Evergreen

Well, it's all over for another year. I hope you all had fun and Santa rewarded you for the times that you have been good this year.
As for me, I worked both Christmas day and Boxing day - well, somebody has to I suppose, and this year, I drew the short straw. Determined to make merry, work or not, I went in, dressed in the twinkliest clothes I have, armed with bottles of alcohol free champagne - let the festivities begin!!
Isn't this tree pretty?? - I heard it whistling at me from a shop in Murano, and simply couldn't resist its siren call.

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We had five Christmas babies, and the workload was reasonably light, so I came back home to my craft room and played with clay all day - we postponed our Christmas dinner to the weekend and the kitchen was quiet.

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I thought I should make a piece appropriate to the season - a beautiful lampwork bead, handmade by the ladies at Fyrebirds, in green and red, bought at the bead fair in Newmarket came to mind - I am in awe of people who can manipulate glass into shapes - the temperatures involved are such that it seems almost frightening - lampwork beads can seem expensive, but the work involved in their making is so arduous that they are worth every penny.

A Tannenbaum is a fir tree, and this German Christmas song, sung in the clip above by the great Nat King Cole was originally a folk song from Silesia, and  refers to the evergreen tree being a symbol of faithfulness. This is the English version.....

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!
They are green when summer days are bright,
They are green when winter snow is white.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!

O Tannenbaum

The back of the pendant showing the whole bead

This pendant was inspired by Nicole Hanna - the technique is interesting in that almost the entire piece is made using mainly the hands as tools to shape four long pieces of wire - pliers cause dents and dinks that are difficult to iron out, although they are needed from time to time.

I made a couple of bangles for my nieces in India using the face cane I made earlier - I made them bright and colourful, and suitable for young girls - my sister will probably turn up her nose at them as being too gaudy, and my mother will dissect the face and tell me how the eyes are too big, or the nose too crooked, or even worse, turn them over in a pregnant silence, and then hand them back without comment - but I don't care, as long as my nieces like them. The bangles are inspired by Alice Stroppel and her fabulous, playful work - I am always bowled over when I look at her images.

I am always looking out for designs for quartz needles - I have some pretty heat treated ones in a silvery grey, and in a pale peach. I found a tutorial written by Nicole Hanna for this pair of lightweight earrings using copper wire - the earring are tiny and it can be quite difficult to make the smaller pieces - undaunted, I gave it a go - and this is what came out of my endeavors.....

I added long kidney ear wires, and wrapped a little crystal onto each one, to match the one in the earrings - I think they are pretty - would you agree??

Come Boxing Day, I was still on call, but the patients obligingly stayed at home. We went for a drive to the nearby village of Monks Kirby and wandered around St Edith's church - it was built in the 1300's and I love to go there and walk in the churchyard.

An empty M6 - shocking!

People had all obviously gone to the Boxing day sales, or stayed home - there was nobody on the roads and the M6 was empty - I have never seen it like this and may never yet again, so I made Michael stop the car to take a photograph.
That's all I had time for this week folks, next time I catch up with you, it will be 2014 - have a lovely New Year's Eve celebration, and a Happy New Year to you all. Catch you next week, same time, same place
xx