I can finally allow myself to be excited about moving, it’s (I think) all set in stone. We’re buying the house near the river Tweed in Peeblesshire (doesn’t that sound fake?). It’s been a little bit crazy, we’re going to rent out our current house, which seems simple enough until you find out all the stuff you have to do to register as a landlord (so I’m a Land Lady!). The dates were confirmed so I went ahead and ordered our new sofas from …. Laura Ashley. I am so not a Laura Ashley person, and it’s kind of scary how many things I wanted from their home store. I knew what I wanted- Chesterfield style absolutely not in leather, with buttons, in a sensible dark coloured fabric preferably in a dark mocha, mink or brown. I usually set myself unrealistic ambitions for things I’m shopping for, but surprisingly Laura Ashley met all the requirements:

Unfortunately crushed velvet wasn’t an option for us, having 2 dogs and a cat. The sofa in the pic is the small 2 seater,  we’re getting the large and small so I seriously hope they both fit.  I ordered a thick cottony twill in dark … teal! I hadn’t thought about this color until I saw the model sofa at the store, which was done in teal velvet. It was GORGEOUS, and I totally wanted to get the velvet but sense overtook me in the end. I’m nervous about what it’s going to look like when it arrives, hopefully the tiny fabric swatch was a good representation.

 I haven’t even thought about packing, or organising my studio or anything at all really…. in hindsight moving house at the peak of holiday shopping season isn’t the smartest choice, but we’ll have a month or so overlap to move out of our house into the new house. I’m dying to get to the new house and CLEAN, there is something so weird in the first week or so moving into someone else’s house with their ‘house smell’ and all. Will post pics when we move!

I haven’t posted in ages, mostly because of the insane amount of spam. I think I’ve sorted my email filters so hopefully it won’t be as bad!

So, we spent August enjoying the Edinburgh festival.  Made it to five comedy shows and overall it was lots of fun. I’m sad that the summer never really happened weather wise, I kept waiting for at least a few weeks of heat but it never happened. It now feels like autumn is truly here, nice and crisp but still bright and sunny. Yesterday was a lovely almost warm day, and we decided to take a drive to Peebles, one of my favorite little towns in the Scottish borders. It’s one of the places we’re considering moving to….. for those of you who are familiar with our moving habits, you’ll know that a move is due. We’ve been in our little three bedroom house for two and a half years, the longest we’ve stayed in one property since we moved in together in ‘99. There is a potential house about 3 miles out from the center of Peebles, basically on the doorstep of the Glentress forests where we go hiking, we should know more about whether it’s a possibility this week. I took a few pics while walking through the center of the village, and we came upon an adorable kitty out in his garden people watching:

It seems that the problem with Daisy was her teeth. She has the smallest mouth, with teeny tiny teeth and it’s impossible to get a look at them let alone brush them (her little front teeth are SO crooked, and she has an underbite, which makes her look adorable). The vet had mentioned that her teeth had really bad tartar and decay with serious gum issues and would need at least one large molar taken out but didn’t think that was the source of the pain, but… last Friday night we took her to the emergency vet and he sort of concluded it was her teeth bothering her. So Wednesday she had dental surgery (they took out two teeth) and now she’s fine. She is such a trooper, she ate a whole bowl of crunchy food mixed with tuna just a few hours after the surgery. The vet gave us a bunch of stuff, like a toothbrush, gum brush, and poultry toothpaste, along with a huge bag of food that is supposed to help her teeth….so starting tonight I have to brush her teeth with the chicken toothpaste. Yeah right.

I am so tired. Woke up this morning in the dark to the alarming sound of pacing, which is a bad bad sign. Daisy on the floor, pacing, which she will only do when she’s upset or in pain. She was wincing, pacing and her eyes were totally dilated and stare-ey with that ‘help me please i don’t know why i hurt’ look. Most of today was spent trying to figure out what could have caused this, she went on her midnight walk last night full of energy and in good shape, alert and on the hunt for bunnies, came in and went to bed as normal. I have no idea why she’d wake up in pain. We took her to the vet and he did a blood test for pancreatitis, which came back negative. His other ‘option’ for what might be wrong is that she could have a problem with her spine, as apparently small breeds like hers are prone to such problems. She was given an anti-inflammation injection which seemed to do the trick, after a few hours she ate all her food and drank a bunch of water (well, I squirted about 6 syringes full of water into her mouth and she swallowed reluctantly). So if she gets worse tomorrow or over the weekend we’re going to have to have x-rays done to find out about the spine thing. This is why I can’t have children.

So this is the bag I bought in Japan, I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything that I love as much! It’s made of super soft leather with a very light antique-y gold/coppery shimmer, with cutout leather shapes riveted to the bag. On the handle was swinging a little white leather bird, which can be slipped inside the cage. Inside it’s lined in beige satin with little stars all over. The shop I found it in was the tiniest, sweetest place. The shopowner could only accept Japanese credit cards (and did not speak any english, so it took  awhile to figure out how much it cost!) so Stuart and I walked ages to find an atm that would work with our cards, and by the time we walked back she had somehow managed to translate into english a little handwritten card that said something like ‘ Thank you so much for purchasing my friend’s bag, this is the first she has sold here and we are so happy to meet you.’ I am so dying to go back to Japan.

What happened to March?! Seriously, I don’t know where the month went, I am really just catching up from my holiday which ended at the beginning of the month. I caught a lovely post-holiday cold, spent ages organising my office/studio, and started work on new bridal pieces… and now it’s April. And I turned 29 last week. Not entirely sure how I feel about that.  I cannot even fathom how I went from 19 to 29 in the blink of an eye. Stuart took me out to dinner at our favorite chinese restaurant (Kweilan- this is seriously the best restaurant period in town), I ate HALF A DUCK, by myself. I wore seriously awesome 4 inch wedge heels and could barely walk, so we went home and had ice cream and cake. I wish I’d posted about our holiday earlier, because in my goldfish brain I’ve already sort of forgotten most of what went on. Highlights- Japan, we went to Osaka & Hiroshima. This was my first visit to Japan, despite being one hundred percent Japanese, it was great. I bought a fabulous leather bag and a soft cuddly bear. That was all I bought pretty much the whole time, aside from a few small things at the outdoor markets. Seoul & Busan were insanely cold, as in much colder even than Scotland. In China we went to Beijing, Dalian, Shanghai & Hong Kong. I’m really not used to the hecticness of the places we went to, but it was really interesting and I had a great time. We walked up to the Great Wall, and did all the touristy things in Beijing, saw an AMAZING acrobatic show in Shanghai… here are a few pics from the trip-

It’s snowing tons here, off and on all day and there’s more to come. Ben & Daisy had great fun tramping through the snow on their walk today and everything looks wonderful!

when my desk looks like this:

Sadly, this is the routine. Clean it off, mess it up, repeat. I’ve tried everything possible (kind of) to help stay organised but I don’t think anything is going to help. It’s kind of addictive clearing it off anyways, so maybe I subconsciously like it this way. I’m trying to build up a small stock of jewellery that’s ready to ship, which will help a little when I return from my trip… hope Friday comes quickly for everyone!
A.

A while ago I was contacted by Etsy admin to answer a little questionaire about myself and my shop…. because I was one of the top 20 ‘most hearted’!!! How insane is that? So, I answered the questions and submitted a pic, and lo and behold……

Included is my first and probably the only Treasury list I’ll make this year, as I’ve never managed to snag one.

I published a Storque article last year about how I run my business, and I was hoping to use this blog to post some useful information with tips, budgeting, planning info, etc so if anyone has any ideas about things they’d like to hear about or see in action feel free to post ideas! I’m on holiday in February but when I return I’ll be dedicating more time to this. Happy Tuesday!

A.

Okay, so this is a really late new year’s post. I totally underestimated how busy December would be sales wise, and things have pretty much been insane until a few weeks ago. I’m really grateful and a bit overwhelmed by the traffic to my store, but I am also slightly glad that things have slowed down. I thought I’d been really smart estimating how things would pan out over the year, I looked over 2007 figures, sales etc, and was positive that November would be the busiest month, but December was indeed busier than November. So, the good news is that I don’t have to worry quite as much about the three week HOLIDAY I’ll be on in February!  So, I’ve not taken many new pics, which is regrettable as it snowed last week and was so beautiful, but I’ve posted a photo of a necklace I actually made for myself and have been wearing constantly…. hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season and a great start to the new year!

ps. don’t be jealous… I snagged a mustard yellow gnome home from http://petitehouse.etsy.com.  i sat like a saddo with the store front open until 11pm.. but it was well worth it.

Adriennexx