Eisteddfod Success!

I've been distracted most of this past week - firstly because my kiddos did so darn well in their eisteddfod (basically a competition for non-professionals in dance, speech, singing and instruments for those who asked!) then the 'high' of having won followed closely by a commitment to buy another, better piano for them.

Firstly, the eisteddfod. Well, our teacher definitely knows what she is doing and I can clearly say that her students were the best prepared out of any there. They played note perfect, their style was lovely and each was truly a little 'performance' rather than just 'playing'.

My heart was beating so fast as each of them went up to play and until the whole class was over and the winner announced the adrenalin was pumping! Of course the children themselves were fine and relatively unconcerned.

Of course, very proud parent here as you can tell (sorry!). If you know me, I am NOT one to talk about how amazingly talented my kids are - they've have never really been achievers so it has been a wonderful boost to everyone to have this success under their belts!

As they did so well, Hubby gave approval for the expenditure on another piano for them. The teacher has been warning us for a while that their skill has exceeded the capabilities of our current 80+ year old Beale Elfin (a small Australian made 'parlour' piano). So there's been lots of phone calls around the State looking for pianos.

Tomorrow we are off on a two day sojourn to look and try out an 8 year old baby grand. Hopefully it will be wonderful, we can get it and I can get back to something a little more productive than having a phone dangling from my ear and dreams of pianos!

I am sure I will need a dose of inspiration to get back into creating next week - and I think one of the best places for that is at the Additions Style blog. Valerie always writes posts that pushes my brain into 'what if I did this ....' I highly recommend a visit there if you need a creative push!

Since I haven't created anything brand new this week, I thought I'd show you a piece that I made just before the Scone show earlier this month that found a new home while I was there. It's a lovely mix of freshwater cultured pearls in cranberry, wine-purple, lime and khaki green with a sprinkling of peridot and garnet. Yum!

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 :)

Spring jewels and farming life

Another week has rolled around - gosh they seem to go so fast! A combination of more time spent weeding and pruning in the rose garden, co-ordinating a large buy of gems for a group of fellow jewellery designers and keeping the good ship 'family' afloat has just swallowed up the time.

Oh and did I mention Facebook? I've been quite avidly trying to stay away from potential time-drains such Facebook and Twitter as I really spend more time than I have to spare on forums and checking out things online. But I succumbed to the temptation and joined Facebook this week. I still have very vague notions of how it all works, but I have worked out how to put up a personal page and a business page. I'm surprised at the number of friend requests I have had from people who I don't know! And for only being up and running a couple of days I'm surprised with the number of fans my business page has already attracted. BUT I can see time disappearing with continued use, so I'm trying to be sensible. So far. *ahem*

Two blogs that proved interesting reading this week for me were Silver Rose Blog which had an interesting bit on International Friendship Day. What a lovely idea- but I've never heard of it!!! So much for being 'international' ;). The other is Your Cheeky Monkey - Monique does some great work and I know my girls would adore these Tote Bags made out of rescued furnishing fabric!

Onto farming life, I had a request for a picture of the darling little calves that we have dotting our paddocks at the moment, so I have obliged:



They're actually quite difficult to get close to - a little skittish - so photographing them proved more of a challenge than say, the dog ;)



This is our working dog, Patch :) He's a very tall short-haired border collie, with, would you believe by his size - a pedigree? Maybe he had deerhound as one of his ancestors and he's a throwback?

Spring is only a couple of weeks away now so I've started loading the new spring-inspired stock onto my website. Lots of work ahead, but satisfying :) If I can find the time to do it of course!! The picture above is one piece that went up yesterday - a torsade of plump pink-peach freshwater pearls, sparkling rock crystal quartz and lovely big drops of faceted rose quartz. It would look great with a floaty dress in spring or summer or even as a bridal piece.

OK, best be off. That nose has lifted off the grindstone a tad too high and I'd better get it back in place ;) Till next!

The Patter of Rain on a Tin Roof

As I type this I hear the patter of rain in the background. Rain against a tin roof - there's nothing like it, especially when you really need it! Australia is such a big country - and while the central part of the eastern coast has been literally submerged in wet weather we have remained dry. Living on a farm makes you attuned to the weather and what it can do - and the lack of grass is having an effect, with the need for supplementary feeding. Changing the stock into new paddocks is more to give the cows a change of scenery than more feed! So, I am enjoying the raindrops for as long as they last and wish those affected on the coast could blow some more this way!!

Have you ever looked at where your web visitors come from - I've been watching my blog visitors lately and its amazing the way they find you, the most random searches - albeit for me it is something to do with either gemstones or jewellery. And the locations! There are some places I've never heard of (which I actually find rather embarrassing!). In the last week I've had lots of visitors from the UK, whereas my visitor list is usually dominated by US or Australian locations. I wonder why? Where do most of your visitors come from?

I must thank Anne of The Tall Poppy for a recent award - the Welcoming Blogger Award! She reckons I'm always popping up and welcoming newbies along and I must admit that I do like doing that - after all, you never know who you could meet!



Of course I've been doing the rounds of my arts/crafts online buddies and this week I must draw attention to two outstanding artists.

The first is Carol of The Blue Cat. Carol stumbled on my blog a few months ago, followed me over to Creative Bloggers and has been a stalwart supporter there. I love popping into her blog and seeing her gorgeous artwork - she has an affinity for our feline friends and imbues such personality into them that they are just adorable! She sells on various online marketplaces and they're certainly lucky to have such a talented artist on their books!

The other talented woman is Sayo - a fellow maker of jewellery and I just love her big silver rings with a lovely big fat natural crystal! It really appeals to the gemmologist in me I guess!!! Do check out her blog where you can see her great work - bet you buy a piece ;)

I would also like to urge any ladies downunder to join the marvellous Connect2mums network - I have already made some wonderful friends there and I'm sure I will find a lot more. It is so wonderful to have such a network for those of us down here in Australia as usually our only option for such camaraderie is based overseas. Of course, in true spirit of my above award I'm welcoming everyone aboard!

OK, I had better include a picture of something I've made recently. Ah yes, a torsade. I only make these occasionally as they are very time consuming - getting the colours just right and not just the combination, but the percentages of each colour. The last one I featured here on my blog sold the first time it was seen in real life, so I decided to make another. This one is a little more subdued in the colour, but very delectable! Made with freshwater pearls in sage, bronze-copper and cranberry, rich red garnet and some sparkling smoky quartz.

Till next :)

Only six weeks to Christmas!

Someone mentioned to me that it is only SIX WEEKS till CHRISTMAS! EEEK! Now I feel really disorganised!! I've been concentrating so much on my spring shows that I haven't done anything about Christmas - not even a gift list. I'm really flat out for the next few weeks, so it's just going to have to wait. Hope I can find my thinking cap at the same time I find some time ;)

I had a minor setback in my health recently and all those treats I've been letting myself have have to be kept as 'treats' rather than as everyday food! It has made me realise, again, just how much our bodies are affected by the environment and the foods we eat. I've tried to go as natural as possible in the products I use and was pleased to find that Aussie company Joliv produces completely handmade, natural skincare and home cleaning products.

Now I'm obviously still in a 'green' phase as the picture I have selected today is a lime green and creamy white blister pearl and icy rock crystal quartz torsade. Totally scrumptious for a fresh, cool look. And I'm so organised it's already on my website!

I will be at the Peel Street Handmade Market in Tamworth this Sunday from 8.30am to 1pm, so please come and see me if you're in the area or visiting the market to pick up some wonderful handcrafted goodies for Christmas.

First impressions and more

The cold weather has continued and so last Saturday we had a bonfire. I know these are traditionally held in June, but we weren't that organised then! The kids had a wonderful time dancing around the fire - it was easy to see the primitive side of humans - the mesmerising heat and dancing flames, the joy at watching the flying sparks (and trying to catch them!).

First impressions are important, but not ALL. With the bonfire it was all about heat and light, but there is also danger. Of course, not everything that isn't first apparent is bad - sometimes what is hidden can be the best thing of all!

Take a look at this amazing quilt square posted on fellow Skwiggler Flory's blog. At first glance it is attractive, but then you find out how it was created and it just means so much more. It adds depth and layers that you can't quite 'see'. It was created as a round robin with many friends from all over the world completing a little before passing it on to the next. A little piece of friends and their creativity, as well as a long standing memory of a wonderful project.

I also read this story on The Modern Goddess recently. It certainly made me smile (if somewhat ruefully as I thought "ha!, that'll show him!"). Go on, read it - it's worthwhile!!

Here is a pic of a recent necklace. This is a pearl and gem torsade made with golden yellow and bronze coloured freshwater pearls, garnet and citrine.


I can promise nothing but good surprises with this necklace - it is even more goregeous in real life and feels divine on :)

Till next!

A visit to Qurindi, a pearl and gem torsade and a tagging game!

I'm running a bit late with my blogpost this week...so much to do (as usual) and so little time to do it in (even MORE usual)! One day I'll be organised....HA!

I've had quite a social week this week, even though I couldn't really spare the time. But some things just have to go on the backburner for a little while don't they!? Of course I'm rushing around like a 'headless chook' now (one of my Dad's favourite sayings lol).

I am attending the Christimas in July market in the main street of Quirindi this Sunday 27 July. Not having been to Quirindi (apart from driving through it once or twice) it will be a whole new experience, with lots of new people to meet and show my jewellery to. It will be an INCREDIBLY early start as the market opens at 8am - and I am two hours drive away! But it finishes at 3pm so I will be home at a decent hour at least. Of course I always feel the compulsion to make new things for a show, so I have been busy at the bench for the last couple of weeks in readiness. Naturally, being a new 'crowd' everything I have will be new to them, but I like the 'fresh' feeling of having new things even if I am the only one who knows!

Today's picture is one of the new necklace - isn't it absolutely GORGEOUS? (Detail pic up the top)! I'm always deeply enamoured of my new pieces - only slightly biaised, promise ;). A beautiful torsade of three strands of deep lime & bronze-green freshwater pearls, deep mint green keshi pearls, faceted smoky quartz rounds and labradorite wheels and little nuggets of peridot. Scrumptious!!



On other notes, I must thank all those people who commented on my bridal necklace shown recently - such wonderful comments and obviously lots of people like bridal! I admit I do too, even though my wedding was almost 20 years ago (!) and so I thought I would share Michabella Creations bridal earrings page - she has some lovely designs that would look very chic and elegant.

I have mentioned the wonderful Mom Bloggers Club before. Well, through this site I met Celeste, who has 'tagged' me. I am supposed to list six of my quirks and then tag six other people. Well here we go on the quirks.

1. Although my mind is organised my studio rarely is!
2. I have to have a deadline or things won't get done.
3. I love to make lists.
4. I love to cross things off lists, even if it means I have to add on things that WEREN'T on it(but I've done anyway) so that I can cross them off *snicker*
5. I still haven't mastered the URGENT vs. the IMPORTANT (i.e.from the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that I read well over a decade ago).
6. I stay in my PJs far too late in the morning in the effort to get something done first!

Here are the rules:

1. link the person(s) who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

OK, guys, consider yourselves TAGGED:

1. Jennifer - Happily Ever After Land
2. Cindi - Moomettesmagnificents
3. Regina - Margarita Bloom
4. Sarah - In the Trenches of Motherhood
5. Angie - Seven Clown Circus
6. Rebecca - Musings of a Mum of 4

Till next!