France

France is lovely, and it smells of home. London, not so much.

I'm not dead, I still don't have a working internet connection back in the UK, and this horrible thing called work is taking up a lot of time.

I'm nearly caught up on my jewellery orders (business picks up in the run-up to Christmas, which is nice), and I'm still way behind on my story. I've done 15,000 words, and I need to ideally be up to 25k by the end of the weekend. That's unlikely to happen, but it's not impossible. If I can get up t0 20k, that will be pretty much good enough. That's certainly possible.

Flight was fine - pilot from Easyjet actually understands customer service. Was shocked, but pleased - may write to them and tell them how good he was. Ground staff were utterly fucking appalling - am definitely planning to write to complain about them. Complete and total lack of understanding of basic customer service, or even health and safety principles - shutting a plane load of people in a tiny waiting room, with the heating on full blast, closing all the doors and windows, and then not giving us any information about what's happening and why we're delayed by 40 minutes is utterly unacceptable.

The apology from the pilot - which was polite, informative, specific and sounded fairly sincere - went a long way to making up for the shockingly bad attitude of the gate staff, but since it's a contracted out service, I rather think I might write to Easyjet, urge them not to renew the contract with a company that's so obviously lacking in basic training for its staff.

Incompetence annoys me.

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Wedding jewellery: bracelet

I got around to finishing the bracelet for my wedding a few days ago - it's a small sterling silver Byzantine chainmaille bracelet with 4mm lapis lazuli beads and tiny 3mm ivory freshwater pearls.

Now all that's left is the earrings!

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Wedding jewellery

I've finally started thinking about what wedding jewellery I want. So far, I've got as far as the necklace - it's just a simple labradorite pendant, wrapped in sterling silver and strung on a sterling chain. Since I finished it this morning and have some photos, I thought I'd share it with you all.

I'm going to make earrings and a bracelet, too; I'm thinking blue and silver, maybe pearls too. This is by far the most fun bit of wedding planning!

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Paris Day 2 - Chartres

OK, so not really Paris at all. But it wasn't far. And our guidebook described Chartres cathedral as "the crowning architectural glory of Western civilisation". And who could miss that?

In case anyone reading this is similarly inclined, the trains go from Montparnasse station and cost 14 euros per person each way. Chartres is a pretty enough little town, though there doesn't seem a huge amount to it other than the cathedral. (Which is nice.) Many hundreds of photos will follow when my camera issue is resolved - the carving everywhere is exquisite. If you're very lucky, I'll even look up the historical blurb for you, rather than making you google it. Aren't I kind?

If you're going to Chartres, though, don't leave it too late for lunch. Eat before 12:30. (My boyfriend has just pointed out that our experience may not be universal, and I shouldn't generalise like this. He has a point - take this as a disclaimer of sorts for the entire blog and all entries past and future.) I say this because we didn't try finding lunch until about 13:00, and the restaurant we chose, in the middle of the tourist district, ran out of eggs, so I couldn't have an omelette. Not daunted, I ordered the plat du jour, only to find they'd run out of that too. I settled for a Greek salad, which was nice enough. But I wanted an omelette. So, you should learn from this and eat early.

The station platform numbering system in Chartres is also interesting. By which I mean functionally innumerate. Platforms go: 1B, 2, 2, 2B, 6, 8, 12. No indication as to what happened to numbers in between. Like 5. Poor 5. Cut off in the prime of his life.

I'm being very antisocial. So I shall leave you now. Tomorrow, you may get a bumper weekend edition of the blog, letting you know all about the canal St Martin, La Vilette, free concerts and the Louvre. Or not, depending on my mood at the time.

Oh, while I remember, my sale has been extended into August. So if you're looking for unique jewellery, go look at my Etsy shop - prices are 40% off until the end of August.

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Business cards

I've got some new business card designs... Do you like them? Think I should change them for something else?

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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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I have a new website!

(Sort of cross-posted from the jewellery blog)

Some of you may have noticed that my website has changed. It's now no longer the flash site it used to be, and so should be much faster to load, as well as being more easily found by search engines and more easily updated. The aim is to eventually host my own (multilingual!) sales platform, in addition to Etsy, DaWanda and ALM, and this is one small step towards being in a position to do that.

I'd be interested to know what you think of the new site - bear with me while I sort out the ugly URL it redirects to. My hosting company seem to have some issues... (If anyone knows how I can get the URL to redirect properly, masking the ugly URL, I will give you a gold star. When I find out where in France sells gold stars.)

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More shiny things: new pendant

OK, so I know I'm being lazy by cross posting, and that the reason I set up a jewellery blog was so that I didn't have to bore you all with pictures of my new shiny things. But I've got nothing much to talk about except boring and depressing things, so you can have a post about shiny things instead. Hopefully I'll have some clarity soon on what's happening with my likely move back to the UK and then I will have something to talk about...

Anyway, so, this pendant has been quite a long time in the making. Every now and then, I get out this abalone square and wonder what to do with it. Then, inspiration struck.

Sticking with a sea theme, I've paired it with red and white freshwater pearls and argentium sterling silver. It measures 6cm by 6cm and the circle of pearls is approx 2.5cm.

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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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The barter system is alive and well on the internet....

(Cross-posted from my jewellery blog.)

Nicole from Ultimate Organic Soaps contacted me recently to ask if I would be interested in a trade, swapping some of her handmade French milled organic soap for my jewellery. I was, since I've long been interested in handmade soap - and today my package arrived from Norway.

It smells just wonderful, and my new soaps are:

Winter Spice soap:

Poppy Seed and Orange Zest soap:

Nutmeg and Sandalwood soap:

Honey and Oatmeal soap:

Nicole very kindly included a couple of bars she hasn't yet listed in her Etsy shop, with strict instructions to leave them alone for a couple of weeks. So I also have Lemon Lime and Coconut soap:

And Green Tea and Mint soap:

I can't share photos of the inside of these just yet, though, since they're still finishing setting.

Thank you so much Nicole - I hope you're as happy with your side of the swap! I'm thrilled!

If you make things that you'd be interested in trading for my jewellery, please do get in touch. I'm not always going to say yes - and sometimes I just need the money, regardless of how much I love your products - but I'll always consider offers!

Nicole's Etsy shop is at Ultimate Organic Soap on Etsy and she also has a blog.

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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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New shiny things

Some earrings I made today:

Kyanite briolettes, sterling silver byzantine chainmaille (the rings are tiny - 2.4mm!)and handmade hammered sterling silver earwires. I like them.

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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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Quinoa, running and jewellery

Excellent stuff, quinoa. I recommend it. Today I had a sort of quinoa tabouleh - except I don't know how to make tabouleh and I don't have any mint. So really, it was just tomato, cucumber, red and green peppers and quinoa, with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

But it was nice, so you should go and eat it. It even made tomato nearly edible.

Running yesterday was a triumph - 25 minutes all in one go, and I didn't die or cheat and have to walk - starting when you've walked up the hills and steps to the flat bit is the way to go, here, rather than running up them which is what kills me normally.

As far as jewellery goes, I've made a bookmark, and I've written a tutorial on how to make a helmsweave bracelet. But not done huge amounts else.

Bookmark:

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Jewellery blog!

I have a new and shiny jewellery blog. I may, or may not, do anything with it from now on, but I quite like the idea of having a blog where I can talk about jewellery stuff to my heart's content and not worry that I'm boring the two or 3 of you who read this, presumably to hear more about France rather than shiny things.

If you *do* like to hear about the shiny things, consider going to my new Shiny Things Blog and becoming a Follower. I don't have any followers there and one can never have enough, I feel. (But only if you like the Shiny Things and want to hear more, in great detail, about them - if you want to hear about France, stay here and have a croissant instead. I'm going to.) Content is sparse at the moment, but it's early days; I only made it this morning...

I will still show pretty pictures from time to time (ok, fairly often) of shiny things here, so you won't all miss out entirely on shiny. But that other blog is one I can send random strangers to without boring them with the minutiae of my day-to-day life. Unlike you lot, you happy few, you band of brothers (and sisters, naturally), who have volunteered to be bored by the minutiae of my day to day life.

Bref, new Shiny Things blog: http://handcraftedartisanjewellery.blogspot.com/

This blog will continue as normal, in any event.

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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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Week 5, Day 2 and other bits and pieces

Today was Day 2 of Week 5 - Day 1 was simple enough, 3 5-minute runs, with some walking interspersed. It went quite well (principally because the running bits managed not to coincide with the hill bits of the path) so I was feeling quite optimistic about today. And then I discovered they changed the podcast. Day 2 is not the same as Day 1, and has 2 8-minute runs with some walking.

Those of you who point out that's only an extra minute of running will be first against the wall, come the Revolution. Because 8 minutes at a time is not the same as 5 minutes at a time. Even if I did manage to change my route to minimise the uphill bits (not quite enough to get rid of them all, but at least they happened at the beginning of the runs, rather than the ends). However, I did it and didn't die. Kind of dreading Day 3, now, though, in case they've changed it again...

Slowly uploading my jewellery into my DaWanda shop (which sells in Euros) - and even more slowly, putting some of the listings into French. Something I've been meaning to do for ages, but which is proving to be just as slow and painful as I expected it to be... Still, once it's done, I can finally create my French jewellery shop on ALittleMarket - maybe it will mean more people buy things. It will at least give me something constructive to do when I can't sleep at night...

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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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