Mice, sparkling gems and an award!

Yet again, I continue with my very poor blogging habits. I seem to remember blogging each week up until recently – how did I find the time!? I must be lacking in organization at the moment…

I thought about posting about the mice we have here on the farm. There is one in particular that consistently steals food out of the cat’s bowl. A fat, glossy little mouse he is ... and very careful to come out ONLY when the cats aren’t around. And when there is only one, a mouse can be pretty darn cute.

But some mouse stories aren’t so nice when they’re at, whilst not quite plague proportions, at least far too many of them. And the rats! Luckily we have bush rats, which I’ve found, at first hand, look just like massive mice. (And along with huge Bogong moths last month, I secretly started to wonder if something very strange was going on that was growing monster wildlife!)

So instead, I thought I’d stick to the jewellery front and what I’ve been up to.

I’ve been busy recently with a show and orders, but have also been sidetracked into my box of special gems. "The box" is getting so full that I decided I either needed a bigger box or had to create some jewellery to share these beauties around. Since shops are few and far between out here to find a larger box, I went with the latter choice and made some pieces with the sparklies!

Th pink amethyst, pink topaz and rock crystal quartz sterling silver necklace at the top of the post is one. Scrumptious, isn’t it? Rather springlike considering we’re in full winter here, but that’s the muse for you – she takes you where she will!

I made a wintry necklace too – with smoky quartz, petro tourmaline and vermeil. Rich and luxurious.



Then I got started on earrings ….

With everything from muted shades of pink and blue with rose quartz, pink topaz, pink tourmaline and iolite...



To rich red garnets and pink topaz reminding me of cool days and warm fires...



To colourful amethyst, peridot and blue topaz ...



And more ... like my favourites - these one made with swiss blue topaz, peridot, pink topaz, green topaz and apatite ...




See why I like my “special box”!? And, it’s a much nicer post than one about mice!

In other news, I was recently honoured to receive The Versatile Blogghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifers Award from the wonderful Kelly of Vital Traditions all the way over in Washington State. I had the pleasure of being the roomie of Kelly at a conference a couple of years ago in Queensland, and she is honestly one of the very nicest people you could ever meet! Oh, and her all natural body products are THE BEST!



As part of receiving this award I need to pass this on and I've selected some of my daily reads for the award (check them out, you may find a new favourite!):

BushBelles
Gifts of Serendipity
Write Expressions
The Laurel Hedge
Cattle, Kids & Chaos

And, lastly before I sign off, I want to give a shout-out to Paula K and her new Smart Woman venture. Paula started the amazing and popular Connect2Mums site a couple of years ago and I've known her since those early days - she's a fantastic mentor and businesswoman, so if you're in small business (or thinking about it), pop over to her Facebook page and say hello!