It's still autumn!

I had to wear my newly crocheted hat, scarf and mittens on Saturday when manning my stall! I usually wear woolly tights on the very coldest days but recent mild weather lulled me into thinking I wouldn't need them just yet. However, shortly after setting up I realised my legs were f-f-f-freezing! I went to Milletts and bought some long johns and put them on under my jeans in their changing rooms! Actually they don't call them long johns any more, they're thermal foundation garments ...! There you go then. They're extremely fetching in a kind of mad purple flower design but I don't care what I look like in them, they rescued me on Saturday and I'm very grateful.

Why the picture of this tree? This silver birch tree is in my front garden and it's my hero.

I took this pic about 10 days ago because it was one of the few ones around that still had leaves. All the time there are leaves on the trees, it's not winter yet.

I really like Autumn and try to hold onto it for as long as possible; despite all the gales recently, they haven't shifted the last few clinging onto my hero tree and so it's still Autumn :-)

I've not been blogging much the last few days because I am having something of a record on-line Christmas rush and have much to do to fulfil all the website and e-mail orders I have received and still do a few new items for my stall. Everyone should have received an acknowledgement and an indication of when to expect delivery.

I shall be temporarily shutting my on-line shop in a few days time until the new year so be sure to get any orders in now else I won't be able to finish everything in time for the big day!

Busy!

I think this bead is really pretty. I made lots of black bubble beads for Fiona's commission, they looked super-sophisticated made up into jewellery and Fiona e-mailed yesterday to say how pleased she was with everything. I'll post a picture after her party on Saturday (don't want to ruin the surprise!)

However, I thought I'd make some brighter bubble beads this week. This experiment is a base bead of violet, rolled in a light sprinkling of baking soda and then encased with aqua coloured glass. I've made a batch of them this morning and they are annealing in the kiln along with some other experimental colour mixes.

I've been a busy gal on my website the last couple of days. I have updated all the outstanding new products onto the Sooz Jewels website (about three weeks worth). There are too many to put here but some of the highlights are detailed on my home page.

I've made a new page for the Red Mist items so all the products are together. In the Red Mist range, I sold a £40 bracelet and a pair of £12 earrings on Saturday and so a cheque for half of those values, plus £6 from last week's sale of a pair of earrings was sent to the Orangutan Foundation yesterday.

I'm hoping to pretty up the Red Mist page with a picture of an orangutan. I've asked the Foundation if they have any available for fundraising purposes but if they don't, I have my eye on this cute picture here, which I will buy.

There's also (at last!) a new page on the website for my Pandora beads. Um ... there aren't actually any beads on the page yet (still got to do the photography for that!) But the starter bracelet is there ready and waiting. Now there's no tennis (sniff!) I may actually get the photography done this week!

Finally, there is also now a Frequently Asked Questions page, too.

Strawberry fair

As I'm typing this, it is pouring with rain here. It started the same yesterday morning - market day in Cambridge. I decided to believe the forecast and optimistically set up my stall anyway and fortunately, it was right and the rain cleared away to leave a pleasant day.

It was strawberry fair in Cambridge. This is usually a mixed blessing for my business - there are far more people around in Cambridge than usual and if the weather is fair and not too hot, many will wander over into the craft market as well and one always hopes they will buy something. But on the other hand, serious shoppers who don't like it when it's too crowded stay away. This is my sixth year and no two have been alike so I was prepared for anything! I just hoped I wouldn't have to spend too much time doing the crossword and soduko puzzles!

I ended up having a really good day, several things have sold before they made it onto the website (again!) But as I can't garden today, I will be spending some of my day off updating the website with pictures so I'll put them straight into the gallery or on the Lampwork section with "sold" on them.

To celebrate my good day and commemorate strawberry fair's role in it, I bought a strawberry cupcake from anew stallholder who appeared last week selling tempting cakes and goodies!

It was especially nice to see Sue and Lucie, two of my regular customers, who stopped by particularly to see any red mist jewellery I had produced in aid of the Orangutan Foundation. I'm afraid I had nothing to show them, I made up a batch of the beads on Thursday but didn't get time on Friday to turn them into jewellery so that's first job on Monday. But it proves people do read the blog and so it made my day!

I also haven't made any jewellery yet with these beads, they are a variation of the Akamai beads, these are orange/yellow and brown instead of the blue/green ones you've already seen.