It's been a busy month

What have I been up to?

Well, I've been brave and had a haircut. (Those of you who know me will maybe begin to appreciate how traumatic I find haircuts. Adding in the complexity of a foreign language actually makes it easier, because it's expected that I won't know the relevant vocab. Not knowing the vocab in your native language does tend to make you look like a bit of an idiot...)

I've started remaking my jewellery website, and been learning more about responsive web design, as part of my new web design venture. (Did I ever tell you about that? It's here.)

I've continued dealing with the unemployment centre - a post on how the whole unemployment system works here is bubbling away in my brain, since it's (I gather) quite different to the UK one, and I couldn't find any information on the process when I started dealing with them.

I've made a thing: a green variscite and copper pendant

I've seen lots of sunrises.

I've been to the Monaco Yacht Show, and watched the Red Arrows flying over the port. (As an aside, unless you own a yacht I think you would not believe the peripheral industries that spring up around yachts. I was certainly surprised - I guess defining a niche market is good, but I'm not sure I'd ever have imaged that the number of customers looking for a handmade mattress to go in their yacht is big enough to support a whole business. How wrong I would have been... I also liked the handmade furniture - the inlays on the dining room tables, with sterling silver finishes, were particularly stunning.)

Prior to the yacht show, Monaco also hosts a series of events with classic boats, like this one:

I watched a couple of those sailing around, and realised I love them. Maybe I was a sailor in a past life, or something. I certainly couldn't be one in this life, climbing rigging is probably not for me!

I watched the moon over the sea for a while one night. The photos didn't come out well, but this is a nice picture of the moon.

I've watched several firework shows. Last night's was nice - over at Fontvieille, rather than the big port, but still lovely. (You can see quite a lot of the skyline from our flat.)

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Playing with paypal

Ignore this post.

I'm thinking there should be a way to make it so people can buy things from me, without having to go to Etsy or Dawanda and set up an account. Ideally, I'd put something on my website, but there are some technical limitations there. So I'll play here first and see if I can make it work.

Say I had these earrings for sale:

That button should, in theory, if you click it, take you to paypal, where you can easily give me 10 euros and should, further, allow you to tell me where to send it. I shall click it and see...

ETA: It works! Magic!

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I haven't forgotten you all...

It was pointed out to me that I hadn't written here in a while. I'm sure you all missed me deeply... I'm not quite sure what I've been doing instead, but I hadn't forgotten you all. I just didn't have much to write about, obviously.

Wedding invitations are mostly sent out - at least all the ones I've written so far. Still a couple to do. Restaurant is pretty much sorted, though we need to go and get something in writing from them to look over and check we agree with it. (We ate there on Friday. They do good food.)

The weather's been lovely today - I might have some photos if I can get them off my camera. But I bet you're all bored of photos of sunshine on the beach - tough. The only downside is that the beach is overrun with tourists. Horribly shouty tourists.

Running: I've decided to do Week 4 twice, since it's knackering. Today was Day 2, Part 2, and I finally managed to do all the running bits without having to stop. I'll do another day of Week 4, then move on. Kind of dreading what Week 5 might bring. My technique to actually doing it is not to find out in advance what kind of intervals they put in, so that by the time I do find out, it's too late and I'm already out there and have no choice but to carry on... Working ok so far!

Jewellery. Easter being just gone, I've made some topical cross-shaped jewellery - pendants and earrings.

There's a larger steel cross pendant in the same pattern, but I've not got any photos I like of that yet.

And I've also made another fan pendant - the tutorial set this up to be a pair of earrings, but I modified it a bit, made it a bit bigger, and turned it into a pendant instead. I quite like it, though the wire could be neater.

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Crochet

At the risk of turning into my grandmother, I took up crochet a while ago. Some of you may remember me mentioning it. I've got lots of bits of crochet around the flat now, but I finally turned one of them into something useful: behold, my lovely little bag. It fits my wallet, my passport and my iPod in it - what more do I need?

Right way round:

Inside out:

You will no doubt be awed by the button and the quality of the inside stitching. I actually think the inside stitching is fairly good, given that I had to make my own needle. And my own button, since we don't seem to have any spares.

You can tell I work in metal, not fabric, can't you?

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Running, part 2

I have continued running! I have run again, and am still not dead!

My story is still not any further. I've done the washing up and made this pendant instead:

But I ought to be doing writing. Or food shopping. *Shudders at the thought of walking to the supermarket*

What shall we have for dinner, loyal readers? If you answer early enough, I might actually take you up on your suggestions...

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Pendants

Today's been grey and bleh, so I've been ignoring it in the hopes that it will improve.

So far, not a lot of luck.

I've made two pendants this morning, while pretending today's not happening, though - so it's not been a total waste!

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Productivity continued

I amaze even myself, sometimes...

Instead of going back to bed, I had breakfast on the balcony, and then finished the below pendant.

Then we walked to Nice, via the coastal path - incredibly pretty, but best not attempted in flipflops. Learn from my mistakes, people of the internet. We finished our walk at Kookaburra in Nice, which is a fantastic Australian pub, and Nick, the guy who runs it, is brilliant. We go there when we've got spare money, the food is fabulous - today we had kangaroo pie. The chef deserves a medal, because it rocked.

Kangaroo pie:

Photos from the coastal path:

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A better day

Today has been productive! So far, I've made breakfast, done two loads of laundry, been to the pharmacy, half made dinner, hoovered, and taken lots of photos of jewellery.

New photos of old work:

New work:

All the new kambaba pendants are up for grabs, so if you want one, let me know... First come, first served.

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Fepabo

Today has been a day of crap weather. I know it's winter for the rest of you, but I've spent this week sitting in strappy tops on the beach. I'm unimpressed.

I got drenched today, since it started raining as I left the house and got worse. And the SNCF are on strike. Again. This time, they're on strike because a driver failed an exam and was asked to resit it before being allowed to drive again, to ensure passenger safety. This - to me, reasonable - request was met by the SNCF going on strike for 3 days so far. Who knows how long it will last?

And, once I'd finally climbed the hill in the rain to the bus stop, 3 buses went past without picking up any passengers. By the time one finally stopped, I was soaked - it took me an hour and a change of clothes to finally warm up again once I got home. Rubbish weather.

And the high winds mean we've had to fasten all the shutters closed so they don't bang incessantly, so the house is dark. That's my excuse for not doing much today, it's been too dark to take photos of it. I did make and list a new pendant, though; I quite like it, I may make more.



What do you reckon?

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TAD - Day 19 and Day 20: more earrings

I'm unlikely to be able to make anything for tomorrow - it's Dentist Day again - so I've made two Things today, to sort of make up for it.

Two pairs of copper earrings, one with square larvikite beads (and tiny little onyx rounds) and one with sardonyx beads.

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from thing-a-day 2010

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TAD - Day 17: Copper and amazonite earrings

Another bit of a lazy Thing today, since I'm trying to get this dragonscale bracelet finished, though I did get a whole load of ear wires done, too, like the one in these earrings. Anyway, today's Thing: a pair of amazonite and copper wire-wrap earrings.

Posted via email from Nicole - Thing a Day 2010

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TAD - Day 14: copper and sodalite earrings. And a Valentine's Day card.

Yesterday and Friday I failed to make anything. To make up for it, I've made two Things already today! They are another pair of copper and sodalite earrings and, because I'm just that good at pre-planning and things, a Valentine's Day card for my poor, long-suffering boyfriend. He liked it, I think, so my total lack of both organisational and artistic ability doesn't seem to be an issue... ;-)

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Nicole - Thing a Day 2010

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TAD - Day 4: Copper and sodalite earrings

You'll see a lot of earrings over the next month, I suspect, given the half an hour guidelines TAD have suggested for each piece. Some days I'll go over that, I'm sure, but not today!

Today's Thing is a pair of copper and sodalite wire-wrapped earrings, on handmade ear wires.

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TAD - Day 3: wire-wrapped pendant

Today's Thing is this pendant, made from a green moss agate bead I've had lying around for a while and copper square wire. It's quite long (7cm) but would look great strung on a black leather cord. Remind me to buy one of those at some point.

Posted via email from Nicole - Thing a Day 2010

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Thing-A-Day 2010 - the beginning

February has started. Unfortunately, February has started with me being sicker than a very sick thing, so the Things I make may not be up to my usually impeccable (!) standards.

Today's thing is an unfortunately badly wrapped pair of earrings - it's serving as a prototype for pieces I may work up for sale later. I've also run out of wire, which is why I didn't redo them properly - it's not (just) because I'm lazy. Or ill.

Also attached is a photograph, taken from my balcony today. In the hopes that it may distract you from the bad workmanship in the earrings. Also, photos count as a creative Thing, in my book, so I'm submitting two amateur Things, in the hopes that it makes up one good Thing.

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from thing-a-day 2010

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Raindrops Keep Falling...

Testing out a new way of posting to my blog (cross posting to Posterous, where Thing-A-Day.com seems to have migrated this year).

You should see, below, if everything works, pictures of the new earrings I made this morning. The rain woke me up this morning, hence the name. I even made the earwires, I'm quite proud of them for a first attempt. The earrings are long and dangly, and will be added to my Etsy store later today.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Nicole - Thing a Day 2010

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