We have been away. Whilst we were there my inbox overflowed and seized up so sorry I haven’t been communicative. Thankyou for all your cheering comments and emails as ever.

We spent a week in Norfolk - the same spot as in my very first post, nearly two years ago. There’s a slowness about life there that, combined with the seaside, is wonderful.

Another birthday passed whilst we were by the sea. I had treats:

Rockpooling with little P. I was reminded of the importance of a green fishing net - the fish sometimes swim towards it thinking it’s seaweed.

We caught fishywishy*

Visiting galleries in Burnham Market. Thankyou to Andrew at Fish and Ships who drilled holes in some shells for me and made Mr Mackerel out of pieces of an old fishing boat.

Rummaging at Vintage Home and Garden. What a treat to meet the owner Jo, another blogger. I gleefully spent some birthday money on the softest cushion, made from a piece of old French checked quilt. I have placed it with my other reddish things.

Beachcombing, then bringing home my finds and making things with them. Just to the right of the cockle shell is a little hand-made silver pebble.

Spending time at the water’s edge. I can share a few moments of that with you.

Despite taking me a step closer to forty it was one of the best birthdays I can remember.

*Released back into the rockpool shortly afterwards.

Inkpen sketch of Hairy P, 2001

Jackie

Cathy

Believe it or not there was a time when buttons weren’t really my thing. It is only very recently that I have realised how precious they can be. Whether they are carved from shell with tiny patterns or stamped from modern plastic in a simple daisy shape, they are covetable. Having visited Sutton Hoo and seen the tiny treasures buried with that Anglo Saxon noble, it seems the urge to possess little precious things is ancient.

The pendant pictured above is a Victorian silver button found in a little Cambridge antique shop. I wanted it almost as much as the garnet-inlaid treasures at Sutton Hoo. Only on photographing it have I discovered the makers mark hidden on the surface. I made a tiny four-petalled flower to echo the floral filligree design of the button and added some 1920s freshwater pearls. It’s now sitting on the shelves of my shop.

In the same antique shop as I found the silver button, I discovered a battered old tea tin that rattled. It had around 300 buttons in it, including some tiny spherical leather ones. I believe they’re from an Edwardian lady’s boot. The tin came home with me. I made a bracelet chain from scratch and added some treasures from both tea tin and stash. The pressed glass button with the sunflower design is a favourite but I also added a hand-made flower and little ring I’d made from silver along with some gems. This is also in the something old section of my shop.

1940s forget-me-not locket currently in my shop. LOCKET NOW SOLD

The urge to make tiny vintage things (and I don’t mean Bonnie Langford) into new pieces of jewellery is just as strong as the one that makes me want to own them, hide them in a little box and take them out now and again to check they’re still there. Lockets trigger it as well as buttons, and this 1940s forget-me-not locket made me think of victory roll hairdos and Glenn Miller.

Never has shelf-stacking been so much fun.

P.S. There’s 10% off for bloggers in my shop at the moment - enter blog4 at checkout. EDIT- to use the discount code pop the item in your cart, then a link called ‘Amend cart’ will pop up on the left hand side of the screen. CLick it and a little box will appear to type the blog4 code into. Sorry if anyone’s struggled with this.

Wild plum blossom, village green, April 2010

Viv may have won the silver version but here’s the real thing. It’s growing in huge amounts just a few steps from our cottage.

I opened the front door this morning and it was so utterly gorgeous out there that I’ve made a little film so you could see it with me. We start at the front door, take a quick peep at the front garden, cross the road, step onto the village green, walk over the molehills and there is the beginning of the Devil’s Dyke ancient monument, absolutely covered with wild plum blossom. There is a wren singing in the blossom. I hope you enjoy it.

This is a little sping posy, picked from my garden yesterday afternoon, to thank you for all the wonderful comments and emails about the exciting gallery news and my 100th post. Hellebores, ‘minnow’ miniature daffodils, forsythia, tulip, dead nettle, chive flower, muscari, hyacinth, ivy tendrils are all in there. Colourful, cheerful stuff.

Well, after the ’selection of cheeses’ for my Pass the Book giveaway I wasn’t sure how to draw the winners for the 100th post blossom necklace. I thought of borrowing my friend’s chickens’ pecking skills on a grid but they are not feeling too well and I realised that Celia had already thought of it.

So, I hunted around the internet for ideas. I stumbled on a fruit machine-like random number generating animation and settled on that. You can find it here. Sixty nine numbers were allocated, one for each entry and two for each of those who posted a link to me (thankyou!). Then we were off:

So, the winner is number 2,  Viv of Hensteeth. Well done Viv! You have won the silver blossom necklace. Let me know if you would like the little green peridot stones changed to something else.

I realised the fruit machine was serious fun and carried on, to pick two runners up:

Number 63  which is Jeanne, from Tales from a Cottage Garden and…

…number 25 which is Monica, from Quilt While You’re Ahead.

Congratulations! Please send me your addresses so that I can post a parcel to you. The runners-up will receive a few little treasures that I have been collecting and making over the last few weeks.

Finally I received a note via my website today from a lady who had bought one of my enamelled birds from Primavera gallery for her very tiny grand-daughter as a Christening gift. Magic!

Goodness, thankyou so much for all the comments on my last post -  I never expected so many! If you popped a comment on my giveaway though, do go and check it’s there - there was an hour or two after I first posted when the comments were still being lost. If you comment is missing do put another one in its place - I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out. I am extending the deadline until Friday because of Easter and I’ll post the draw early next week.

I looked at my banner the other day. i noticed ‘gardening’ up there. It hadn’t featured in my life much at all in the last year, but then I have been very busy with littlest P. In recent weeks though, both myself and the plants have been getting to know eachother again, resulting in a series of little places round the garden that I thought you might like to visit.

Pictured above is a Spring place. I see this little spot through the kitchen window when standing at the sink. When the little windmill (from Southwold promenade) spins amongst the miniature daffodils it can make washing bibs and pans more cheerful. The little wooden houses are for apples - they are bird snack stops.

Next, a new living willow place. Our garden slopes upwards away from the cottage. The path pictured here links the patio, made from old bricks, with the lawn that curves around my main flower bed. I have woven the tiny living fence or fedge (a cross between a fence and a hedge) from offcuts of the willow wigwam. It’s around 8 inches high and will soon come into leaf. In late summer perennial rudbeckia, like tall, yellow, outsized daisies, will grow up behind it.

A Studio place. This July I’ll be participating in Cambridge Open Studios. I’ve wanted to join with this group of local artists for a very long time. Mr P’s beach hut garden office will be turned into a studio to display my jewellery for two weekends in July so I have been sprucing up the outside, creating a woodland-ish area to the right hand side and weeding the vegetable patch in front, ready for peas and beans. Here little P is searching for pretty pink granite pebbles.

A soon to be tasty place. Our strawberry plants had babies. These happy little events, combined with a few new plants and some digging have resulted in a substantial new strawberry bed. I made the edging with old brick found around the garden. It’s a bit wobbly.

Very crowded places. Primroses, lots and lots of little viola faces, and some ladybirds just out of hibernation.

Finally a gratuitous boot shot. My new Marie Curie daffodil wellies make gardening even more satisfying.

MY COMMENTS ARE NOW WORKING - THANK GOODNESS

This is a special post. It celebrates three lovely things, all connected with one another :

ONE: A very few posts ago it was the hundredth time that I logged on here to type thoughts, pictures of nature, jewels that I’d made and snippets of family life. It’s taken me a while to get to one hundred, for various reasons. When I started blogging I wasn’t sure I’d be doing it for very long, not least because four weeks in I had a baby. I’m hooked though - and here is one of the reasons why:

TWO: I make jewellery alone. I take it to fairs and people seem to like it and buy it, but in between there are those times when I’ve made something sitting on my own, at the dining room table, and I’m not sure whether my idea is any good. Mr P is very kind about my makes but he would be. For almost two years I’ve been posting new designs here and you have encouraged me, more than you know. I began making silver birds for example. I posted pictures of them.

One of my first silver birds

With the help of your lovely comments my confidence grew a little - the birds and several other designs have become favourites, and so on to the next reason to celebrate:

THREE: There is a gallery called Primavera in Cambridge that I’ve loved for almost twenty years. Spurred on by the comments I’ve received here I rang them to make an appointment to show them some jewels. In between reading stories and changing nappies I managed to make seven silver things, three of which were birds and two of which were seedhead designs. I also took a silver hare necklace.

In the rush I didn’t have time to take pictures - this is Jackie’s brooch, similar to one I took to the gallery

A week last Friday I drove into town, rushed to King’s Parade, peeped into the Primavera window and lost my nerve completely. I nearly ran away but realised it was an opportunity for feedback at least and went in. My silver things were placed on a velvet-upholstered (!) tray to be examined. I was given a cup of tea and a stool to sit on. The suspense was worse than waiting for my degree results. I sat for a few very, very long minutes while the examination took place…..

My work was accepted! I was over the moon. The jewel-selector lady seemed surprised at my giddiness and excitement. Regaining my composure I mentioned some designs for necklaces mimicking spring blossom that I hadn’t had time to make. I was told to make some and bring them along.

So, this is my first ever spring blossom necklace and my giveaway prize. Without the extra confidence both your comments and commissions have given me I would not have had the courage to approach the gallery and my jewels would not be sitting there now. I may not even have made this necklace.

So, I’ll sign off, except to say leave a comment here and I’ll put you in the hat for the necklace (plus some other small treasures), and, in a bit of a sniffly way, AN ENORMOUS THANKYOU, both for your confidence-boosting comments and your continued visits, despite my time being a little too limited to answer you sometimes.

I’ll draw the winner on the 8th April. The winner may have little stones of her choice added to the necklace. At the moment I think the tiny spring green peridot pebbles remind me of apple blossom.

P.S. I’ve been deliberating offering an extra entry if you post a link to me - I’ll leave that up to you.