Dichoric Glass Cabochons

Look what I've just taken out of the kiln......some lovely dichoric glass cabochons!! These are lots of fun to make. I'm going to practice with the technique - maybe order in some new types of glass to play with and hopefully build this into a workshop for next year. Tomorrow I'm off to Birmingham to teach 3 days of PMC....that's the reason for making the cabochons actually. As one of the projects Im going to be doing a pendant project with them as they can be fired with PMC. Have a full day today of PMC to - Intro to PMC at the shop......I'm going to be all PMCed out by Wednesday night!!!!!!!!

Witney Day Centre

Today I've been teaching over at Witney Hospital for the Day Care Centre. This is my second visit. I love going over to see them all - they're all such a lovely enthusiastic group and I get to teach some men!!!!! We had an hours session together and made a bracelet and earrings set. I think these types of workshops work well in within a day care environment because it means everybody acheives something and has been given the opportunity to be creative.....you could see they all enjoyed it!!!

This is what everybody made



Here's the group

I've spent the rest of the day organising.....try to get a better system in place. With the small scale products we deal with it can be really difficult...we're getting there!!!!

Its been a long time.....

Hello!!!! Yes I'm still here. Apologise for not blogging in earlier - I need to keep on top of this! I've been involved in soooo many lovely things I've been dying to get it all online - so here it is.

Back in June I started to attend The Oxford Castle Market on a Friday. I really loved attending, met some great people and experienced being part of a nice event. Unfortunately I've now stopped, for various reason but mainly because I found it a big commitment what with everything going on at the my shop. Here's an image of my little stall....I was very happy with how it was all set out and it gave me lots of opportunity to make jewellery and promote my workshops.

As always we've been running lots of workshops with some great pieces being made. Back in June we ran a Make your own Tiara workshop - Kirsty made this beautiful piece for Ascot. She used a combination of Delica beads, Swarovski crystal and 0.4mm silver-plated wire to create her tiara.

Our Introduction to Beads & Wire workshop is one of the most popular we do and most people that come along to it are complete beginners so this is their first jewellery making experience. The jewellery made is always full of fresh ideas and new combinations of colour. These pieces are very much influence by the summer season (Does anyone know where its gone?).

Memory Wire Bracelet with Czech Glass Beads

Silver Plated Chain and Wire with Glass Beads

With the summer holidays upon us we have started to take lots of children workshop bookings. Last week we did a workshop for Storm and her friends. They all made a cluster ring using a wire ring base, glass beads and headpins and a bag charm using a bag clip, glass beads and headpins. The technique I taught the group was simply making loops above the beads after making over 20 loops they all went away knowing how to do it!!!

We had a briliant Enamelling workshop this month. Everybody on the session really thought about what jewellery they were going to make their pieces into and had some fantastic results. We explored the use of decals, stencils, wire, stringers, Millefiori chips and more....

Butterfly made using a stenciling technique and Millefiori

Our most recent workshop has been Recycle Silver. I must say one of my more high maintenance workshops but I do love it. The results are always amazing. This time we looked a little more at pushing objects into the cuttlefish to cast them. You can see here Debbie used a shell that I picked up years ago in Florida to cast. The results aren't perfect but they give you a really nice quality.

At the beginning of July we went to see Take That!!!! It was amazing. I've never seen such a spectacular show. There was so much to see I couldn't take it all in and am eagerly awaiting the DVD to be released. They had an elephant which they all came in on...Tricycles, clowns, acrobats, lots of balloons, unbrellas, gymnasts, fire, ringmasters and so much more. Here's a couple of pictures.....

This image it a picture of a floor at High Road house in Chiswick....isn't it great. We went there when we stayed up at Kay's for Stuart's B'day. We had a lovely breakfast then did some shopping and in the evening went to see Oasis at Wembley - again a great show but nowhere near as fab as Take That!!

Harry's doing well apart from a case of Kennel Cough. It s not very nice for him but he's getting over it with the help of some antibiotics. Fortunately its not passed to humans at all so he can still come to work with me and socialise with all his friend at the shop.

This coming week I'm getting ready to teach at The Birmingham School of Jewellery. I'll be teaching an Introduction to Precious Metal Clay for 3 days on Aug 3rd, 4th & 5th. I'm really looking forward to it and excited to work for a new establishment. I'm also going to be working at The PMC Symposium on Aug 9th for The PMC Studio. We've got a table in the market place where we will be selling a variety of tools and equipment and introducing people to our workshop programme. If your attending I'll see you there!!