I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas!

Let it snow... (just a bit though because I'm not that keen...) We woke up to a smattering this morning, but still went out for a play. P loves throwing snow at me for some reason. Can't think why!

The Queen's grandaughter, Zara Phillips attended a wedding this weekend wearing a fabulous fascinator in steel grey which looked amazing. I love it when the royals get dressed up and wear great head wear!

I particularly loved the Duchess of Cornwall's (Prince Charles' wife, Camilla), wedding head piece. An amazing plume of feathers that suited her so well and worked perfectly for her age and for a second wedding. Classy but fabulous showing that fascinators can be worn at any age.

P and I have been on a Christmas baking spree this weekend. We've made vanilla cookies which she had so much fun decorating for everyone, and has made a special one just for Santa for Christmas eve. Bless her!

I've been making presents for my sister and my two friends who I don't see as often as I should. I made Chocolate Brownie Jars! Basically it's the dry ingredients of the recipe layered into the jar, and finished off with Christmas ribbon and instructions on how to bake! I think they look amazing and I'll definitely be doing more of these for other presents throughout the year now. I love home made presents, and you can't beat ones that you can eat!!

I've actually had time to complete all my orders too this week, making a fascinator for Hong Kong, some jewellery and a hair comb for a client in the UK and I forgot to show a fascinator that went over to the States a couple of weeks ago for a repeat client who has lots of children who are all getting married around this time so I'm sure I'll see her again!

For the States. Laura design in English rose with blue and purple feathers:

Jewellery and hair comb for the UK:

Jane design in daffodil yellow with fluffy yellow feathers:

We went to the candlelit carol service in the church tonight which was lovely and walking home in the snow made it feel really Christmassy. Roll on Friday!!

N x

Snap, Snap...

I am very fortunate to have some lovely friends who used to live in Birmingham,but moved to Prague when they got married. James, who happens not only to be a great friend, but a fantastic photographer who I've worked with lots of times in the past, was on loan to me this weekend by Jitka his wife, and he flew over yesterday to shoot my jewellery and tiara product shots for my websites. This is an image we shot together in 2006 which ended up on the front cover of Dental Update, a UK trade magazine which is circulated to 8000 dentists all across the country. That's me, that is!!!


So, after the catch up, and the obligatory meal out and a fab glass of red, we started shooting early this morning and 6 hours and 200 shots later managed to complete the mammouth task that I'd set ourselves! We had to improvise with some comic props to enable James to shoot the products correctly, so I thought I'd share our little set up.

We had a professional light tent, and an amazing black reflective tablet to work off which gave the products the most amazing mirror images which will look great on the site, but to shoot the necklaces we used my wine rack, my ruler and my tub of pliers to construct a gantry to hang the chains off, and the earrings were shot using the same set up but with invisible cord forming 2 nooses which the wires hooked through to suspend them in midair. We also redid my fascinator product shots which turned out great! I think we did a good job! Amazing what you can do with some lights and a camera. All I have to do now is wait for James to edit them and I can put them on my sites!


Earrings being shot Unedited Image

Rough Edited Image

I've been busy making fascinators this week too. All for the UK and the USA.

Viktoria
Dita Anna

I've also been in colaboration with a lovely client for the last couple of weeks who has asked me to custom make her tiara, her bridesmaid's hair combs and her jewellery for her wedding. These are some rough mock ups of what we've come up with so far which have been fun to do. We're just finalising designs now and then I will start making them up for her.

This...
Or This...?

P was at Nanny and Grandad's last night, and missed her pussy cat, so made sure he got some quality time with her today. He's such a push over!

Busy week! I think I need a nice restful one next week... the last before the 2 weeks Easter school holidays... eek!!

N x

Nuts!

I looked out of my window today and saw the biggest fattest squirrel stealing nuts off the bird table and zooming about the garden burying them! He was doing this non stop for at least and hour, and the cat sat on the windowsill for all that time watching him and wishing he was clever enough to figure out a way to evapourate through glass to go on a squirrel chase!



Our snowman has melted to nothing since we got the rain today and I really should brave the elements to go and rescue my hat. If only I could be bothered...


I'm still making lots of jewellery and tiaras for my photo shoot for the website but the date's been put back to February now, which is great as it gives me more time to get more products developed and made to make the most of the shoot with John. I can't wait!

N x

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

Oh my goodness! I woke up yesterday, opened the blind and was greeted by a blanket of snow outside! What a shock! How come snow always falls overnight? Or it always seems to. The back garden looked so beautiful, but P had the day off school luckily, so we went out and built a snowman and the quality of the snow was fab!

It was that really great snow that makes good snowballs and sticks together really easily, so our snownman was big! He had a spent firework for his nose, fluffy fabric balls for his eyes and a pipecleaner mouth. He got adorned with Charlie's leopardskin blanket from one of his beds, and my hat (which I'll be looking all over for in a few days) and looked brilliant!

Charlie didn't know what to make of it and it took him ages to jump over the fence when I let him outside!


I've been making lots of jewellery for my shoot in a couple of weeks for my website. I've started with the earrings and done some necklaces and I need to do bracelets and hairpins, followed by the tiaras. I'm trying to do sets which can be purchased altogether, or as seperates to give customers a choice, and also when shooting allows my photographer to photograph a lot of items in one shot to save time and post shoot editing later. I've really enjoyed what I've done so far and I'm back in my groove!



I spoke to my friend Nic tonight. We lived together in Cardiff in my first year at University and lost touch 8 years ago. So much has happened in both of our lives since then and I'm so glad we found eachother again through Friends Reunited. I'm going to visit her at the end of the month and I can't wait to catch up over old photos and a bottle or two of wine in the Lake District where she lives now. We were such good friends and I feel that some good karma is here with us and we won't lose touch again. I'm a big believer that people are in or out of your life for a reason, and sometimes you're not sure what that reason is at the time and it only becomes clear later, or maybe not at all, but I'm sure fate plays a big part in my life and the path it takes.

N x