Talking Jewellery at the Womens' Institute (WI)

I was delighted to be invited as the Guest Speaker at a WI (Womens' Institute) meeting last Thursday. Earlier this year I received a lovely email from the group's events organiser who asked me if I would speak about my jewellery making. I was very pleased to accept the invitation.

I spoke for 40 minutes and as well as describing my jewellery journey over the last 14 years I also showed lots of my silversmithing and beaded jewellery. Here are just a few of the many pieces I shared.
From my first ring (very basic)

through my "middle years" playing with enamelling

onto chain making and delft clay casting.

Up until present day where I combined my card making and silver smithing to make a silver hinged card pendant. 

I talked about the lampwork beads I use as well as all the semi precious stones I use. 

 And the fun bag charms I make.

I also spoke about my jewellery parties and took some of my stock to sell.
I took a few photos to share of afternoon. It was great fun.

I was so busy after my talk that I didn't get a chance to take a photo of the table I had set up to sell my beaded jewellery. You can just see a peep of the corner of it in the photo below.

It was a most enjoyable afternoon.

As it is Father's Day today my challenge card is a one I made for selling at Dotty's Teahouse but there is a very funny story behind it.

My son arrived at lunchtime laden with gorgeous pressies for my Hb and a Father's day card......
...............................bless him, he had been down to Dotty's Teahouse and bought one of my cards for sale there. How about that for family support eh! My Hb did a double take when he opened it as he thought that the Mo Manning image looked a little familiar..LOLOL!
Here it is on the kitchen side

and as well as the gin, chocolate featured too :0)

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges; I coloured my image with Promarkers.

Pixie's Snippets playground #234 I have use a snippet of card for the sentiment and for cutting my die cuts.
Try it on Tuesday all about him
Die cuttin Divas Father's day
Double D challenges all about the boys
As you like it  1/3 favourite die and why I have lots but I love this Spellbinders die as it is just so versatile and I love using it as layer and mats.
Crafty Calender 2/3 Father's day/male
Ribbon Girl 1/3 any image

Happy Father's day to all those lovely Dads out there including my own. We had a lovely dry day in S'Ton yesterday and managed our coastal walk which finished off with afternoon tea and cake..what else? Enjoy the end of the weekend

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Adventures with Peppa Pig

I'm back today with the promised photos from my Daisy day out with my daughter last week. We went to Peppa Pig World which is within Paultons Park in Southampton.

 If you don't have young children or grandchildren in the UK you may not have heard of the PP phenomenon. It's a great TV programme with books etc and a very sweet underlying moral tone. Peppa Pig is the big sister pig who is rather bossy with her sweet little Bro George. George has a soft toy dinosaur who goes everywhere with him and "dinosaur" is the only word he can say. It's such an endearing series and I must have watched every episode ever made with Daisy. Have a look at some of the episodes on You Tube, they are so sweet. She adores these characters and yes of course she even has a PP tea shirt.
Here she is...

We were very lucky with the weather as it was a completely dry day there.

We had fun on Daddy Pig's car ride...Daisy drove or should I say....

Driving Miss Daisy...I couldn't resist that one!

 We hooted on George's Dinosaur ride..

 you bobble around on a green dinosaur, we got the giggles on this one.

 We met Peppa and George.

Daisy took the wheel for our boat trip.

 We went up in the sky on the balloon ride.

As it was so warm Daisy was even able to go into the little splash park, or in the words of Peppa Pig...jump in muddy puddles.

Of course ice cream featured

My 2 precious sunny girlies xx

The day flew by and soon it was time for us to go home.  Nanna treated Daisy to a new book, Peppa Pig goes swimming. It was a such great day out and I had also fun playing with my camera photo effects again.

My card today just had to be bright and feature a camera.

Here is it.

 All the stamps are by the brilliant Visible Image....I have embossed them all. The butterfly has been coloured with distress inks.

I would like to enter it into the following fun challenges.

Ribbon Girl any card
Creative Inspirations 3/3 spring into summer
Noor summer
Stamping Sensations 2/3 feature a creature
WOW embossing powder June everything on my card has been heat embossed.
Cute card Thursdays 1/3 bugs/butterflies
Crafting for all seasons make it girlie


Thanks for visiting today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. Another Friday has rolled in and we are off to S'Ton in the morning to catch up with Daisy and Co. I'm hoping we might have seen the last of the torrential rain showers we have been experiencing over the past week. My lawn is growing at an alarming rate and I need a dry day on Sunday too to cut it. Enjoy the weekend.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

On show

I only have 2 more silversmithing classes left for this year. There is an annual exhibition, which is held in the library, to show work by the students for all the crafts taught at our college.

It has been up for nearly 2 weeks and finishes in a few days time so I went to have a look yesterday.
We are allowed to exhibit any piece of work so I chose a pendant I made which is one of my favourites.

These are pretty grim photos as I didn't have my camera with me but by next week it will be over so I took a couple of snaps to share with you on my phone.

It's lovely to see everything set up

 My work is number 35...the pendant set with a beautiful dendrite agate stone.

and to show you closely here is a photo below from my file on my computer. It was very fiddly to make the setting but worth the effort.

I always think of this as a little winter's snow scene ;0)

My card today is certainly not a wintry snow scene but something very appropriate for this Sunday, which is Father's day. It's one I made for Dotty's Teahouse and it went down very well.
I used a Mo Manning digi which I coloured with Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencil.
The stamped sentiment is by LOTV.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;


DP2 anything goes #264
ABC J for just how you like it
Try it on Tuesday all about him
Die cuttin Divas Father's day
Crafty Boots masculine cards
Double D challenges all about the boys

Thanks as always for your kind visits and sweet comments you take the time to leave. I am still sorting out my fun Peppa Pig visit photos and hope to be back to share them on Friday...such a fun day out.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x