Red Pendant Commission

This piece was collected by the customer yesterday. Each 'petal' is a slightly different shade of red. The resin is slightly transparent allowing light to shine through from the back when worn.

Thank You to Lora Hart

Weekend Eye Candy - Fiona Chapman Edition
Originally uploaded by lorahart
Thanks to Lora Hart for featuring my jewellery in her regular Weekend Eye Candy feature on her blog and her Flickr page. I have seen Lora's lovely mosaic style collections on Flickr before, so it was a lovely surprise to find that she had chosen me this week. Her blog is a really interesting read, it is full of interesting work from other designers as well as her own jewellery, which is beautiful and imaginative, specialising in Precious Metal Clay.

Work in Progress

One of three commissions I'm working on this week.

craft&design Magazine

I am pleased and excited to have my work accepted onto the "Selected" section of the craft&design website. craft&design is a UK magazine published six times a year and I always look forward to it coming through my door. It is certainly one that I read from cover to cover and their website is full of great information for makers as well as wonderful work to browse.

New Work

This is the latest addition in my online shop. The resin 'flower' has been coloured in shades of grey and white, just right for winter.

Craft Fair (Yesterday)

The Craft Fair I was at on Tuesday was great. It was only small, but very well attended. Thanks to Lindsay(Daisy Patch Studio) for her fantastic organisation. I sold about half of the stock I had with me which was a big surprise. I had not done a fair for a long time and had forgotten how good it is to speak to customers 'face to face'. I certainly hope to do a bit more of this in the future.

Craft Fair

I'm preparing for a small craft fair at the moment, so the tumbler is in full swing and I'm up to my eyes in price tags and handmade gift bags, not to mention unfinished jewellery. I'm really looking forward to it as I haven't done one for a very long time. It's going to be particularly exciting as a couple of close friends are also going to be there, one of whom is the organising the event. So, we've lined up plenty of coffee and cake, there's no real pressure to sell as the overheads are minimal and I'm looking forward to a fun day of networking and craftiness.

I made this "ring" a few months ago. I was trying to be more imaginative with different materials, so set myself the challenge of making a piece of jewellery from an elastic band and this is the result. My family thought I had lost the plot, but I found the exercise quite rewarding. Of course this material is not viable for long lasting jewellery as it has already started to perish, but it was fun while it lasted.

I spent a great afternoon yesterday visiting the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester. It was packed with beautiful work from designers I have admired for ages and some who were new to me. The only problem was that my daughter was with me and she got bored quickly, so I couldn't spend as long there as I would have liked. However, it certainly made up for the fact that I was unable to get to Origin in London this year and I will definitely go back for more next year.

My latest earrings in silver, enamel and a touch of gold. I've been dabbling in enamel again after a break while concentrating on resin work. I like the instant results you can get with enamel.

Why Jewellery?

I was trying to remember how I first got interested in jewellery making. It actually goes back many years to when I was at Sixth Form College and we had to choose a subject to fill in some time when we weren't doing A Level studies. I chose metalwork and made a hammered copper bangle, it wasn't very good, but I enjoyed making and wearing it. I later went to college and did a B.Ed (teaching degree) and forgot about the metalwork, although it was at this time in my life that I really started buying and wearing handmade jewellery. A few years further on and I was teaching in a London primary school and one of my colleagues took me to visit a friend of hers who was a jeweller at her studio. I was in awe of the beautiful work I saw there, not to mention the tools and equipment which fascinated me.
I enrolled myself onto an adult education course in Hackney, East London and spent every Thursday evening for about three years learning as many basic techniques as I could.
After a move to Derbyshire in 2000 I was lucky enough to find another fantastic jewellery course on my doorstep taught by Adele Kime. Adele is an inspiring teacher and I am grateful to her for helping me confirm that making jewellery is what I want to do.

Phew, it's taken a while, but I've finally got the blog started...Welcome!
I think I've been putting it off as I had no idea where to start. I've decided to take the bull by the horns and see it as a 'work in progress'. Hopefully I'll get slicker and more interesting as time goes on. My jewellery is changing direction at the moment. I'm making more mixed media pieces, aiming to combine my love of resin, enamel and stone setting in the same range. I will be posting photos here as I go along. Thank you for popping in.