One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.

Don’t clean it up too quickly. Andy Rooney

I saw this quote and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy.  There really is something truly special about sitting amongst a pile of wrapping paper and tangles of curling ribbon, drawing straws as who should leave to the put the coffee on and contemplating that one of you really should hit the shower some time soon and what time does the turkey need to go in?  I think perhaps it’s my very favourite part of Christmas; being in my own home, in my nightdress, with my family beside me.

A very close friend of ours passed away a few years ago, having been bravely battling cancer for many years.  She went away somewhere fancy one Christmas and when I asked if she’d enjoyed it she said “don’t ever go away for Christmas, all it did was make me realise that the very best thing about Christmas – and what makes it Christmas – is being at home”.

Christmas gifts for my customers:

To thank my wonderful customers for their very valued support during 2016, I will be giving away a pair of entirely hand crafted shimmery leaf earrings with bronze earwires on all orders over £18.

I have individually sculpted the leaves from air dry clay, then sealed with several layers of varnish, with a little metallic shimmer. (This renders them splash proof, but I wouldn’t recommend showering or swimming in them).

They’re hanging from hand crafted scrolled bronze earwires and are incredibly light and comfortable to wear. They drop around 35mm (1.4″) and are around 15mm (0.6″) wide. Each leaf has been individually shaped and they’re put together in co-ordinated pairs.

They’re all gift wrapped in tiny Christmas pillow boxes ready for giving – or for keeping as a treat for yourself. Earrings will be sent whilst stocks last or until the last Christmas postings.

New Facebook page:

I decided recently that, as many technical discussion resources that I previously enjoyed had moved to using the Facebook platform, maybe it was finally time for me to give in and sign up too – having resisted for many years.  So I now have a Facebook page in my arsenal, so you’re welcome to visit me there too.

It does actually have a nice easy interface to make quick posts and add photos etc., so I think I may well use it as a supplement to longer articles posted here on the blog.  My page is linked to from the top of both the blog pages and my on-line shop.

Recent work:

I’ve been thinking lately about adding more colour to pieces. I’ve always fancied enamelling, but other than heat sources, I have no other equipment, so would need to start from scratch. And if I don’t like it, or am not very good at it, that’s wasted expenditure.

I saw an article recently on UV resin, which sounded very promising. As a trained illustrator, I already have a good assortment of pigments that sounded like they’d be suitable (just a little trial and error would be necessary, to select the best to use) and I already have a UV light source that I use for photopolymer plates, so outlay would be minimal to have a tinker. The long cure time for conventional 2 part resins has put me off before.