The resurrection of our bathroom

We've had the builder round this week - finally, an end to the prohibition on showers is in sight!

I've got a series of photos to add to this post at some point when I get them uploaded, but until then, I just wanted to reassure you all that I'm not dead, though I'm deeply annoyed about being stuck inside during the last few days of summer, making sure that some builder doesn't nick my stuff.

Still, tomorrow is supposed to be nice, and so I shall spend the morning on the beach, ignoring the increasingly urgent packing that needs doing. If I forget something, Paul can always bring it over next week, right? As long as I have my passport, my bank card and my toothbrush, I'm set! Easy!

I woke up to a couple of sales this morning, too, which was exciting. I sent the two pairs of earrings below off to their new home this morning - I hope their new owner likes them!

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Jewellery sale

I'm holding a sale on my jewellery - it's summer, the sun is shining, and I need to clear out some old stock. So, all of my jewellery in my Etsy, DaWanda and ALM shops is discounted by 40% until the end of July.

My Etsy shop has the biggest range of products, so go and see if there's anything you or your loved ones want/need/deserve. Go, now!

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New earrings

Today's been more productive than I expected! Putting off editing the monstrosity I've just finished writing has inspired me to make new shiny things; it's almost a win-win situation, except that the editing doesn't get done...

The first of today's new things is this pair of earrings. Made from dichroic glass and square copper wire, they measure 4cm from the top of the handmade ear wire and 1.5cm across.

Also, and I know I have your heartfelt sympathy, I'm sunburnt. Sitting on the balcony working all afternoon apparently has a downside - who knew?

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Pendants and Earrings - a productive day in the sun!

(Cross posted to my jewellery, but I felt like sharing here, too... Why yes, I am putting off going running. However could you tell?)

Yesterday was a productive day! I made some new pieces and took some new photos of older pieces - a vast improvement!

Sterling silver and amber earrings:

Sterling silver and rose quartz earrings:

Sterling silver and hammered copper earrings:

Sterling silver, hammered copper and white Akoya pearl pendant:

Sterling silver and labradorite pendant:

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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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Being responsible instead of beach

I didn't get to the beach, because I had to go shopping instead. Oh, the humanity. I can tell you're all just outraged on my behalf. Anyway, we now have food - dinner for tonight will be salad nicoise - and I made a new pair of earrings:

Also, I saw this ad for the first time. It amuses me possibly even more than J'adore! La montagne!.

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Some shiny things

Just because.

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New earrings

Shiny things first, a pair of garnet and hammered sterling silver wire earrings. I've found out my display rock also doubles as an anvil, isn't that nice?

Now I'm off to go and see the hotel about extending my nearly-sister-in-law's room booking and to the restaurant to try and pick up a copy of the menu, to see if what *we* think we're getting and what *they* think they're providing match...

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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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Earrings and sunshine

It was a good idea going back to bed - there was a huge thunderstorm with lightening and rattling windows and all. (We do get good storms here, they echo round the bay.) And then, the sun came out, and you could pretend it was a completely different day, one that was actually nice.

I bought this tutorial from the lovely JewlieBeads - who makes fabulous jewellery, do look at the rest of her stuff - and spent the afternoon making a version of them. Not, perhaps, as good as Julie's, but I like them nonetheless! So much so, actually, that I might make a wholly sterling version to wear at the wedding. They look like very wedding earrings to me!

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TAD - Day 26: Carnelian and argentium earrings

Continuing somewhat of a theme, as the more observant amongst you will notice. I love the colour of these beads though - so summery! The weather's improved dramatically here, so I've been spending time on the beach, pretending to write more of my story - I've got about 2500 words done in the last couple of days, so it's not all been time wasted!

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from thing-a-day 2010

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TAD - Day 21: argentium sterling silver and sardonyx earrings

Shameless copying of Friday's earrings, but in silver this time. My argentium wire finally turned up, so I thought I'd make use of it! Sadly lacking in ideas after this weekend, which turned out longer than I was expecting - they overbooked our flight back home yesterday evening, and since we weren't bothered about an extra night in the UK, we volunteered to move to a flight this morning; the girls who were otherwise not going to be able to fly were crying and looked like they needed to get to France much more than we did!

It was actually a fairly good night - there were four of us volunteers, the airline put us up in a hotel and gave us some money for dinner, and supposedly are giving us £100 each compensation for being nice, which is useful - I'll believe it when I see it...

Anyway, earrings:

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Posted via email from thing-a-day 2010

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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.

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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 16: Silver and blue dragonscale earrings

Yesterday's Thing is something I can't photograph well, but it's a stand for hanging earrings on to photograph. I'm not sure it works, so I haven't used it in the photos of today's Thing, a pair of silver and blue aluminium chainmaille earrings in the dragonscale weave. I'm going to make a matching bracelet at some point, I think the mix of colours looks good.

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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... ;-)

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Posted via email from Nicole - Thing a Day 2010

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TAD - Day 11: Two pairs of earrings

Edit: Including the photos helps...

The first one didn't work well - the stones were different sizes and I didn't notice. So I made another pair I like better. You get to see both, since they were both today's Thing at one point...

Thing 11 A is a pair of larvikite stones which didn't photograph particularly well, wrapped in silver plated wire.

Thing 11 B is a pair of spiral wire-wrapped earrings using silver plated wire.

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Posted via email from Nicole - Thing a Day 2010

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TAD - Day 9: silver and rose quartz earrings

These earrings use faceted rose quartz beads, silver plated wire and some silver-coloured findings I was given as a freebie by one of my Etsy suppliers. They're long, but I do like these shape earwires!

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Posted via email from Nicole - Thing a Day 2010

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TAD - Day 7: silver and pewter earrings

Todays Thing is the below pair of earrings. They use silver plated wire, surgical steel ear wires and pewter discs. They complement a necklace I'm slowly making using the same discs - I'll show pics when done (if it ever gets done!).

There's also a better picture of the bracelet from yesterday.

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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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