A while back I answered some questions for an article by the lovely Angela of The Jewelry Report, a blog for jewellery makers. I really enjoyed answering the questions as many were specific to the process of making jewellery and written by someone who knows a thing or two about it.

The resulting article has an introduction to make me blush:

Australian jeweler, Simone Walsh, is an inspiration to all one-man-band jewelery designs. Not only does her jewelry reflect a sense of originality and dedicated to quality, but her success is a testament to her hard work and dedication to being a successful business woman. Yet every…single…piece is completely handmade. Here she gives us some insight into that productivity, and I really feel that this gal is someone that many aspiring jewelers, and established jewelers alike can (and should) look up to.

So if you’re interested in reading the rest of the article with the Q&A I completed you can find it right here on The Jewelry Report.

I spent some time at my bench this weekend making some jewellery for one of my consignment outlets along with for my own stocks. And the results of my labour all needed to be tumbled in steel shot to become bright and shiny.

A batch of handmade jewellery fresh from my new tumbler.

Recently I purchased a sparkly new Lorotone tumbler to replace the wonderful but now old and slightly decrepit tumbler my Dad made for me years ago using bits from his shed).

It’s taking me a while to get used to the ways of my new tumbler. Because I’d used my old (and rather eccentric!) one for such a long time I knew exactly how much shot, water and tumbling compound it needed and exactly how long my work needed to be tumbled to get the result I wanted.

Of course my new tumbler is different and it will take me some experimenting to get those things right.

It’s been making me think about how very familiar we all become with the tools and equipment we use extensively. Changing those things can be a bit disorientating at times. But of course change can be a good thing!

One of the things I’m particularly enjoying (and planning to make use of!) about my new location is all of the little inspirations I’m finding in nature up here in the Blue Mountains.

Whether it be in my fairly densely planted cottage garden or out walking in the national park, there certainly are a lot of them. Also nature seems to constantly evolve fairly dramatically here as the year moves forward, at the moment most notably in terms of flowers, with some disappearing and new ones appearing.

At some point soon I’m hoping to start working on some handmade jewellery designs incorporating some inspiration gleaned from my new surroundings.

So I thought I’d share just a few little inspirations with you. You can find more from the area on my Flickr – including from a long (and exhausting!) walk we took last weekend through some gorgeous rainforest in a ravine not far from home.

Today is the first day of the new financial year in Australia. But for me it’s a day of new beginnings in more ways than one.

Yesterday I did my final day of work as an employee. So today I am officially fully self-employed – finally (or self-insufficient as my friend Jodie describes it!).

I have to be honest that this is a daunting situation financially and I keep wondering if the time really is right to be making such a change.

However, I suspect there would never be a perfect time and it’s good for me to be taking the plunge into the deep end to see what happens.

And all up I am feeling pretty pleased about the change at least at this very early point – it’s been a happy day for me and I’m feeling enthusiastic about the future.

For now I’m going to spend a week or two getting myself a bit more organised, making some plans and smelling the roses. And then I will be getting stuck into some freelance projects and some shiny new handmade jewellery as well.

Another new beginning today is the life of my new MacBook Pro! In a nice piece of timing it arrived yesterday afternoon so I spent the evening after finishing work setting it up.

My old MacBook Pro is a few years old and given what I use it for and the demand I place on my computers it was time for it to be replaced. It was starting to limp along and have a few issues, including an overly-full hard drive. Plus there was a one off bonus for Australian small businesses investing in this sort of equipment and I decided I should take advantage of it.

And so far so good! It’s a beautiful piece of equipment, of course. Plus it has some design changes which seem to be a big improvement on my old machine. And it has a nice big and fast hard drive and a battery with an amazing life (it takes up to seven hours to run down!). It’s all good – so far at least!