new home

Just a quick message to say that, as of tomorrow, my new online home will be http://amandaclairedesigns.typepad.com with my shop being located at http://amandaspatch.com, so please do update your readers if you use them.

Tomorrow starts the true beginning of my real-life dream. Over there you will get to read about my new business, try some projects for yourself, see the results of my "wheat-free recipe experiments" and hear about the wedding planning. There will still be a personal touch and I won't stop writing about the things I do here, but there will be far more added on a much more regular basis (daily through the week, I hope)... so I hope you will all pop by and see me there too xx

UPDATE: For those of you who found this blog through my Endometriosis posts, I have now started writing a weekly series on Trying to Conceive with Endometriosis at iVillageUK. The first article can be found here and all subsequent articles will be posted on the Pregnancy and Baby Channel every Tuesday.

My new blog also focusses on living with Endometriosis, so don't forget to pop by there as well.

Living the dream

Tim and I are still in limbo, still waiting for his CRB check to come through so that we can move and he can start his new job. But we are not wasting time...

Remember my last post about starting a business so that I could stay home and work around how I'm feeling? Well things are moving on. The sewing and painting idea have been put on hold for a new passion of mine - jewellery making. This time last week I had nothing and now I have a toolbox full of well over £200 worth of beads and things, several pieces to my name, and 6 sales under my belt. Not bad for one week, hey?

Here are a few examples:

The 'Diana' necklace - so called after the Goddess due to it's powerful beauty. It is made by four strings of crocheted wire with turquoise and garnet chips, which are then plaited together. I loved making it and was incredibly happy to sell it the very next day! I thoroughly plan on making many more like this with a variety of semi-precious stones for varying issues - this one was for emotional expression.

The 'Abigail' necklace - muted green and pink tones for a delicate, feminine look. Occasional pearls and silver beads give an extra feel of class to the necklace. This one is up for grabs and I shall be setting up a new website, once I can figure out a name for myself.

The 'Charlotte' necklace, named after the one from SATC - I love her elegance and beauty and felt that this necklace was just that. This one was admired by a customer but left because the person who she was buying for was more "hip" than "classy".

The 'Josie' earrings, named after a dear friend of mine who passed away. She had the biggest heart and these were just like her - full of love and happiness.

And this, well this is an experiment, to see what I could do with crochet and silver wire. Crocheting with wire is a strange thing when you're used to yarn, but rather simple to pick up, and doesn't it just make the most gorgeous pendants? I just love it, but don't quite know what to do with it yet.

So there you have it, a few samples of my ever-expanding collection of jewellery. And do you know what, making them has been so therapeutic... I feel happy for the first time in months, I fel calm and relaxed and have even had people comment on how well I am looking. Despite my reservations, my fear that the business will be a big flop and that I don't deserve to be so happy AND make some money, I feel that I am finally getting to the place I always wanted to be. I feel like I am beginning to live my dream. I am happy. And life is good.

Stay tuned, folks, I feel some big things are coming!

Too long...

It's been far too long since I updated here, but things are rather crazy at the minute. I spent the past two weeks helping my parents finally move back into their house (I'm not sure I ever really mentioned the fact that last August my parents lost their house to a fire... but after many long months of rebuilding, they are finally home). It was good to see them home again, but stressful sorting through all the boxes that came back from the cleaners.

Anyway, within those two weeks I also stressed about my job interview (for a full-time management position - you know, the one I was stressing about in my last blog post?) Anyway, the night before I decided not to go and finally admitted to my family that my biggest dream (other than having a family of our own, of course) was to set up a business where I could stay home and create beautiful things to sell... like this. I was shocked, to say the least, when they all backed me up and told me to go for it because quite frankly I thought it was far too reckless and irresponsible of me to even think about doing something I might truly enjoy - ah, the fun of low self-esteem, eh?

Well, anyway, I have been thinking a lot about this and have decided to focus on an area close to my heart - paintings, knits and personalised gifts (e.g. baby vests and blankets) in pretty pastels and muted tones, as well as the odd household gift perhaps, but mostly aimed at new babies, expanding families and treating new mums to something special (maybe a new necklace or pair of earrings to remind her she is still a beautiful lady and not just a mum now). What do you think?

Of course, now I am confused as to where to source the fabrics from - I want good quality, of course, but I still want the end products to be affordable and so cannot go out and buy masses of expensive materials to craft with. Any ideas?

I must go, I am exhausted - a combination of stress, hayfever, changing hormones and forgetting to take my anti-depressants for a couple of days seems to have knocked me for six, so a nap may be in order. But I promise to write an update and post some pictures again soon.