the colours of the desert. This is a great piece for the summer, as it just seems to capture the essence of hot evenings on a holiday somewhere exotic.

This lariat is a new one as well - when I made the 'Pretty in Pink' one last week, I really loved the colour scheme of it, so thought I'd work on it to get a different design in the same colours.
This 'Heather Belle' lariat has amethyst, glass, Swarovski crystal, rose quartz, amazonite, freshwater pearls, blister pearls and mother of pearl in it. It is a real treasure trove necklace. The lovely plums, pinks and blues look great together and made me think of up North when the heather is in bloom. My friend Heather is always called 'heather belle' by her hubby, and I just think it's so sweet, so here we go: romantic 'Heather Belle' lariat.

I think I will need to get my thinking cap on this weekend - I might have been motivated lately, but nobody told my brain. It seems to be struggling to keep up! I need to have a thought about some new ideas and designs to keep it fresh. Maybe a bit of sunbathing will inspire something.....or is that just wishful thinking?!