June Updates…

The last three weeks have been busy ones both in and out of work and it feels like ages since my last blog so here’s little update…

Halo Award

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you might remember that in 2023 I won the prestigious Halo Award. Part of the prize was having my name engraved on this magnificent silver salver plate.

The competition didn’t run in 2024 and various delays meant that it was only a couple of weeks ago when I finally got to have the salver at my studio. It’s gone back to the Assay Office now for safe keeping, but I took the opportunity to get some photos.

The closing date for this year’s award has just passed. I’ve entered anyway but I expect it’ll someone else’s turn to get their name on the plate this time, and I very much look forward to seeing who that is.

Workshops

This is something else that feels like I haven’t done for ages, but last Sunday I had the pleasure of welcoming another lovely couple into my studio to transform some of their sentimental old jewellery into their wedding rings.

I haven’t been advertising my workshops much recently as I’m always so busy during the week working on commissions and website orders, and rediscovering my musician’s hat is now taking up lots of my weekends, but I’m still more than happy to run them if you can fit into the gaps in my calendar!

Shop With A Difference

My online “Shop With A Difference” is slowly proving to be a successful idea and I’m so happy that I’ve been able to translate my usual larger remodelling work into something that’s hopefully accessible to a few more people. If you haven’t had a nosey then please do. I’ve basically created a way of online ordering some of my simpler pieces (think wedding bands, stacking rings, my river pendants) but still having them made from your own old jewellery. Here’s a couple of these orders that I finished since my last blog.

Commissions

These are, as usual, always my main body of work. I get easily bored of repetitive tasks so I love commissions as each one brings different challenges and allows me to work on something new. This ring has just gone off to live on its new finger, and is extra special as each piece that went into it came with its own little story. I’m really loving exploring and refining my new kind of hybrid carving/engraving technique and this ring really allowed me to do that. It went off in the post on Saturday so hopefully it’s now safely in (or I guess I should say “on” the hand of my client.

Right, that’s more than enough of my waffle for now, and by writing this I’ve successfully avoided doing this months accounts for a couple of hours, but I suppose I’d better get onto uploading those receipts into Freeagent accounting software.