Jewellery you don't make for yourself

When I started making jewellery I also started making gifts of it to family and friends, for Christmas and for birthdays. Conversely, family and friends stopped buying me jewellery of any kind for any occasion. I bought into this for a while, and even refrained from buying myself anything that I thought I could possibly make for myself.

But eventually I started feeling a little denied. Since making jewellery tends to involve an investment of finances in materials, and time in learning skills, many of the pieces I saw and liked just weren't getting made. Since much of my jewellery is silver, then that was all the jewellery I was making, and so that was all I was getting to wear.

So this year, with a birthday on the horizon, I explicitly stated that I would be more than happy for people, who were buying me gifts anyway, to give me jewellery if they so wished.

And they did.

I received a total of three necklaces and a pair of earrings which isn't bad at all after a jewellery-gift-drought of several years.

First up I received a silver and coral necklace via a shop called Babalu in Forres, a fantastic treasure trove of a place to look around and full of locally sourced Scottish crafts.

I also received a silver and garnet necklace via Aviv Silver.

And a butterfly necklace and pair of earrings came via Kate Hamilton-Hunter, who makes much of her jewellery from recycled biscuit tins.

I also treated myself in the sales of a high street jewellery chain (tut tut) when I had some money left on a gift card...

All in all, I'm rather pleased I'm back in the market for jewellery gifts...

Butterflies and fallen trees

I saw a butterfly today . . .

And, not exactly winter cheer but certainly some brightness and colour, I took some photos of a fallen tree, dead for a couple of years and felled by a gust of wind too strong for its withered rootball.



Wonderful textures (and I do love texture!) and amazing to see, up close, the life within and upon the tree.





I'd have taken a photo of the butterfly but, in December, I really wasn't expecting to see one!