#worldkindnessday

Just leaving this here.

Polar Bears

This week is polar bear week. It coincides with their migration to Churchill, Manitoba, where they wait for Hudson Bay to freeze over, so they can return to hunting seals. I absolutely love polar bears, and seeing them in their natural environment is on my bucket list.

I made this brooch right back when I started my business. It’s still a favourite. I wanted to share the awesome work of some very talented makers who also use polar bears in their work.

First up it's Helen Noakes. You can find her work here.  She works in silver and resin. Some of her resin even glows in the dark, echoing the beautiful and ethereal Northern lights.

Next up is the work of Eileen Gatt. You can find her work here. Eileen carves her pieces in wax and them casts them in silver. I have one of her stunning polar bear necklaces.

Dinny Pocock is a fibre artist, and you can find her stunning work here. Most of it whizzes off to galleries, but you can contact here if you are interested in something. One of her polar bears is on my 'one day' wish list.

Charlotte x 

Teeny diamond rings

I've really been enjoying making these recently. The photo doesn't do justice to the sparkle of these small but mighty, flashy 'brilliant cut' and conflict free diamonds. Earlier this year I did a mount making and stone setting course at the Goldsmith's Centre, taught by Sonia Cheadle, and I am so pleased that setting these is now second nature. 

Oreo cheesecake recipe

End of exams = time for a celebratory cake in our house, and my youngest asked me to make my no bake Oreo cheesecake for him. Having posted this picture on my social media this evening, I have had lots of requests for the recipe, so here it is...

Base
22 Oreos
100g melted butter
1tbsp caster sugar

Filling
450g full fat cream cheese
475ml double cream
35gm icing sugar
200g caster sugar
12 chopped oreos

Method

Whizz the 22 Oreos for the base in a food processor until they are fine crumbs
Stir in the melted butter
Press into a lined spring-form (or you won't get it out) baking tin
Refrigerate the base for 30 mins

Roughly chop the 12 Oreos used in the filling with a knife
Gently beat the cream cheese and add in the icing sugar and caster sugar
Whip the double cream
Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese and fold in the chopped Oreos
Refrigerate for 4 hours or until firm

Before serving decorate with whole and broken Oreos and Oreo crumbs.

*I used a 20cm spring-form baking tin
**I can't even begin to imagine how many calories per slice
***My custom gold topper was made for me by Betsy Benn

Love where you live

View from my studio today. Not bad for London.

Family necklaces

I love making these little family heirloom pieces and haven't posted any on here for a while...

set with an opal birthstone

Set with a tiny sapphire

My home renovations

It's just coming up to two years since I moved to King's River Cottage. Although there's still more to do here, it has changed a lot in that time. For all those who comment on IG how calm my house looks, I thought it might be nice to show you some of the transformation pics.

Estate agent sales brochure pics

When I bought this house it had a pine kitchen at the front of the house over looking the road (more of that to follow in another post). The back of the house was a big L shaped living room with a dining room at one end, and the sofa area at the other. It's walls were beige and it was carpeted in green.

This is the L shaped living area, looking in from the back of the house. By now I have already slapped white paint on the walls.

Looking from the dining end of the living space out towards the garden. It looks extra dark as the pic is taken towards the light, but this part of the room is always rather dull.

 

Before and after. Left: looking into L shaped living area. You can see a narrow hallway and a huge utility room (plus the very huge job-lot of solid wooden floor that I bought in the sale). Right: after knocking down the corridor and downsizing the utility room. Now you can see all the way to the garden.

My old house used to have a huge live in kitchen, and this worked really well for family life. I could cook supper while supervising homework. When I first saw this house, I knew it had potential to do something similar. This time I was doing the work myself (with help) and a very limited budget.

With the help of my friend's husband and my dad, the original doorway was bricked up, the three of us put a steel in, and then we demolished the big wall under it. (Here you can see the newly created stud wall of the smaller utility room). The day we knocked it down, not only had I done all the sledgehammer work, but the old utility room was full up with a mountain of bricks. The kids were due home from school just after 4 and I knew I had to move every single brick to restore a bit of normality before they got in. That was a very tough day - made slightly worse by the fact I hadn't thought about the time needed for a skip licence so I had to move them once to the front garden, and again a few days later into the skip. 

Starting to take shape. The floor was laid by me, plank by plank, and you can see some of the new kitchen stacked in place. When the kitchen was delivered, the lorry driver refused to come down our narrow road, so somehow I managed to single handedly get the entire kitchen down the road and into the house. 

There was a little delay while we broke through this bit of wall.

The first Christmas here, we had this interesting feature holding up the ceiling.

As you can imagine, there were times when I wondered if all this work, and all this disruption was worth it just to add a metre or so to a room.

Slowly the kitchen was taking shape, and yes, it was all worth it for that extra metre. This photo makes me laugh as you can see where I had done the floor as much as I could (I was still waiting for that other small bit of wall to be down) and I had painted - but not a bit where the plaster hadn't dried. I obviously couldn't wait!

I think this is the day the work surface went in, as I still don't have a tap or cooker. The kitchen was a cheap-as-chips on line purchase, with a lovely white quartz composite worktop to make something very cheap look more expensive. All the appliances were sourced on-line as cheap as I could find them, and I re-cycled the cooker that was here when I moved rather than buy a new one. The table was is 16 years old from Habitat and the chairs sadly are not originals.

One of the things I promised myself when I moved here was a wood burner. This sits down at the living area of the room. I wanted to have an exposed flue like this to maximise the heat radiating into the room. 

Frustratingly, I haven't got the photographic skills to catch the whole room well for you. But those two give you a feeling of how it looks now. I'm still short of the odd bit of skirting board and cornice in here, but I know I will get to them one day.

I'll show you what I did to the old kitchen in another post.

Spring is here

Infact in London it feels like Summer is here, with temperatures this weekend expected to reach 23 degrees! The apple blossom is just about to burst into flower....

New man's wedding band

Here is my newest ring. It is cast from the apple tree outside my studio, just on the river bank. My rings are often used as wedding rings, and I am delighted they have been used for both traditional and  same sex marriages. I thought it was time I had a more chunky ring to sit alongside my cherry tree twig ring and my looping Arctic twig ring. 

Etsy London Local Team

Thanks to the lovely folk from the Etsy London Local Team who featured me in a 'Meet the Maker' interview last week.

The article can be found here below, but please do check their website to see all the fab things they are up to in London. www.londonlocalteam.com

FRIDAY FEATURE

As part of our Meet the Maker series on our blog, we have created Friday Feature. Every Friday we will feature a team member and their Etsy shop, to give you a quick glance behind the scenes and discover more about our diverse team members. 

Friday 17 February – Charlotte Bezzant Jewellery

Name: Charlotte Bezzant

Location: South West London

Etsy Shop: Charlotte Bezzant Jewellery

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF:

A London girl born and bred, I currently live in S W London with my two boys. We have a little house that backs on to a river so it actually feels more rural than urban especially when ducks and swans walk up to our back door. I originally trained in Fashion Design, and started making jewellery just as a hobby. It’s now my full time job. When I am not in the studio, I love being outside. I am a keen runner and have run four marathons. I also spend my time looking after our little menagerie, as well as all the visiting waterbirds, we have a cat, four chickens, and a bearded dragon.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED ON ETSY?

When I started my business, Etsy was the first place I sold online. I love the fact you can find beautiful handcrafted items from makers around the globe on there. I have bought from people around the world, and my jewellery has been bought by people in Japan, Finland, America and even as far afield as Australia. It is a unique platform in that sense. But because Etsy is such a huge platform, like many people I wonder how anyone ever finds me on there!

TELL US ABOUT YOUR DESIGN/MAKING PROCESS:

I am inspired by everything around me. Sometimes words, sometimes objects, sometimes just the gemstones I buy. I love to cast little found objects in silver. I also love to add names and dates to my jewellery to make them totally unique to the wearer.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE THING ABOUT RUNNING YOUR OWN BUSINESS?

I love making jewellery, and by running my own business I am able to do something that makes me genuinely happy every time I am ‘at work’. I’m sneaking a second thing in here, but running my own business also allows me to work with the ebb and flow of being a solo parent to two boys, and all the challenges that brings. I do believe life is about balance, and I do believe I have found it.

WHEN AND WHY DID YOU JOIN THE TEAM?

I joined the London Local Team back in 2016. I love to connect with people and I believe in strength in numbers, the sharing of ideas and resources, and our combined powers to motivate and elevate others.

To find out more about Charlotte follow her on social media:

Facebook: CharlotteBezzantJewellery

Instagram: @charlottebezzant

Twitter: @CBezzant

Spring is here

I think Spring could really be here. Well even if it isn't quite; there's nothing like a bunch of daffs to raise the spirits!

Dreaming of snow

We are waiting to see if snow falls on London today. It is forecast, and flights have been cancelled from Heathrow in anticipation. It's not happening yet. London does seem to grind to a halt with just a few flakes, but I love snow so I have my fingers crossed.