Pearl necklet and earrings giveaway!

I’m a bad blogger.  I realise this.  It's been months.  If you're still with me you're a total trooper and I heartily apologise and promise to do better!

One of my new year’s resolutions is to get back to blogging and so to start the new year off on a positive note,  I thought I giveaway might be a nice!  

So without further ado, here’s the prize….

(Black leather and white freshwater cultured pearl necklet (50cm length) and white freshwater cultured pearl and sterling silver stud earrings.)

Here's the boring stuff:

*Entries are free

*Entries are open worldwide.

*Entries are via this blog post or my facebook page

*Entries close on Monday 12 January at midnight (just under a week away) and  the winner will be contacted by email.

*One entry per person, but feel free to let any of your friends know who might like to win too.

*The prize will be sent out via Australia Post.  Should the winner be outside of Australia the prize will be sent via regular airmail.   Any customs or duties are the responsibility of the winner.

To enter you need to :

1. Visit my website  (www.annettepiper.com).

2. Sign up to my newsletters located in the left hand menu bar. (I’m remarkably slack with these, so you won’t be inundated!) 

3. Have a look at the jewellery while you're there and make a note of what your favourite piece is.   Then come back here and let me know in the comments below which is your favourite and why you like it.  

Easy!!

(oooh - big NB - if you have a different name to your blogger name, please add that to your comment so I can identify you if you are the winner!).

Good luck!

Annette :)

What happens if you land on my bench...

The weeks are rolling by so fast and I sometimes  feel I’m swimming upstream – all my good intentions for this season haven’t  quite making it into reality!

Nevertheless there have been some bright points. 

On the family front, after almost a year of no piano teacher (since our last, fantastic and irreplaceable teacher left to move to the coast) we’ve secured the services of a highly regarded teacher from a nearby town who is willing to come and teach in our little town.  The children had their first lesson with her last night and everyone survived even to the point of being a little bit excited.

On the farm front, the very last heifer had her calf this morning – 6 days overdue, but hey, she got there in the end and all by herself! Yay!  No more checking heifers 4x day!  

And on the jewellery front, I’ve been creating a few things and definitely enjoying the process.  It’s so hard, of course, to work with such gorgeous stones and pearls day in and day out (as if!).

I have been hoarding some gorgeous pearls that I received quite a few months ago.   The dye master where I have been buying my pearls the last couple of years was willing to experiment with some brighter colours and I managed to obtain a few drop pairs and a couple of strands in magnificent colours – specifically fuschia and violet and a couple in softer tones of lilac and rose.  I pulled them out earlier this week - here is a pic of some of the pairs…

And hey presto now they’re earrings! 

I added gems to all the drops, as they are such lustrous pearls they deserved a little sparkle!   The lilac have some pale lavender-pink sapphires, the rose have pink topaz, the fuschia - bright pink sapphire and the violet (you can just see them around the edge) have amethyst.   (There is another pair of pearls that snuck in here to the left – a natural pink matched with pale pink sapphires).

So that’s what happens when  you’re on my bench.  You get sparkles added and go off into the world to make the world prettier for one special woman!

Have a good week - go out and sparkle! :)

Annette