Mood Boards

I've been playing around with a few mood boards, combining pieces of jewellery that could easily be worn together or in combination. 

None of these sets were designed together but what can I say? I do love the way certain colours look together! Turquoise and purple are such very happy bedfellows. 

Here, a grey-blue bracelet alongside classic Grellow. I feel I need a proper Grellow bracelet in the shop though - what do you think? 

Long-standing followers will know of my ever-enduring love of red and turquoise. They are such an ideal combination in my book, although I know they can be a little bold for some! Are you brave enough to embrace them together? 

Which colour palette is your favourite? 

You can find all these pieces in my shop here. 

Earrings earrings earrings

Playful Days

Do you love earrings? I really, really, really do. It's definitely the item of jewellery which I have the most of myself, and if I am buying jewellery from another maker, 9 times out of 10 it's a pair of earrings which I gravitate towards - not least because the price points are often smaller - statement earrings are definitely easier on my purse than a statement necklace, understandably!

Hoopla

As my going back to Songbead work happened just after a house move, it will probably come as no surprise to you that it was hard to find various things in the first few weeks. (Let's be honest - it's still quite hard to find various things even though we've been here almost 2 months now!) 

Tropical Treetops

One of those things was the little stand I use to photograph my earrings. It's nothing fancy - a solid wood flooring sample from B and Q which I have painted and drilled holes in, and strung some fine thread across to suspend earrings from, but it does the trick nicely. 

Blooming

Anyway, it was one of the things which disappeared - until this past weekend, when we were sorting things out for my wife's 40th birthday party, and in going through a couple of boxes, it was unearthed. Quite a relief as I had a fair pile of earrings stacking up which I hadn't been able to take any decent photos of! 

Springtime

That said, in looking through my earring shots from a few days ago, I think it may be time for a new photography set up. Getting all the parts of each earring to line up and the earrings to hang parallel nicely is not easy when they are merely suspended from thread! 

Dusk

So I am on the look out for something slightly different - where the earrings can hang more as they would from ears - in mid air, so to speak, and each earring to hang straight up and down, rather than leaning towards each other. Watch this space! 

Silver and Gold

All of these earrings are now available in my etsy shop so hop over there now if you're as addicted to earrings as I am! 

Disco Inferno

A Drop of Gold - or Grellow

Some of you reading this may or may not know that I am, as well as a jeweller, a fairly passionate knitter. I fell in love with the craft a few years ago - actually as a response to being self-employed and needing to have something to do in the evenings rather than work! It turns out knitting is a whole world of its own with styles and celebrities and trends - and part of that, of course, is colour trends. 

A couple of years ago, yellow really had a moment - specifically, yellow and grey, or Grellow. I'm not sure that moment has properly died down but when I started knitting, Grellow was one of The Things that everyone was obsessed with. There were Grellow cardigans, Grellow socks, Grellow mittens, I made a Grellow shawl....you get the picture. 

Here's the thing though: I'm actually not always a massive fan of grey and yellow together. Yellow, yes. Grey - hmm, sometimes (it can be a little dull....sorry not sorry...). Together? They really do have to be the right shades otherwise they're just too harsh for me. Edging towards bumblebee status. But it is undeniably a classic colour palette that really works and when I stumbled upon this stunning handmade porcelain pendant from Round Rabbit in my work stash:

I knew that I wanted to try my jeweller's hand at Grellow with it. Not least because I knew it would be a challenge. Firstly, the pendant itself is such a gorgeous contradiction in terms - the intricate nature of the detailing, the delicate almost formality of design and the bright, sunny cheerfulness of the bold yellow. I wanted to keep this feeling - the delicate playful formality that the dragonfly exhibits - and it was very possible that that delicacy could be squashed by putting a bold yellow and grey spin on it. Bear in mind that this pendant is all the more special as Nancy of Round Rabbit no longer makes beads and components. This one is a rare breed. But I think (I hope!) I did her justice:

Of course it's the high contrast between the grey and yellow that can make the colour palette in general work so effectively, so in order to keep this I knew I wanted to soften it with an ombre fading effect (another big knitting trend, coincidentally!). I had a string of variegated grey gemstone faceted rounds (I can't for the life of me remember what stone they are but they are extremely lovely!) that would work well in creating a fading band. I gathered a few other beads - handmade lampwork rondelles in grey, frosted semi-transparent white and deep yolk yellow, vintage German glass rondelles and some of my own handwoven glass {song}beads. They are a really unusual grey - they almost seem to be a shadow grey to me, if that makes any sense. They are frosted and very slightly transparent and extremely lovely. 

I've used them between the larger beads in the main band as well so you can see how subtle they are. 

You can see here the depth of the yellows I have used - the lampwork glass rondelles are very slightly deeper than the pendant itself, a rich yolk yellow, and bring such a warmth to the soft and more subtle, delicate greys. There are a couple of flashes of soft but steely pewter - a hand-cast cap and a hook clasp, allowing the necklace to have an adjustable fastening for different length options.

You can find A Drop of Gold here. 

Where have I been?

Where have I been? It's reasonable question, especially if you don't follow me on Instagram or Facebook. If you do follow me there (or know me In Real Life of course!) then you may have an inkling(!) - for the most part over the past 7.5 months, I have been very busy growing not one, but two tiny humans.  

Finally, after almost 4.5 years, our babies are almost ready to meet us - not that I have had a 4.5 year pregnancy I hasten to add (quite frankly, the usual length has been serious hard work and troublesome enough!) but a rather series of fertility issues with me took a long time to diagnose and then help which meant that it has taken us a long time to get to this stage. IVF at the beginning of this year was tough but amazingly, successful first time, and for that I am hugely and inexpressibly grateful. I appreciate that in that way, I am one of the lucky ones. Infertility sisters and brothers - we go through so much, and you have my heart. Our struggle has been short compared to many, and you are incredible warriors - never forget that. Infertility is one of the hardest things I've ever struggled through - with a twin pregnancy being by far the most challenging thing I have EVER done physically! - and it seems almost unreal that in just over 5 weeks, we will become parents and we will become a family of four. Incredible. I almost feel like I'm jinxing it by writing that, with so many obstacles we've had to deal with over the past few years - but every appointment I've been told the babies are doing well and I am trusting that my midwives and doctors know their stuff.

As I inferred above, it's been a really tough pregnancy. The babes are doing well, which is by far the main thing, but for my part it's been a slightly complicated and continually physically challenging pregnancy, and I am more than ready for this part of the journey to come to an end - although babies, please stay in for a few more weeks! For this reason, work has been incredibly tough for me this year. I'm self-employed of course, and as most of you will appreciate, this means no sick pay, no annual leave, no work-supported maternity leave....thankfully, with a load of support from my amazing wife, I have got through this year with a limited but not too inefficient service (I hope!) at The Curious Bead Shop (now closed as I prepare for my maternity leave) but a woefully patchy presence in terms of my jewellery over at Songbead. And precisely zero blog posts this year! Well, I figured that I really should write something before my two babies make an appearance. 

My brain isn't up to working out the precise weeks but I think I've got these bump shots basically in order. The main one is the most recent of course - me 2 weeks ago, at 30 weeks. Where are these babies going to go?!

I won't bore you with all the details of the pregnancy - suffice to say, I am still feeling nauseous at 7.5 months (and on 2 anti-sickness meds still), I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes 6 weeks ago, and I have been absolutely exhausted from beginning to - well, not end as we're not there yet, but I'm still exhausted and I don't see that letting up anytime soon! (Yep, I know I will be seriously sleep-deprived when the babies appear - but I won't be TWIN PREGNANCY EXHAUSTED, which is a blissful thought, honestly). And of course, with my enormous bump, I am seriously uncomfortable all the time too. But just a few weeks left to go - we can do it, little bugs!

Because I felt the bead shop really had to be a priority, as I said above, it's my jewellery that has suffered. There's been a serious lack of creativity in this pregnancy, aside from the obvious(!); heartburn and reflux put singing out the window even when the most intense period of nausea and vomiting passed around 4 months, and Songbead really took a back seat aside from 2 or 3 bursts of making throughout the year. I've missed it dreadfully, and whilst I'm hopefully going to have all of my outstanding Curious orders out by next week, I am hoping to give myself a week or two of making once they are all out. It feels like it's good for my brain - I can't imagine there will be a lot of beading once there's three of me, initially at least, so I would love to get a little more done now. Good for the soul, too. 

This past weekend, my wife was working, so I took the opportunity to sit down with the beads and do a little creating. I have a bunch of overdue custom work - sorry folks! See above for Pregnancy Problems and energy issues... - which I managed to cover about half of, but I also managed to make a few new pieces for the shop. I find with custom work, that's the best way - my brain has to work in a different way so it's good to intersperse it with new work as well. Here are some of the pieces I managed to create:

Drop of Honey (SOLD)

Poppy Field

Petroleum (SOLD)

Woodland Walk (SOLD)

Foxglove (SOLD)

Gypsy Rose (SOLD)

In the Hedgerow (SOLD)

Flutterby Lane (SOLD)

These are just a few I've managed to get into the shop over the past few weeks so do hop over to my shop and take a look. The plan is to keep Songbead open until the end of October but as there is every chance that the twins could decide that they want to become early, that's not a guarantee. So if you have any purchases in mind for now - or now that it's October it's surely safe to say, potentially for Christmas?! - then I'd get a shifty on. 

And of course, watch this space for some teeny tiny baby faces coming soon........I honestly and truly cannot wait to meet them! 

Stacked Earrings Challenge - Chapter 5

Hello! Goodness me, it's been a while since the previous chapter of this stacked earrings adventure but we are back again, with Heidi's bead selection. 

This exchange is the brain-child of Swedish jewellery designer-maker, Malin de Koning, who invited Heidi Post, Leah Curtis and Claire Lockwood and myself to join her. Here's the lowdown in Malin's own words:

"The idea is that I give each of us the same set of beads. Beads that I believe would be nice to use in earrings. Nothing exclusive, and no art beads. Just a group of different beads that I myself believe can be used in fun and interesting ways in earrings in a stacked style.

 I am longing to see how we all use the same things but in different ways. I am thinking we could all make at least one pair of earrings, but hopefully more. And that we are free to add our own extra beads and/or other components, if we at least use three (3) of the beads from my set in each design."

Since Malin began this challenge back in January 2015, we've taken it in turns to send out little curations of beads, and all turning them into our own creations. It's been so fascinating seeing not only what people have in their stash, but what they choose - how they curate these little bead collections. I freely admit that my selection (last time) was more about assembling an interesting grouping of beads, rather than gathering together items for specific designs. I kind of think this adds something to the design process though - not least the fact that we all start nearer the same point when turning to the bead collection. I wonder if the other designers did the same? 

Anyway, back to this round of the challenge. Here's Heidi's lovely curation (picture courtesy of Malin):

It's interesting looking at this collection here again, whole. You'll see below but I've stuck with a fairly muted, soothing colour-scheme in my creations - and I'm interested to note that, despite there being a fair quantity of coral/orange in Heidi's wee group, I've not used any of it - despite it often being a 'go-to' colour for me when designing. Instead, I've stuck to a tonal palette ranging from mint greens to cool blues to warm purples - nothing too contrasting, nothing too clashing. Fairly unusual for me, but I'm pleased with what I created! See if you agree...

Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Peacock

First of all, these long, elegant drops. I've used the peacock-silver biwa pearl discs and the moon-blue faceted rondelles here, connected with some gorgeous fancy chain in a co-ordinating gunmetal dark silver. You may think that those are the only one of Heidi's beads that I have used here - but no! You see those little handwoven rondelle beads? Inside are some of the little wooden discs - top left of the bead collection picture. When I saw them in Heidi's selection, I couldn't resist seeing if I could bead around them - and yes I could. Which leads me onto these studs...

Not technically stacked earrings, but I wanted to share them here as they came from Heidi's beads - each stud contains one of her tiny natural wood discs and I love them! They are about 10mm across in width when fully beaded. If anyone knows a source for these discs, message me - I'd love to make more. 

In the Fires

Next, a pair in soothing pale violet - almost like cape amethyst - and minty green. I was so pleased to find these Scorched Earth droppers in my stash - how perfectly do the colours go here? Both pairs of discs and the tiny flower caps are from Heidi. I just adore Petra's glazing work here - the way both base colours have so many other colours flashing in them. 

Roundhouse 

These earrings are the cute shorties of the bunch. More of the pretty mind green spacers from Heidi, little wooden plum-purple cogs and some beautiful transparent glass rounds with deepest aubergine swirls throughout - topped off with some of my tiny handwoven rounds in dark pewter. I like the flashes of copper wire here and how they contrast with my hand-formed oxidised silver earwires.

Graffiti

Lastly, these long elegant chaps. Glass rounds and violet gemstone chips from Heidi - and beautiful long porcelain drops from Round Rabbit. I love how the graffiti-style decoration on the rounds is echoed in Nancy's glazing. I purchased these drops in a  'grab bag' from Round Rabbit and I admit when I saw them, I knew I would struggle to use them in their gorgeous earthy olive-brownness - a lovely evocative colour, but not one I work with often. However, I started with the two upper beads and then just knew that I had to hunt down these drops to go with them as the perfect earthy foil to Heidi's beads' bright and bold colourfulness.

And so that's it for this challenge - we've come full circle, each one of us having sent out a grouping of beads now. Who knows if we'll go round again....I've so enjoyed each of these challenges - and whilst we've taken our time with each round, that's been nice - no pressure to create things to deadline that we may or may not be satisfied with. I hope you've enjoyed following along with us! 

Now hop over to my friends' blogs to see what they created with exactly the same materials:

Malin de Koning

Claire Lockwood

Heidi Post

Leah Curtis

Speckles are so hot right now

In the fibre world, 'speckles are so hot right now' is a familiar hashtag that you will see attached to artisan-dyed yarns - those amazing creatures which have been through a long and loving process of saturated dye baths, followed up by a flicked paint-brush splattering of multi-coloured speckles. Every time I see this tag on a beautiful skein of artisan yarn, I am so very reminded of my own end-of-day beads - and so this little bracelet is an homage to those lovely skeins. 

Bead-weaving and knitting actually have a vast amount in common - not least the very ordered and almost pixilated nature of their construction - and my end-of-day beads really show this off perfectly - each orb is constructed from 96 individual 2mm glass beads, each one separate and distinct yet coming together to form an almost perfect sphere, with the help of nylon, a tiny needle and a steady hand. I've combined these burgundy-based speckled rounds with a gorgeous artisan lampwork bicone - this pale blue bead has an ancient-inspired feel to it - and a hand-formed chain of stainless steel, nylon and Japanese glass in a beautiful sea foam green - not forgetting a smattering of beautiful burgundy freshwater pearls. A real one-of-a-kind piece. 

Find me - and this bracelet! - today and tomorrow at The Art Market York at York Racecourse. Open 1st and 2nd of October (this weekend!) from 10am - 4pm. 

A note about the {song}beads in this bracelet - they began as some of my very special 'end of day' beads. These are each totally unique. Borrowing from a very old glass-working tradition, I gather the loose beads from the end of any [song}bead weaving session, and rather than tidy them away, I create a unique mix of seed beads, and stitch up little beads with these 'bead soups'. I love letting serendipity and chance take a part in my creative process like this! 

Some news and some jewellery...

Hello all! No posts for a while, where have I been, yada yada ya.....BORING - you don't want me to recite the usual spiel, so I won't. More importantly, I'm back on the blog now, and sharing a bit of news and a few new pieces of jewellery.

In my previous post from about his time last month, I mentioned that I'd taken up swimming again. It's safe to say that I'm still going strong! A couple of days after I wrote that post, I signed up to Swim 22 - a charity swimathon for Diabetes UK where you commit to swim the length of the English channel (22 miles) over 3 months. Well, the challenge was meant to run from the 22nd February - 22nd May, and I signed up on the 19th May....safe to say that, much as I've been building up my distances, I did not manage it in three days! Three days no, but three weeks yes - I completed it a week ago with a rather epic 152 length (3800m!) swim. Pretty pleased with myself about that! You can still sponsor me here - I've already raised over £500(!!!) thanks to several rather wonderful people - but I am sure that you, like me, know more than one person affected by diabetes, and so it's never too late to contribute. I need to get a silly photo of me with my Swim 22 swim cap on but I haven't managed that quite yet - it's coming!  

Other than swimming, I have been galavanting about the country (my sister's Masters recital in London, singing lessons in Kilmacolm, concerts in Glasgow) and  enjoying lots of gorgeous sunshine, although that's gone for this week, sadly. I have had an EPIC delivery of new beads for Curious (I've got a 'New-Restocks' section now to make it easy for you to check these out) so lots of beads to count and sort, and I am awaiting more favourite metal spacers and - new to the shop - some artisan polymer from Humblebeads! I'm seriously excited for these to arrive - SOON, I am hoping! And, last but not least, I have found a little time to create more jewellery. I need to find a heck of a lot MORE time for this, as in 10 days, I am taking part in the Royal Highland Show! First time for me so I'm excited/nervous/anxious - you know, the usual combination before a big event. It is a GREAT day out, so if you are around central belt Scotland on the 23rd - 26th June - or if you fancy a trip to Edinburgh! - then come and see me in the 3d2d tent. There will be tons of awesome craft exhibitors plus all the usual Highland Show excitement, so do come along. 

Now, onto the jewellery! Here are a few items that I managed to create over the last week.

Breathing Dreams

A lovely long beachy necklace, with artisan beads from me, Soul Silver and Swoondimples. I've combined these with some cultivated beach glass which is just delicious! Perfect over a simple vest top, or with a summer dress. 

Fierce

I fell in love with these awesome ceramic decal 'shields' with floral decoration on them from Grubbi Ceramics - the combination of softly feminine and rustic is just perfect. I've combined them with some awesome rough-cut citrine and a bunch of mixed metals - Vintaj brass, and hand-oxidised copper and sterling silver. Yum! 

Diving to the Lilacs

This necklace was made sitting in the hot sunshine in Kilmacolm last week. What a joy that was! I had the factor 50 on for sure. I have had this Round Rabbit diving swallow pendant for years (literally) and came across it whilst organising some of my MANY boxes of art beads, and felt that its time had come. I'm not sure where the double layer at the bottom of the necklace came from, but the pendant seemed to want it. Artisan handwoven glass from me, and a super-sweet word bead from Grubbi Ceramics again - the perfect turquoise glaze to go with the beautiful swallow.

Polka

I had a custom order of these awesome polka dot nuggets from Jasmin French made up a couple of months ago, and I'm so glad I did - aren't they just awesome? The black and white polkas go so well with so many of my favourite colours. I used a few with some lagoon-blue turquoise previously, but here I've paired them with some handwoven orchid purple rondelles, and some oxidised sterling silver. They've got a touch of the 80s about them, don't you think (in a good way!)?

Soul Home

Last but not least, I whipped up this little bracelet last night - ceramics from Elukka, polymer from Swoondimples and lampwork glass from Soul Silver. A good friend of the top necklace, don't you think? I know I am not alone when I say that the sea is my spiritual home. It doesn't matter if it's a scorching day on the Mediterranean coast, or a blustery day on a Hebridean island - the sea puts me at peace in a way that nothing else can. (And I always have to take a shoe off and put a toe in the water - even if it's that blustery day we're talking about!) I've combined the artisan elements with my own handwoven beads as usual, and added in a strip of larimar nuggets. Very rustic; very beachy. 

I'm heading over to Etsy now to list all of these so they should be available online asap! Message me if you don't see what you're looking for however. 

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Hello, and other ramblings...

 Hello there! It's been a while since I carved out a little spot of time for blogging - even though I frequently think to myself "I must blog about this or that", somehow the time slips through my fingers like so much sand. I am now feeling like my blogging muscle is a little rusty, so I am just going to do one of those rambling posts; lots of pictures, telling you a little bit about the pieces and what else has been going on, in no particular order. Ok? 

If you follow me over on Facebook, you'll have seen that I recently returned from a fab surprise holiday in Tenerife. I know a lot of people are a bit snotty about the Canaries, but I absolutely love them! Sunshine, gorgeous coastal climate, great food, lovely people - what's not to love? We stayed in the north-east of the island, doing the Air BnB thing, and this meant we were in a totally non-touristy thing too - an added bonus, as far as I'm concerned. As usual, I packed up a shit-ton of beads (I have problems...!) so that I could sit in the evenings, and make away to my heart's content. All accompanied by a glass or 4 of local Sangria! I say local in that way that local somehow makes it classier, but what I really mean is local i.e. from our local supermarket. Like a glass of local Lambrini here in the UK. (Although I'm sure you will agree, local Sangria over local Lambrini EVERY TIME.)

Sometimes when I go on holiday, I must admit, my eyes are bigger than my bead belly, and I end up coming home with a pair of earrings and half a bracelet, but not this time. I was seriously productive! We were in a lovely wee apartment, complete with a mountain-view balcony (we were very lucky - right on the edge of the capital, Santa Cruz, which is all industry and skyscrapers, but the from the block of flats we were in you would never have known) and so we ended up eating in most nights - fresh veg, fresh bread, local (ACTUALLY local) cheese and the occasional Gambas Pil Pil (a long-standing family favourite), all washed down with the aforementioned Sangria. Slurp. 

Anyway, this wee bracelet is one of the first pieces I made on holiday. I've made a few of this design lately, and I do love it - the combination of the larger elements with the double-stand of more petite beads - artisan elements here from Soul Silver, Something to do with your hands and myself, along with a heavy helping of freshwater biwa petal pearls.  I'm really enjoying using those teeny tiny seed beads more in my work - linking my handwoven {song}beads with the rest of my designs in an organic way. 

Another holiday piece here - a really easy-to-make, easy-to-wear piece. Birds, flowers, artisan quirky beads and my favourite red and turquoise palette.  

I bought a whole bunch of different sterling silver clasps from a new favourite findings supplier, TH Findings, as I'm finding with my own metalwork, I'm using silver more and more. I still love my patinated copper and brass, but it's great to have silver as an option too. This is such a simple bracelet, it would be easy for it to be a little nondescript, but I think that wee heart clasp really makes this piece work. 

 As you may be picking up, I'm going through a bit of a bracelet-y phase. I know, I know - what's new?! - but I'm just going with it. The bead shop, it's fair to say, had a fairly slooooow start to the year, but things started to pick up in March and April, and so my time for making became a little limited. For that reason, I'm just going with my gut when making at the moment, rather than imposing my brain upon the process too much - must make more necklaces! must make more links and earwires! - and such like. The ebb and flow of Curious is back to a bit of an ebb again, and so I am anticipating having a little more time over the next week or so - which is always the silver-lining of a bead shop ebb :-) This bracelet is one I've made since getting back from holiday, but I feel it's got some of the lightness that a good holiday always leaves you with. 

That cool bottle bead is one I snagged from Lorelei Eurto's recent destash. No idea what Nehi is but I love the colour and design of the bead nonetheless! Again, you can see those seed beads doing multiple jobs here - my beaded beads, spacers between the larger beads, and forming a wee extension chain. I can't tell you just how long these take compared with popping a bit of chain or a few links on the end of the bracelet, but I love the visual texture of them, and how they keep the colour going within a piece. 

I know on the other side of the pond - and Australia too, I think? - it was Mother's Day last Sunday. We had ours a while back, but Sunday *was* my Mum's birthday. Mum is a great supporter and wearer of my jewellery and whilst she of course has a great deal of patinated pieces (which is own my preference for most of the time), she is a shiny silver girl at heart. It was the push I needed to get back to the torch - sadly neglected by me this year, despite the acquisition of a proper bonafide jewellery bench. The torch came out, the hammer and block came out, the pickle was switched on - the tumbler did its magic, and so Mum ended up with some shiny shiny earrings and a shiny shiny necklace. 

Shiny!

 A break from my bracelet addiction....

More beads acquired from Lorelei here - I just love this soft Spring colour palette. I made those tiny peach {song}beads just for this necklace - just the right shape and colour to go with these sweet pink/purple freshwater pearls - as well as that gorgeous bouquet on the ceramic pendant. 

 More pearls here - I go through phases - quite long phases(!) - with pearls, and this phase shows little sign of waning - more peachy, subtly textural pearls in this new bracelet below.

Another bonus of the holiday was the amount of swimming I did over there. Ok, not all swimming, there was a lot of obligatory bobbing around in various pools in the sunshine, but also swimming. I made a point of starting the day by having a bit of a lie-in, but as soon as I was awake, getting into my costume and hitting the pool attached to our apartment block. I really wish my flat here in Edinburgh had a pool out the back! Although I think indoors would be vastly preferable here in Edinburgh. I did a short blast of 20 lengths each morning, but the routine of it reminded me just how much I enjoy swimming. Believe it or not, when I was in primary school, I went swimming 4-5 times a week with Heart of Midlothian Swimming Club . Over the past fifteen years, I've tried again and again to get into running, going to the gym, yoga, pilates etc. and all without real success i.e. being able to stick to them. (I actually really enjoy yoga and pilates, but find that I am a quite intimidated by the idea of joining a class - I imagine everyone else will be lean and beautiful, and live off green smoothies and little else - you get the picture. The type of class where I'd stick out like a sore thumb, in my mind at any rate!). I don't know why, but I've never really given swimming another go - not properly. But on the Monday after our return, I went along to some local swimming baths and joined up for a month. Not cheap, but not too pricey - and since then, I've gone every day but two. Slowly but surely, I've been building up the distances I've swum - I'm now doing a mile every day. A brilliant thing about the membership I've bought is that it allows me to use any of the ten council swim centres we have here in Edinburgh. So the past two+ weeks, I've been working out where these pools all are in Edinburgh, and fitting my swims into whatever I'm doing on a day - the pool near my acupuncture clinic, the pool near the parcel office, the 2 pools near my wife's work where I can get a lift to in the morning if I'm feeling like a super-early morning dip! I am not making any promises to myself - I don't want to let myself down and feel all the guilt that that leads to - but right now, I'm really enjoying it being part of my day to day routine. Which pool today? How many lengths today? Sadly, I'm not a size 8 already (what? Two weeks of daily swimming - WHY NOT?!) but I am feeling really good about it - and *actually* enjoying it. Long may it continue!

The last little piece I have to share with you today is really a pair. One of my lovely regular customers wrote to me and said that these two would go well together, and of course when I looked at them I knew that they would. I am never sure what I think about sets though. I like jewellery collectors to be able to pick and choose what they wear together - but yes, I would definitely wear these two as a pair. 

As you'll see, I'm continuing with my love-affair with gemstones, as you may have spotted from several of the pieces above. A couple of weeks ago, when I was in the throes of a horrible throat infection which floored me for several days, I scraped myself out of bed and onto the bus to the Knitting and Stitching Show, which I knew from my Mum's visit the previous day had several bead stands. Including a really, really awesome gemstone stand - Ilona Biggins - and, well....let's just say I went to town a bit there! She had very kindly passed on a free entry ticket to my Mum for me (otherwise entry would have been £16 - outrageous!), so she'd saved me a fair bit of cash already, PLUS I got a wee discount - probably because I spent so much it would have been rude not to. Oops. But just look at all the beautiful gemstones and pearls I snaffled! Well, you can't most of them - but have a look at those you *can* see! The gorgeous agate above, but more than that, the rough-cut amethyst. SO AWESOME. It is part of a mixed strand of amethyst and citrine (you can see a spot of that in the necklace above) and I could NOT leave it behind. Could I?! 

 

Just look how fantastic they look with the ceramic shards in these earrings! They came as part of a small set from France, with the bird in the bracelet above. Oh, and I should mention another bead in that bracelet above - the amazing lampwork disc beneath the bird. Look how *glowy*. How magical and otherworldly. All from the subtly wondrous hands of Julie Wong Sontag of Uglibeads. Seriously, if you didn't notice it a minute ago, take a wee scroll back up and have a peek. Yep, see what I mean? 

Anyway, you've made it through this epic post! Well done, if you're still with me. I'll be back SOON with slightly shorter posts, when I don't have approximately 2 months so gallop through! Thanks for sticking with it and I promise, I'll see you soon.