Day 73 - 78

Day 73 - New copper earrings with very pale aqua sea glass beads.  I started photographing a host of new pieces but a quick check on the first lot showed it was way too dull a day to get decent results.  So I gave up and still haven't listed the new pieces.

Day 74 - I have to admit I didn't actually take this photo but I did make/ruin it; the addition of two little beasts really helped R photograph his painting! To make up for being annoying I better pimp his work so please go look at his blog!

Day 75 - We got our save the date cards back from the printers and most of them have been sent! Yay!

Day 76 is missing but on day 77 we went over to photographer Ian Oliver's Tweedside Gallery to leave a selection of my jewellery.  His panoramic photography is so very beautiful and inspires early morning misty adventures.

Day 78 - took us to the Church where we will be photographing our first wedding tomorrow.  It was great to have a good look round so our plan for the day can be much more informed.  The couple are lovely and it is so exciting to be part of their day and provide them with a collection of photographs to treasure!  Now I'm away to check, again, that everything is charged, formatted, set and packed properly!

Day 70 - 72

Day 70 - The damson harvest! So far this lot have gone towards many litres of damson gin and the rest are bagged up in the freezer.  I feel a crumble coming soon!

Day 71 - The last day of September and little Mog came to investigate why I was lying on the grass with my camera.  I was going to post some sunny sky, bright flowers against autumn trees to document the record breaking temperatures but, well, Mog is just too cute not to share with you all!

Day 72 - New jewellery fresh out of the tumbler and nearly ready to go to photographer Ian Oliver's Tweedside Gallery.

Day 67 - 69

Day 67 - Rich receives a very exciting parcel which may or may not be a result of us falling for a very clever marketing campaign and requiring cheap car insurance.

Day 68 - Scruffy! For the last few months I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the adventures of Scruffy the blackbird who has become very fond of Mrs J and her sultanas! He seems to know where she will be at any given moment, having even sat on her bedroom windowsill staring in when it was sultana time and she was not at the back door!  He really is an adorably scruffy little fellow and I'm glad to have got a photo of him; shame it is through glass but I didn't want to scare him away.

Day 69 - A visit to Caroline Underhill's exhibition in the Hayloft Gallery, Paxton House.  The exhibition runs until October 12th and Caroline will be there each day taking workshops and is available to discuss commissions.  Her pet portraits are particularly popular so if you are thinking of an idea for a splendid Christmas gift now is the time to go and see her!

Day 64 - 66 A Visitor

Lovely Kris from my university days came to visit en route to a conference in Aberdeen; it is a long way from Devon!  We hadn't seen each other in eight years but soon caught up during the drive back from the train station.

Day 64 took us a jaunt up to Edinburgh for lunch, sight seeing, giggles at the bendy mirrors and even a nudey man . . . 

. . . yes, really, look closely at the open window.  We accidentally stumbled upon filming for Cloud Atlas and whilst straining to see over the heads of the crowd Kris spotted the topless chap clutching a satchel to his chest.  Will we ever know what that was about?

Day 65 - a trip to the beach and some glass collecting, it was lovely to hang out with my old house mate and reminisce over Aberystwyth days.

Day 66 - using one of the pieces found the day before Kris made a sea glass swirl pendant.  Despite her proclamations to the contrary Kris swiftly became adept with wire and pliers and made a really pretty pendant.  

Before leaving for Aberdeen we had a stroll along the river, which was twinkling beautifully.  A really fun weekend of catching up, chilling out, rugby, book perusing, wandering, eating, drinking, looking and making.  Hopefully it won't be another eight years before we see each other again.

Day 61 - 63 Copper Jewellery and an Owl

Day 61 - Three new pairs of earrings inspired by the onset of autumn with copper, green and frosty white sea glass.

Day 62 - More copper; chain maille bracelet and necklace in progress.  

Day 63 - Twit, our little owl who is living in the pepper plant pot at the moment.  He is a sweety and he's been catching my eye as my mind turns towards the end of the year as he was originally bought as a Christmas decoration but I believe an owl is for life, not just for Christmas. Well, that is unless he is wearing a Santa hat or something then he should definitely head to the roofspace in January!

Day 58 - 60 Cosmos, Rainbows, Damsons and Fords

Day 58 - ended with some cosy lounging involving this cushion which still makes me giggle; not every sock bunny has her own cushion!  Thanks Ma!

Day 59 - we went for a dander up the road which is quite usual after a day working, however what is rather unusual is the rainbow cladding our village!  There was no other section of rainbow visible just the little whisp over the hill.  On the same walk a huge stack of bales we noted on a distant hill seemed to have disappeared on the way home.  Strange happenings indeed.

Day 60 - keeping an eye on the damsons and . . .

. . . changing my mind about going home over the ford in my little car.  The water is much higher than normal and I'm sure I heard whimpering from the beast and the accelerator was very responsive after I turned around and headed in the other direction.

Day 55 - 57

Day 55 - A new recycled sterling silver sea foam necklace featuring a beautiful white piece of Scottish sea glass.  Oh, I do love the bubbles!  I've started photographing new pieces for my shop and will be adding new categories so you can look at all necklaces together, all bracelets together and so on.  Hopefully I will be able to integrate this into the current display of  jewellery by material and make it easier to browse.  When looking at jewellery online do you prefer to look search by collection (eg sea glass and silver) or by type (eg. earring)?  Would love to hear what you like!

Day 56 - A pile of freshly drilled and still wet sea glass.  There is something so pleasing about having a big pot of glass drilled and ready to become some jewellery.  There have been so many times when I have been delayed working on a piece because I need to go and drill a particular piece.  Now I will be steaming ahead with the plans for this lot.  There will be autumnal copper earrings on the way.

Day 57 - The newly christened twin bangle; a gift commission of which I shall say no more for now . . .

Day 51 - 54

Day 51 - Moon!  Taken from the front door when locking up for the evening.

Day 52 - With the tail end of the hurricane swirling around it was a very windy day! One minute the flowers would be swaying happily, the next they were almost horizontal!  Was a mainly staying indoors kind of a day.

 Day 53 - Big sock wearing huff over being sick.  Turns out I don't react well to vitamin tablets with iron in them, bleugh.  I've been tracking my diet on myfitnesspal.com to keep an eye on nutrition and calorie intake and noticed the iron was always low.  Hence the vomit inducing supplements.  Then on closer perusal I noticed hardly any foods listed on the site have iron information available and a quick look at labels in the kitchen proves iron is rarely listed. So it may be that I (and you if you are researching iron, hi!) have been eating enough iron rich foods and perhaps reacted to the supplements because I had quite enough already?  Thanks to Helen Woodward, Louise Knight, Becki Button and Jo Celia Simmonds over on Twitter for their iron-for-vegetarians advice - this was particularly handy.

Day 54 - this is what happens when you live with a man working on a graphic novel and needing to visualise poses.  The photograph was taken in the mirror so he could see what he looked like; always fun and frolics here!

Day 47 - 50 Frocks, Flowers and Birthday Feasts

Day 47 - As R was out in the morning I frolicked about in weddingy frocks and took lots of photographs.  This is all I am showing you though!  It isn't as mad or bride-y as it sounds.  Well maybe a bit, you see I made a few wedding related purchases on the bay of 'e' and some of the bits I wanted came in sets with things I didn't need so I will be listing them for sale soon.  The shoes aren't for sale; these were bought to go with a white flapper dress for a friend's 30th birthday a few years ago!  Said friend has just had a beautiful little girl - many congratulations to la boulangere family!

Day 48 - As I am typing this post the tail end of Hurricaine Katia is whipping around us and day 48 was a windy one too.  Our sweet pea pyramid and tomatoes were sadly flattened but we managed to rescue this lot.  The sweet peas gave us a deliciously scented living room and have only just wilted away.

Day 49 - Bangles and pendants in progress, ready to tumble and shine!  I love the sea foam bubbles on  the white glass pendant and have been making earrings and rings featuring this shape.

Day 50 - Lovely Mrs J's birthday!  R made a fine meal and I was in charge of the sweet course which was meringue, cream and lots of strawberries.  Yum!  It's starting to feel more like crumble and custard weather but while there are still strawberries it seemed right to enjoy!  I downloaded a trial of Lightroom 3 for a photo editing play and this photograph is a simple crop and use of a preset just to see how it works.  Huge potential with the software and I may invest but will have to have a bit more exploration.

Day 46 On the Beach

Day 46 - After a few days in wellies and woollies hosing out the radiators in the rain the sun came out and we had a picnic on the beach.  It was warm enough for sandals though I am glad I brought a pair of leggings with me as it got a bit chilly.

Our lunch was tasty but it was a distressing hour watching an old black lab limping along the sand.  We just assumed he was with a family who were paddling; but then they left.  Watching his attempts to reach a couple and their two dogs raised our hopes that he was heading for his people.  They spent a bit of time with him but it was clear from their looks around the beach that he wasn't theirs either.  Our couscous munching was interspersed with discussion on what we should do, who should we contact about this poor dog.  We never reached a conclusion as the dog followed the couple off the beach and we lost sight of them.  They did stop to talk to a few people and we assumed they were inquiring about the dog.  So we'll never know what action they took but really hope the dog is ok.

Day 42 - 45 Sunflowers to Central Heating

Day 42 - A wee jaunt down to the Hirsel near Coldstream to deliver a selection of my jewellery to Julia Linstead who will be selling it in her studio.   I pulled over to take a picture of a field of sunflowers.  It would have been cool to get them from the other side to see their faces but still a fun sight.  Julia's glass work is stunning and it's always fun to watch people's reactions to it at the Paxton House Gallery; lots of ooohs and ahhhs!  

Tall Penguin Bowl by Julia Linstead 

You can see why, isn't it beautiful?

Day 43 - The start of September and I was craving a jaunt to the sea side.  Start of term time and I'm so glad to be checking tide clocks rather than timetables.

Day 44 - We've ordered coal and logs and Autumnal preparations continued with flushing out the central heating system.  After looking into installing a multi fuel stove in place of the open fire and back boiler we have decided not to do it this year as it's rather a lot of money!  So we are attempting to make our system as efficient as possible; a messy job but hopefully we'll be toasty when it gets cold outside.

Day 45 - An evening of pizza and squishy cushions, fully deserved after lifting, dragging, flushing, hosing, cleaning and rehanging radiators!

Day 40 and 41

Two more last minute before sleep shots!  I really must get my photo groove on, otherwise it will be slippers and bed socks through the winter months! Attractive, ya?

A Laura Cameron and a Richard Johnson on the landing; taken en route from bathroom to bedroom late in the evening hence the dodgy lighting and focus, I was practically already asleep.  I am still ruminating on painting ideas and will get on and do.  This lack of Laura painting is getting ridiculous!  R on the other hand is cracking on!

Splendid sky from the front door as I was locking up.  This wasn't particularly late but I think it was one of those evenings for bed with a book.  I have no shame in admitting it to be one of my favourite times!  Somebody recently asked me what I liked most about living in this area and big skies are surely on my list of loves.  I mean this is just a front door lean view!

Crossing Borders Art Trail

The Crossing Borders Art Trail kicked off today and will be running this weekend (2nd - 4th September) and next weekend (9th - 11th September).

Download your Art Trail brochure here

Two weekends – two routes - two countries!

Whether you are a previous visitor to the Crossing Borders Art Trail

or planning your first visit, you are sure to love early autumn in the Scottish Borders and North Northumberland. It’s a great time of year to enjoy our spectacular countryside, letting the art trail lead you over the rolling Cheviot Hills, through picturesque towns and villages. You can follow the River Tweed until you reach the dramatic castle-dotted coastline, with empty sandy beaches and the big North Sea! Leisurely visits to artist studios, spliced with stops for local fare at some of the charming tea rooms, restaurants and pubs along the way will offer you the perfect day out or three-day break.

We realise we are leading you literally across two countries and so – New for 2011 - we are splitting the Art Trail across two long weekends, offering more time and greater opportunities to visit the studios and workshops of the artist community that give this landscape its creative heart. A chance to see painters, potters, textile and glass artists at work, see wood turning and furniture being skillfully crafted – a chance to chat to artists and makers about their passion and products – and buy direct!

The trail is divided into two easily navigated areas and there’s something for everyone, even if you only have a half-day to spare. With over fifty artists waiting to welcome you, now is the time to start planning your route. Crossing Borders members look forward to opening their doors and showing you some unique and beautiful things!

Art Trail Press Release 2011

Days 34-39

Day 34 Hanging out with the hounds, parents and R at lovely Paxton House.

We came back in the evening after work and had a right frolic on the slide! Not a flattering photo of me at all but we discovered if you sit on your jumper you go much faster than just on a denim clad bum!

Day 36 Marley beast looking all ginger and lovely. Day 35 is missing, ahem. 

Day 37 Paxton Ted!  Yes, I forgot to take a photo until the last minute!  Mum bought Paxton Ted after we did the tour of the house; she'd been eyeing him up since they arrived and he now sits with bagpipe ted at the front of the motorhome!  I've wanted to do a tour of the house for ages, especially having been sat in the gallery over the last few months listening to others going!  It was great to see round the beautiful house and Val, our guide, was an excellent combination of facts and laughs!  

Day 38 The Vintage Market.  No, don't adjust your screens it really was that dark and sales were similarly dim.

Despite the near darkness I had good company and a splendid view over Berwick roofs and a very well kept and stylish catamaran moored in the Tweed.  

Day 39 took us to Rothbury for a quick visit to lovely Linda Taylor at Crown Studio, a stroll around the town and river and a splendid lunch at Harleys Tea Room.  I didn't take a photograph of the cake of wonder but fortunately somebody else did!  My Dad had a slice and I'm afraid I had to step in, fork in hand, to offer my support! Twas yum!  One of the photos I did take just makes me laugh showing little mad Shadow with his paw over his head and big Marley coming straight for the camera as usual!

Such fun to see the family and I hope my poor Dad has recovered from the cold which hit right at the start of his holiday!  Boo!