Supper on the wing - truly fast food service

We have just returned from a short summer trip to our favourite spot in the Lake District. We stay in a permanent caravan on a working farm in a gorgeous, quiet spot - we consider it our second home and love being there very much, escaping there as often as possible.

Over about 5 years I developed a very special relationship with a couple of badger boars who visited every evening for peanuts and became very tolerant of me and my camera. This was the very last photo I took of one. A severe storm that autumn brought a lot of trees down in their wood and we think must have damaged their sett and they had to move. They're still seen on the property, but the caravan is no longer on their evening food sortie route.

We share the place with a combination of farm livestock and local wildlife - from badgers and deer to foxes and woodpeckers. All summer, the evening air is alive with the sound and movement of swallows feeding and returning to their roosts in the barn. They return each year and this year was their earliest arrival, whilst we were there for our Easter break.

We get all sorts of interesting visitors outside the window.

On this particular trip, there was a higher than usual level of activity and noise and it soon became evident why - the Mums all had recently-fledged youngsters to feed - a new experience for us as we went at a different time this year, missing this in previous years. It seemed to be their habit, for the youngsters to find a suitable and elevated perch (their preferred spot seemed to be the telephone cables, a tad precarious in a stiff breeze) and to wait for food to be delivered to them. They'd constantly scan the sky around them, faces upturned and mouths often open, whilst trying to stay in the same place when getting buffeted by the breeze. If an airborne swallow passed, they'd all clammer noisily for attention.

A regular, but sneaky and shy visitor.

Periodically, a bug-laden mother would swoop down and deliver her goodies and be gone in a flash. And it literally was a flash - there would be the briefest flurry of activity and it would all be over. They didn't even appear to land, so I grabbed my large camera with a long lens and positioned myself out of sight and selected a suitable candidate. I took several similar series of shots, but these are my favourites.

All of these photographs, with the exception of the first one taken a few seconds earlier, were taken within the same second (and I didn't include 2 of the frames I'd taken) in a quick burst of continuous shooting at the rate of 6 frames per second. The shutter speed in each case was 1/1600 second and at 800 ISO, as it was approaching dusk. So you can see that this truly was fast food.

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

The youngsters would wait patiently, looking skyward, on a suitable high vantage point and make a very loud fuss if they felt they weren't getting fast enough service.

Once positioned on a suitably elevated perch - in this case one of the dry stone walls of the farm - and would watch the sky above them and flap noisily, beaks wide open, if any swallow passed by.

Mum arrives with something appetising and junior opens wide.

The morsel is delivered without Mum even landing.

And she's gone for another round of bug-catching over the orchard - if you'd blinked, you'd have missed it!

This week I have mostly been photographing and measuring

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

Sometimes the only way I can get through tortuous tasks is to set myself incentives. I'll allow myself to do something I do enjoy, if I finish something that I don't enjoy so much first. So it has been this week.

I simply love making things. My mind is perpetually full of ideas and shapes and there are simply never enough hours in the day to bring them to life. But the peril of being productive with work is that I then have to photograph, measure and describe the finished pieces in order to even have the vaguest chance of selling them. Necessary to fund my addiction.

I think this copper bracelet is the last piece to be photographed from a backlog of spiral link pieces from a previous theme.

So I set myself a target yesterday to list a batch of 9 pieces just finished and photographed before I would allow myself anywhere near metal. And I stuck to it, tempting though the lure of my tools was. So now, I'm free for the rest of the day to actually get my hands on some metal. Unfortunately, this didn't actually make much inroad into my backlog either - to which I can now add a further handful of new pieces not even included in the 9 piece target I set myself.

Antiqued copper bracelet featuring hammered figure of 8 links, joined with hand sawn jump rings and my own toggle clasp. This one's for me. I wanted to wear it for a few days and see how the toggle performed in practice and I was really happy with it. I have some more like this in progress.

But I have now reached the milestone of 100 pieces in my Etsy shop and I'm approaching 400 pieces in my own shop too - although that number includes some optional extras and now-sold unique pieces - which I leave in place to serve as a portfolio.

Double wrapped loops of antiqued copper with rosy copper buds. Molten buds are a perpetual theme that I haven't exhausted yet.

Also done in polished Sterling silver. This design was started as I wanted to make a pair for myself to match a pendant I have and I personally don't suit big earrings, so these are quite small and delicate. My own pair are antiqued, so I must photograph them too as an optional finish.

In line with comments I've made in previous blogs, my recent pieces have all been on related design themes - once you sort out a particular design element or perfect a shape or technique, related items just flow from the initial design, so my work always emerges in batches of closely related pieces.

A necklace from an earlier work theme of wrapped rosy copper buds. This necklace features a oxidised and hammered scroll wire wrapped with buds and joined directly to the chain with double wrapped loops.

Dyed jade beads on long wraps of oxidised copper, tumbled to a lovely gunmetal sheen.

And this week has been no different. I honed a technique to allow me to symmetrically wire wrap stones to other shapes and I've made several earrings and pendants along those lines this week.

Hammered copper rings wire wrapped with faceted amethyst beads with matching earwires with small roughly faceted garnets.

The same technique used in Sterling silver to make a pendant with 2 faceted amethysts. Antiqued to highlight the wire wrapping.

Fully oxidised and tumbled copper rings with faceted citrine beads.

My garden is now ready to face summer

Alternative title: another gratuitous opportunity to post some photos I took over the weekend. Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

I have a small garden. A very small garden. Not the kind of small garden they talk about in the commentary to the Chelsea Flower Show TV coverage - mine is merely postage stamp sized - far too small for a garden designer to trouble themselves over. A friend came to visit me one gorgeous day a few years ago and I suggested we take lunch into the garden to which he commented "I knew you had a small garden, but I didn't think it was this small!"

As we like to eat out as often as weather permits and I like to take my work outside too, I concentrated on flowers with fragrance this time and got two of these candy striped phlox plants which are a dome of those pretty little flowers.

I've blogged in earlier summers about my garden - it's basically the enclosed back yard of a Lancashire cottage, intended to house the outside facilities and for storage of logs and coal and for drying washing, the house being built pre-indoor plumbing, central heating and tumble driers.

I keep several dichondra each summer, each in a separate pot on their own adjacent to seating, purely for stroking purposes you understand. They're deliciously velvety and soft to run your hands over, just like stroking a weimaraner puppy.

My house is a long thin tall stone cottage of about 140 years old, so my yard is too. The house sits in what is basically a square plot, divided into three long strips. The house sits in the middle third, with a long thin garden on either side.

I've only just finished the summer planting, which will need to fill out - and hopefully flower - a considerable amount yet - so it looks a tad scrawny still, but another month will see a huge difference.

The garden in question is enclosed within 6 foot high stone walls and the base is entirely concreted. The concrete is of very poor quality and badly uneven, so we covered it with small sized gravel when we first made it into a garden some years ago. When we first decided to make it into a garden, largely as an area for sitting out to eat in summer, it was pretty bare, unnaturally new-looking and has taken a number of years to fill out and develop a personality. It's finally reached the stage where it looks like a proper, established garden. I suspect these things can only be hurried along if you have deep pockets.

Height is achieved in this area as the display is based on lots of cut logs from a dead tree my father felled in his garden - logs of different heights simply stand on end and form stepped risers for smaller pots. In fact, some of the plants have simply seeded themselves into crevices in the timbers.

Everything grows in pots, so we do periodically lose things that just run out of steam when confined to a pot, so every year it is slightly different and I supplement the perennial, largely green, planting with summer bedding to add colour. That has been my priority for the last couple of weekends and I finally put my trowel down last night as darkness drew in and declared it finished. As far as a garden ever can be finished. But I've planted all the new things I'm going to this summer.

I think the deep frost and extensive periods of cold this winter seemed to benefit this pyracantha - which doesn't like to flower that often, but is going to put on a good show this time. The flowers at the top, that get more sun, have already opened. It has wicked, long sharp thorns though (hence one of its names of Firethorn), so I tend to leave it to its own devices.

I went out to admire my handiwork in the light this morning, just as it started to rain. But it was nice, gentle downward falling summer rain, without wind and the air was just nicely shirt-sleeve warm. The beauty of that sort of still gentle rain is that it lands and remains largely undisturbed, forming jewel like droplets on leaves and flowers. A perfectly beautiful phenomena in its own right.

So I grabbed a camera and just spent a pleasant Sunday summer morning under my umbrella in the company of my camera.

Shame that I can't include the fragrance with this Pink, it's fabulous within the enclosed walls of the garden.

The waxy leaves of roses are ideal for the raindrops to form droplets.



This Japanese maple was the first big feature plant I bought and is just turning green from its spring red, returning to this flame like appearance in autumn.


'Peaches and cream' Verbenas - just look at the perfect spherical beads of rain in the centre, what could be prettier?

Spring - full of optimism

Alternative title: gratuitous opportunity to post some photos I took at the weekend.

I love this time of year. I love autumn too. But I find spring to be inspiring and energising and it fills you with a mood of optimism.

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

The earth, awoken by lengthening days and increasing temperatures, puts forth new life at an alarming rate. The world around us positively explodes with new growth, in a green the most vibrant we will see all year. It's never quite as fabulous as it is when spring gravitates towards summer.

Ferns and brackens unravel themselves like something other-worldly.

I love the things that grow at this time of year, I love the climate and I love that sense of promise of longer days and warm evenings watering the garden. I love that I can work outside or at least with the door open. I love being able to get my washing out on the line and to eating breakfast in the garden. I love opening the curtains in a morning to sunshine and bird song.

Although I don't much like warm weather, which is why I think I'm most happy and comfortable in spring and autumn, the temperatures suit me rather better.

Tiny delicate Speedwells emerge through the leaf litter in woodland. There seemed to be two different species growing beside each other. One a vibrant violet blue and the others had a smaller mauve flower with more distinct stripes. Both are gorgeous.

I love to look at the little things that emerge from the earth, before they are dominated by longer grass and stronger plants. Those delicate little flowers that have adapted to emerge first, to fulfill their cycle before their dominating earth-mates overshadow them.

We just spent the bank holiday weekend in the Lake District. To me, getting away and walking through woodland particularly, is an absolutely vital way I must spend time periodically. I just don't think I could survive life's demands without communing closely with trees every week or two. It's an activity that takes a high priority in my planning and for the scant money we have available. Some people like to eat in restaurants or go to bars - to me, there is no restaurant in the world that I would enjoy as much as eating bread and cheese under trees. It's a bonus when it's not actually raining.

One particular favourite path we walk often takes us past this massive beech tree - it's stunning, in different ways, at different times of the year. This weekend it was just coming into full foliage - bright glossy green leaves at their peak of perfection, before being ravaged by weather and insects. It is slightly raised from the road, so that you initially view its roots at eye level and due to its commanding size, has a large clear area around it, strewn with mossy rocks.

At least, that's how it looks at first glance. But the bare-looking ground beneath, is in anything but. On closer inspection, it is a positive cornucopia of emerging growth and subtle variety. There must be dozens of species of plant growing in that particular environment of cool and shade beneath its protective spread. There are a multitude of tiny beech trees that have germinated from its own masts, even some small bright green new pine trees, violets, digitalis, mosses and grasses. The photograph below represents about a square meter of ground from the bottom left corner of the wider shot above. I am sure to return many times this year, so will be interested to repeat this process and record how that little patch develops.

I've prepared this photo rather larger than usual and sharpened it quite hard so that you can see the detail. Please click to see the large version.

And you couldn't possibly consider the beauty of spring without mentioning bluebells. I have more bluebell photos to come, from another camera, but for now, these are two ways I love to see bluebells, in a fabulous fragrant carpet over moorland, these from an area above Coniston that I must check the map to get the correct name for. They looked mauve looking upwards and more blue when viewed from above looking down the hill - must be the way the light spectrum was reflected from the petals.

And I love to see them like this too - just dotted amongst emerging woodland growth, at the base of trees and amongst fallen timber - more subtle and delicate - but perhaps their colour is all the more highlighted and vibrant because of it.

Gift packaging - important and appreciated, or plain wasteful?

This subject comes up on craft selling forums on a regular basis and there are as many differing opinions on it as there are posters responding.

It seems to be an age-old and perpetual dilemma between creating a good impression, getting items safely and securely to your buyers, not adding to the cost for your customer and in also being mindful of the planet's limited resources.

Some sellers feel that creating a good impression when buyers open their goods is vitally important and the presentation of your goods is one of the stages that just needs to be done right, along with prompt communication, good products and excellent customer service. Which is my view too. I feel that if you are proud of your work, it should be presented with care and I take that a stage further by hand making all my presentation materials too.

My jewellery is presented, wrapped safely in 2 wraps of tissue paper, inside my own made gift envelopes. I make a variety of sizes and colours and dress each one individually.

I think that people buy artisan made and hand crafted goods because they want something special, that bit different and I think that personal attention to the customer should be a part of that experience. After all, if they just want a pair of earrings to match an outfit, they can easily pick something up with their grocery shop and I'm sure that many people do just that every day.

I make my gift presentation materials myself. There is a downloadable tutorial below for the envelopes and a tutorial for the ribbon rosebuds was added later here on the blog.

But if they bother to look on-line and want something a little more unique, they probably expect to pay a little more for it too. But they also expect quality, craftmanship and when buying from an independent artisan, probably do so because they enjoy that direct connection with the artist that created the piece - and expect a little personal service. And as such an artist, it's important to me to give it too. I want to give the type of service I'd like to receive.

I make my own small swing tickets to hang on each piece with the materials used and my logo and web address. They're linen textured card and each one has a string of natural coloured glossy linen thread.

But for every seller that wants their customer to have a thoroughly pleasant experience, there is another who claims to throw everything away that comes in the parcel and say they won't buy from you as you're clearly wasteful and inconsiderate of the planet. I think each seller just has to do what they think is right for their business - the approach that sits most comfortably with them and is appropriate for their product and their chosen niche in the marketplace. I have carefully designed my packaging materials to give my customers a safely packaged item, that looks nice, is considerate of the planet's resources and doesn't add excessively to the cost of the item for the customer.

My outer mailing boxes - shown here assembled, but not taped - once they are sealed, they are very rigid and protect the contents well. They are thin enough to be posted as a large letter.

In fact, my current system, of packing pieces in flat hand made envelopes, then putting these securely in rigid box mailers, actually saves money as it ensures they go as large envelopes, not packets, a postage saving on each parcel of £0.76 from the outset - much more difficult to control and predict with padded bag mailers. The boxes themselves cost only a few pennies more than a bubble mailer, so save a worthwhile amount on every item I send out. I further save by making most of my presentation materials myself, which I think is appropriate for the hand crafted experience customers expect and appreciate. The feedback from my customers endorses my approach, the quality of my packaging is mentioned often.

Most of the material in my parcel is paper based, so can be recycled - and some items in themselves contain recycled material. Many of the ribbons I use are re-purposed from other packaging and I have quite a lot of vintage ribbon from a former family business and my own haberdashery shop. I actually only use a small length, per item and think my presentation strikes a good balance between achieving an attractive appearance without using too many wasteful materials - the resulting total weight of the parcel is also a factor when considering postage costs.

My items are wrapped in tissue to protect them in transit and inside a gift envelope. Each piece has a care leaflet outlining the materials used and how to care for them. I include my own made business cards and one of my photo greetings cards in which I always hand write a note. Where appropriate, I also include polishing and storage materials.

I think the product itself also strongly influences your approach - a large piece of glass or ceramics, or a large art canvas clearly has differing considerations from a pair of earrings and direct comparisons clearly can't be made.

But as a jewellery maker, I fully appreciate that nobody needs my items. They're not essentials, they're a luxury purchase - and a luxury in difficult financial times. Whether the customer is buying to wear themselves, or as a gift for someone else, I think their trust in you should be rewarded with the best possible service you can give - across the board - from the quality of your workmanship, communication, speed of service and presentation.

I'm currently making my own full colour business cards as I can just print as many as I need and can vary the designs with what is current in my portfolio.

They want their items to arrive totally safely and in a timely manner, but also to feel suitably pampered by the experience. I love it when a customer says that opening their order felt like Christmas - that's just how I want them to feel. That's how I'd like to feel too.

So I make no apology for making the effort to present my work nicely. I'm proud of my work and take pride in presenting it to someone. I thoroughly appreciate all of my customers and it genuinely gives me great joy to think that it might just put a smile on their face when it arrives.

A selection of typical presentation materials I use when sending out orders.

Gift envelope tutorial to download:

I sell a tutorial on Etsy for an origami gift box and have always included a bonus section within this on how I make my own gift envelopes, as illustrated above. I've spent some time over the years in perfecting my methods to make them as efficient (in both materials usage and wastage-prevention and in time that they take to make) and attractive as possible, so thought I'd pass on this experience. They're incredibly simple to make and only need a suitably heavy paper, scissors, a straight edge (or I use a scoring board and tool) and some suitable glue or double sided tape. I've included some tips on sizes and how to get the best results.

The tutorial has been extracted and expanded on a little from my single bonus page with the box tutorial and is available to download from here. It is 635Kb in size and available as a pdf document. If you click the link, it should open in your browser and you can save it to your hard drive from there. Please do not re-distribute this file (or printed copies of it) without permission or make it available to download anywhere else. Please direct people back to this post, so that they're sure to get the latest version of the tutorial.