Boo's Jewellery

All copper and earth tones this week

2012-01-22T21:11:00.011Z

I don't seem to have been able to get my teeth into much new lately, all of my orders have been for re-makes of existing designs. Absolutely nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but you do get the creative itch to be doing something for the first time and my head is always bursting with ideas wanting to take form.

Lovely translucent oval Jade beads spiral wrapped in antiqued copper.

A young couple who have been my son's closest friends, for what must be something like 10 years, asked me to make a necklace for his Mum (and she's my friend too) for her birthday this week and wanted something in 'earth tones' for her. I showed them some designs and we honed it down to close to what they had in mind.

A smaller version of my spiral coils necklace - the coils are a slightly smaller gauge and shorter too - we thought that she might not suit the heaviness of the other ones I'd made, so I scaled it down a little. This one may well remain with me, I was promising to make myself one with some of these gorgeous blue green Indian Fancy Jasper lanterns.

But we were a bit up against it time-wise, so I suggested that I should make a few new pieces that fit their brief, from which they could choose the one they like best and the rest would simply be new stock for my shops.

Whilst digging through my bead stash for 'earth tone' beads, I found several that I liked but were too small for the designs I had in mind, so I fancied the idea of one with leaves and berries, so this necklace features a random toning selection of copper and earth green leaves and berries. I intended it to be a short length in the centre of a collar length necklace, but wondered if a heavier central feature bead might cause it to fall into more of a V at the neckline, so added this large Rhyolite coin in the centre with some rosy copper buds above it.

I've found that it's often quicker to work that way than try and thrash out all of the details before picking up the tools - just depending on the nature of the piece they want and how fixed the customer is in their ideas - and how many ideas I have!

Once I got into the zone for the colours and style they wanted, the ideas quickly flowed and I ended up with the 4 designs shown here for them to consider, which thankfully they liked well enough that they were stuck to decide and did indeed go for the one I had placed my little personal wager on.

The necklace they chose; with Indian Fancy Jasper lantern beads spiral wrapped between hammered copper washers.

They thankfully stated their preference a couple of days before they came to collect it, which gave me the opportunity to make a matching pair of earrings as my gift for her too.

The earrings I made to go with them. She doesn't often wear long earrings, so I wanted to keep them as short as possible, yet match the design, so I put them on a hammered paddle pin which allowed me to continue the spiral into a couple of wraps below the bead.

Talking of jewellery gifts reminds me to include a bracelet that I made for a Christmas gift - it was a variation of one of my standard and regular selling designs; a solid copper double wrapped link antiqued bracelet - which I normally close with a large hook clasp. In this case, I felt the recipient might struggle to fasten the clasp on her own, so opted for a toggle clasp instead.

There's clearly more time and work in making the toggle, which would certainly increase the price, but I think I might add this variation to my shop too. In fact, when I am more flush and can justify using the materials for myself, I'd like one like this in Sterling silver, I think it would make a good everyday 'go with anything' bracelet that would be easy to wear.

Frost and blue sky - perfect for a walk

2012-01-15T23:19:00.009Z

First of all, may I wish everyone a Happy New Year and I hope that it will be kind to you.

I'm pretty horrified to see how long it is since I blogged - I hadn't realised it had been so long over the festive holidays. Mr Boo and I have both been laid pretty low with a bug - not sure how to describe it, it was a severe cough with flu like symptoms. Not a cold as such, just a rotten, exhausting cough. I came off pretty lightly in comparison, but Mr Boo had a pretty miserable Christmas - it's tricky to manage a very robust, spasmodic cough when you're waiting for surgery for an abdominal hernia.

Thankfully, he suddenly seemed to improve over the weekend, so when we saw how good the weather forecast was for today, we put together our stuff yesterday evening so that we could get out for the day today and we managed a walk and in-car picnic at one of our favourite places; Beacon Fell in Lancashire.

I suspect half of Lancashire had the same thought too and for the first time ever, we couldn't find a space in any of our favourite car parks, so settled for a roadside spot we've used before, a little off the beaten track and walked a slightly different route - which worked out perfectly and proved to be a blessing as it was a smidge quieter.

Please click on any of the images for a larger view.

There was thick haw frost in the shade near where we parked, so we wrapped up warmly and set off in lovely winter sunshine and I took my camera along, as always. Unfortunately, whilst I had all the right equipment with me, I seemingly failed to engage my brain. I didn't take many photos, for a variety of reasons, from the bitter cold on my hands, to meandering children within the frame and those photographs that I did take ended up lacking in technical competence, like totally failing to notice the very slow shutter speeds and consequent lack of sharpness. So this is all far from my best work, but the best I have to offer just at the moment.

I think I've almost certainly shown similar scenes to these before as I just love sunlight through trees and as we walk the same paths often, largely for this reason, I've surely taken these same shots before, although I'm pretty sure that I haven't done them with this particular camera, so I'll treat them as new images.

This is certainly a favourite spot as the shadows falling across the path always give rise to lovely curvy abstract shapes and even at this time of year, the sunlight is a deep golden colour as it dances through the trees.

I was also grateful for the nice spell of weather before the weekend when I managed to get out for a decent walk at lunchtime, having been held inside for a few days by the ferocity of the cough and an indecent amount of wind and rain. I had my camera with me then too, but the shots I took were specifically to test something out we'd been discussing on one of the camera forums, so this was as interesting as it got.

The camera I was using is the Fujifilm HS20 EXR - the EXR designation refers to the 'extended dynamic range' feature - one that I really do love and one which works well for the type of photography that I do. It allows you to capture a good range of tones in contrasty scenes like this. Most non-EXR cameras would burn out the sky and that white house if you exposed the foreground in the same way. This shot doesn't look anything unusual, as this is what your eye saw and it just looks right, but the range of tones captured in an image like this is pretty fabulous and I love that I can get results like the two below with minimal post processing and confident in knowing that I'm unlikely to blow highlights like white cloud detail. Even the examples above with the trees show the same feature at work - one I'm becoming very fond of.

Apologies for the lack of worthy content in this post, I'll aim to do much better next time.

Rings, raffle prizes and lots of copper spirals

2011-12-05T18:17:00.011Z

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a rush, with lots of work to finish to pending deadlines. Because of promises I'd made, birthdays coming up and favours I needed to repay, only a small part of this work has ended up as paid work, but I've got through a significant volume of work - and all on time.

I'd promised my mother-in-law that I would make a couple of items for a raffle she was holding - it was her 80th birthday party at the weekend and she wanted to hold a free raffle to give her guests back some gifts as she holds many fundraising raffles and is always asking people to donate prizes or buy tickets, so she wanted to give something back, for free.

Chalk turquoise and antiqued copper spiralled bracelet.

So I looked what beads I had a decent stock of and decided that bracelets are fairly universally worn - most people can wear an average size and it might prove easier to get right than earrings or a necklace. So I made two copper bracelets, one with some chalk turquoise beads and another with mahogany obsidian.

Mahogany obsidian and antiqued copper bracelet made for a raffle prize.

With raffle prizes, it is my practice to gift wrap the item and place it into a sealed gift bag with a photo label describing the contents tied outside the bag - it saves the packaging from being disturbed to see what it is and if it isn't to the recipients taste, it's already gift wrapped to give as a gift. So, having taken some photographs for that purpose, I decided I might as well list them for sale as 'made to order', so took some more photos for that purpose - considering that its often the most tedious part of the selling process and I'd already half done the job.

My mother-in-law is a long term arthritis sufferer and experiences great pain in her hands and a little while ago bought one of my one of my rosebud knot rings to see if there was anything in the reputed health benefits of wearing copper. She absolutely swears that it has significantly improved the comfort level in the finger she wears it on and asked for another ring for the finger on the other hand that gives her most pain.

So I wanted to make her a selection of rings, for her birthday, in the size we'd established would suit so that she could mix and match - so I made two decorative rings and a pair of co-ordinating stackers. The main feature ring is polished raw copper featuring a central twist section. My favourite I think is a slightly hammered copper band with a solid nugget or pebble of Sterling silver. I've oxed it darkly to highlight the silver.

I supplemented the decorative rings with a plain, square profile chunky stacking ring and a simply made and rather rustic antiqued faceted stacker in a slightly finer gauge.

My other work entailed making several sets of necklaces and earrings featuring the spiral coils of copper between stones that I've blogged recently. I got some gorgeous Indian Fancy Jasper stones from my friend Maisy to make a set up for a very good customer in the US who fancied the idea of some of the stones in this design of necklace and I'm very happy with how it has turned out, the blue green of the stones looks fabulous with the antiqued copper tones.

I hope that the customer will like it when it makes its way over the Atlantic to her.

Anniversary, the last few leaves and new puppies

2011-11-24T19:20:00.010Z

As I wrote a note this morning and went to date it, I realised that today was actually my on-line selling anniversary - I have no idea how that snook up so quickly. 4 years under my belt now as a proper on-line self-representing seller.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger version.

I just love the colours of sunshine on beech leaves on a crisp autumn day - against clear blue sky. It would have been criminal not to get out and appreciate it.

I think I probably actually started selling in the spring of 2007, but I spent a long while faffing about trying to settle on a system for selling - whether to try and develop my own shopping cart, just use PayPal buttons or to make life a little easier and use a third party selling venue. In the short term, I settled on selling through Etsy and set up my shop there, embedding it into the page of my own web site, whilst I sorted out a proper cart behind the scenes to replace my initial shambolic efforts.

So the day I opened my Etsy shop became my official anniversary as it's a line in the sand that I can identify with as a corner turned and the date is there in my shop as a reminder. I now have over 520 items in my own shop and those first scary efforts feel like a lifetime ago.

Who wouldn't want to walk down this path. I passed more people in hiking boots than I think I've ever seen in the area - everyone obviously felt the same way that I did about not wasting the opportunity.

So I decided to hold a short-notice 48 hour sale to celebrate, so I have 20% off everything in my shop and coupon code ETSYVERSARY20 will secure you the same discount if you prefer shopping on Etsy.

We had a couple of gorgeous days last week and I took myself out for some fresh air whilst it lasted and I suspect that I got to enjoy the last decent showing of autumn colour for 2011. One tree that I had photographed in absolute glory only 9 days previously was now almost bare, so the wind we've had over the last few days is sure to have seen many more leaves off.

I fear that the next time I walk this path it will be devoid of leaves and will feel much more bare and wintry. So I shall let you enjoy the photographs before we have to face the on-coming winter.

Last weekend we visited with family as it was my Mother's birthday and my sister has just given a home to her new Miniature Snauzer puppy Klara - who is just over 9 weeks old - she's been waiting for this since before she was born, having put her name down with the breeder after the Mum's pregnancy was confirmed.

She's absolutely adorable; cute as a button, full of energy, affectionate, very bright (learnt to sit on command over a weekend) and full of beans and extreme cheekiness. So I'll leave you with an "ahhhhh" moment which should warm your heart on this cold November evening.

And a Happy Thanksgiving to all of our Stateside chums.

It's not obvious from the shot above, just how tiny she is, until you see her with Mr Boo. He's not that keen on dogs apparently, but he always seems to have one on his lap and they always seem to want to be there!

PHP server upgrades, autumn leaves and lots of coiling

2011-11-06T20:08:00.021Z

Isn't it just typical - we get a day of glorious autumn weather on a day when we have other commitments and can't take full advantage of it. Why couldn't it have been gorgeous yesterday instead.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.
The first click takes you to a gallery overlay, but you can view the larger originals (which should include the EXIF data) by clicking 'Show original' in the bottom left hand corner.

One especially spectacular beech tree, against a perfect blue sky. I just love that combination of colours at this time of year on the odd few days we're lucky enough to experience it.

Oh no, wait, that wouldn't have worked either, I woke in the morning to find that my web host had done some scheduled upgrades overnight (I've known about it for months, I just didn't comprehend the potential implications to me) that had stopped my web site working and I spent the day alternating between tearing clumps of hair out that I can little afford to lose, trying to keep my already rampant hypertension under some degree of control and in trying to find someone (Stateside and on a Saturday morning) who knew a lot more about it than me, who could give me a guiding hand to fix it.

As I no doubt post ad nauseum, I love to see sunlight through leaves - it lifts my spirits more than just about anything else. If I can heard birdsong too, that's a great bonus.

Thankfully I did find a kind soul on the cart developers forum who directed me to detailed instructions for a fix to what was a well known problem with my cart when the PHP version is upgraded on the server. Thankfully, the instructions were very concise and I have just enough experience of modding my own shopping cart to know how to download and edit the code files in question and restore the new version to the server. And I refreshed the site pages holding my breath and was astonished that it had indeed fixed it.

This particular stretch of path is always accompanied by the best selection of birdsong - there's a good tract of ancient woodland to the right of the wall and it always sounds lovely.

The problem had initially looked pretty terminal, with screen-full after screen-full of lines of error codes and I wasn't able to even log into my admin panel to see what version of the software I was running - so I wasn't expecting the fix to be quite so easy to implement and fully expected that my initial efforts might fix one problem, only to have to face the next one presented. So I am extra-ordinarily grateful to have got the right help very promptly and that it only actually required one line of amended code to fix what seemed like a catalogue of assorted problems. Phew!

I just love the rich coppery colours of the beech leaves against a blue sky. This was actually a long way above the ground, but my 700mm lens easily closed the distance.

It wasn't exactly how I planned spending my Saturday, but having experienced that first sickening lurch of my stomach in the morning when my site got borked, I was thrilled to have it up and running again properly by the afternoon. The only harm done, I suspect, is to my nerves.

As we drew the curtains this morning we were met with the most glorious clear sky and there was even a light white frost on some of the rougher textured surfaces outside. Mr Boo had a long-standing commitment for the afternoon, so we couldn't go too far before he'd have to leave, so decided to at least enjoy some of the sunshine by doing one of our favourite local walks after breakfast.

It really was a prefect autumn day - clear fresh crisp air with just a little bite to the breeze, wall to wall blue sky and gorgeous golden sunshine - which as it rose in the sky ended up remarkably warm and very pleasant to be out in. I was delighted to get out, stretch my legs, blow the cobwebs out and come home with rosy cheeks and a few photographs in the can.

My work this week - all a bit coil-tastic:

I had reason to re-make an old design for a customer who wanted a variation of something she'd bought some years ago and it enforced me to re-visit a technique I've not done for a while - coiling wire to make a rope-like structure. I've done various different wire 'ropes' in the past, variously twisting or coiling wires of different gauges to get the desired effect.

Whilst I almost always antique or oxidise my copper, I do love to see it all peachy and shiny after tumbling and cleaning, so couldn't resist taking a 'WIP' photograph to show all the textured shiny metal.

This week it was all about coiling. Having done a little practice to establish the best gauges for the effect and weight I was after, I soon established a rhythm for making rope-like bead sections to use within pieces and got totally swept away with ideas using them.

It started with a couple of kilt pins in a series I'm making for the holiday season, as they often sell for gifts for people who don't wear much jewellery and I had a few in progress. Having done this pair with Indian fancy jasper stones, I routed out some other gemstones of a suitable size and the amethyst came next - and I loved the faceted stone next to the copper, so the necklace soon followed, with its matching earrings. Now that my fingers are starting to recover, I will no doubt do some more - my head is still full of ideas.

Can you take decent product shots with a low end camera?

2011-10-28T20:35:00.020+01:00

There was a thread started in the Etsy forums recently in respect of the limitations of low end point and shoot cameras and their suitability, or lack of it, for taking product shots for selling. A lengthy discussion ensued and as is usually the case, every possible interpretation and perspective on this issue was aired.

From the opening post by WillowontheWater:

"Sure, you CAN get some great shots off of a low end camera, but how long does it take? Not only to get the shot, but then to edit it? I have said it before and I'll say it again... the proper tool makes all the difference."

I added my own thoughts to the subject too. Whilst the opening post had some indisputable truths, I felt that it was in no way the whole story. Getting decent product photographs is a combination of equipment - both camera, lighting and staging - but perhaps the most significant factor is technique. Understanding your camera, some of the basic principles of photography and how to get the best from what you have, would actually solve the vast majority of photography problems posted about in the forums.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view, they look rather dark here on the page.

A polymer clay faux dichroic glass pendant taken with a very basic point and shoot camera with minimal setting options.

I don't think that I've personally seen a thread where the photography problem could only be overcome by buying a new camera - that the camera was the only factor letting the user down. In almost every case, the problems can be overcome - or at the very least, improved upon - with an adjustment in camera setting or a modification of technique - such as focusing in the right place or using a support for the camera to remove camera shake. Most users experiencing difficulty would probably be better served spending money on additional lighting, daylight bulbs or a small tripod - and not necessarily on camera equipment.

Most of the problems posted are about 4 main issues; blurred images (due to either camera shake or inappropriate focus), the wrong part of the subject being in focus (usually due to using the camera closer to the subject than it can focus), incorrect white balance (whites looking blue or orange etc.) or exposure problems - and those are almost always about items on white backgrounds looking too dark and coming out with grubby backgrounds. It doesnt matter how much light you throw on your subject, if you underexpose for the scene, the images will always look too dark.

The advice posted is often to shift the levels in photo editing software retrospectively, when in reality, all the crafter needs is to do is to add some positive exposure compensation to ensure that the white background looks white in the resulting images.

Using a little positive exposure compensation in shots that are predominantly light can ensure that your white backgrounds stay that way - in this case I used two thirds of a stop of positive exposure compensation (+0.67 EC).

Much more detail on overcoming this sort of photography problem is covered in my small item photography tutorial and doesn't need to be repeated in detail here at this time - and I have a list of all my photography articles and blogs on this page here on the blog.

It's an oft-posted mantra that the crafters don't have 'enough' light to get bright photographs - in reality, it's possible to take perfectly good photographs in very little light indeed - what does matter, is how you expose for the light that you do have and how you manage your technique when the light levels fall.

If your lighting level is low, you may encounter problems associated with slow shutter speeds for example, resulting in camera shake from your hands moving whilst the shutter is open to take the shot - that can be overcome by either changing camera exposure settings to ensure a faster shutter speed, where that's practical and possible to do so (it wasn't in my little experiment shots here due to camera limitations), or by using a support for the camera, like a tripod or bean bag.

The opening post in the forum thread in question linked to a blog with some example photographs taken with a basic model second hand Canon point and shoot camera - which actually had a higher spec than the examples I've posted here. Considering that the poster is an experienced and very capable professional photographer, I think the photographs were taken by just pointing and shooting and very little regard for correct technique for the subject in hand, perhaps just to make the point that you can't just 'point and shoot' them. The photographs were pretty appalling (the point the poster was making) - but I didn't think they needed to be.

It was my contention, as already stated, that technique is by far the most powerful tool in your arsenal - I've often said that a little know-how and understanding can make a massive difference. All of the photographs posted here were taken with a Fujifilm A850 camera that my husband uses as his own walkaround camera. He has no interest in fiddling with settings, so I've pre-set this model with some settings to suit his personal uses for the camera and he just switches it on and squirts away at the scenery and gets some annoyingly good results too.

The camera is very basic - it cost us under £60 GBP 4+ years ago. It has 3 modes, one for photographing babies that doesn't use flash and offers soft skin tones (I'd like to try that for this task, it might actually work quite well), fully Automatic and what they call a 'Manual' mode - which in reality is the same as auto, but the camera relinquishes decisions about some settings to the user. I chose the latter and put some objects in my usual lighting setting - a daylight fluorescent ring light with a diffuser over my subject - I couldn't adjust exposure other than by using exposure compensation and I couldn't even turn off the flash, which seemingly came on when the shutter speed went too low - so I found I could prevent this from happening by being careful with the exposures I secured.

I used macro mode, which allows the camera to focus closer to the subject than for general photography and I used Auto white balance for most of the frames, as I was using a daylight tube and it seemed to work reasonably well - some looked a little cold, so I swapped to the fine/cloudy pre-set, but once on the computer, these actually weren't as realistic for colour, so I adjusted them to match the earlier AWB shots.

I found focusing more tricky than with my usual, slightly more featured product photography camera and I can see now that some aren't optimally focused, so some more time with the camera would learn the quirks of its focusing - as it tended to shoot with a wide open aperture and this led to a shallower depth of field than I usually try to achieve, which in turn gives a greater margin of error for sharpness - so as I can't control aperture, I'd need to be more mindful of that in future and focus more carefully.

Far from spending a lot of time on these, they had exactly the same workflow as I usually perform on my product shots - in fact somewhat less, as these are sharpened in the camera and have higher contrast than I normally use, so I reduced/omitted these stages in my post processing. I started typing my post here less than 30 minutes after picking up the camera, so that was the time I spent taking the shots, dusting some of my props, booting the computer I download images onto, transferring them over the network to my working computer (which acts as my back up method too), choosing frames, post processing and saving the finished images.

The exposures/tonality are largely as they came out of the camera, I cropped for framing, tweaked white balance a little as the auto WB did fluctuate a bit between frames (I wouldn't normally choose it for that very reason), did very modest levels adjustment - as I would with any shots - cloned out any fluff or dust and reduced in size and locally sharpened. If you want to see the exposure information, the EXIF data should be intact in the images, but you'll probably have to click through the image to the gallery overlay, then select the link for 'Show original' in the bottom left hand corner.

I was curious to try and see just how workable a very basic 'low-end' camera could be in practice and whilst I can see there are clearly some shortfalls in these photographs and they certainly don't look that pretty at full resolution, the results are actually better than I was expecting and having checked them on the computer, if I were to repeat the exercise now with what I've already learned, I would expect the next series would be somewhat better with appropriate tweaks in my own technique appropriate to this camera.

The clocks go back this weekend - sale to cheer us up

2011-10-28T12:42:00.010+01:00

I realised as I showered this morning and was listening to the dawn chorus outside the bathroom window - that the clocks go back this weekend and next week I'll maybe miss my birdsong, but it will start to go dark before teatime. Which is quite a depressing thought, as the days approach their shortest and the temperatures plummet.

So we perhaps all need some cheering up - and it's that inevitable time when we have to consider the approaching festivities and I'm determined not to be as last minute and manic as I have been the last couple of years.

So, I decided to hold an impromptu sale - over the weekend and for the rest of the week - and have knocked 15% off everything in the shop. This might help you to treat yourself to something cheering, or make a start on your Chr . . . no, can't say it yet . . . let's just say . . . pre-festive purchases.

Please click on any of the photographs for a better view.

Some one of a kind entirely hand crafted beaded bead earrings just added to the shop, with faceted fire polished crystal, Swarovski Elements crystals, black and silver seed bead netting and Sterling silver metalwork. More colours to be added shortly.

If you prefer to buy through Etsy, I've activated discount coupon code WINTERSALE which if you enter where requested during checkout will give you the same 15% off there too.

Some autumn colour photographs:

We managed to get two of our very favourite walks done in the English Lake District last weekend, possibly our last trip there this year and although the weather was pretty poor, the foliage colours were still spectacular. Walking was a little squelchy underfoot after torrential rain overnight created mud and brought a lot of wet leaves down, but I'd still rather be there in the rain than most other places in sunshine.

I love doing shots that I call 'macro landscapes' - the camera that I'm currently using as my walkaround camera, the Fujifilm HS20EXR has a tilt screen which allows me to shoot low and a super macro wide angle mode, which allows me to get very close, but include a lot of the scene too.

If only I'd moved a smidge to the right, I might have caught nice reflections in the puddles!

Coming next:

After a forum discussion about how point and shoot cameras are wholly unsuitable for product photography - a point that was illustrated with some extreme, very poorly managed shots, I aim to take some product shots with the oldest and least-featured cameras in the house and see if I can make a better job of it - I am of the view that technique is a perhaps the most important factor.

I also have an idea of taking some photographs with very little light (candlelight maybe?) to illustrate how it's not how much light you have, but managing what you do have properly that matters.

I didn't expect that today

2011-10-21T13:29:00.012+01:00

Life has a way of occasionally presenting you with a variety of unexpected experiences - some very welcome, others not so much.

Often it's those innocuous ordinary days that can turn up something quite different. Perhaps it's their very ordinary-ness that makes the unexpected turn out all the more delightful.

Thus it was last Friday. We were away in the English Lake District in our favourite spot for a long weekend and because we'd decided to go away at the very last minute, we hadn't really planned it very well. So we needed to spend our first morning doing some food shopping and headed off to an out of town shopping area with several adjacent supermarkets. One of the things on our list that we'd been unsuccessful with in the supermarket was bird food - there is a small bird table outside the caravan and we enjoy seeing the visiting birds, so we headed across the car park to a couple of more likely stores for supplies for our feathered neighbours.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

Elmo, a fabulously striking Bengali Owl

One of the stores was a large pet superstore and outside the main entrance was a chap with 4 owls on perches, talking to the public and collecting money and raising awareness for his owl rescue sanctuary; Wise Owl World based in Barrow in Furness. He does this on a regular basis to educate people about owls and give them a wonderful hands-on experience of these gorgeous raptors. All of the birds are rescues and have a variety of problems or injuries that would prevent them returning to the wild.

They looked well cared for and in good health and obviously experienced at this meeting the public set up and when put back onto their perches were chilled enough to start to fall asleep - he clearly circulated the birds that were handled so that they all got some peace between times.

The largest owl was Elmo, a Bengali Owl.

He gave me a leather gauntlet so that I could hold one and he handed me Sky, a gorgeous 12 year old barn owl. I didn't hear the full story that he'd been telling someone else, but she's obviously been rescued from the jaws of a large dog and was missing a portion of one wing. He described how he'd been called in when someone had found her and she was clearly badly hurt and he said that "we looked at each other quietly for a while and then I gently talked to her and told her how I was going to make her better and we gradually made friends." The way he interacts with them, they clearly are all friends and they certainly trust him. The Tawny owl Cuddles even allowed him to part her feathers to show me inside her ear - I was totally unfamiliar with the structure of an owl ear before last Friday.

Cuddles - a Tawny Owl - who kindly let me look inside his ear.

I was surprised at how light Sky was, I'd held my arm slightly upwards as he placed her, expecting it to drop to level under her weight - but she was deceptively light. I stroked her gently and was very surprised to find that the bulk of the roundness of her head was predominantly fluffy feathers - her skull underneath the plumage is quite small, the fullness of her head largely consists of the downy soft feathers she uses to dampen any sound in flight and to help direct even the tiniest sound into her super-sensitive ears.

Sky, a 12 year old Barn Owl - deceptively light and incredibly fluffy

There were 4 owls with him, ranging in size, from the tiny 8" tall Tropical Screech Owl (who don't actually screech apparently, but he did chatter at things that annoyed him - like passing dogs and crows) called Olly, Sky the barn owl, Cuddles a Tawny Owl and the largest Bengali Owl called Elmo. I asked if I could take a few photographs and he said yes, which was such a joy to have the opportunity of getting so close. Unfortunately, they were outside the main entrance of a modern-built out of town superstore, which was plastered with signs, posters and a burglar alarm - so the background was somewhat unnatural and distracting, so I've largely framed in very tight on their faces.

The beautiful Barn Owl that I got to hold called Sky.

Cuddles was clearly distracted by something above him, he periodically looked skywards and turned his head around, as though being vigilant about some perceived threat from above - I asked if it was the car park crows that concerned him, but apparently, the burglar alarm box above them on the wall periodically emitted a high pitched sound that we humans couldn't hear, but clearly Cuddles, with his super-efficient hearing (Tawny's have the best hearing of our domestic owls, hence the ear-demo) could hear it and wasn't sure what to make of it or quite where it was coming from.

Olly, a tiny Tropical Screech Owl - just as he was starting to be irritated by the nearby crows.

It was the tiny wee Olly that was troubled by the crows - at one point they noisily passed, gathering in a small murder on a roof-line nearby, squabbling noisily amongst themselves. Olly first narrowed one eye and looked in their direction with a disapproving eye, then as they continued making more fuss, his demeanour changed somewhat and he apparently took on what the chap referred to as his "angry face". And by golly jingo was it one angry face. He drew his cheeks in and raised various feathers to take on his most fearsome "don't mess with me" expression.

Olly wearing his 'angry face' - which despite his diminutive size, was quite intimidating.

I learned several things that morning - what an owl's ear looks like, how light and fluffy a barn owl is, that you can tell a daylight owl from a nocturnal one from their eye colour; coloured eyes like Elmo's are daylight owls, Cuddles' dark eyes prove that he's nocturnal. And I now know what a truly pissed off owl looks like!

What a truly fabulous and special privilege it was to meet them and to learn more about these fabulous and efficient creatures in such close proximity.

Autumn scenes and a heatwave

2011-10-02T21:12:00.014+01:00

As those in the UK will already know, we've had a glorious Indian summer period this week, with record breaking temperatures and wall to wall sunshine lasting several days. A fabulous and much-appreciated treat.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger, better quality, view.

I just love to see sunshine filtering through trees - which can be quite a challenge to do justice to photographically - your eyes are much more efficient at taking in the subtle nuances of the lighting on the scene than the camera can manage in a single shot.

We didn't want to waste the opportunity yesterday of the last fabulous day forecast in this run, so we dealt with our errands in the morning and packed the picnic basket and set off to get some much needed fresh air and to stretch our legs.

I don't know much about them, but I do love taking photographs of wild fungi - maybe because they grow in my very favourite environment, so are synonymous to me with being in places I love.

I think this particular photograph was my favourite of the day - I like taking low level macro shots and especially with a slightly wide field of view to give a hint of the wider scene for context.

It was rather incongruous to be walking through very autumnal woodland, with dry golden leaves underfoot and some trees already almost bare, yet for it to be sweltering hot and us to be glad of the shade under the trees and the gentle breeze. We often get a lovely period at this time of year, which is why we're usually away on holiday at this time, but it was incredibly hot for the first day of October.

We chuckled when we remembered doing the same walk in August in fastened up coats, scarves and gloves when the brisk wind was too bitter to eat outside and we retreated inside the car for lunch.

This tiny emerging fly agaric mushroom was about 6 feet away from the clump I photographed and posted recently - no doubt part of the same colony, which grow on the roots of trees and these are the above-ground fruiting bodies.

I can't resist little scenes like this where a natural detail is highlighted in a shaft of sunlight, emphasised by areas of shadow behind.

I took this frame, then as I turned the camera to take a more vertical shot from the centre, the sun vanished behind the trees and was gone for the day.

I don't have much else to report this week, I've been dealing with things that are beyond the remit of my blog and not very interesting, but I'll try to add something more worthy and interesting next week - I really should address some of the many tutorial or technical subjects I have as 'works in progress'.

In closing I'll add a couple more photographs from the first of the nice days earlier in the week before it got quite so hot, but I managed to get a nice walk in during the day - after all, I can work when it's dark and it's a shame to miss out on such nice - and rare - opportunities. This is one of the lovely advantages of being self-employed, you can at least manage your time in this manner.

I've taken this standing in the local park and looking towards a field that usually has several horses in it, but they were out being ridden at the time. One of them at the fence would have finished this off nicely. I took this particular series of shots using an in-camera film simulation (Astia) which tends to give a rather yellow tone to images, thinking that it might work well with the colours on this particular day.

I posted a similar frame of this scene last week, but the light was rather better on this occasion and I made a better job of metering the scene and it has some additional warmth from the film simulation used too.

A pocketful of conkers

2011-09-23T11:44:00.015+01:00

Due to some of the heaviest rainstorms we've had for some time, I've not been getting out much during the day for a walk - I start off my day fully intending to, but dark clouds always seem to know when you need or want to be outside and gather accordingly. We had to cut our walk short last Sunday as the heavens opened in a spectacular deluge.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

There was clear evidence of recent heavy storms, this mature tree had fallen and done damage to the wall and pavement beneath.

It always happened doing the school run - it's a known scientific fact that weather worsens as school home time approaches - and you can get very wet walking almost a mile in a downpour. The same force seems to ensure that we have lousy weekend weather and glorious Mondays.

The last hard winter has given rise to a bumper crop of berries and fruits, these are perhaps the biggest hawthorn berries I've ever seen, they were like cherries.

I desperately had the need for some fresh air yesterday so decided, as soon as we had a spell of better weather, to just drop what I was doing, put my boots on and grab the camera and what might be a short-lived opportunity. I decided that the break and fresh air would probably do more good than me battling on working. I actually had assorted thinking to do, but didn't even manage that, I just pottered, taking photos, gawping at the scenery and with a largely empty head. Sometimes that's just what you need; a bit of mental inactivity can be deceptively productive.

There was a distinctly late-summer feel to the vegetation with everything bursting into seed and fruit.

I must admit that I do get a tad bored of doing the same walks, it's times like this that I regret not having a car (I'd have to learn to drive first too) and being able to take myself a little further afield, but I also want to walk where I feel safe and comfortable and I do at least have some open countryside within walking distance of my door, so I can't really complain.

I've always had a bit of a fixation with this old gatepost and others like it. I worry that one day it will be gone and replaced with something modern, boring looking and utilitarian.

I normally don't venture down this route alone, as it's very quiet (and I'm a pussy), but it just looked - and sounded - too tempting.

I usually stick to known routes on my own that are fairly public and near houses and roads, but the dappled sunshine through the trees and accompanying birdsong tempted me to walk the circular route through the two adjacent villages. It's much quieter than my usual route and I normally only do it with other people, but it looked that bit more attractive than returning and seeing the same things.

I'm glad that I did, it was the perfect day for it and I was treated to sunlight filtering through the trees (it wasn't always sunny, it left me a few times and was alarmingly dark to the north), undisturbed fallen conkers to stuff in my pockets and was serenaded by the woodland birds and very little else.

I live in an area that is a combination of industrial and greenbelt - often directly adjoining each other and even where it's now quiet and no longer worked, the signs of the Victorian heritage are very evident. Even though I've shown the prettiest parts of the route, I also have to walk along a main road and through industrial yards to be able to enjoy the nicer green bits.

It was however somewhat breezy, so some of my photographs suffered for it, but you really can't beat coming home with rosy cheeks, wind-tousled hair, muddy boots and pocketfuls of conkers!

I don't think I've ever actually seen a conker fall from a tree, they just appear on the ground, but one of these blighters actually got me hard on the bonce whilst I was gathering others. I did look up sharply, half expecting to see an irritated squirrel taking aim with another.

Fungi and Blackpool Illuminations - it must be autumn

2011-09-07T23:41:00.015+01:00

I don't have a particular theme to this post, but I've accumulated a few photographs, so it will end up a bit random.

Further to an earlier post about trees starting to change, it's become evident that autumn is well and truly here now - the weather has been appalling for a week and I have the heating on as I type. My garden, which never truly flourished this 'summer', is looking distinctly end-of-the-season and the torrential rain today won't have done anything to improve that.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

We went for a walk through some of our favourite woodland recently and there were many clusters of fungi at the bases of trees, a sure sign of autumn approaching. I certainly like autumn well enough, what I don't like is when it arrives before you feel ready for it - when you don't feel done with summer yet. Once it's evident that autumn is here to stay, then I'm as happy with it as any season - it certainly preferable to winter - although that has its merits too.

I liked the abstract of this view with the assorted curves and vertical lines. The photograph makes it look a little more cheerful than it was in reality - the sky was black and threatening and it was positively breezy. It was about here that it started raining.

We also had a trip to Blackpool this last weekend - it's the area we both hail from and were over visiting family. As it had been a better day than forecast, we decided to get a walk along the Prom between dinner and coffee whilst we had the chance. The sky wasn't quite as cheerful when we got there as it had looked from the window and whilst the temperature was just nice for walking in shirt sleeves - it was soon raining and we did get a little damp.

Even from a distance, you can hear the riders of the Big One scream (and the brave ones raise their arms aloft) as it drops from the highest peak.

The scenes along the Prom further reinforced the autumnal feel as the Illuminations were switched on a couple of days earlier - an event that signals the end of summer, going back to school and nights drawing in.

I do like how they've improved the Prom (and are still working on it) - at least at the South Shore end where we usually walk - there are frequent large art and sculpture installations, wide flat, safe areas to walk with plentiful seats, even some under cover for days just like this. See my earlier blog with photographs of the sculpture by Peter Blake.

"They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" - Blackpool's record breaking glitterball with 45, 000 individual mirror tiles. Named after Sydney Pollack's 1969 film about a dance marathon.

Last time we walked this section, this particular item was missing whilst it underwent refurbishment. It's the largest glitterball in the world, tipping the nod to the ballroom dancing heritage of Blackpool. It's called "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and features 45, 000 individual mirrors. It turns gently and the scene and sky around it are reflected as a glittering mosaic from the surface - although I'm sure it works much better with a more interesting sky.

My work this week:

Over the last week or so, I've finished a number of pieces and am just working my way through a mountain of photographs of them so that I can get them listed in the next couple of days.

The earrings above and the bracelet below are made from the same basic chain link structure. I'd had a gold chain that I wore until it got so thin that a link snapped and it wasn't worth even trying to repair - every link was hanging by a mere thread of gold and it's now been scrapped in - possibly for more than I paid for it.

It had an unusual alternating link design that looked like a knot between the links and I wondered if I could mimic something similar and had a bash - but from memory! When I'd done and actually went to get the chain out to compare it, my version was less like the original than I'd expected, but I'm really happy with how it did turn out and I'm sure it will soon become a favourite to make - it's fun to do, although a bit hard on the fingers. I thought that the long earrings, with their circular joining link had rather an Arts and Crafts feel to the design, with the long elegant shapes so typical of that design movement.

Further to previously posted Sterling silver nugget single piece earrings, I wanted to try making an articulated pair that would move a little more. These are quite large molten nuggets, soldered with a little loop on the back which in turn hangs from an earwire. I also made some much larger single piece nugget earrings and a very large molten nugget pendant - which is already proving tricky to photograph well.

A pair of earrings featuring fully oxed copper ovals, wire wrapped with dangles of turquoise magnesite.

Beaded beads - trying something new

2011-08-28T18:44:00.013+01:00

Further to comments I'd posted earlier about launching my 'Credit Cruncher' range of less expensive items, I have been giving some thought to designs to utilise some of my stash of beads. Many of the things I bought in the early days as I tried different techniques in my hunger to learn as much as possible, were no longer suitable for the style of work I'm currently doing.

I seem to have stashed quite a lot of seed beads - largely to use as small spacers and the like in other designs, but I'd also tinkered with some modest bead weaving. Bead weaving is one of those jewellery making techniques that I love to see and am attracted to the work and can see the skill and value in, but think I'm perhaps short on the right sort of patience to do more intricate work myself.

My first attempt, was the middle one here - intended as a netted surround to a single larger centre bead. When I say my first attempt, it was actually my second, the fist one was rather over-estimated on the size of the beads and would have covered a golf ball! I simply didn't have any beads that big.

But I had the idea that making some larger beads from the smaller beads I have already might give me a range of less expensive earrings to market, especially with an eye to the holiday and party season ahead - I known {{{shudder}}}.

I was given a book of beaded designs for a Christmas or birthday gift in the recent past and this had several beaded bead tutorials to follow. I've opened this book on several occasions with a needle in my hand and never progressed very far with them - they look like they should be simple enough to follow, but the techniques are outlined more like a knitting or embroidery pattern with colour coded charts. After another frustrating session with it yesterday, I just decided that the fault in not grasping it wasn't entirely mine, but the patters were simply poorly described. At least for the way my mind works. I've since found others that I could follow straight away.

The faceted gold beads in this front beaded bead are Murano glass bought for me in Venice. They're made on a square mandrel over silver, so they're very sparkly.

I hit my bookmarks and re-visited some sites I knew had tutorials (some as videos) and even after scribbling down some very incomprehensible-looking notes, I was much more able to follow these than the initial book and was soon on my way with some designs.

I also decided pretty quickly that there were things about these designs that I thought I'd prefer doing differently, so once I'd grasped a few techniques, I pretty much did my own thing and have made my own notes so that I can come back to it later.

It's always amazing to me how much you learn - and how quickly - from trying something new like this. You quickly find shortcomings in the instructions and think there are better ways of doing things - hark at me like I'm an expert.

Once I'd made some larger netted beads, it was clear they were too large for earrings, so I set about adapting the technique to make something smaller using only one row of main beads - in this case, satin finish glass pearls with seed beads and more Murano seeds as the accents. This design ended up pretty much my own invention.

Swarovski crystal pearls with black seed beads.

For example, the instructions I followed for the netted beads above instructed to keep the thread taut and keep good tension. It became evident pretty quickly, that trying to keep it taut with your fingers as you worked (which in itself was like trying to plait fog) simply gave rise to too loose a bead, so I simply repeated each stitched round as I went along, doubling the thread, so that the tension was much more consistent and gave a nicer result - my first attempts look okay, but feel somewhat squishy and fluid to the touch, where later ones feel solid.

When selecting beads to work together, I thought I had some nice combinations, but when finished, they look rather less subtle than I was hoping for. Largely I think because the small beads are simply too large, they need to be really tiny. When teamed with some matching Swarovski crystals, they do make quite luxurious looking party bling. My husband said they looked like Jacobean jewels. I'm not sure the pale pink ones will progress, they're very pink.

I think with beads of this nature, any unnecessary movement between the beads will give rise to more wear on the threads and shorten their life. And doubling the thread is bound to give greater longevity to the bead too.

It also became evident pretty quickly, that the sort of seed beads I'd accumulated weren't really the right sort for the task - largely because they were far too big - I hadn't realised just how tiny some would need to be to give the right look. So I think my resulting beads lack some subtlety and would benefit from gentler colours and rather smaller beads for the netting - even though these seemed incredibly small to me - and my ageing eyes.

But it was an interesting departure from my usual work and nice to hone some different skills. I found making them to be totally therapeutic and addictive as you get totally absorbed in the rhythm of the rows and counting the beads. But I'm not sure that the resulting designs are going to end up as best sellers for me. I'll finish these items up (and the first two need to be re-made to make them tighter and more robust, not to mention I can see a few stray stitches) and see how they look as finished earrings. At the end of the day, what sells in my shops isn't necessarily what I could wear myself - I don't go to anything like enough parties for starters.

500 items - reason to celebrate!

2011-08-25T17:09:00.005+01:00

Over the last couple of days I've reached a significant milestone in my on-line selling career - at least it feels that way to me - of 500 different items added to my own on-line shop.

I had been aware that I was approaching 490 items and the 500 was in my sights, then after a listing frenzy in an attempt to try and get myself straight, it almost passed unnoticed. These turquoise magnesite hammered teardrop loop earrings were the 500th item that I added.

It's true that a number of these are on the sold section, but it doesn't seem five minutes since I was struggling to get 30 or so items on there so that I could finally launch the shop - I figured that was the absolute minimum items to look like I meant business - I think I finally went public with something like 45 items.

At the time it seemed like an insurmountable task. I had to get to grips with my cart system, settle on a decent method of taking my photographs, pricing, measuring and a writing descriptions. It took an age in itself just to settle on the cart system to use, as there weren't so many options readily available as there are now - and I was on a limited budget and it had to be something I could set up, personalise and manage myself. It seemed to take a very long time for it all to come together in those early days and I almost gave up before I even got going.

It is so much easier today - although the time it all takes doesn't seem to diminish that much with experience. I constantly hone my methods in an effort to shave a few seconds off tasks here and there. I know that I work significantly more efficiently than I did in times gone by, but it's still nowhere near as much fun as making the items themselves.

I could do with a tech-savvy minion who would accept payment in hugs or metal scrap to do it for me, but despite leaving items to be photographed out overnight next to the camera, I've never seen any evidence of elves offering assistance, unfortunately.

Sale to celebrate:

So to celebrate and in conjunction with the forthcoming Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, I'm holding a sale in both my own on-line shop and on Etsy, offering 15% discount on everything in the shops. On my site, the 15% is deducted automatically, but on Etsy, use Coupon Code CELEBRATE500. The sale lasts until 07:00am on Tuesday 30th August.

As if that isn't enough - necklace giveaway draw:

I'm also going to hold a giveaway draw for this oxidised copper and Sterling silver nugget pendant necklace. All you need to do to enter is complete this very simple form on my site. It is free to enter, but please read the very simple rules on the page before sending off your entry.

I'd be delighted if you'd enter the draw for the necklace - it's currently shown on a black PVC thong, but I'll make a necklace up for you to your requirements - you could have it on oxed copper chain or cotton if you prefer.

I wish you luck!

But it's only the middle of August

2011-08-21T17:50:00.013+01:00

Anyone has read any of my blog previously will have figured out that I like to be outdoors and preferably amongst trees. If I had my own way, I'd live like a hermit in a log cabin in woodland, spending my time as a camera and jewellery making bum without having to worry about paying the bills.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

I'll grant you, you were pretty well hidden there amongst the long grasses, but I did spot you!

I'd be quite happy to live the simple life, I don't need clothes shops or restaurants and night clubs, I'd be pretty happy to have fresh air, peace and quiet and would even be prepared to grow and manage much of my own food. People talk of the 'Champagne lifestyle' if you won the lottery. What I'd buy would be solitude. I'd buy the biggest tract of land I could afford and plonk a nice house in the middle of it. I think I'd quite like to be reasonably comfortable - I'd need a hot shower and broadband connection, but I wouldn't need gold taps or marble floors.

Come on, play fair, we haven't even had a summer yet!

Even the leaves that are outwardly green, are starting to turn and the green is becoming more golden.

Both of us work pretty darned hard and often very long hours and it becomes very important to us to get outside - either at the weekend or in an evening. So whenever weather is suitable - and often when it's not - and we have the briefest of opportunities, we abandon chores and head outside. Thankfully, we don't really have to go far, we have several nice places to walk within a ten minute drive, so come the weekend, we grab walking boots and waterproofs, camera and walking pole and head out.

A significant amount of the bracken is already turning - not just the odd dead leaf, but great patches of it.

We did one of our usual weekend routes at lunchtime today and I was astonished at how many trees were already turning to their autumnal display - many trees were both dropping leaves and turning colour - is it me, or does this seem to happen earlier every year?

I'm sure in the past, you wouldn't see any golden leaves until well into September. It's simply not fair, we haven't even had a summer yet! Summer never seems to have even got going this year and here we are, already tramping over scrunchy dried leaves and feeling a bite of chill in the air.

I certainly like autumn well enough - but what I don't like is how it sneaks up on you whilst you're still contemplating summer and don't feel ready for it to appear yet. We didn't get a summer propper, so maybe we'll get an Indian Summer?

Introducing my new Credit Cruncher range

2011-08-10T18:16:00.013+01:00

I've been aware since I first started selling my own hand crafted jewellery on-line and at craft fairs, that my prices were probably below what they should have been - considering the time I spend on pieces, the range of tools, resources and skills we need to maintain and the direct costs of actually selling - most of which have increased significantly in the last two or three years - like postage and packing materials, raw metal stock etc.

I therefore made a decision to gradually set my prices more realistically for the work and costs each piece represents and the average unit price has no doubt crept up in recent months.

Two of my new 'Credit Cruncher' range of less expensive pieces - handmade glass bead pendants, topped with molten copper buds and a double wrapped antiqued copper bail.

But I'm also acutely aware that money is tight for all of us. Many of my best and long-time customers have lost jobs, had hours reduced or have other financial pressures on their household, as we all do.

A customer commented the other day that she'd love to buy a particular piece but just couldn't justify the expense at the current time, so this set me thinking about making a range of lower priced items to address this issue.

This is a new piece I will be adding for sale shortly - antiqued copper necklace with matching earrings, wire wrapped with a line of freely moving blue green Chrysocolla dangles - but it was quite labour intensive and this will be reflected in the price.

This is my Credit Cruncher variant of the same design idea. There are fewer processes, less expensive materials and this will allow me to keep the price lower to customers.

I saw a TV programme many years ago which was a fascinating insight into how a design is developed for the high street. It started with an original blouse design - a little summer short sleeved blouse with embroidery on the pocket flaps and lots of interesting stitched details and pretty buttons.

One of my new simplified designs to keep the price down. These glossy scarlet glass beads are so striking that they don't need anything else.

They set about cutting a pattern, working out the stages and costing the materials. They made up the garment and timed the processes and came up with a cost to make it and how much it would need to retail for to be profitable - a task that many of us must be all too familiar with. The resulting retail price was far too high to be competitive, so they set about modifying the design, process by process, detail by detail until the price to make it was in-line with other high street fashion chains and what the market could stand. Every row of stitching had a cost implication and even the direction it was sewn and the order it was assembled had cost implications.

I have quite a lot of my own polymer clay pieces that I'm putting together for the Credit Cruncher range. I sold several necklaces with these heart pendants on and thought they were all gone and I found one I'd seemingly squirreled away.

They replaced the original breast pocket which had a separate flap over fastened down with a pretty button and embroidered flower to a single piece pocket with a top stitched detail to look like a flap and a less expensive decorative and non-functional flower button sewn directly onto the pocket - they eliminated several stages and a chunk of saving in the materials too. This process was repeated with the front placket, collar, shaped hem and sleeve. Even the separate body panels that gave it the fitted shape were eliminated for shaped darts and the 7 buttons of the original shirt were whittled down to 5.

The finished high street version was superficially very similar, but a much trimmed down process, halving the manufacturing cost and bringing the retail price in-line with customer expectations and making it profitable to sell.

I have a lot of accumulated semi-precious beads and used to sell a lot of these simple silver plated wire wrapped bracelets and someone asked me recently why I no longer made them, so I'll be adding a few more back to the shop. This one is black spider web jasper.

So I've applied this thinking to some of my own designs this week - looking at elements that customers like and are familiar in my work, but trying to streamline the processes to be able to offer a range of pieces at lower price points - I'm calling this range my Credit Crunchers.

I'm also re-photographing some earlier designs to give their shop pages a new lease of life.

It's early in the process yet, but I already feel pretty good that this is something worth doing - none of us have any money and whilst I'm still keen to stretch my ability and make progressively sophisticated work - I think there's still a place for pieces that I can make more quickly by streamlining the amount of processes and in using more modestly priced materials.

I don't aim to compromise my work or customer service ethic in any manner, but there are other ways in which I can make savings for the customers.

A leisurely approach proved very productive

2011-08-01T12:22:00.018+01:00

I think the aspect of being an on-line sole trader jewellery maker that troubles me most, is finding the time to do everything that's necessary, properly. I never come close to doing everything I plan for any given week.

When you do everything yourself from designing, making, managing web sites and selling venues, marketing, photographing, packing orders and speaking directly to customers - there are just never enough hours in the day and the luxury of time to just tinker with design ideas and new pieces is somewhat limited. Yet I'm also mindful that constantly developing my skills is essential too, so pushing myself with new ideas is actually a necessity.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

One of my favourite spots at Beacon Fell. I've photographed this scene many times and have never quite yet captured the shot the way I want to. You walk through a very dark corridor of trees and on sunny days, the clearing at the end of the path positively glows as a beacon through the darkness.

Last weekend, we decided to just turn our backs on the long list of chores and took ourselves out for the day, got some fresh air, had a walk and a picnic and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so, that we planned the same for this weekend, but on Saturday we felt it was a little too hot for the walk we'd panned (and we couldn't go too far as he was on-call) and decided instead to just potter in the garden. We got our planned walk when it was a little cooler on Sunday.

Some dramatic lighting when the clouds broke after a dark dull spell during our evening walk earlier in the week.

We don't seem to have been able to enjoy eating in the garden as often in recent years, the weather has never seemingly been suitable on days we're about and we've really missed the luxury of a leisurely breakfast al fresco, something we both really enjoy and value. So we started the weekend as we meant to go on. We did have to laugh however, our quiet slow-paced peaceful breakfast outside was accompanied by the most enormous cacophony of sounds - lots of coming and going and car doors slamming, someone had a chainsaw going, some workmen were up ladders and shouting to each other, an alarm had been set off, even the weekend steam train passing blew it's whistle several times. So whilst it was enjoyable, it wasn't that peaceful.

Chunky molten Sterling silver drops. I decided for security (due to the weight of the pebble) to spiral the earwire at the back and make a decorative feature of it too.

So having decided to stay at home and just potter, once the essential chores had been done, he set about finishing his book and I wanted to work on some ideas I'd had for myself - much of which I could plan and work on in the garden.

I had intended to polish the molten pebbles of silver very smooth, but once pickled, it was clear that they had the beginnings of a reticulated surface and I rather liked the tiny ripples, so only polished for shine, not to smooth them too far.

As I have long and messy (dragged through a hedge backwards my mother calls it) hair, wear glasses and often walk wearing ear buds with my MP3 player, adding dangly fiddly earrings to the mix does have the potential for painful entanglement. So for a while I'd been planning on making myself some plain studs from molten nuggets of Sterling silver. As I'd used the best of my stash of molten nuggets on recent pieces, I was due to make some more for stock anyway.

I made the largest of the nuggets into plain studs, also leaving the slightly reticulated surface in place. These pebbles are 9mm (0.35") in diameter, so a decent weight and size.

But as is often the case, my mind took on a journey of its own and I ended up working rather differently than my initial thoughts and I think the results are all the better for it. I made myself a pair of molten nugget drops in the end, I decided that they suited me better slightly dropped below my earlobe and then made another slightly larger pair to sell, as well as a large pair of plain studs.

The fruits of my leisurely afternoon in the garden - the smaller back pair are for me and the other two pairs to sell.

I also had an idea for a customer order who wanted big chunky wraps above the faceted labradorite beads she'd chosen, which called for me to abandon my leaning towards really tightly controlled work and wrap them somewhat more loosely than my usual style. I liked the results and made another pair to sell too.

Faceted Labradorite with chunky triple wrapped tops in Sterling silver.

So having set out to spend the time leisurely in the garden, I actually had a very productive (and most enjoyable) afternoon - much more so than if I'd sat down with work I had to get done. And I've always felt that when you enjoy making something, it shows in the work; pieces made under pressure or sufferance are rarely your best work. Perhaps I need to decide not to do anything more often.

I also got on a roll in the evening with photographing recent pieces and made a nice big dent in my backlog, including the rosebud knot earrings to match recently blogged pendants, a finished bracelet that I'd totally overlooked and a darkly oxidised variant of a stock bracelet I usually sell in a slightly lighter 'antiqued' finish. Now I need to sit down and write descriptive text for 11 new items to list for sale! Wish me luck.

For some reason, I'd made this bracelet some time ago, but it had been overlooked in my 'backlog waiting to be photographed' box. This is a finer more delicate version of the ones I've previously shown.

Two different designs of rosebud knot teardrop earrings to match my earlier pendant design - I wasn't sure which approach I preferred, so finished both pairs.

Whilst re-making this design that I usually aim to keep in stock, I oxidised one version darker than the antiqued finish I normally offer it in, so will add this as an alternative finish.

This weeks fixation is . . .

2011-07-19T22:34:00.012+01:00

Further to my last post about the new teardrop pendant I'd been working on, as often is the case, I get somewhat fixated with a design idea or technique and work several variants of it in short order.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

I don't suppose for one minute that I'm any different from other designers in this respect - once you get attuned to working on something, your mind just runs away with it and the more you work, the more variants and ways you can use the element pop into your mind.

Thus is has been over the last few days. I've fine-tuned my method so that I can make them consistently and with a symmetrical shape and my head is full of ideas to work on - like it needed any more in there fighting for my attention.

The first photographs above are of what was the initial prototype I made from a soldered oval I already had on my bench. As the soldered join was a little untidy, I thought it might be nice to cover it with a molten silver nugget and make a feature of it. It was also quite small and didn't have much weight to it, so this will help it hang nicely. I'm going to keep this one myself and as I almost always wear pendants on a Sterling silver snake chain, the silver nugget will co-ordinate with that.

I also made some larger copper teardrops, more in line with the shape of the silver one - which had been my intended shape all along. I kept one highly polished and plain like the silver and another I adorned with an internal squiggle with hammered molten button ends, wrapped to the outer teardrop frame and supplemented with a couple of wrapped tiny copper beads - antiqued to enhance the textures.

It perhaps isn't evident from the photographs above, but the bails are at 90 degrees to the body of the teardrops , so that they hang perfectly perpendicular to the chain they're on. I'd photographed at angles to show the twist between the two loops of the teardrop and bail eye, but it does sit straight and central to the body of the pendant. I'll unfortunately have to leave my ideas for a day or two as I have other non-jewellery work to do.

Post script:

Famous last words above; I knew I wouldn't be able to help myself. I had to wait for a client to get back to me today before I could complete some work for them and I was able to finish this further variation that I started a couple of days ago. I've done various pieces with rosebud knots in the past and seeing (at the time) a rosebud knot piece in the 'I'm currently working on' box on the right, I wondered if it could be combined with the teardrop shape - which would rely on the knot retaining its shape whilst I made the pendant shape above it - which places quite some forces on the metal.

Thankfully, in this gauge of wire, it did and I was thrilled to bring two of my favourite recent techniques together. Even as I write that, I have a further idea to bring the teardrop together with another of my often used techniques - so it's off to the sketch book yet again.

This version is made from a single length of heavy copper wire, which hasn't been soldered in this instance, the knot holds it together.

A postponement and an opportunity

2011-07-17T12:37:00.021+01:00

I was scheduled to have dental surgery this last Friday - something I'd been waiting to have done since February and had had the appointment for since early May - and for reasons I won't bore you with, I've had to postpone it, much to my significant annoyance.

But having expected to be out of action for a few days, or at least a bit below par, I'd been working towards the date for a couple of weeks, trying to get ahead of myself with both work commitments and household chores - and had done a pretty good job of organising myself.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

I haven't been very far this week, so my only photographic opportunities have been local. In this case, I was trying out different film simulation modes on my camera. This one is Astia - a little rich for my taste, but with saturation reduced too, it might give very nice results.

Consequently when it was cancelled for this week, I found myself with some time available that hadn't been planned and was reluctant to just squander it by just getting on with my usual routine. So I decided to use the opportunity to make something totally new - not just replacing the stock I'd sold, or on customer orders, which had taken up most of my recent 'making' time - but something completely from scratch from the massive pile of as yet unmade sketches in my book.

I've always had a thing for daisies - they're just perfectly beautiful and I always have them in my garden. Whilst messing with the close up filters when the sun was low, I noticed how gorgeous this was underneath when backlit. It pays us to occasionally just look at things we take for granted, beauty - and I do love the gorgeous abstract nature manages - is right there under our noses.

So as I finished my breakfast on Thursday I perused my sketchbook to see what leapt out at me first and took my fancy. I pondered the shapes and tallied this in my mind with materials I had available and as I progressed to washing the breakfast pots - a task I've often posted that I consider to be quality and valued thinking time - my mind went off on its own, taking some of the shapes I'd reviewed and developing them further. As it does.

Mr Boo had one of his 'brainwaves' whist walking the other evening - he thought a slightly different route home would be nice - although it was rather further than he'd remembered and we were fighting off invisible ninjas all the way through long grasses. But we were rewarded by the odd gorgeous scene as the evening sun filtered through the trees.

I considered mobius rings and the idea of twists and by the time I was pulling the plug out of the sink, one particular shape was already settled as the one I wanted to try. As with many metalwork designs, you have to consider the methodology carefully - working out in which order to form the shapes - when to hammer which bit and where to place any soldered joins, so at this point I almost always work a prototype in copper first - especially as this was a design that I thought lent itself to highly polished silver and I wasn't even sure it would work, or what size to start with.

For example, I made these earrings in this session too, as they were long overdue to match the larger pendant I made a little while ago. I found out the hard way - as we often do - that it's vital to work in a particular order - and in this case, the curved curly cut ends must be polished and pretty much finished at the very first stage, as once you make up the heart, you can't get to the ends in order to finish them to the same standard as the rest. This particular shape, like many, needs hammering in a particular order too as you form the shape.

And this is where my design journal earns its keep - I initially make rough notes as I work in my sketch book - often changing it as I work it through - when satisfied, I write this up in my proper final design journal and this acts as a recipe book for my designs. If you find something out the hard way, there's no value in repeating the lesson next time you make the design - that just wastes time and materials.

I've always had a passion for very simple designs with clean lines - but you can only pull this off if you do it well - your workmanship has nowhere to hide, so you have to do a damn good job with it. I still haven't reached the stage where I can produce results of this nature to the level of perfection I'd like, but only practice will improve me.

I wanted to make a teardrop pendant from a single loop where it was twisted at the top to form an integral bail - one closed enough to prevent it slipping off the chain and turning upside down, but clearly visually all one sinuous shape.

I grabbed an already soldered copper loop, that I'd stretched to an oval, to work out the details and was incredibly happy that it worked just as I hoped - I learnt enough through the process to know what order I needed to work in and made the appropriate pencil scribbles in my sketchbook. Then grabbed a length of silver. I wanted it slightly larger than the copper with more of a teardrop and less of the ellipse the copper had become.

With the first one, I hammered an area that I decided would work better if left round and hammered later, so on the third version, I felt I got exactly what my mind had visualised - exactly the shape I hoped for and I was delighted with the result.

I now want to work on the method a little more to see if I can make it with less tool marks - it doesn't matter sometimes how well you dress your tools or the care with which you work, when you apply considerable force to metal, it's sometimes inevitable and unavoidable.

I've now part-worked a third version in Sterling silver by a method my subconscious has worked out in the meantime and it's already looking better.

I suspect that this was considerably more fun than I was scheduled to have on Friday and I feel that it was a suitable outcome from finding myself with a creative opportunity that I didn't want to squander.

We managed to eat lunch al fresco every day

2011-07-07T22:53:00.027+01:00

I apologise for my posting tardiness of late, but between work commitments and a recent holiday, I haven't been able to find the time to do it justice - or if I'm honest, I've not really had anything much of interest to say.

So, for now, I'll just post some photographs from our recent 'summer' stay in the Lake District. Incredibly and unusually, after our lovely spell there over the Easter period, we also had largely gorgeous weather this time too. There were odd periods of rain or occasional showers, but they never happened when we were actually outside and it didn't divert us from our plans.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

Sea Thrift growing along the shoreline at Arnside in Cumbria, one of my favourite spots to feel the breeze through my hair - and on this particular evening, there was a lot of breeze to feel. Combined with dampness it made a right old mess of my hair.

We can always get a snapshot of the success level of a holiday with regard to weather by how we eat our lunch - we are almost always out for the day, with a recent habit of doing our walking when we arrive at our chosen location, taking a snack to eat with us at a suitable spot part way along our route, returning to the car for lunch, which is often quite a bit later than lunchtime by then.

The goldfinches just loved the seeds from the thistles growing in the orchard beside the caravan.

I've seen Mum doing this, how hard can it be?

Sometimes we eat where we've parked, often we move to a favoured spot where we know a good sheltered or quiet place to park or where there are picnic tables. If there are no picnic tables, we have a system of setting up a 'table' in the hatchback of the car and eating lunch there standing up. It probably sounds a little odd, but it works really well and we've practiced and perfected a technique that really suits us. We also have an [unfortunately] practiced technique for eating inside the car where conditions outside are unsuitable.

The skies were largely blue with fluffy white clouds, which made a delightful change.

Perhaps if we took ready-made butties for lunch, life would be so much easier, but where's the fun in that? We tend to take fresh bread and an assortment of cheeses, meat and pate and just have a little of whatever we fancy.

It has always been a bit of a challenge having to organise fresh bread or needing to shop every few days when you don't have much of a freezer, but the last couple of trips we've used part-baked rolls that have a long use by date and can be baked fresh each morning whilst we have breakfast. We supplemented this by making our own bread too (an easy soda bread where we measured and took batches of the dry ingredients ready prepared and bagged and just combined with a carton of buttermilk), made life significantly easier and we don't know why we haven't thought of it before - it has worked like a charm and freed up that shopping time to be out in the fresh air. And saved us a considerable amount of pennies too - appreciated as this was very much a holiday on a tight budget.

So, judging by that criteria, the fact that we didn't have to retreat to the inside the car for lunch any day we were away, makes it a pretty good holiday - weather-wise at least. It certainly adds to the pleasure when you're blessed with sunshine in which to enjoy the gorgeous scenery.

I love the tilt screen on the camera that allows me to take low shots like this without getting muddy knees and eliminating the need for lots of trial and error using the self-timer.

I was extremely delighted to snag my first proper dragonfly photograph - taken with the maximum zoom as it was about 6 feet away down a steep marshy bank and I had no option to get any closer - largely as my husband refused to hold my ankles.

Further to earlier comments about my most recent camera, which turned out to be faulty, was returned and repaired, came back seemingly fixed, but wasn't, was returned and I paid the upgrade fee to get the newer, now currently on sale, model. Thankfully, it performed flawlessly and I realise that my original camera was never right and the problems I had with it from the start were not the user error I blamed myself for, but it was genuinely faulty. So I'm much, much happier with it now and can concentrate on composition and creativity rather than trying to get the camera to focus properly etc.

We went past the pig farm that has an outdoor pen several times whilst up there and this little chap was by far the tiniest piglet in there and he saw me from right across the enclosure and set off to investigate, but was waylaid en route by another piglet wanting to play, so I never got to tickle him.

"OK, own up, who farted?"

On the lane up to the farm we stay at there was a little group of bunnies playing one evening at the field perimeter and we weren't sure whether they were hares or rabbits - as we have seen hares in that spot previously. I was taking a few shots in far too low light levels, just to give me the chance to identify them properly, when this chap popped his head up out of the long grass - and disappeared again before I got chance to snag him. So I spotted where he'd been and pre-focused, hoping for a reappearance, which he made again briefly. Not the best image by any measure, but it amused the heck out of me.

And as often happens, we were delayed several times with holiday traffic jams:

And you can probably make up your own caption for this particular shot:

"Well, just come back over the same way you climbed over in the first place!"

Full gallery:

The rest of my holiday collection are in one of my on-line photo galleries.

Panoramic photograph of Tarn Hows:

One of the photographic areas that has always fascinated me is in creating panoramas and wide angle shots in general - you'll notice that many scenics and landscape shots I take are at very wide angles.

I haven't created a new panorama for a while - although I'm sure I've got lots of saved frames waiting for my attention - but I took a series of 5 overlapping frames to test out the new camera's suitability for this process. Although the starting frames weren't very good (some were a bit underexposed and dark for starters, due to the huge contrast across the scene), I've managed to do some work with them and make something good enough to reassure me that it will work well for me in future. Creating panos requires meticulous preparation when taking the frames to ensure that the individual photographs all have the same exposure and are focused in the same plane and positioned and overlapped so that they will line up carefully to give rise to an accurate and tidy stitch of the individual photographs when brought together.

This is Tarn Hows in the Lake District, from one of the less popular paths. 5 individual photographs stitched together.

If you click through from the image above it will give you a medium sized copy to view, but if you'd like to see it larger, this link leads to a larger version.

Close up photography experiments

2011-06-15T13:26:00.017+01:00

Apologies for the lack of recent updates, my husband and I were both laid low with one of those nasty, once in about 15 years, coughs and colds. Those ones that are so unpleasant that you will remember them clearly for many years to come. It was all I could do to ensure that I looked after customers properly and get from one day to the next. Sleep was hard to achieve, so I'm trying to catch up on that a little now too.

It perhaps serves me right for feeling a little smug that we'd both survived about 3 winters without either of us succumbing to much more than a modest sniffle - we'd managed to avoid all the bugs that do the rounds and were in decent health when those around us were struck down. So it would appear that we were paid back by getting all three winters worth in one dose.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

It's lovely in summer months to get out for an evening walk whilst dinner is in the oven and Monday evening gave us such an opportunity after a rather grey day.

I have also been without my most recent camera for some weeks whilst it was repaired under warranty, but having picked it back up at the weekend, it appeared to be fixed - and it's true that the major problem had been cured with a new lens and sensor unit - but there are still restless ghosts in the machine and I've taken the shop manager up on his offer of upgrading to the newer replacement model by paying the difference in their prices. They can't replace it directly as they can't get the model any more.

I've taken this scene very many times and can't resist walking past and taking another - I was actually looking for two families of young ducks who live on this stretch of river, but they were obviously all off on adventures.

I would actually have the new model in my sticky mitts right now, as I'd worked out a convoluted way of walking and bus journeys to attend to several errands in one trip today, but I totally forgot to get out and take with me the camera receipt and had to return home and cancel my plans - I'm livid about it and have no one to blame but myself. Having been very good for about 2 weeks, I was going to treat myself to something nice for lunch too - so now I will have to raid the store cupboard instead. Serves me right really, I deserve to be punished.

Having collected the repaired camera on Saturday morning, I was keen to do some work with it to ensure it was now working well before we go away next week, so I fired off quite a lot of assorted shots to check how it was working and a few during a walk on a rare nice evening on Monday.

I was rather surprised at how well my camera and close up filters worked when I saw the detail in the face.

One of the things I was keen to try with it was to do some close ups with some additional close up filters. I didn't even know if they would work with a digicam of this nature (I usually use them with my DSLR and lenses), so dug them out to have a go. They seem to work pretty well, by shortening the minimum focus distance for any particular focal length (i.e. zoom) - allowing you to focus on something that bit closer than usual and thereby increasing the size of the subject on the sensor.

The tiny pollen encrusted parts of these honeysuckle flowers look like sugared sweeties.

The definition of macro is that the subject is captured at 1:1 scale on the sensor or film plane - or better. So most digicams, despite having 'macro' modes aren't capable of actually capturing true macro photographs, they'd be more appropriately described as close ups. For example, the camera in question has a sensor 6.17mm x 4.55mm in area, so to capture a macro photograph, something 6.17mm wide would totally fill the photograph from left to right.

This particular bee with a taste for my lavender got rather camera shy and would vanish when I started taking photos, so I had to get sneaky to catch him in action.

But the addition of the close up filters (+3 dioptre in this case) - which it transpired were a different size from the front screw mount of my lens - so had to be hand held in front of it - clearly allowed a little extra magnification. My technique whilst working in this manner needs some work (I was just tinkering very quickly to see if it had merit before buying filters the right size) and I think the filters I have are rather poor in quality and I was getting some terrible colour halos around any edges catching the light. But I think it might be interesting to play some more with them and work out the maximum magnification and a suitable working distance to optimise the potential. I think it's something that I will enjoy working at.

Just as soon as I get my replacement camera that is - and the sun coming back out would help too, please!

Aren't lavender flowers a complex structure when you look at them closely.

A hidden gem we've walked past many times

2011-05-22T22:52:00.017+01:00

I've just realised that this is my 100th blog post here - I had intended to mark the occasion with something more in keeping with the milestone, but it's nearly midnight on a Sunday evening and to be blunt, my imagination and flair has totally deserted me, so apologies that it's not something more worthy.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

Whilst we were away over the Easter period the Fuji bridge camera I had been given for a recent big birthday to use as a walk-around camera when I didn't want to be weighed down with the bug guns, had developed assorted faults and is currently back with the manufacturer to be looked at, under warranty. There is clearly something amiss with the sensor and a whole collection of small, somewhat intermittent, but increasingly frequent, niggly problems - like it won't switch off or on, won't change mode etc. At first I put them down to quirks of the model, but when you lose shots because of them, or get home and find that several frames you took that day were totally out of focus, something really has to be done with it.

The fabulous gardens as Sizergh Castle in the Lake District - I have already published a photograph of this scene from a JPEG file - but having opened up the RAW file and seeing how much better the tonality of it is, as well as how much further detail I have been able to bring out, it has made me question my workflow all over again.

I had been happy with my Easter photos until I opened the ones taken with my DSLR. But considering this camera and lens combination cost about 7 times the amount of my new camera, it jolly well should show it up.

None of the very many photographs I took of this scene with different cameras really did it justice, with the low early evening sun filtering through the spring foliage and warming up the fragrance from the bluebells.

So whilst I'm without it, it has given me the opportunity to work on some photographs I'd taken recently that I hadn't done anything with yet and to give further thought to some of my concerns over the image files I get from it - and my perpetual quandary since getting it on how best to use it - I've never quite been able to get colours right in landscapes (which I think my Easter collection helped me to make decisions) and can't settle on just working with out of camera JPEG image files, or to do the extra work of using RAW files which give better results, but are more work - and the software provided for doing so is rather clunky to use, somewhat discouraging that approach and the frustration it invariably brings.

Bluebells nestled amongst bright spring green emerging foliage - one of my favourite things.

I was pretty happy with the photographs I took over Easter (largely as JPEGs) until I worked on both some images I took with the much larger and heavier DSLR (which at the time of buying, the cost - with the ultra wide angle lens I like to use - cost about 7 times this other newer camera, so it jolly well should show it up) and also some of the frames I took with the bridge camera in a RAW format and developed into images myself using software - a slightly tedious process, but certainly yielding better results.

So whilst I've been tinkering and trying different post-processing settings, which has been a really worthwhile process for me, I found a series of photographs I took before we went away at Easter and had temporarily forgotten about. We moved to this area about 29 years ago when we got married - we commuted to the area for work for 3 months initially, whilst we looked for a house and planned a wedding, moving here properly when we returned from honeymoon.

The area surrounding the reservoir was once farmland with assorted cottages and farms and it's always fascinating to see the gateposts and walls remaining from such previous occupiers. I wonder how many modern gateposts would withstand the passage of time in this manner

On the moors above us is a reservoir which has a 2Km walk around it and we do this lap very often, having walked it many, many times in those 29 years. And regular readers will know how much I love walking in woodland and how important being amongst trees is for me.

Off to one side is a steep narrow path disappearing into the trees and we only recently set off up that path to see where it took us. I'm actually now pretty cross that we've walked past it dozens of times without ever realising that it adds an extra loop into the walk through a most unexpectedly gorgeous wooded area.

It just goes to show that even little gems like that can be right under your nose without you knowing, or appreciating it. I can't see us missing out that loop many times in future - although I think it might be tricky walking if it's especially wet or icy - which it often is when we do that walk.

The leaves were just emerging when we were up there in April, but I hope to be back there very soon when I expect that the green will have exploded from what you see in these photographs. I'm really looking forward to it - and to my camera coming home too - I'm sorely missing it.

Turquoise dyed magnesite beads with double coiled antiqued copper. I wanted something with smaller beads to match the large chalk turquoise beads I use in necklaces, for those that prefer a more discreetly-sized earring.

Work-wise this last week I've been a good girl and caught up a little on photographing my backlog of finished pieces. I can seemingly make much faster than I can photograph (that's no doubt more to do with my motivation, making is so much more fun) and list pieces and I find the perpetual backlog really tiresome. But I set myself some deadlines last week and actually met them. I'm hoping to reward myself with some quality bench time to tackle some new ideas this week.

The best holiday weather since 1996

2011-05-07T21:56:00.025+01:00

That says it all doesn't it - that I can actually remember the last holiday we had with really great weather - and not that recently either.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

There's a more complete set of photographs in my image sharing gallery.

On the Good Friday bank holiday we hit heavy traffic and were held up for some time - Herdwick ewes being moved into pastures closer to the farm ready to have their lambs. Mr Boo christened this photo "Where's Woolly?"

This was taken over a week later, but only a few yards away so may well be one of the Herdwick ewes above being brought down to lamb. Each ewe only has a single black lamb.

We've just spent the extended Easter, Royal Wedding and May Bank Holiday period in the English Lake District and with the exception of one evening with a short-lived downpour - late enough that we'd already drawn the curtains and washed up from dinner, so it really didn't trouble us - and one day that was grey and drizzly, we had wall to wall sunshine for the entire 12 days.

I've always had a bit of a fixation about sunlight through trees, it's just one of my very favourite things.

Where we stay in a permanent static caravan on a working farm, the bedroom window is on the north east face of the structure and if I wake up with the sun on my face, we know it's a good start. Unfortunately, that's a somewhat rarer experience that I'd personally like. Every morning, bar one, the sun kissed my cheeks as the alarm went off. Fabulous.

Ramsen / wild garlic; the hedgerows and woodland were thick with it - the flowers just opening - it gives off a gorgeous sweet garlic smell if you brush the leaves as you pass.

But then you have to get up and to it quite promptly as long, static, metal caravans in full sunshine soon turn into baking tins and whilst the day might start with temperatures close to frost-inducing, the air warms alarmingly rapidly as the sun rises and heats the metal sides.

Our neighbour during our stay - taken through the kitchen window - this spot, nestled against one of the damson trees in the orchard, was a morning favourite as the sun warmed up. Soon after I took this, his brother sidled over and snuggled up next to him.

But it is fabulous to eat breakfast with the patio doors wide open and looking out onto the scenery with the spring breeze playing around you.

One of the very most important things to me is walking through woodland and it was just about perfect last week.

A rare moment of stillness in an otherwise very breezy period.

Walking through woodland along a lake shore and coming across small private (albeit rocky) beaches periodically to perch, catch your breath and admire the view, is about a perfect way to spend a spring day.

The weather was just about perfect for us, lots of sunshine, but cool air and on some days, a distinctly brisk and chilly breeze. Just ideal for getting out and walking, although our lunchtime picnics were a little more lively than ideal on some days. When your crisps blow off your plate and you have to hold bread down, you know it's time to retreat indoors to eat. Al fresco dining; I love it.

I wish I could have captured the fragrance for you too. There are few things more perfect to enjoy than dappled sunlight on deciduous ancient woodland with masses of wild bluebells.

The trees pretty much fully opened from bud within the time we were there and there's this short period each spring when the trees are this most magnificent luminous bright spring green - the foliage in the sunlight last week was breathtakingly gorgeous - beech trees especially are the most vibrant fresh colour. Foliage is pristine and un-ravaged by weather, disease or insects and at its most perfect - combined with the lovely clear air and sunshine, the Lakes were about as beautiful as I've ever seen them - and I've spent a lot of my life there in just about every possible set of conditions.

When we arrived, most of the ferns and brackens were unfurling and within a week, were all totally open

I wish I could share with you the fabulous fresh air, scent of the bluebells and the invigorating freshness of woodland in sunshine, but I'll just have to leave you with the photos and your imagination will have to fill in the rest. There's a more complete set of photographs in my image sharing gallery.

I love to sit on this seat around a tree and view the fabulous rock garden with its gorgeous maple trees at Sizergh Castle. I never tire of looking at it.

I love this scene in the castle gardens - the water lillies are just growing.

These flowers are less than an inch in diameter, yet fabulously complex geometric structures.

I was so excited when I came upon this pen of pigs - there must have been 50 assorted pigs of different breeds, colours and sizes, all sunbathing in a pile together - that I almost forgot to take photos - I was too busy trying to stop myself from squealing and jumping up and down in excitement.

Did I mention that I totally love walking through woodland and seeing the sunlight filtering through. I suspect I did.

Garden abstracts

2011-04-18T10:14:00.013+01:00

We had another lovely sunny spring weekend and whilst the warm weather makes it feel summery - it's still rather too early to plant summer annuals. Consequently, whilst I'm out in the garden working on it and getting some much needed fresh air and sunshine, there still isn't that much to see - and certainly not much colour - and it looks a tad barren at the moment. I do however grow quite a lot of greenery to keep it looking interesting even without flowers, so I decided to enjoy that for what it was and not worry about the lack of flowers.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

I have one spectacular potted hosta that has lovely variegated leaves and it is just opening up - the bits that the snails haven't already consumed are opening in lovely tight spirals.

I kept coming back to the same leaves as the light changed, totally besotted with the lovely shapes and lines.

The textures of the greenery do tend to give rise to some lovely abstracts and textures and that was what I focused on for my garden photography this weekend.

Newly opening ivy leaves which are seemingly quite hairy as they uncurl.

I often do this when out on my lunchtime walk or if the weather isn't good - I pick a theme or subject and concentrate on looking for images to fit that theme - it's good for making you look at things differently and even in limited locations (i.e. my postage stamp sized garden or the familiar walk to the next village) and poor weather, means there's much more to see that you initially think - once you attune your eyes to seeing them.

Not all my foliage is green - my Japanese maple opens with these scrawny thin red leaves that gradually fill out - red at first, turning green as they mature.

I might pick a theme like shadows, reflections, texture etc. and only take photographs that fit this theme - on other occasions I might limit myself to a particular fixed focal length lens or camera mode. It's very liberating to work this way - and good for finding something interesting when in a creative funk like I am at present. Who needs flowers with all this lovely texture and interest in the foliage.

A long growing tendril from my honeysuckle - it's an evergreen, but like everything else in the garden, it starts growing again with gusto once we get some sunshine and longer days.

I like variegated foliage for additional interest.

Some new opening foliage on alpine strawberry plants - making a lovely carpet of texture.

This bud will open out into tiny red and white candy-striped flowers.

The only thing this monkey puzzle is good for is taking photos of - if you lean against it or brush past it it slices you like a razor blade, falling leaves get totally ensnared in the spikes and need removing with surgical precision and protective gear.

An advance taster of summer to come

2011-04-12T06:44:00.017+01:00

Here in the UK over the last few days we've had glorious warm sunny weather. Spring has well and truly arrived with the bonus of some unseasonably early warmth. I even managed to get several loads of washing dried outside and put away the same day.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

I have collected lots of interesting pieces of driftwood and bought a bag of large pebbles to scatter around and I love the textural interest they provide in the garden even when nothing much is growing.

It was actually slightly odd to be outside in shirt sleeves, yet be able to see trees that were still bare. But that in itself has now changed, 4 days of sunshine and everything has erupted. That gorgeous new spring green foliage that positively glows in the sunlight.

I have a small corkscrew hazel in a pot and the 'lambs tail' flowers emerge before the foliage, which just emerged with the lovely sunshine we just had.

I love this time of year with the promise of summer ahead but with everything still emerging - lovely pristine foliage in fresh perfect colour, before weather, disease and insects take their toll over the summer months.

I have a large feature hosta in a tall glazed pot which looks stunning until the snails find it. It starts off as purple spikes which gradually unfurl the stripey leaves. I didn't spot this family of greenfly until I looked at the photos.

One of the big advantages of being self-employed and working from home is that I can choose when and where to work - for the most part. Clearly work demands take priority if I'm to keep happy customers, but I do love the warmer weather (shirt-sleeve warm, preferably not hot) when I can work with the back door open and potter in and out of the garden to do work outside when it's possible. I have a favourite bench in the shade that I love to sit at and work. It has been warm enough over the last few days to be able to do that and I was actually remarkably productive.

We even had bees busy at work collecting pollen and making the garden sound summery as well as feel it.

I had several pieces of wire wrapped work that I wanted to replace in my stock and several part finished pieces that needed hand polishing and I got through all of it over the weekend in rests between vigorous garden work - like stripping back a lot of the ivy that grows up the outside of the house. We tend to trim it right back, rather like a severe hair cut and it will re-grow rampantly over summer and still more over winter, ready to be curtailed again next spring. It's a messy, dusty job that we both hate, but always want to get done before we plant the summer annuals as the process drops hundreds of loose leaves in the garden.

I bought two phlox plants last summer that looked stunning when I planted them, but the first flush of flowers finished and they never seemed to get more than the odd further one. I was surprised to see that not only had they survived the hard winter, but were positively thriving. They've gone from tight buds, that I hoped were flowers, to full of these delicate flowers in a matter of days. I love how they uncurl as they open.

I do however have to share my garden. We have a very steep pitched roof which overhangs the house rather more than most houses, giving rise to deep eaves which provide good shelter for nesting birds and each spring and summer we have a whole neighbourhood of nesting house sparrows coming and going under the eaves and into holes where the roof crosses the stone walls. They seem to squeeze themselves through implausibly small holes and vanish out of sight.

For the most part, the sparrows don't mind us being in the garden, they seem to accept that we're going to be there but don't interfere with them and we happily share the space - I'm happy to do so as they're in serious decline and I enjoy being close to them. As the sparrows raise their families, we often get baby birds dropping from the nests when they're fledging and on more than one occasion, one has dropped down the drainpipe from perching on the guttering and we've had to take a section out of the drainpipe to release the trapped baby where they get stuck near a bend in the pipe.

I pointed out that as he wasn't paying rent and I fed him too, he might exercise a little more control over his manners.

But sparrows are pretty vocal, especially when a few gather and they sound like they're having heated discussions. I don't know if they're trying to chase us off, just let us know they're there, or just are chatting. So we often have individual birds that seem more vocal than others and make a big fuss as they come and go. The bird in the photos was one such 2011 resident. Every time he arrived or left, he sang loudly and very pointedly looked at me as he perched inside his own particular front door a few feet above me. Several times he hopped over to a length of the telephone cable coming into the house and would look down at me, very pointedly and loudly having his say.

The lovely weather gave me the opportunity to sit and do some wire wrapping and to polish several pieces in progress. There was a distinct 'heart' theme to my work this weekend, I made several pendants this shape in both copper and Sterling silver and the matching earrings are just waiting to be antiqued. I also finished a series of antiqued copper earrings featuring squiggled infills wrapped to a frame with Sterling silver. The oval pair were for a commission and I made the teardrop pairs at the same time to make available in the shop.

Revisiting my image processing workflow

2011-03-28T06:52:00.017+01:00

As I've mentioned before, I was kindly given a new camera for a big birthday I had in January and have spent some time since getting to know it. Despite being a very long term photographer with a lot of experience of different cameras, it's been rather a steep learning curve with this particular one.

I've had to work on how to get the best of it when actually taking photographs - and that's something I still haven't settled on yet - every time I think I've mastered what's required, a series of photographs disproves my earlier conclusions and it's back to the drawing board. I've never had a dilemma quite like this before with any camera.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view, they tend to look rather dark here on the page.

A recent image with the new camera taken on a very cold and grey day - which didn't quite work when I took it, but some extra saturation and a different sharpening technique brought much more out of it.

Some of the problem stems from the fact that I like to work with RAW format images, that is, the camera records the data of the photograph without finally processing it into an actual image - you download the file to the computer, then use software to make that final conversion. The idea being that your computer, coupled with your own knowledge and hopes for the photograph, combined with the luxury of time and sophisticated software, can do a better job of it than the camera can in the milliseconds it has to process the image for you.

I was tinkering with my 720mm equivalent lens on my lunchtime walk and this chap thought I needed investigating and came over for a closer look - at the time he was the other side of the field.

The camera itself is restricted to the recipe of image processing algorithms that are preset between the camera manufacturers taste and the settings you chose in the camera - like saturation level, in-camera sharpening etc. That becomes a sort of one-shot deal - once the moment has passed, that image has been recorded within those constraints and whilst you can post-process it later to quite a large degree, some aspects of it may be beyond retrieval.

The daffodils outside the house are at their most perfect at the moment and the patch of them gets the last dying rays of the sun as it sets behind buildings opposite and gives them a lovely evening glow.

So working with a RAW format gives you a second chance to wrangle a better image from the data you recorded when not constrained by the camera processing. It also gives you an opportunity to develop more than one version of an image and merge the best from each - this is a practice I especially like to do, predominantly with landscapes, which have a lot of contrast in the scene - if you get dark areas under trees well exposed for example, this might leave the sky too pale and you might blow the highlights of white clouds or reflections from water. In the past you might have done this with bracketed exposures taken at the same time, but this needs a tripod and still conditions to work well.

This image could not have been achieved, as it looks here, from a single in-camera JPEG - I developed two versions from the RAW file - one to expose for the distant hillside in full sun and another for the dark foreground areas in deep shadow. I manually blended them to get the best from each exposure.

You can blend separately developed images from the RAW file for colour as well as exposure - in this interior I did for a client recently, the grey tiles under the cupboard had a different colour cast from the rest of the room and were over exposed too due to the proximity of the lights - but I could blend the best of two versions of the image to get a natural looking result, more in line with what your eye and brain are capable of interpreting at the time.

You do of course see an image in the camera as you work with RAW files, as usually a small format JPEG is recorded at the same time as the RAW file is saved and embedded within it, otherwise you couldn't view your photos back in the camera or preview and identify them on your computer.

An image that I never did get to look quite how I wanted and in line with how the scene was, but some work on it retrospectively gave the result I had been after. Sometimes revisiting such images later with fresh eyes gives better results.

With my DSLRs I've always chosen to work with a RAW format and had a good workflow for doing so - I thought any extra time that process took (and I'm not convinced that it actually did) was more than repaid in better results. I got into good habits early on and didn't actually find the process tiresome, as many often cite as a reason for NOT shooting RAW. I preview my photographs (i.e looking at the embedded JPEGs just mentioned) in image viewing software and choose the ones I want to look at in more detail, then move to the RAW development software and only work on the ones I've already shortlisted - I certainly don't develop all of the images I take in a RAW format and often, the embedded JPEG is good enough for many uses.

What's not to love about sleepy piggies - another older image revisited with the revised workflow which gives a result more like what I saw and wanted from it.

And this is where my difficulties stem from with this camera. It has the ability to shoot RAW which was a big tick in the plus column when initially choosing the model. But, the particular file format is not well supported by many of the main RAW development softwares and those that do, won't work on my now old and insufficiently specced computer or they cost lots of pennies - and still won't work on my old computer. It does of course come bundled with a suitable application - but it's very much a stripped down 'lite' version without many of the functions I would consider essential - although they tantalisingly leave them visible but greyed out to add to the frustration. It's also very slow and a resource hog on my poor tired old computer. Plus, I simply don't like it very much. I really like the application I use with my DSLR images and that has spoiled me somewhat.

The scene at the top of the hill on one of my lunchtime walk routes. By the time I reach this point I tend to be gasping and panting and happy to just stop a moment and enjoy this scene.

So I'm currently having a battle between short term ease of use at the moment and better potential image quality - complicated by the likelihood that I will hopefully get a new computer in the not-too-distant and then I would be able to revisit images I've already taken more easily. So, for today at least, I'm just shooting JPEGs and as soon as I take an image that needs something more than I recorded, regret not having a RAW image to tweak. I'll certainly change my mind again next week; I'm already on 'Plan J'.

This is an image I've no doubt posted before, but as it's typical of the type of scene I can't resist, it was important to me to hone a methodology for both taking images like this and for post-processing them, to get results I liked. I finally got this one to look how I envisaged it.

But all this contemplation has caused me to revisit my image workflow too - perhaps a task that was long overdue. With the need to produce jewellery images very quickly and efficiently, I developed a workflow for them specifically and set up scripts for functions like sharpening, that gave decent quick and dirty results. These worked well enough for the web based jewellery images, so I got into lazy habits and started using the same workflow for all of my images. But this didn't seem to work quite as well with images from my new camera, so I decided to go back to basics and work through my original more thorough workflow for my 'leisure images' and see if I could hone a new workflow that could be made just as efficient and hopefully give better results.

I can't resist the abstract shapes and colours of fungi and this was taken on one of my favourite walks in the Lake District that in autumn has a diverse range of fungi growing amongst the trees.

I always used to enjoy tinkering with images to get the best possible result from them, but the need to bang out jewellery photos in volume as efficiently as possible had somewhat spoiled that process for me, but looking at it more carefully again, the bug re-bit me and I think I've now settled on a processing routine that will work well with my new camera images, but can also be applied to all of my other images too as I've honed some scripts that use the best of both workflows.

I'd forgotten about this particular version of my woodland chum - I'd taken it from down the hill, but with a long focal length to give that feeling of a low perspective and him slithering between the trees. Imagine if you bumped into that in the dark without knowing it was there.

So armed with my re-awakened enthusiasm, I picked some older photos at random and re-worked them, just to see if my new ideas had merit across a range of images from different cameras, some of which are posted above.

This was taken on a damp drizzly and cold August day and I wanted to try and re-capture that misty glow that the scene had with all the moisture in the air.

Time to grab my camera and head out for some fresh air whilst it's nice - now what settings was I supposed to be trying today . . . ?

Mother Nature knows how to cheer us up

2011-03-18T19:54:00.015Z

I apologise for yet another blog lacking in worthy literary content. I have been working and concentrating on other things recently and need to get back to my usual routine and thought processes and get some of the draft tutorials I have in the works actually finished. So in the short term, I'm going to fob you off with some photographs and hope it serves as a suitable distraction from the lack of actual information.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

There is a dense patch of tiny tete-a-tete daffodils in the corner of the park - how could that fail to lift your spirits.

I've always had the idea that Mother Nature knows everyone is a bit fed up after winter and in need of something cheering and she came up with daffodils. Isn't she clever?

It was a totally gorgeous spring day today - wall to wall sunshine (well, almost; the scant clouds always seem to know just when I've got myself into a preposterous position to take a photograph), deep blue sky and whilst the air was decidedly nippy and the breeze quite brisk, the sun was warm and I could hardly wait today to finish some tasks I needed to, so I could grab my hiking boots and head out for my lunchtime walk.

One thing leads to another - I stepped towards the railings along the river to see if there were any nice views to be had and as I looked carefully where I was standing to prevent me crushing any plants coming through the leaf litter, I saw a little cluster of small brown fungi - the structure of the gills is quite beautiful and clearly arranged in patterns of ascending size - you needed to get low to appreciate the structure, the photograph was taken on the ground. It was only around 25mm (1") in diameter and the same sort of height. Whilst I'm bending down taking photos, I spotted my gnarled root photo prop.

I believe this fungi to be a Winter Twiglet - Tubaria hiemalis - apparently there are few traditional mushroom shaped fungi this early in the year and it certainly has the gill patterns which would identify the species.

That makes it sound like I scaled some strenuous peak, where in reality I walked a loop to the next village, tickled a cat, threw sticks for a gorgeous auburn coloured boxer dog, caught up on the family gossip with an old friend out tending her horse, took some photos and found a fabulous bit of dried gnarled root for a photo prop. As previously mentioned, I always have a tie handle bag in my pocket for the collection of such treasures. Dangling from my camera bag it must make passers-by wonder where I lost my dog, but I care not.

The house that faces this view is currently up for sale. I've looked at it a couple of times when it's changed hands over the years, but I don't think my pockets are anything like deep enough.

As I headed back, I got the flashing red icon to indicate that my camera batteries were going. I had spares with me, but didn't want to bother trying to change them with cold fingers and without my glasses to see which way in they go. I managed to squeak a couple more out of these primroses.

I really should have made more progress on my to do list, but tickling cats, talking to boxers and old friends and sharing my day with pretty fungi, daffodils and primroses was far more agreeable. I can work when it's dark.

What on earth are they doing?

Maybe you can help to educate me - I saw these chickens at a farm shop recently and was perplexed by their actions. There was a dusty hollow in some dry earth in the shadow of a wall and the chickens were taking it in turns to 'bathe' in the dust. That much I can comprehend, but after some fluttering action, they would lie perfectly still for a while as though in total ecstasy, with their heads on their side. Then jump up and saunter off, like the white one who was clearly 'done'.

I was tickled that the white chicken standing has markings on its side like a boot print. I sincerely hope that is is just patterns on the feathers.

Fresh air, peace and quiet - just how we like it!

2011-03-05T10:02:00.023Z

As regular readers will know, I am totally besotted with the English Lake District and spend as much time there as bank balances and work schedules will allow. We weren't expecting to spend any time there until our regular Easter holiday but a lovely opportunity to do some photography work up there, as a return favour I owed someone, came out of the blue and at short notice, but it didn't take much effort for me to be persuaded.

Between the work I had to do we did manage some quality time in some of our favourite places and that was a real bonus. The weather was decent enough for February too, so we managed a couple of nice walks and to gawp into our favourite patches of trees. It was incredibly quiet - just how we like it - and we haven't had a winter break up there for some time and it was different to see it with bare trees, we saw all sorts of things normally obscured by foliage that we've not spotted before. I've had a run of health issues recently and the fresh air, peace and exercise did me a world of good and despite the work I still need to do finishing the project, was very well worth doing.

I'll just leave you with the odd assortment of distinctly average photos I took over the weekend. If anyone sees my photography mojo, will they please pop a stamp on it and drop it in a letterbox back to me - I'd really rather like it back. I'm not even sure where I had it last.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

One of our favourite walks along Windermere starts along the lake side. There was a sailing race taking place at the time - I couldn't fathom what was going on - it looked incredibly confusing, but looked like a perfect day for it with the colourful spinnakers billowing.

I hope that they know where they're going!

Once the race had finished it went very quiet on the lake. All you could hear was birds and the occasional creaking tree in the breeze. I always kick through the leaf and timber detritus at the water edge and this is where I get most of my driftwood pieces as photography props and I picked up a beauty. I always carry a tie handle plastic bag with me for collecting such 'treasures'.

It's a relatively recent practice in managed woodlands to allow fallen trees to stay where they fall (unless there is a safety hazard) and for the natural ecology of the woodland to take over. I love to see how many things take up residence on logs like this. It becomes a fascinating little world all of its own.

I love the abstract design and textures of fungi, mosses and lichens, they're worth getting a close look at them, they're often complex and fascinating structures.

It was a bit muddy underfoot, but with the peace, sunlight through the trees, lack of people and abundant fresh air, it was just about perfect.

This photograph was somewhat about 'the one that got away' - it had been preceded a few minutes earlier by a passing over of the incredibly fast, loud and flying vertically on its wing-tips, Typhoon Euro-fighter - I've seen them in this spot over Thirlmere many times, but by the time you hear them, they're almost out of sight. It was so loud Mr Boo actually swerved the car and we both ducked, although I have no idea why instinct should make you think that would help in the circumstances. Thankfully, this transport helicopter a few minutes later was going at a slightly more sedate pace. What a fabulous way to visit the Lakes. I stuck out my thumb but they weren't for stopping. Note the heat from the exhausts blurring the trees behind.

The last dying colours as the sun sets behind Thirlmere

I love the colours of beech woodland; at any time of year.

We woke on Tuesday to a perfect clear deep blue sky and deep frost. As some of the work I had to do included exterior shots, I got out early to do them while the sky was so perfect and the undisturbed foliage where the sun hadn't yet reached was dusted with delicate ice crystals - even the hairs on the stalks are frosty.

Spring is tapping on the window

2011-02-25T06:46:00.013Z

We had a lovely day yesterday. It started damp, misty and grey, but by 10:00am it was lifting and the sky brightening. By the time people were enjoying their elevensies, it was bright sunshine and pretty much clear blue sky.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

The trees still look bare, but there's activity brewing in them.

I wasn't going to waste it by being inside, so picked up my camera (I'm still extensively 'testing' my new one) and headed out for a walk - I wasn't going far, just one of my usual lunchtime walks of just over a mile. One route I do regularly has a steep hill, so offers more cardiovascular value, the other undulates much more gently, but has more scenic value. I opted for scenic enjoyment over workout in the sunshine, on this occasion.

I promised you some snowdrops.

There was very a very definite air of spring - I saw my first daffodils, heard birds singing like their lives depended on it, horses going daft being frisky, ducks canoodling and more people than usual out doing the same thing as me.

Not my best photograph, the ones flowering were in the middle of a large patch, so I had to take them from quite a distance. But it was lovely to see the first ones in bloom.

I chatted with the lady who lives adjacent to the memorial garden in one corner of the park and must maintain it - I think she thought as I bent to photographs the snowdrops that I was interfering with them, so sauntered over to check. She said it was official that spring had a arrived, as a pair of ducks that court in her pond before raising a brood, had arrived yesterday and tapped their beaks on the glass of her kitchen window to tell her that they've arrived and would like a welcoming snack please.

If you look closely you can see her husband nestled down behind the dead grass.

I remembered to take a drink this time and found a picnic table in the park in full sunshine and allowed myself the indulgence of 15 minutes sitting there doing nothing other than allowing the sun to soak into my face that was hungry for it and listening to birds and half-term children playing in t-shirts. It felt like spring, it looked like spring and it certainly sounded like spring.

The park is almost completely circled by mature trees.

I took this photograph at the weekend in damp, very cold, dark woodland, which seemed a world away today.

Christmas presents to enjoy some time later

2011-02-20T09:55:00.011Z

Firstly, I hope you like the new look of the blog, I decided it was time I gave it a bit of attention and having passed 90 blogs, thought it needed some organisation, so I'll be working on that gradually in the next week or two, it's somewhat of a work in progress. But please do let me know if you have any problems with it after my tweaking.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

I'm still tinkering with my new camera and getting to know it and macro was the next thing I wanted to address, as it has a very long zoom range (30x) so needed some thought about how to get the best from the macro function. For this series of photos I was just thinking about abstract shapes and the gorgeous patterns you get to see when looking closer.

I've always had a particular fondness for spring flowers, I love to see bulbs emerging from the winter soil with their promise of warmer times and longer days to come; a welcome sight after a seemingly long, cold winter this year.

I'm especially fond of snowdrops, I love their delicate elegance and over the years I've planted more outside and they're now starting to naturalise and expand nicely - I'll get some photographs of those as soon as it stops raining and we get some light - as they're just about at their best now.

The structure of hyacinths has always fascinated me, the way all the little individual flowers bud and open and then curl back.

Each Christmas I am usually lucky to receive some of the bulb kits that you plant yourself and this year I have a pot of very delicate and paper-like white crocuses, some pink hyacinths and a scarlet red amaryllis - that has put out two flowers, but rather smaller than usual - but gorgeous nontheless - and each a slightly different colour too. They all seem to have peaked at the same time and I took the opportunity to grab some photographs before they fade.

I concentrated on this occasion on some abstract images from framing in tightly so that I could enjoy the lovely shapes and structures of the flowers. One of the aspects of photography that I enjoy is that you learn to see things differently and whilst working on a series of photographs like this, you simply look - and are therefore able to enjoy - that bit more. It gives you a legitimate excuse for doing so.

A promise of more yet to come - I love how the buds are all tightly packed together and gradually spread apart before opening. Their shape reflects how they were squashed together as they formed, before they relax and spread.

The best I could manage on a damp February Saturday

2011-02-13T13:08:00.016Z

Apologies for yet another post of little worthwhile substance, but it's been a funny, disorganised sort of week and my mind hasn't sufficient capacity left for writing anything sensible or of value this week.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

On the perimeter of the reservoir are the remains of some workers cottages and farmsteads from before the valley was flooded. This shot was a blended exposure from two frames developed from the same raw image taken - it would have been impossible to get this much detail in the foreground shadow and good colour in the sky from a single in-camera image.

As mentioned previously, I got a new camera for my recent BIG birthday and haven't yet fallen totally in love with it - it's taking some getting to know and get the best from. I was concerned that there was actually a problem with it, I was getting a few totally out of focus shots, despite having focus lock confirmed, so I consulted fellow owners on a photography forum for advice.

After discussion of focus and exposure issues, I took it out for a walk yesterday - I needed to stretch my legs and get some fresh air and the 2Km reservoir walk we chose is local, has a good car park and provides just the kind of scene I've been having difficulty with.

So armed with some ideas to try and warm clothing I put it through its paces and whilst the scenery was very post-winter and drab looking and the weather very changeable - from bright low winter sunshine to big dollops of cold rain, I came away with a higher percentage of successful shots than I had been doing.

I shot these in a raw unprocessed format which is my usual practice with my DSLR and I think this will be the way to go, I was much happier with the image quality (at pixel level, in terms of sharpening, contrast etc.) and it fits nicely with my preferred work flow for post-processing images - I like working the images to my own taste rather than just accepting what the camera gives me.

My new camera has a wider wide angle than most digicams (24mm equivalent, where most are 36mm or 38mm) and this was one of the reasons I chose it, as I do like to take very wide angle shots like this. I use a 12mm ultra wide angle lens on my DSLR.

I did however have to question one previously published theory - that dogs always carry the largest possible stick they can lift with their jaws. I was passed by a golder Labrador with a very trim stick in his mouth - it was about 2" in diameter and about 15" long - with very clean saw marks at each end. I suspect his owner, fearing for the safety of their shins, or perhaps having already come off badly after an encounter with the dog's favourite walk-buddy - decided to create a stick of his own that was perfect for carrying and throwing and ensured rather less bruising. Mr Boo and I both spotted it simultaneously and pointed, laughing; the owner must have thought we were bonkers!

There's often little water in this race which feeds the reservoir, but after several days of heavy rain, the waterfalls were more lively than I've seen them before.

To paraphrase a quote by Ms Dolly Parton - 'if you want to see rainbows, you have to put up with the rain'. You can just see that this was a double rainbow and actually was a full arc on both sides too.

The ingredients of a good walk

2011-02-10T19:24:00.009Z

I apologise for posting several recent blogs on a similar theme, but it just so happens to be what I've taken photographs of - and where we've spent time recently.

It was my husband's birthday earlier in the week and as he has a few days of annual leave to take this financial year, he thought that he might as well take a few days around his birthday, so that we'd have a choice of days on which to try and get out for some fresh air, should the weather not co-operate on the actual day. As it happens, Tuesday proved to be the best day of the week and an ideal one for wrapping up warm and heading out to stretch our legs.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

The summit of Beacon Fell. the very grey and misty start had thankfully lifted to the most glorious day.

We were talking in the car on our way home about what a nice day we'd had and listed some of the highlights and decided that these were often the ingredients that went to comprise the more enjoyable days. So these are the bullet points that seemed significant and entertaining - to us:

It was quiet - although we went to a popular and favourite beauty spot, it always feels like a bonus to go mid-week when you often get the place pretty much to yourselves.

It had rained relentlessly for the previous 3 days and it was rather squelchy underfoot in places, but sunshine after rain of that nature does provide a rather special atmosphere.

We only really passed the occasional dog walker and other mature types like us taking advantage of a day off or enjoying their retirement. We passed grandparents with a cheerful small dog and equally cheerful young grandson, wearing the most fabulous fleece hat adorned with dinosaur spines. When admiring said headwear, he provided a suitably loud dinosaur roar, just in case we weren't certain what type of beast he was. He advised us that he was looking out for real dinosaurs and bears, so we were more vigilant from that point forwards. Just in case he was lucky.

I must admit to looking a little more carefully into the dark corners once I knew there were dinosaurs and bears lurking. But thankfully the only wildlife we saw were some squirrels chasing each other along the branches, obviously thinking spring was in the air.

This encounter left us with a question - why do dogs always prefer disproportionately long sticks to carry? What primeval instinct drives them to drag one along, seemingly far too large for them, causing passers by to swiftly take evasive action to save their shins. You'd think that there would be an optimal size of something like 4 times the width of the dog's skull - but not so, it would seem, dogs, even quite small ones, will valiantly persist in carrying a stick or branch several times their own length. And for some reason, equally unfathomable, Mr Boo obviously sports the look of a man who would be good at throwing said sticks and he often finds himself with a stick at his feet and a hopeful looking dog attached.

I have posted photographs of this fabulous carved snake before, but the light made the fabulous textured carving on his head rather more visible and we approached it from a different angle. It might just make you jump if you didn't know it was there.

Talking of dogs, whilst we had our favourite car park almost to ourselves, there was one other very small car parked nearby and our lunchtime entertainment took the form of an extremely large (sans stick, presumably he never found one quite large enough) Irish wolfhound that had to be shoe-horned into the aforementioned very small vehicle before departure. I was so sorry that I'd put the camera away at this point. But I had to admire the fact that he'd clearly done it before and knew just what was required to cram himself into the inadequate space. Clearly his daily walk was worth that effort.

I'm not keen on snakes, I certainly wouldn't have got this close to a real one, but he does have a rather lovely face which is beautifully carved from a massive hunk of timber, with lovely and very tactile textures.

I saw my first lamb of the season - very small and still wearing its protective plastic coat, presumably only born in the last few days.
We had a very brief and fleeting encounter with a barn owl. As we were driving back towards home, we must have disturbed it on a fencepost at the roadside. It took off and flew alongside the car for a few yards and by the time I'd tried to get my husband to take appropriate action to allow me a photograph, it had veered off to the side and was now behind us, but the close proximity of another rather impatient driver close to our tail meant that we were unable to stop quickly and by the time we'd extricated ourselves from the traffic, the barn owl had seemingly settled somewhere out of sight, despite returning and carefully scanning the area he'd last been seen. I was gutted not to have got a better look or an opportunity for a photograph.

You always know that it has been a good day when you drive home to a sky like this.

Cufflinks born on a woodland path

2011-02-05T22:36:00.027Z

I end up particularly fond of some of the pieces that I make that have more of a story behind them - some feature that makes a piece unique to me - either the way it evolved, the materials used or the thought process that inspired it. Some pieces just end up more personal than others.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

I saw a TV program many years ago where a sculptor was making big metal structures in a barn attached to his home - one of his comments really struck a cord with me and I think of it very often.

He said that the work he did reflected his daily life and he didn't worry too much about always trying to make it perfect. If he woke in a bad mood and his tool marks went a little deeper that day, then his mood was embodied in the work. If his cat came along and rubbed his head against his arm as he was working and the nudge caused his tool to make an additional mark, then that mark was a permanent declaration of his cats love for him. His life was an important character in the development of the art.

I really like the idea that a piece of work reflects our lives in this way - they become personal and organic and much, much nicer than something impersonal churned out in the thousands from a machine.

I have always been fascinated by fir cones. I simply cannot resist picking them up and putting them in my pocket when I walk - they're perfect little natural sculptures - I love the regular geometry of their appearance and the spiral patterns of the open scales. I have a house full of cones picked up on walks, little tiny wee ones still on their branches and even one mahoosive one (well over a foot long) that I saw drop from a specimen tree in a stately home garden. I figured that as it nearly brained me, it was fair game to keep it.

I have favourite trees that I know drop particularly pretty cones and even though I have more than enough cones to decorate my home, I still can't resist picking a few up when I pass by. They even get to play a part in presenting my jewellery.

So it was a natural progression to me to encapsulate the abstract of them into an etched design. I have spent some time since I started making jewellery, trying to figure out how to bring my love of cones together with a jewellery project. I had the idea that using the regular geometric shapes of a cone I could make an abstract pattern for a texture to etch. Not necessarily obvious as a fir cone image, but a unique texture inspired by one.

I picked up a long cone from the path as we walked through Beacon fell in Lancashire, a place I've mentioned several times in my blogs - they had been doing a lot of tidying of trees and there were a lot of cones and trimmings on the path edges. I also took some nice needle-clad branches for the same purpose. Once home, I took an assortment of photographs to use as my reference and settled on one particular cone photograph that I thought would lend itself well to making a texture and set about digitally manipulating it into a two tone image that would be suitable to etch from.

For etching, the image needs to be just black and white - not a black and white photograph, but the image must only have black and whites - white is the area to be etched and black protects the copper surface and prevents it being etched. If the image is recognisable, like a photograph, the image needs to be both mirrored and made into a negative, as the white areas within the image will be removed from the copper surface and once oxidised black, will be the darker areas that form the image.

So I worked several versions of the photograph, until one looked like it would work as I hoped, which I then mirrored and made a negative of it, ready to apply to the copper sheet for etching. Whilst it is now very much an abstract from the original photograph, I hope you can still recognise some of the structure of the pine cone bracts.

I wanted to make this design into a pair of cufflinks for a gift, but was working on them far too close to Christmas to have time to get suitable fittings in a copper finish (appalling winter weather had seriously impacted on postal deliveries) - so I had to design and make my own. So I settled on a short chain and toggle bar for fitting them in wear. I attached a small D loop to the back of the etching and a couple of links of chain, to a two part toggle bar, much as I make for my toggle bracelet clasps.

Sunlight through trees, one of my favourite things

2011-01-29T23:30:00.021Z

As I've posted many times, I enjoy walking in the outdoors, preferably somewhere natural and away from people and man-made structures and most preferably; amongst trees.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

I absolutely love seeing sunlight filtering through trees, those little flashes of golden light you see playing on the trees and ground to make infinitely variable abstracts. Being amongst woodland is good in any weather and often the very shelter it provides makes it a good choice on days of extreme weather; lessening the effects of rain, wind, or hot sunshine.

As the weather forecast for today was for clear skies and temperatures not far above freezing, it was too good an opportunity to miss and the domestic chores we should have been addressing were abandoned in favour of a nice drive to a favourite spot (Beacon Fell in Lancashire), a walk and some soup and fresh bread for lunch - which always tastes much better outside.

But I really do love seeing shafts of sunlight between trees, it's something I never tire of and must now have taken hundreds of photographs of, but it's also something very difficult to do justice to in a still photograph. Sometimes, you just have to be there and enjoy it in the moment.

I get a great deal of comfort for being amongst trees and I cannot conceive of living anywhere where I wasn't in close proximity to trees - I am blessed in being able to see them right outside my windows and to be within walking and driving distance of some totally gorgeous woodland areas.

All of my favourite walks are in woodland and if I'm stressed or unhappy for any reason, it's the idea of being amongst trees in the fresh air that comforts me and gives me something to look forward to. It's where I take my mind to when I want to be distracted.

It had clearly been below freezing overnight and we woke to visible frost, but within the forest park we encountered a number of areas with different weather conditions, from a light snow covering, to thick frost and in more sheltered spots, areas of mud where it hadn't frozen at all. This pond was surrounded by a dusting of snow and the water itself was completely frozen - someone had already broken the ice near the edge and flipping over some of the pieces we could see that it was over an inch thick.

I've shown photographs before of this willow woven statue of a deer that has recently been built in a little clearing in the forest and you just encounter it at the side of the path as you walk along. I took this photograph with a wider angle lens than previously as I wanted to check the status of the small pine trees growing around it. the ground was well covered with seedlings of different sizes and I was curious as to whether they'd been planted or were self-seeded - considering that the ground is littered with cones from the adjacent trees.

My new camera has a 30x zoom lens (from wide angle 35mm equivalent focal length of 24mm and 720mm at the telephoto lens) and I was curious to see the range it offered me from the same spot. Both photographs were taken from the same place and are both full frame. There's a little camera shake in this close shot as it was taken at a very slow shutter speed. You can see the willow is starting to bud, so presumably this will sprout leaves in spring, so it will be interesting to see how it develops.

I also wanted to do some more work with my new camera, but it was bitterly cold, especially in the shade under the trees and as a Reynauds sufferer, I was really struggling with numb hands today and trying to operate the tiny buttons on a camera - and keep it still - wearing thick ski gauntlets (recently purchased and just not up to the job) wasn't the best methodology for good results. And don't even get me started on how hard my hat, scarf and hair was fighting me today, variously getting in my eyes and causing me to steam up my glasses.

This is one of my favourite spots on our walk - and as we did a figure of 8 walk we walked this section twice today - you drop down quite steeply through a plantation area which is quite dense with conifers and even on the brightest of days is very dark and the light rarely penetrates the area as it never gets direct sunlight, being in the shadow of a hill. But there is a clearing ahead where paths cross and the trees in that area are often in a shaft of light, making this lovely glowing focal point to head towards.

The deep contrast of the lighting makes it almost impossible to photograph well and do the scene justice, but I think you'll get the idea. The patch of trees ahead of you in the path always seem to glow as they catch the sunlight.

A frosty workout for my new camera

2011-01-21T22:38:00.021Z

Yesterday evening we had the most amazing weather - I've never seen anything quite like it. It had been a cold day and as the light and temperature dropped at dusk, there was quite an eerie feel to it as a thick fog drew in. I could actually see the frost developing in the garden as I worked, tangibly turning surfaces white as it got dark. It's not often that you see a frost developing quite that quickly and quite so early in the evening.

Please click on the photographs to see a larger view - they look rather dark here on the page.

As the fog swirled round, the frost visibly thickened - within a couple of hours of me noticing the fog, the garden was entirely white - like a modest covering of snow. As the night drew in and the temperatures dropped further, the frost thickened and you could see the air was full of ice crystals, twinkling as they caught the light. By midnight, there was a solid white covering over every surface, almost an inch thick.

And I mean every surface - when snow falls, even very gently, it only lands on uppermost surfaces - obviously as it's falling downwards. But this frosty covering wrapped around every surface of exposed items, in all dimensions and on the leading edge of larger structures like trees and furniture. By the time we were heading for bed, I put on an outside light to check progress and you could clearly see spiky crystals projecting randomly from the surfaces of leaves and garden furniture. I was hoping that it would last until daylight so that I could get some photographs - I had a new camera I was keen to give a good workout.

A little reading turned up some new information to me - it seems that if frost is formed specifically from fog freezing when it hits cold surfaces, it's called 'rime' - there's soft rime (very similar to hoar frost) and hard rime. I'd not heard that term before. I think this frost therefore must have been soft rime. Hoar frost is very similar, but forms when the relative humidity is just generally high and the moisture in the air freezes on surfaces. So it often occurs when there's a very cold snap after a period of thawing snow.

The moss on a dead tree I keep for my tree creeper - you can see how light and fluffy it is when it doesn't even disturb the tiny delicate seed heads of the moss and formed around them.

Unfortunately by sunrise, it must have warmed during the night and the crystals I'd seen as we shut up for the night had collapsed somewhat and now it just looked like a soft and gentle covering of very light powdery snow - and much of the frost on lower surfaces had seemingly dropped off, adding to the snowy appearance.

It was still beautiful nontheless and I was glad that I'd got to see it form during the evening, it was quite spectacular. As the sun rose, despite a very cool air temperature, its light texture ensured that it thawed very quickly where the sun hit it, remaining longer in shady areas. I got quite wet taking these photographs as it dripped off the trees. Some of the photographs were taken in my garden, some on a walk later in the morning.

The mixed blessing of a good tidy up

2011-01-20T12:45:00.007Z

As I've blogged before, I have a hopeless case of terminal hoarditis. A consequence of which, is that your living space diminishes in size as you fill it with gubbins. It often has its plus sides of course - but there does reach a point where you can't bear your own squalor and something has to give.

Starting with our pre-Christmas tidy, we got the bug to address some problem areas within the house that were very long overdue - we realised that we have things stored that are never going to be needed and we could simply put the space they occupy to better use - like clothes my son grew out of several years ago. My husband used to manage a hi fi store and this resulted in him being pretty committed to keeping the boxes etc. for electric goods and the like, in case they needed to be returned - or you later sold it - 'as bought' or boxed condition certainly commands a higher price.

A worthy practice for anyone to adopt, but when you realise that you have the boxes, leads and instructions to goods that themselves are no longer in use, you need to draw the line. So we've had a blitz on clearing out cupboards and ridding ourselves of some of this clutter and making more storage space available.

The desk I use for packing was one area to get my attention whilst I still felt inclined. The space available to me for working was getting progressively smaller and when looking at it, it was clear many things being stored on there would be better elsewhere, so I set about sorting through the massive piles of papers I had in trays - you know the things you keep - too good, or potentially important, to throw away, but not sure where to file them. A task I have avoided for an indecently lengthy time.

I still have two boxes awaiting my attention - most of which will see shredder action - but I did find some treasures. I also found things that I'd put aside to deal with another day and it was a rather bittersweet process. Difficult letters both received and sent, newspaper cuttings of friends obituaries and photographs of people no longer in your life, for a variety of reasons.

But there were pluses too - photographs of family and days out you'd not thought about for a while and made you smile to remember, a wedge of Airmail stickers that I felt sure I had but couldn't find and a favourite set square I'd wanted several times and couldn't locate.

One of the treasures that made me smile the widest was some photographs of a boxer puppy - thinking back, I think this must be Hadleigh - who turned into a massive dog with a head the size of a breeze block - rather larger than their current female boxer Chelsea. I think the photographs must be well over 20 years old - but I'd certainly forgotten how cute he was, with his oversize paws and rather too much skin.

I remember the day this one was taken, the week my parents brought him home from the breeders - I was married by then and we went over to visit the first weekend he was home - and we all grovelled on the floor to play with him - and when he was totally tuckered out, he flopped onto a cushion and flaked out completely to recharge his batteries.

Who knew that I actually had a nice polished wood desk, buried beneath the detritus of too many years. I shan't leave it as long next time - even though there were some nice surprises and happy memories.

Where are my sultanas Boo?

2011-01-06T13:46:00.006Z

I have two gardens - no actually, I have three really - on account of the garden wrapping round the house on three sides and each one being somewhat different and separate.

That sounds rather grand, but in reality, they're each very small (each has an area approximately the same footprint as the house itself) and even their combined area wouldn't qualify as a 'small garden' by landscape gardening and TV garden show standards.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

We currently have a pair of nuthatches - their MO is to grab food and take it off to hide in a crack or crevice in bark or old branches - I assume they go back to it some time later - the pair work as a team, hiding their food in locations adjacent to each other. Nuthatches are the only birds that descend tree trunks - and can feed - head first, as shown.

On the kitchen side of the house is what we call the 'railway garden' on account of it being adjacent to a local railway line running a tourist steam railway. A rather grand name for a rather scrubby patch of land that we can't do very much with. When we bought the house, in the late 80s, there were a few bushes and scrub outside the perimeter of this garden at the very end triangular tip of an area of woodland behind the row of houses and we got a lot of morning sunshine.

We have daily visits from all the common garden tits - this one being a blue tit.

As the years passed, the scrub became trees and the light levels diminished and things consequently didn't grow quite so well. The garden area was badly damaged in a freak flood that deposited tons of rubble on the lawn a few years ago and the buildings insurance covered it being re-landscaped.

We always have a posse of goldfinches in the garden, squabbling noisily in their little face masks.

We decided that it's position under trees that we couldn't trim (and didn't necessarily want to) was best served by doing away with the lawned area and to landscape it as a bird garden. We'd always kept feeders in that area due to the surrounding trees, so covering the original lawn area with coarse gravel, with large stone slabs to take feeders and tables, surrounded by some potted planting and seats, suited us well.

One of our handsome male bullfinches - we are currently blessed with 2 pairs. Each pair is monogamous and they are never more than a few feet from each other - if you see one, their partner will be within the same field of view.

We rarely occupied that garden, as the adjacent woodland made it a bug fest on summer evenings and it is actually open around the house, so not very private, so keeping it as one for viewing from the three large windows on that side of the house, rather than being out in, was the best use of the space.

We did return home one day and find that our garden visitors had somewhat increased in size. Another time we returned to find a cockerel, but I didn't manage a photo of him.

I keep the hanging bird feeders filled (largely with sunflower hearts, all birds seem to like them) and take out loose food for the tables, as required, along with warm water in winter. I make up my own mix of sunflower hearts, sultanas, chopped peanuts and supplemented with occasional stale biscuits, crushed fat balls and grated cheese. I obviously have a reputation for putting out good stuff as some of the cheekier visitors will remind me at the window if there isn't much left - or what remains doesn't contain their favourite morsels.

Some of the visitors are quite small - there's often a mouse to be seen scurrying from under the wall to pinch food off the ground table. I don't mind the mice, but I'm not keen on their larger cousins.

I have a very good selection of feathered visitors, from regular and widespread garden birds like robins, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, blackbirds, gold finches, dunnocks and sparrows to slightly more rural visitors like nuthatches, bullfinches, collared doves, wood pigeons, wrens, long tailed tits, jackdaws, crows and woodpeckers. I occasionally see a tree creeper and tawny owl too.

The tawny owl is certainly the most elusive and difficult to photograph visitor and this is the best I've so far managed, despite setting up a laptop and remote capture system when he was active in the garden one autumn and spending a lot of time waiting for him to visit. I gradually increased the lights and left them on for him to get used to them. Most often, we only get a fleeting glimpse as he lands to catch something to eat and triggers the security light.

The long tailed tits tend to arrive as a noisy, chattering gang to feed in a group - they have such cheeky and cheerful little faces, that they always brighten your day.

Sometimes there's a deadly quiet descends on the garden and I know that a sparrowhawk is nearby. In fact, just as I'm typing that, some instinct made me go to my office window and there was a tree creeper not ten feet from me. That's a particular thrill I never tire of.

I've only once got a proper look at the sparrowhawk - on this occasion he took his captured lunch just into the scrub outside the garden perimeter and I was only able to find him by following where all the other birds were looking and avoiding.

I think if I had to choose only one, the wren would certainly be up there as a my favourite garden bird. I just wish they didn't move quite so fast, I might have a better collection of proper photos and not quite so many of disappearing tails, if they were a tad slower.

At present I have at least three thrushes - in that I've seen three at once on several occasions - and they, like the blackbirds, are especially partial to some fruit. I put out a plentiful supply of sultanas in cold weather and they're always the first thing to go - crows and magpies will also come down to the furthest table at the fence-line if they spot sultanas on there - but they're more timid about venturing onto the tables closer to the house.

I was very excited indeed when I first spotted a tree creeper in the garden. Having spent a lot of time trying to get a photograph in the wild, I finally got one of my best photographs from my own utility room window - on a filthy wet and stormy day - which was very dark indeed! This small rowan tree has since died, but I leave it there as it is one of his favourite spots to feed and I often spot one circling up the trunk and dead branches.

Between the 6 or 7 blackbirds I have, with the three thrushes and a selection of other occasional visitors, the sultanas are picked from the mix in a matter of minutes and then those that feel they have missed out will tell me so.
The thrush above is one such feathered friend. She stands on the front-most corner of the table near the kitchen window until she catches my eye and gestures with her head that there is a lack of dried fruit. If I take some out, she'll return to feed and bob her head in acknowledgment from the same spot. I took the photograph above yesterday morning when we had a few moments of weak, wintry sunshine and she arrived for her elevenses. It amazes me how quickly thrushes and blackbirds can stuff their beaks with whole fruits and swallow them in the blink of an eye. Makes me wonder how they can become so partial to them when they don't appear to even taste them.

So despite the diminutive scale of my bird garden, in which little grows, the very trees that make it dark also bring me these lovely visitors, so how could I possibly mind.

My scrap pot bracelet and Christmas gift makes

2011-01-05T12:58:00.015Z

My name is Boo and I'm a hoarder. I just can't help myself - if I think something might be useful, I just keep it. I can't bear to part with anything that might just come in useful some day, be used to fix something or just the part I need when making something. The fact that my house is stuffed to the rafters with junk is testimony to my [bad/good/environmentally sound; take your pick] habit.

Inevitably, the true usefulness of a saved item often peaks the very week after you finally part with it, so I tend to hedge my bets and keep things anyway. Just in case. I also feel slightly smug about re-purposing what most would probably consider to be rubbish and Christmas is one of those times when the rubbish generated is often of even higher calibre than the rest of the year - it's amazing, once you tune into it, just how many foodstuffs and gift items are packed with nicely coloured or coated card liners, for example.

I spent a few happy hours in front of a film over the Christmas period, making gift tags and bags ready for next year - the idea being that I don't want to end up in a last minute panic like I did this year - wrapping gifts into the early hours, as I'd left it too late. I made in excess of 50 gift tags just from one box of Christmas crackers, more from chocolate boxes and lovely received wrapping paper spray mounted onto white card.

All the smaller pieces of gift wrap I had from wrapping my own gifts were made into small gusseted gift bags - a habit I've got into in recent years as a quick and much easier way to wrap small and awkward items - a little tissue to wrap the item itself, then the bag is tied up through a punched hole with copious quantities of curling ribbon. making an attractive and easy wrapping method and you can make a bag with as little as an A4 sized piece of wrapping paper.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

The rag tag assortment of failed links from my scrap pot that went on to become a new bracelet for me.

I'm loathed to part with anything that might have a future purpose and it's no different with the materials I work with. Failed parts, clumsy solders or those that break when working, are put aside for potential repair, re-use, or simply melting into other components. I grade my Sterling silver scrap into two pots, one that's truly scrap, every smidgeon of trimming is saved for melting into nuggets etc. and larger pieces that might be useful are kept separate.

Thus over time, I'd accumulated numerous silver 'rings' that had the potential to be re-worked or rescued in some manner and the idea formed some time ago, to make these good, in between other work, to make myself a Sterling silver bracelet. So I started working on sorting some of them out and soon had a dish of assorted links for a bracelet. I made some new smaller links from those that couldn't be made decent and supplemented these with some new jump rings (some indeed cut individually from scrap itself) and a hook to bring it all together. I wanted to finish it to wear at Christmas and didn't really have the time to do it properly, so rather rushed the finishing.

The finished, albeit rather rough and ready scrap pot bracelet ready to wear for Christmas.

I have filed off the worse of the blimps and hammered to cover a multitude of sins, but the work certainly couldn't withstand close scrutiny or be good enough to give someone else, but I rather like it for myself - it feels rather virtuous that I have something nice to wear from my rubbish and whilst I could do with giving it some more time, I suspect that I won't and it has already been worn most days since I made it.

I don't normally do haphazard or random, it doesn't come naturally to me. But this 'scrap pot' bracelet was made up from a completely random assortment of parts - I just hastily arranged them on my bench in a way that looked pleasing to me and actually gave the end design very little thought. I suspect that this is part of its charm - I certainly think that, on this occasion, the end result benefited from very little thought and serendipitously just worked. Although I don't think I'd recommend this approach in client work - I was lucky this time.

The original source photograph for the leaf pendant - the larger leaf was manipulated into a black and white line drawing as an etching resist.

One of the reasons that I didn't have much time to work on the bracelet just before Christmas was that I was concentrating on making gifts for others. Further to recent posts on copper etching, I still had some ideas I wanted to work for loved ones as gifts. One of which was a leaf pendant for my mother which started life as a photograph of a backlit beech leaf taken one autumn, as above. I created a two tone resist design, transferred this to the carefully prepared copper sheet, sealed all the edges and back surface, etched it, cleaned the etched copper and sawed around the leaf shape and polished and rounded the edges, giving it a little leaf like shaping too.

I wanted to keep the plain border of copper sheet beyond the etching to a minimum and parallel to the leaft outline, but didn't want to drill a hole through the etching either, for various reasons, so this would require fixing something invisibly on the back to hang it from. I didn't really want to use a tube bail, as I have in the past, as I wanted to put it on a chain with quite a large clasp and a tube bail works best on fine chains with in-line clasps like snake chains.

So a soldered D shaped hoop on the back was the obvious solution, I could make it easily in whatever size I wanted to accommodate the clasp. My usual practice when soldering, especially in silver, is to use my own cut strip solder pallions, but I'd recently bought some solder paste to try and have found this especially good with copper, but less so with Sterling. The texture and workability of the paste allowed me to get a nice neat join and I was delighted that it took oxidising so well - as an Easy paste I didn't expect it to. So I left the back of the pendant with a dark gunmetal finish as a potential alternative way to wear it.

I made my first pair of cufflinks for a Christmas gift and I'll write more about the process and inspiration behind the pattern I etched in a later blog.

All tied up in knots

2010-12-11T11:13:00.011Z

I've blogged several times in the past about how working on one thing takes you down a particular design path - how one idea leads to another and you produce a series of related pieces, often on a theme. Thus it was this week. A returning customer asked me to make a pair of earrings for her that were an amalgamation of two designs already available in my shop - she liked one element of each design and wanted them combining.

Thankfully, with my recent discipline of keeping a detailed journal of my designs with sizes, gauges of wire used and the tools and methods I'd used to make a particular shape, I was easily able to re-create the elements in question, faithfully to the original design and without the very frustration that led me to that practice in the first instance.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

The custom earrings I made this week - using the double looped rosebud knot, but with rosy buds at the bottom, where the originals had a wrapped stone dangling.

Once you've torn your hair out trying to re-make an old design and not been able to get it quite the same as the original, you realise the real value in disciplining yourself to maintain such records religiously. It was with some degree of smugness that I first flipped the pages to find my design 'recipe' for something I needed to re-make and a practice that has proven itself time and time again. The fact that my husband gave me a lovely leather bound book for just this purpose last Christmas has made it a particular pleasure to work in.

When I work, I always jot down the length of wire I cut and the diameter of any turns or loops and if I find I have too much waste, or struggle to finish the shape with too short a piece, I make the adjustment in my notes too. If I find that a particular method doesn't work and I find working from the back, or anticlockwise, for example, cures a problem or gives rise to a better shape, then this is also noted.

Whilst fiddling with my double looped knots, I wondered how well they would work as a single loop with a rosebud knot at one end and I rather liked the results.

We've all done it, had problems making something, found a solution, then come to remake it some time later, fall into the same initial difficulty and can't remember what we did to cure it the first time around. So my journal is used to note all such details, with sketches and diagrams where appropriate. I even note which tools I used if I found that one item worked better than another.

Having made a single loop pair of earrings (above), I wondered how heavy I could go with the wire and made this pendant in 1.6mm (14 gauge) copper wire. The loop is just over an inch (27mm) in diameter.

I've got into the practice of making scribbles on scraps of paper or in my sketch book as I work, which I treat much like we did with a 'rough book' at school - I do all my working out in that, then transpose my final version (which may have been amended or adjusted several times by the time I'm done) to my neater finished journal - so that it's hopefully easier to make sense of at some time in the future.

The matching set of rosebud knot loop pendant and earrings. I've oxidised the copper pieces and then tumbled them extensively to get a nice gunmetal colour on the dark areas, then polished just the rosebuds back to highlight them.

I tend to sit down after breakfast, whilst I finish my coffee, before the day starts to veer away from my intended plans, and transpose all my scratty notes into the journal before I lose them, or lose my train of thought. The investment of time in doing this has proven well worth it on many occasions. I also have this thought in the back of my mind that at some time a long way in the future, my great-grandchildren may find it a fascinating treasure the same way that I do my grandfathers old sketch book - a little glimpse into my life at this time.

Now I was on a roll I wanted to see how they'd look in Sterling silver. I didn't have the same gauge of wire, so these are a little more delicate than the copper version of the earrings, but I decided to leave these as shiny silver, rather than oxidise them.

And so it was this week with these custom earrings. I consulted my design journal to make the same knotted loop element again and once my fingers had remembered the technique required to get a nice even knot, I set about making several other pieces using the same elements, as above. Once you start with something, your mind just takes you where it will and I still have ideas left to try using the same techniques.

Necessity is the mother of a new design

2010-12-03T12:58:00.010Z

Anyone in the UK this week can't have failed to have noticed the news and conversation dominating cold and snowy snap. It's been unseasonably cold and with rather more snow than the UK is equipped to cope with.

Whilst making dinner on Monday evening, we found that we had no hot water coming out of the taps and the boiler was failing to fire when expected, resulting also in fast-cooling radiators. After wafting a warm hair drier over the external condensate pipes (lagged during last December's cold snap when they froze and stopped the heating working temporarily) in the vain hope that was all there was causing it, but we couldn't get the boiler to fire and it was now leaking water too and showing a fault indicator. Time to call in the experts.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

It ended up a somewhat unusual fault that took some finding and we were consequently without a working boiler for several days. It just goes to show how pampered we've become and how much we take such things for granted. I'm old enough to have lived before central heating was commonplace and yet find myself totally disrupted by the removal of on tap hot water and warm rooms.

So my work routine was somewhat interrupted this week - my usual work area was far too cold to work effectively and as I take photographs on the end of my work bench, I couldn't even comfortably get on with my backlog of those either. Maybe I'm just soft, but trying to grip cold tools with cold fingers just wasn't fun - and as a Reynauds sufferer, actually painful - and potentially dangerous. Time for Plan B.

So as I had a birthday gift I wanted to make this week and various as yet unopened supplies, I gave some thought to a project I could work on with minimal space and tools, sitting somewhere warmer. I had this idea in mind anyway, so gave it some more thought as it would fit the bill; something I could work on at the kitchen table whilst remaining on hand to assist the repair man who visited several times to try and fix the boiler.

I wanted to make something in antiqued copper and using some brown Lucite leaf charms I'd bought. I had in mind a random, clustered necklace with berries and copper buds - something vine-like and autumnal. I wanted it to be busy and full and tinkle when moving and I had an idea that I'd supplement the leaf charms with some copper leaves of my own making.

So I started tinkering initially with a scrap of chain and the design evolved. I wanted to make it a party type feature necklace that would sit well in the open V of a blouse or top, so worked on the shape to make the central section deep in the centre and tapering back to the chain.

The Lucite leaves have been supplemented with graduating sizes of wrapped copper leaf spirals and hand formed leaf shapes. The berries are carnelian, jasper, goldstone, sardonix and green opals. I chose to use large balled headpins so that the buds would also become a visual feature too. I used several wrapping techniques to add some variety of shape and randomness to the necklace. Random of this nature is not something that comes easily to me, I always end up with a distinct and symmetrical pattern and that is the case to some degree here, but I tried to loosen my grip a little on being too precise.

I hand polished and filed all the cut ends of the metal components and oxidised the whole necklace and hand polished it back to an antiqued finish, to enhance the textures of the wrapping and spiralling and show off the red highlights of the berries. I hope that she'll like it. I have enough supplies left to make one more, so will enjoy making another to put on sale.

How did it get to 3 years already?! Sale to celebrate.

2010-11-22T12:54:00.011Z

I noticed this morning that later this week I will have my third Etsyversary - the anniversary of opening my shop on US-based selling site Etsy. I can hardly believe that it's 3 years already.

It's clearly true when they say that it takes 2 years to establish a business - it's only really been in the last year that I feel truly confident in the work I'm doing and the way my site is set up, my photographs, presentation, service etc. I still have a very long way to go and so very much still to learn, but I feel comfortable in saying that I'm now at least doing it properly - it now feels more 'professional' than 'hobby'. I'm sure that I'll look back in a year and scoff at these comments and their naivety.

At Christmas I sell more small items for gifts, so have made up some more Sterling silver earrings at lower price points for stocking filler gifts. For some time I've done a range of earrings between £11 and £12.50 that I offer as 2 for £20 which has been popular at this time of year.

I can't recall the exact date I set up my own on-line shop - but I know that it was around the same time, as I faffed on for some considerable time trying to set up my own shop (which I'm equally confident in saying was pretty atrocious in the first incarnation), approaching it from different angles and never quite getting it to work how I wanted. At that point I then accepted defeat and just embedded my Etsy shop on my own site and set about doing it properly behind the scenes.

It took some time to decide quite what would constitute 'properly' and in the end, after a lot of research and trail and error, I settled on a pre-made shopping cart called CubeCart. There are many other cart systems available and I did try several and since that time, there are now many more even easier options to choose from.

This design, my copper raindrops necklace, has been a consistent seller over time - I sold my first one off my neck at a craft fair. I made some more this week so that I can put them back on sale.

At the time I liked CubeCart because it was the only one that would let me make my own skin based on one of the defaults available just by tweaking style sheets and making new graphics (both easily within my skillsets at the time) and had multiple photos per item for sale. That seems a tad daft now, but at the time - three years ago - it was the only one easily available to me (i.e. free, included in my hosting package) that allowed multiple photographs, which for jewellery bought un-seen, I thought was absolutely vital.

My decision was heavily swayed by a site for an Australian jewellery seller that had a gorgeous on-line shop - just what I was striving for in my mind and which used Cubecart as its cart engine. It soon became evident that their site was heavily modded and way beyond my capabilities, but it proved to be a catalyst I was appreciative of - I needed to at least make some decision and get moving. And having something to aim towards was the nudge I needed.

I made an alternative style of earrings to match the copper raindrops necklace this week - as I've added a chain extension to the necklace back with a little dangle and this is the same principle, to match.

I also liked its simplicity. It's certainly less feature-rich than other systems, but with the purchase and self-installation of a few commercial mods and the addition of a few free ones too - I added in many of the features I felt I missed and would improve the site and this is still very much a work in progress. It is easy to use under the hood and I'm still very happy with it and now have well over 400 items featured on the site.

I added an articulated variant of my Sterling silver leaf spiral one piece earrings this week too - for those that like a little movement in their earwear.

It's now using an older version of the cart and would no doubt benefit from the upgrade to a newer version, but it's rather a case of "if it ain't broke . . ." I rather like its clean simplicity and customers say they find it easy to use and find things, so I'm leaving it be for now.

So, to celebrate my third on-line trading anniversary I'm holding a one week sale with 15% off everything in both my shops. The discounts are automatic and displayed in red in my own shop and if you apply Coupon code ETSYVERSARY15 during the checkout process (a welcome and long-awaited brand new feature from Etsy) from my shop on Etsy to secure the 15% discount.

Why do the simplest ideas take longest to drop?

2010-11-15T11:08:00.013Z

I wonder sometimes why it is the very simplest of ideas that take the longest to sink home. Sometimes an idea comes to you that is so deliciously simple that you cannot comprehend why it hasn't popped into your head beforehand.

This is how it was yesterday, whilst doing something entirely un-related and not even thinking about this, I had an idea that was so simple, I have no idea why it was so long in surfacing.

I've blogged here (see the archive to the right for various articles) and written at length about small item photography and shown my own personal lighting set up for my jewellery photographs. My 'fat ball bucket' diffuser, whilst a source of some amusement, works incredibly well, especially as I've gradually modified it over time to address assorted problems and to increase its versatility.

It's a permanent fixture on my work bench, utilising the magnifier lamp with a daylight ring tube that I already use when working - and which was recently replaced when the one I'd had for some time just died on me.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

The diffuser bucket works well for most photographs and its integral background, when exposed correctly allows me to create 'infinity sweep' type photographs in a very confined space.

I use it daily and it makes my work much easier and its small size means that it's always around for me to pop an item under to photograph without having to set anything up, which I might well find to be an even further deterrent to getting items photographed and offered on-line - a job I find sufficiently tedious that I don't need anything more to put me off the process.

But whilst it works really well - in some ways it's a tad too efficient. It uses only one light source yet gives me a good all round diffused and reflected light, which still maintains a little shadow detail to give items form. But occasionally the light is too flat and too well diffused. Some pieces need a bit more reflection and a bit shadow to bring out their form and show their details.

The texture and depth of this copper etching is rather lost in this well diffused image using my bucket diffuser. For some pieces you want to kill reflections, sometimes you need them, to show the piece accurately.

I've found this to be the case with the recent copper etched pieces that I've made. Because the etching is quite deep and oxidised to bring out the design, when photographed within my diffuser, it looks somewhat flat and the texture isn't as evident as I'd like to see it. Some pieces featuring crystals etc. can sparkle quite a lot and the diffuser can also kill this too efficiently. I'm also aware that the elbow grease I've invested in my highly polished silver work sometimes isn't obvious from photographs either.

Photographing highly polished silver is a perpetual battle. You don't want the wrong reflections in the piece, but neither do you want to kill the hardp-worked shine you've given it. My habit is to give pieces my own reflections to give the impression of polish.

One of the features of my recently pimped fat ball bucket diffuser was to use the lid, lined with scrunched aluminium foil, as a further reflector. Placed over the top of the bucket, this lifts the light within the photo area by about a third of a stop and also helps diffuse the light further - it also solved the problem of items on shelves above my work area being reflected in shiny pieces through the hole in keep in the top (originally the base of the bucket) for taking overhead photographs.

The additional shine and shadow with using the diffuser and separate reflector is much better at showing dimensional detail like the soft edges (through polishing, they can be quite sharp otherwise) of this deep etching which looks rather flat when too well diffused.

So for pieces where the bucket diffuser isn't the best solution, I'd got into the habit of removing the bucket and using this lid reflector to the left of my area facing the light and placing a piece of tracing paper stuck into a frame of mounting board to the right, in front of the light - this was actually a cheap photo mount (matt) that I'd picked up from a clearance bin.

This was the first piece I tried the new diffuser with - as the etch hasn't yet been oxidised, I needed an oblique lighting angle to show the depth and detail of the etching and I also used the blank wall of light of the diffuser itself to reflect off the highly polished surface to remove all other unwanted reflections.

This set up worked quite well for larger items or where I needed more shadow, or where I wanted to hold the items for scale, hereby having much more space to get my hand in holding the item and take the photo with the other one.

With small earrings especially, I like to photograph them being held to give a sense of scale and this isn't possible within the confines of my diffuser. This was taken using my tracing paper diffuser sheet and a scrunched foil reflector facing the light, and angled slightly downwards, to allow some of the limited light to be scattered back into the scene.

The frame itself was a little cumbersome and would occasionally fall over whilst taking photos due to the weight of the frame and its size. And the tracing paper within the frame would crinkle after extended use with being close to the warmth of the light and from being handled etc., so needed replacing periodically. My idea yesterday was to laminate a piece of tracing paper - making it lightweight and more robust for use.

So using a couple of A4 laminating pouches, I laminated a piece of good weight tracing paper that I usually use for pencil illustration work (so therefore slightly heavier than you're likely to get in a tracing pad from a stationers) and a piece of very white looking tissue paper that I'd kept aside for such a use that already looked quite translucent.

Using my laminated tracing paper diffuser I still had good even light over the piece, but a little more contrast allowed the texture and polished surface of this copper etching to be illustrated rather better.

The tracing paper laminated well and is pretty consistently toned over the sheet as it was smooth (new off the roll) to start with - and this is slightly more opaque. The tissue, which had already been creased up and smoothed out, does show a few trapped creases, but considering the quality of the original, has smoothed out incredibly well, but went noticeably more translucent as it laminated. This now gives me two versions of the diffuser depending on how much light I want to allow through.

It's worth noting here that the further your diffuser is from the light, the more diffuse the light will be. So if your diffuser is close to your light source, you'll still see some shadow detail, but as you move the diffuser further from your light and closer to your subject, the softer the shadows will become. So knowing this gives you a little more creative freedom too.

The new diffusers are lightweight and easy to prop up with a clip or two and as I always work atop my pile of A4 backing papers, the two new diffusers will just stack in the pile and be available whenever needed.

If you go down to the woods today . . .

2010-11-06T19:20:00.011Z

I've said it before and I'm sure to repeat it in future - I find one of the most powerful restoratives - both physically and mentally - is to get out into the fresh air and preferably amongst trees. I find being outdoors to be absolutely vital to my health and a brisk walk somewhere lovely is as good for me as anything a doctor could prescribe.

No matter what life throws at us, as long as I get to walk in woodland periodically, I can usually cope with whatever I have to. The last month or so has been a little demanding with two minor operations and trying to recover whilst still working and ensuring that no customers are let down or inconvenienced - along with a multitude of minor domestic irritations like a broken shower and computer and guttering coming down in bad weather.

Please click on any of the photos for a larger view.

Our walk today was around Beacon Fell, a county council run country park, north of Preston in Lancashire. We've been visiting there for something like 40 years and they've recently reworked some of the woodland sculptures - this fellow is magnificent and stands around the same height as me and something like 40 feet long.

One of the perils of being self-employed is not ever really being able to take proper time off. You have to work like the clappers in advance to cover as many eventualities as you can if other people are going to cover for you. Any down time leaves you itching to get on with something and feeling guilty when you don't and then putting in extra time after any break to clear the accumulated backlog. So something innocuous can end up feeling like a military campaign.

They were just installing this new natural sculpture when we were last there two weeks ago, but we were delighted to see it finished today - you just happen upon it in a clearing as you round a corner in the path.

When we got up this morning, the sky was clear blue and the sun was shining. There was a bite to the air, but it was a perfect day to get out and stretch our legs, so soup was warmed, flasks filled, scarves and gloves packed and off we set. Even though we had lots to do, we felt that a dose of perspective-realignment, fresh air and getting the blood circulating, were rather more important today.

I was a little off my game still, so the walk was a relatively modest one, but the trees did it again. I just love being in woodland - I just cannot conceive of living without being surrounded by trees. By the time we had travelled 20 miles from home and had set off walking, the weather had deteriorated somewhat and the sun was only evident occasionally, but even in cooling damp air, the smells of the woodland and the feel of leaf litter underfoot was a great joy to me.

It really pleases me that even in the current economic climate, the county council still do things like this, I really do hope that art of this nature won't be a future victim of the economy. Their worth isn't something that can be calculated on a spreadsheet.

I love to hear birds amongst the trees and to be greeted by the occasional stick-carrying dog and to exchange a few words with fellow walkers and to me, there probably isn't a restaurant on the planet where I'd enjoy my food any more than eating hot soup and fresh bread in the outdoors after a brisk walk. And there aren't many restaurants where you can eat still in your muddy boots and survey the scenery - although my husband did declare today that it's a tad disconcerting to eat whilst wearing a hat.