Tag Archives: Jewellery design

Serendipity Maximus

Posted on by

Life is strange, life has been playing tricks on me for over six months now, life is tough but amazing at the same time, life is about unexpected surprises… Last month I wrote about looking for an apartment, I’d been looking for a couple of months already but it took me at least three to four hours to go to a 15 minutes viewing each time. Time that I had to make up for later. So I ended up working chaotic hours, evenings and weekends too, just to make up for time wasted on viewings. I say ‘wasted’ because it happened too often that I arrived at a certain place only to find out that to some others it was their second viewing already. Meaning they’d had time to read into the documents and prepare to put an offer in. It also happened a few times whilst visiting that the real estate agent told me to put an offer in within the next two hours (…).

I thought that by buying something everywhere bút Amsterdam I would avoid these issues. So after another pointless apointment I changed my strategy and decided to ask an agent to look for me instead. Following on a viewing -where I met this really nice agent- I made an appointment and had a chat with him to discuss my wishes. To make a long story short, within basically a couple of minutes my then real estate agent could no longer represent me as he offered me an apartment of one of his clients. Within a few days I’d seen the apartment and had put an offer in. Within the next couple of weeks I’m supposed to sign the papers. And once that is done and the bank’s approval is in, I’m officially owner of a most gorgeous, sunny, bright apartment in a mostly quiet green area, only a 10 minutes walk from the beach…

Things have been so chaotic and weird this month that I didn’t even realise how fast it all happened until I had to write my monthly evaluation for my passion planner. What is even more odd is the fact that I had written in previous planners over the last two years that my three year goal was to obtain a studio space so I can extend my jewellery business (which by the way is also going fast forward all of a sudden as I sold four rings within 10 minutes posting them on Facebook two weeks ago) ánd look for an apartment to buy. So far each and every goal I had I reached way before the ‘expiration date’ *wink*. It’s insane. I have NO clue what is going on but like one of my best friends wrote me earlier this week: ‘don’t forget to also enjoy all the change’. That was such a great lesson he taught me that moment, as I tend to rush thru it all asap.

So I should be contemplating every now and then, be still for a moment and realise how freaking grateful I am for everything that is going on in my life at the moment. There’s one thing left that needs to be done after all these years. Probably the hardest too as I know this might still take a while before everything is arranged. But that’s something I’ll keep to myself for a while until the time is right. I’ve met wonderful people over the last two years, people who support me no matter what, people who don’t expect anything in return either, loving people. There are friendships growing and at the moment there are more people welcoming me to this other city I’ll move to than friends I have in Amsterdam. There’s a few still and I’m sure they’ll come and visit me wherever I am or the other way around. I’m so about to start a brand new chapter…

Quality Time

Posted on by

Life was bliss for three weeks. No rushing, no nagging, no disturbance, just peace and quiet and dealing with an extremely hot summer. It was the best three weeks off I’ve had in a while because I didn’t have to share my time with anyone else. It was just me and it felt awesome. I took the goldsmith course which was an amazing experience as well. Especially when the person teaching -a professional goldsmith- tells you that you have the skill set, patience, creativity and the exceptional natural ability to do this kind of work. I was flattered because she was not the kind of person to give compliments. I’m sure she must have noticed my passion for designing and making jewellery.

The friend who passed away about a month ago, used to be a goldsmith as well. Her ex-partner gave all her tools to me when he heard I was going to take this course. I didn’t use them yet as they were in a small flight case and I had to go through all her stuff first and clean it. It took me three days to sort it, clean it and give it some extra TLC. I had to sand down the inside of the flight case as there was glue stuck allover. After sanding it down I painted it white and cleaned all the aluminium edging and corners on the outside. It looks so much better now, it’s ready to be used. All I need to add over time, is a proper desk, gas torch and tank, hoses, saw, hammer and ring mandrel.

I’ve bought a Garmin vivosport activity tracking device a while ago and have been keeping an eye on stress levels since. They were extremely high, especially in May and June this year and although I didn’t feel stressed most of the time, it was telling me that I really had to slow down and try to reduce this. These past three weeks levels had dropped significantly which was a real eye-opener. I’ve started working again so I’m curious to see what will happen this month. The fact that temperatures were extremely high and I was forced to take things slow must have contributed to lower stress levels as well. I’ve been craving for some serious long spells of rain and thunderstorms for weeks now!

I’ve met up with friends for dinner and really enjoyed their company as I hadn’t been able to see most of them for at least six months, some for over a year. We had lots of stories to share! I’ve updated my jewellery business website and added more pictures in the portfolio section. And I’ve been playing with electroforming but that didn’t go well, I was expecting better results. I’ll have to look into things and see what is causing issues. I think I might have contaminated the bath as I was experimenting with fabric on gemstones. Because of the heat my conductive paint dried waaaaay too fast and I’m guessing it didn’t seal parts completely, also the liquid rubber I’ve used was a new technique.

I’ll try to fix it this weekend. Going back to work was kind of hard because it was 32C at the start of this week and 29C in my office space, too hot to focus on things that need to be done. Today I’m working from home and have some extra time to get chores done and write a blog in between. Still there’s too much on my plate, I can’t seem to focus because of the weather and not sleeping very well. Summer is great but these temperatures are driving me nuts. Last week the government announced an official drought and shortage of water, because of this trees and plants are dying, use of tap water is still fine and not restricted (yet). Thunderstorms and rain is expected tomorrow, we’ll see…

First things first, let’s get some work done ;)