My Favourite Commissions: March

I couldn't decide which was my favourite out of these two silver necklace commissions from March so I thought I'd share both! If you've got an idea for a piece of jewellery you'd like feel free to get in contact :)

March Playlist

I'm posting videos this week as I can't get my spotify playlist to work! I never watch music videos anymore, used to spend hours when I was younger with MTV2 on checking out the latest ones...

Yay to new Tame Impala music, can't wait for their new album to come out!

Sharon Van Etten's got new music out too, her last album was one of my favourites from last year

Quite a few new ones from other old favourites this month too, including The Maccabees, Warpaint and The Cribs (who will always have a soft spot in my heart)

And a band I've only just found out about, RONiiA - Last Words

Oh Someday Is Three!

Oh Someday is three today! To celebrate I'm offering 20% off all orders in my Etsy Shop until the 5th of April

Engraving Weekend

Last weekend I went on an engraving course at the wonderful West Dean College. In case you've never heard of West Dean College before it's a pretty amazing place, it was set up by Edward James in his family mansion on the South Downs as a centre for the study of conservation, arts, crafts, writing, gardening and music. They put on lots of short courses, as well as some full time ones, every year including specialised jewellery and silversmithing ones.The house itself is so interesting to explore as Edward James was a surrealist art collector who was friends with Salvador Dali, the college has one of the famous lobster telephones and a Mae West Lips sofa in one of the hallways which they collaborated on together. There's art and extravagant taxidermy down every corridor.

 

The engraving course was taught by Wayne Parrott who is an excellent teacher and so knowledgable and helpful, if you're interested in learning about engraving I would highly recommend taking a course with him. Here's some examples that Wayne brought in to show us:

We were shown how to transfer designs onto metal, told all about the different tools and equipment you can use, including being shown how to make our own gravers and punches, and taught the basics of how to get started with engraving.

I learnt so much over the three days but it's a skill that takes a lot of practise. I'm going to carry on doing it now I'm home and hopefully be able to include it in my work in the future. Here's one of my finished pieces:

You can find out more about West Dean College and the courses available HERE

My Favourite Commission: February

This necklace is stamped with the Lyra constellation and was made for a new father to give to his wife as they'd just had a baby and named her Lyra. It's so lovely when customers let me know the story behind the piece they're buying.

The necklace photo was taken on a page of the book Stories In The Stars an Atlas of Constellations by Susanna Hislop, one of the most beautiful books I own and I'd highly recommend getting a copy if you're interested in the night sky! I thought the quote by John Berger went really well with the story behind this particular commission :)

February Playlist

February's been a pretty good month for music in my opinion. I'm so obsessed with the new Unknown Mortal Orchestra song Multi Love, can't wait for their new album to come out. Courtney Barnett's new song is also brilliant and Yay! to new music from blur, probably my all time favourite band.

I hope you enjoy my playlist, as always let me know if you've heard anything good recently!

Miscellaneous Adventures

A couple of weekends ago I booked a last minute woodcarving workshop with Miscellaneous Adventures. I first heard about them a couple of years ago through Emma Ruth Hughes amazing embroidery (you should definitely check her out if you're as into embroidery and typography as me!) as her and her husband Andrew run them. They had a kickstarter campaign to get the workshops going which I backed and I've been meaning to go on one ever since.

When I arrived we were taken to a secluded bit of woodland with fresh coffee brewing over the campfire and cake at the ready. The day started with an introduction on the different types of axes and how to use them, we were chopping logs and making kindling, which was a lot of fun! We then chopped our own logs to get a piece that would be suitable to make a spatular from, and then taught how to carve the wood with the axe. I had never realised how much detailed work you could do with just an axe.

Then it was lunch time, which was cooked over the camp fire by Emma and was so delicious! Afterwards we had a walk in the woods and learnt about the different trees, how to responsibly source our materials and what types of wood works best for what. We were then set a challenge to find the perfect branch to make a pot holder to go over the fire, here's my one (I was quite impressed that it actually worked!) :

After this my phone ran out of battery so I couldn't take any more photos! But we were shown how to carve with a knife and I was shown how to use a crook knife (a curved knife) to carve spoons. It's something I've wanted to learn for a looong time now and I've already started on my first one, more on that at a later date though.

When the sun went down we moved into a yurt provided by Trakke Bags (that's one of his bags hanging on the tree too). Along with a glass of local ale we were told about how to sharpen our tools and what were the best oils and polishes to finish our pieces with. The perfect finish to the day.

I had so much fun and learnt everything I'd hoped to and more, despite being in the woods all day at the beginning of February I didn't even notice the cold and the day went by too quickly. Miscellaneous Adventures have put on more workshops for later in the year and I'd definitely recommend booking one if you're interested in learning a bit of woodcarving too.