Christmas bits and bobs

Hello all,

I hope I find you well today. Not long now until Christmas, I hope you're all as excited as I am! Above are a few pieces that I have made recently, all are for a Christmas sale (apart from the cuff links) that my class are holding from the 10th - 14th of December in the reception area of Duncan of Jordanstone.

The top piece as a single small irregularly shaped fresh water pearl on a thin silver ring. Followed by cuff links that I have made as a Christmas gift for my Grandad, again with fresh water pearls, but much larger this time. After these we have 3 red garnet faceted beads set in silver cups and a silver bead to top them off mounted in an unusual triangular formation. Then we come on to some silver spheres with saw pierced bird silhouettes, the larger of the two measures about 5cm across and is oxidised then brushed to give a smokey effect. Finally, bringing up the rear we have a medium sized (about 1cm across) fresh water pearl set into a silver cup that is held in the middle of a thin silver ring. This piece was originally going to go on sale in the Christmas show but I sold it last night, so I guess I shall have to order a few more pearls and make some more in time.

Anyhoo, it has been a long day and it will be another long one tomorrow so good night to you all and see you soon. x

Cake

Greetings all,

Today has been a bake-a-thon. First I made a (very very) belated birthday cake for Brian. Eleanor, him and I will be having some with a drink of "tea" (read alcohol but keep it a secret) tomorrow night after work. I also made truffles (not pictured), individual cherry cakes and ginger and chocolate chip bread to take into the girls in uni. It was my turn at cake day but I didn't know this so this is also a bit belated. Cake days are Fridays, so not too bad.

If anyone wants to make any of these lovely things you can find the how to's here

Chocolate fudge cake
Cherry cakes
*this recipe is pants, I'll find a better one and post it soon*
Ginger and chocolate chip bread
(for the ginger bread I added half of the chocolate chips in and sprinkled half over the top of the mix before baking and didn't add any icing, also good to know it is still liquid when you put it in the tray so you really do need that baking paper) *this recipe is amazing, everyone loves it*

happy baking everyone x

go go go

So with the dissertation finally complete I now feel settled enough to get on with studio work. I've found it difficult to concentrate on anything for too long while the whole dissertation thing has been hanging over my head. However, with there being a deadline on Monday for a bursary entry I muddled on anyway. The piece above is what I came up with. Although this one is copper that has been silver plated and clay that has been painted gold the actual one will be the real thing...obviously.

I will also be using this design in another competition my class has been asked to enter. Although none of us are too sure what we should actually be doing because the event is based in Italy and the instructions came in Italian. We're trying our best.

Happy weekend everyone :)

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Greetings to you all!

By this I of course mean hello Gregor, hello Iain.

A note to say I'm not taking part in this blog, so everyone (both of you) should go have a look.

I also would like to congratulate myself for finally finishing my dissertation, I just need to go back and fix bits and pieces then it's all done. Does everyone get to the stage that they have looked at and read something so many times it just sounds like complete rubbish? I hope so, I am a tad worried about it *eek*

Anyhoo, off to visit the hospital, or more correctly, someone in it.

Cheerio x

Time goes by.

Greetings to you all.

This week is reading week, apparently we are already half way through this semester. I've been looking at what I've done in the last 6 weeks, and I can tell you that it seems to be pretty much nothing. Where does time go? Things will have to step up a gear for sure!

On a less depressing note, I'm going on a trip with the University, to Munich in February, the week before my birthday. Something to look forward to for sure.

The picture above is of the piece I made for the recycling project we did for Fe and showed in the DCA. It's made from two novelty pins and a 5p piece along with some new silver just as a setting. Simple but I quite like it.

Just a quick note today as you can see.

Hope everyone is well.

x

Snap happy

Greetings all,

This is the camera I ordered today, I've been trying to save for quite a while and it wasn't going too well so my grandad very kindly gifted the funds for it. Many thinks to him! I'll also be buying a Macro lens once I work out exactly which one I should be getting. Once it's all arrived then there will finally be pictures of work. Hoorah.

Just a quick note to also say that everything is going well in the workshop and studio and there will soon be a more interesting update.

Hope everyone is well and having a good week.

x

Recycling

In the DCA at the moment there is a display of work completed by my class, all of the pieces are made of recycled jewellery. The work will be there until the 16th of October so have a wander along if you have a free minute.

The project was to help Fe with her dissertation, and the results are quite impressive. She asked members of the public to hand in old jewellery that they no longer wore and we had one week to make what we could, to see if old "rubbish" could be made into nice wearble pieces without using [too much] new material.

So if you have any time, go down, have a look, and let me know what you think.

Hope the rest of your weekend is a good one

x