Regaining a sense of calm, the BAFTA jewels and back to the bench

Good news - I'm slowly getting back into a routine here - some things have fallen off the everyday list though (like exercise oops!) but on the whole, there feels like there is more balance and every so often I even gain a sense of calm.

It is blissfully quiet today. Hubby left early in the plane, the kids left for school, the farm cats are napping, the working dog is quietly watching all, the cattle are in the distance happily eating. Apart from hearing the light breeze move in the trees and some distant bird chatter, all is quiet. Ahhhhh......

I caught up with the recent Awards ceremonies this week - the BAFTAs and the Grammys. The Grammys didn't do it for me - once again, all cuffs and dangly earrings. I guess these just aren't my 'scene'?

I did have high hopes for the BAFTAs, but perhaps the rainy weather got them all down as there weren't as many glamorous jewels as I had hoped for. They did have a couple of highlights - namely Jessica Alba who looked amazing in a flowing electric blue gown and wore a stunning collar of blue/green, perhaps made of azurite-malachite. Miranda Richardson wore a lovely pair of blue-green (possibly aquamarine/emerald) earrings and Thandie Newton a timeless emerald necklace. The rest was all a little ho-hum!







On the creating front I had a lovely day earlier this week with my muse perched on my shoulder whispering all sorts of great ideas. New jewels include exotic wood bracelets set off with a single big gemstone ; concoctions in amazonite (teal/aqua blue)or apatite (neon blue) and smoky quartz (brown); and a couple of pieces in deep amethyst (purple) and pink tourmaline. Then I did a couple of pearl earrings with some little sapphires to set them off. I finally went to bed close to midnight, still full of energy and wanting to create but knowing I really needed SOME sleep! I hope to get back to the bench today to do some more :D

The Connect2Mums network has recently launched a new AusMumprenuer magazine. They did a feature on Rural Mums and interviewed me as part of it. So I'm there (photo and all) on pp 28-29. They also selected some of my jewels in the fashion pages too. How exciting!

Right, best crack the whip and get back to the bench! Today's photo by the way is one of the new pieces - earrings with unusual diamond shapes of smoky quartz with a chequer facet under a mass of blue apatite gems.

Till next :)
Annette

Christmas wishes

Oh my ... I can't believe its been almost three weeks since I posted here! It is rather indicative of my life of late though!

Things have been go, go, go, with many commitments for the children - an end of year dance concert and rehearsals, the end of year presentation at school, my son finishing primary school and being enrolled at the local high school - and it culminates this week with a piano recital that somehow I am organising as well!

Naturally things have been busy on the jewellery front (many panicked husbands have been calling me!) with orders left, right and centre. My Coolah show went extremely well and thankfully while hot, it wasn't 45 degrees C plus like my last outing!

I have my final show for the year this Sunday in Tamworth at the monthly Peel Street Handmade Market. I'll be there with the talented Kasia Tatar, a lady who has a great future in jewellery in front of her (I carry a few of her lovely items on my site). As she doesn't have her own site, I will have to tell her all about Ethikl - a new Australian artisan marketplace that I read about on Your Cheeky Monkey.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is barely a week away now! I certainly haven't had time to do any great treks to town for Christmas shopping, so thank goodness for online shopping ... providing they all arrive in time of course! If you're located Stateside and you're still looking for little somethings to add to your gifts, do check out the Vintage Soap Shoppe on Etsy. Angela makes the most delicious looking old-world soaps that I'm sure anyone would appreciate.

Of course, for Christmas around here I think we'd all love about 6 inches of rain - that would make us all feel better and the cows would certainly appreciate the grass! We seem to have slipped straight back into drought, which is both worrying and depressing. Any rain we have had over the last couple of months has been immediately followed by a few days of hot winds and the ground just dries up instantly. Australia - the wide, brown land indeed!

Well, since I can't make it rain and nothing I do seems to entice it, I will just ignore it as much as I can and look at my pretty gems and pearls. The torsade photographed above has lashings of pink pearls, lavender pearls, rock crystal quartz, amethyst and apatite. Far better than looking at dry, brown paddocks!

As I probably won't post again before Christmas, I wish you all the very best of the festive season and hope that Santa brings a special gift, just for you! (Just like he has for this Aussie stockman!)



Cheers
Annette :)

Paris Couture Week ... and more mundane things!

Earlier this month was Paris Couture Week, when the famous names lit up the runways with their haute couture designs - good and bad (!). Some of the stand out fashions in my book were by Armani Prive, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Valentino and Dior (I probably wouldn't be game enough to wear most of the Dior collection, but it certainly grabbed my eye!).

I was happy to note that jewellery was quite in evidence on the runways too - particularly statement necklaces with Armani Prive, long (and multiple) necklaces with Jean-Paul Gaultier, very long chain linked earrings (aka 'shoulder dusters') for Chanel, and Dior was into 'bling' and pearls both in necklaces and big drop earrings.

Of course, life down here on the farm is a bit more basic that the wearing of any of these couture fashions, and with three children running rampant, definitely not the place for high fashion. But it is nice to admire and daydream about :)

Term break is still in full swing here and yes, still lots of visitors and jobs to do. Unfortunately the rose garden is now overdue for both a prune and a weed - NOT my favourite job. Yep, it never ends.

By the way, I was interested to note the comments I received on my last post (re: my washing being on the clothes line for days) and found out that clothes lines are a thing of the distant past for many in the USA. This amazes me as of course I don't even have a clothes dryer! Then I found out about "The Right to Dry" group and well... what can I say!? Do YOU have a outside clothes line? What do you think about clothes lines vs dryers?

I have had a tiny amount of time to do some blog surfing and want to mention Mezz of Creative Outlet. I met Mezz in person quite a few years ago at the Sydney Bead & Gem Show and was glad to get re-acquainted with her recently. I have since started to read her blog more regularly -she writes great posts - do check them out!

The other blogger I was glad to see was Hilary from 57 Design Studio. Hilary went off and renovated her house a few months ago and was so busy she didn't get to blog much at all. But she's getting back into the swing of it now and has been creating, not just jewellery, but has branched out into paper crafts as well.

If you are an Aussie blogger, are you a member of any Australian blog groups? Through Anne of The Tall Poppy I have found both Aussie Bloggers and Blog Chicks - do check them out if you don't know of them already and join up! The more the merrier :)

For today's pic I chose a piece where I had a bit of a play with colour - in a subtle way. To add some fun to this unusual shaped agate I added some neon blue apatite. I like how the clasp reflects the shape of the agate too. It's a long strand that can be wrapped around into a two strand short necklace as shown in the picture.

I also had a query that it wasn't too obvious where you could see my other work, so please check out my website at www.annettepiper.com to see more!

Till next week - have a good one!
Cheers
Annette