Happy New Year !!

Wow, 2009 already.. Where does the time go?
I had a wonderful Christmas with my family and made my very first Gingerbread House. To be honest, it may well be my last too. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but so time consuming. Of course, I am perhaps a bit too fussy when it comes to this sort of thing. Well, I was at first... but, being Christmas, the champagne was flowing, so after a while I became somewhat more 'relaxed' about the whole thing.

Everyone got in on the action. Mum helped with the design and construction, Dad added the reindeer in the chimney and assisted with the 'disposal' of unused licorice allsorts and freckles. My boyfriend, Phil, made toffee for the windows and we had little lights inside. It looked spectacular at night. When it came time for the demolition, the boys got to work, rigging up a golf ball on a string pinned to the roof....a miniature, dimpled wrecking ball!


Anyway, Christmas over, it's time to get back into things. My creativity seems to be on overdrive at the moment, although getting all that 'stuff' out of my head and onto the bench is another story. I'm developing some new workshops, which I hope to be holding in both Canberra and Moruya at some point in the first half of the year. I am also looking at moving house, with the aim of setting up a permanent workshop for regular classes. Of course, Grafton Artsfest is on again this year as well.

I have also been working on some new Snake Jewellery designs and have been doing some wax-carving, which is a lot of fun.

The Australian Frog and Reptile Expo will be on again in May and I hope to be there again this year with a whole bunch of new designs.


Well, I think that's it for this post. I'll leave you with a photograph I took recently of a big moth that took a liking to a red t-shirt on my washing line. Being a keen, but very amateur, photographer I had to take his photo before moving him to a more appropriate spot. I'm amazed at the macro shots my digital camera takes. This moth was about 8cm long, quite large and he was the hairiest little thing I've ever seen!

Grafton Artsfest 2008

Here's a short video of my "Precious Metal Skills" class at Grafton Artsfest 2008.

This year was my second year at Artsfest and I am very much looking forward to 2009. Grafton Artfest is a week-long event consisting of numerous workshops in the creative arts. Choose from painting, sculpture, performing arts and, of course JEWELLERY-MAKING with me!!

We had a fabulous group of people this year, what a pleasure it was......

Finally.....my blog !

I've been threatening for ages.... "I will do a blog" Now finally, on a humid Sunday afternoon, here I am. I suppose I'd best let you in on what you might find here should you feel the urge to return.

I'm a qualified jeweller and a member of the Gold and Silversmiths Guild of Australia. I hand-craft all types of jewellery. Engagement rings, dress rings, pendants, earrings.... I also teach jewellery making. I've been involved with Grafton Artsfest for the last two years and enrolments are now being accepted for 2009. The Artsfest week is so much fun. My workshop, "Precious Metal Skills" is a 6-day course where students learn the basics of silver jewellery making including soldering, sawing, filing, texturing, designing...the list goes on! Beginners, as well as those with some experience are catered for and all projects are flexible to allow for personal style and skill level. But more on that later......back to the intro.
So, I'm hoping to post information about up-coming workshops, jewellery-making tips and maybe a project now and then, as well as general ramblings from a jeweller's mind....be warned, it's scary in there!

I have 2 websites:
http://www.snakejewellery.com/ A site to promote my Reptile collection of jewellery. I love snakes but most jewellery is evil looking, real biker stuff... (No offence to bikers, really, I love you guys!) but girls want pretty stuff and so, SnakeJewellery came to life. There's also non-snakey jewellery there too, so please pop over and have a look.
http://www.tkjewellery.com/ This one's a site about me and what I do. It's in need of update, and that's next on my list. But I'm not much of a tech-head, so it might take a while. Anyway, the plan is that this site will tell you all about me, my classes, my jewellery... Stay tuned.

We're coming up to a new year and I have big plans for 2009. My biggest plan is to set up a permanent workshop for teaching. In the meantime, I'll host a few half-day or full-day workshops out and about. Now I finally have this blog, I can let you know what's coming up! If you'd like to get a few friends together and spend a fun day making sterling silver jewellery, drop me a line and I'll give you some information about classes.

So I guess that's my first post...wow (and you thought it would never happen!)