Weekend Adventures

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Chu-mei

One thing I plan to do this year is be a tourist in London! I have been living in London for nearly 5 years now but there is so little of it I have seen. Funny that we take things for granted as it’s so easy to access, so I thought I would take full advantage of living in the capital. My partner is a proper “Landener” (pronounce it with the accent), and he thought it would also be fun to revisit some places he hasn’t been for years or go to places that he has never been before.

We have been talking about this for a while and finally we are doing it! I suspect our holiday in Taiwan back in March, doing lots of touristy things, has motivated us to get out and about in London.

We drove past this amazing building one night and I was told it was the Natural History Museum. Then I kept seeing the posters in the tube station about the Sensational Butterfly exhibition, somehow, it made the decision of where to start our London adventure a lot easier, the Natural History Museum here we come! 

I have never seen so many butterflies, and they seemed to love the coat Iwas wearing that day so lots of them stopped by to say hi. It was also very exciting to see a butterfly come out of its chrysalis and dry its wings and we saw moths so big that they were larger than both of my palms put together.

The Natural History Museum is a great place to learn about all the gemstones too. I will definitely go back there with my notepad to take some notes soon for sure. I don’t use many gemstones in the jewellery I make but it’s so interesting to know their properties and their meanings. The gift shop sold lots of stones so I just had to get some; 2 bracelets, one using Carnelians and one with lots of Rose Quartz and a rough uncut, unpolished Rose Quartz stone! There were so many nice stones there though that I want them all!

Although I was only there for some tea, chocolate cake and the gift shop (joking!), we had a really fun day out with butterflies, gemstones, dinosaurs and drooling over a massive 2982 carats of Topaz, I think it would make a really cool paper weight! :D

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2012, What a Year!

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Chu-mei

Yay, I’m back! Shame on me that my last blog post was over a year ago although I seem to have lots of draft blog posts that I didn’t publish. 2012 was an extremely busy year but I’m definitely not complaining. ;)

Beside my teaching job at the London Jewellery School, I also worked in the office on weekends last year. Now that I see how much hard work the school director, Jess, and the general manager, Sunita, have to put in to get the school up and running on a daily basis, it makes me appreciate it even more every time I teach there.

I didn’t focus on as much online selling last year but instead did a lot of festivals, craft fairs and markets which I really enjoyed, even in the cold, windy, wet winter weather! ;)

I don't always have this lovely view from my stall. This was at More London Xmas Market at the South Bank with We Make London.

 To keep myself busy, ha, not that I wasn’t busy enough, I also attended quite a few classes last year. Many, many trips to Warm Glass, learning from Becky and Claire about casting, mould making, images in glass and bead making etc. I also did Terry Kovalcik‘s hinged locket class at Craftwox and Lesley Messam’s poison bottle class at the Mid Cornwall Jewellery School. Going to classes is like a little treat for myself, and I love it. There is so much to learn and hopefully I will get a chance to write about the classes I have done too.

My second attemp at glass bead making at Warm Glass.

Making mould for glass casting at Warm Glass

One day I will fire this! Made in Lesley’s class.
Before firing! Lockets made in Terry’s class, you probably can guess which one is mine. ;)

It’s scary how fast time flies, and it’s already the start of May! Without working in the office on weekends this year (which was a hard decision to make), I have some extra time to try out new adventures, I’m sure you will hear about it at some point but I think you should like my Facebook page for more instant updates rather than waiting for my blog posts. ;)

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Happy Handmade Presents

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Chu-mei

Yeah yeah I know, Christmas is over, but I thought I would write a quick blog about some of my handmade Christmas presents from last year. It’s always fun to make things for other people, so I got my crafting hat on and made some presents for my close friends and family.

Crochet flower brooches and glass coasters were my choices this time, sorry friends and family, but do you know how much the price of silver has gone up! So no silver jewellery this time :P

Last minute Christmas shopping is stressful, but I can tell you last minute present making is even worse! My little Paragon SC2 kiln can only fuse one normal size coaster at a time, with a firing schedule of 12 hours per firing, it was definitely not good idea to start making the coasters 3 days before Christmas! I guess I may have found a good reason to get a bigger kiln this year and I need to get the present making production line going a week before the big day! ;)

I made a pair of “American” themed mosaic style coasters for my BFF (lol) Michelle, unfortunately they really do have that “handmade” look as the edges were a bit wonky, especially in the photo. I also made a pair of dotty coasters for my boyfriend’s parents, although the colours I used were more Easter than Christmas.

 

I was madly in love with crochet once upon a time, it’s definitely a craft that you can do anywhere you want as long as you don’t mind getting a few funny looks. Anyway, it was time for me to finish some of my half-finished projects, including these large flower crochet brooches and then send them to their new homes!

My boyfriend also got something handmade from me too, since part of his present was going to Bruges for a beer weekend, so I made a little glass Belgian flag to put in the card. (Spelling Bruges wrong! Doh!)

I really like the handmade gifts I received too, Michelle made us some jam, which has disappeared rather quickly and 2 little ceramic star decorations.  So the verdict on a handmade Christmas? I love it!

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