Given the wild enthusiasm of Little Miss Meshell (who has an Etsy shop with gorgeous things, as well as a Flickr account and – for reasons we are both yet to fathom – a Myspace account) and others for the idea of making pure silver Christmas pudding tokens, I am going to do it!

Today I’ve been fiddling with the artwork I want to use (changing one or two of the images used for etching the set featured above) and have also been figuring out packaging for them. I think because they’ll be something special to keep and pass on that it would be good to package them up as nicely as I can – and particularly to make them look like a lovely little gift.

So I’ve been to my jewellery supply shop and purchased some teensy black plastic cases with clear lids and some padding inside to put the tokens in. I picked up some nice paper for printing recipes and instructions onto and some card to put the paperwork in. Plus I’ve ordered some lovely Christmas fabrics for wrapping everything up and picked up some ribbons to tie it all together.

As for the other details, my artwork fiddling today has resulted in there being probably seven tokens per set. And I’ve come up with a very vague sort of a price taking into account the fairly large amount of silver and the labour – roughly US$68 plus postage – don’t quote me on it, but do let me know what you think!

Thanks for the encouragement, Meshell (or is that obsession!?)!

I’m seeking opinions from all over about these, so feel free to weigh in!

It’s an old English/British tradition to have a home cooked Christmas pudding which has silver coins or tokens mixed into it – this is something my family has always done. If you find a coin it will bring you luck for the year.

The tradition started dying out as silver coins were replaced by base metals, which people felt (correctly, I’m sure!) weren’t a good idea to cook with. However, my Nan always had a stash of threepences which she would exchange with us for ‘real’ money if we found them in our piece of pudding. Over the years lots of the coins went missing and when she sadly passed away a few years ago the coins were inherited by my aunty.

My Mum kept nagging me to make a set of special silver tokens for her to use in her own puddings to keep the tradition alive. And so finally last year I managed it and made her a set out of pure silver with vintage Christmas illustrations etched onto them. And they were a hit!

And here is a little set of them as made this year.

So this year I’m thinking about making sets and packaging them to sell to people who would like to keep this tradition going – along with my family’s old recipes for pudding and brandy sauce. They’d be an heirloom that could be passed on, of course.

But will anyone outside of my family actually want something like this?

I now know that Christmas puddings simply don’t feature in the US and I’m not sure how many people in the rest of the Anglo world would make their own puddings (although the tokens can simply be slotted in even after cooking) or would know about this tradition.

Let me know what you think!

I’ve finally managed to get around to setting myself up on flickr – you can find me at www.flickr.com/photos/simonewalsh/.

Tonight I’ve put up a few recent jewellery pics – to show off new work and my new camera! I’ll add more of them as I take them (and as I actually get stuff made, of course!).

There’s also a few of my favourite photos from my trip to wonderful Istanbul earlier this year – I hope they inspire people to visit as it really is an amazing place.

I’m currently awaiting bribe money from my friend James (the most important resident of Istanbul, he assures me!) so he can be certain that I don’t put up any photographs of him and his enormous moustache. But you might get lucky!

Since my last posting I’ve added some more links to this page and have joined the Etsy bloggers webring.

And I’ve made another jewellery sale on Etsy as well – thanks anomia! Two in my first week is a great start.

Tonight I’ve also made contact with Little Miss Meshell, a fellow new Etsy-er and the writer of a great blog. And she’s an Australian maker as well! To the left is an example of Meshell’s work as seen on Etsy.com – pincushions were never meant to be so lovely!

I’ve also encountered a great shopping list and recommendations site in my travels today. I’ve come across a few of them, but this one has a lovely web 2.0 interface and I think has a lot of potential – take a look at www.thisnext.com. Here is an example of one of my own pieces that I’ve posted on ThisNext as a recommendation.

Of course all of this web-related work has most certainly kept me away from my bench and I am keen to get back there soon! There’s still those pieces of silver laying there which are in dire need of attention.