New Shiny Things

Hello! And a merry Christmas to everyone :)

Now that presents have all been opened, I can share with you my newest shiny things, made for the boy's mother and sister as Christmas pressies.

First, some rather nice damask wallpaper inspired earrings, set with opals and finished off with some fab blue topaz teardrops that I've been wanting to use for a while...

I'm still rather indecisive about which photography style I prefer, so I'm just taking photos of everything in different ways till I make my mind up. Maybe I'll wind up using both anyway, so I can have a bit of variety on the eventual website...

And a little detail shot here for a better view of the opals, as the colours were so bright and lovely. I actually rescued the little opals from a quite hideous shiny thing I made a long time ago. They were just too pretty to be trapped in something so alarmingly ugly. I felt they deserved a better life...

Also, a lovely birthstone charm for the boy's sister, as he bought her a silver charm bracelet as a present when we were on holiday in LA last summer and wanted something she could add to it.

I figured I'd do a shot of it on a chain, as I already have shots of another birthstone charm I made on a bracelet.

So, what with the little shiny things above, the engagement charms and another pair of Christmas pressie commissioned earrings (more of which later) I had a bit of a mental December actually. My fingers went numb many times, my random right-hand eczema went bonkers and I had a few pretty late nights where my neighbours probably did not thank me for the hammering. I shall look upon it as revenge for their child's obsession with tunelessly wailing High School Musical songs for hours on end whilst I was working.

Anyway, December generally ended up with me having mainly forgotten about Christmas until, well, Christmas Eve really. You know those people that lead you to wonder "Who on earth does their food shopping for Christmas on Christmas Eve...?" That would be me. Ooops. But, mainly by fluke, it all turned out okay, and we had a lovely chilled out day of champagne, food, TV and snoozing on the sofa. And, to be honest, there's not much more you can ask for on Christmas day than that :)