Travel: Amsterdam August 2013

Whilst I am beginning these travel blog posts, I will be going back in time a little bit to document places I have visited.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend 5 days in Amsterdam back in August 2013. It was (and still is!) the best city break I have ever been on.

My boyfriend Andy and I flew out early Monday morning and arrived bright and early to a city that wasn’t quite awake! We went from the airport, onto a train and we were in the centre very fast -we decided to start exploring right away so we walked the forty minutes to our hotel.

Our hotel was the Eden Hampshire and the location was fantastic – we were able to walk everywhere the whole week, without using a tram once! The hotel was fine, basic but functional, and customer service was lovely (we requested our room be changed due to being on the noisier ground floor and they immediately accommodated us).

One of the main things I wanted to visit while we were there was the Anne Frank house and museum. I have read The Diary of Anne Frank so many times and actually being able to visit the annex and take everything in was breathtaking. I would highly, highly recommend visiting. We did queue for over an hour to get in (August is peak season mind you!) but it was worth every second of waiting.

 

We tried to cram as many things in as we could while we were there – each of us purchased a museum card which gave us access to a huge number of places, including the Anne Frank house and museum! We visited the Amsterdam Museum, the Rijksmuseum, Foam Fotografiemuseum, Artis Zoo and more!  My boyfriend is a photographer so enjoyed the photographic museum a lot!

Walking around the city gave us great opportunities to really see the city – all of the buildings, canals, streets and squares. We did take a little wander down the red light district (curiosity made me want to see it) but I felt quite uncomfortable, although it was an eye opening experience!

One of the really memorable things I found was visiting the Hagen Daaz ice cream shop after dinner and eating our ice creams whilst looking at the beautifully lit canals and bridges.

 

Recommendations

• If you are going to use walking as your mode of transport a good, comfortable pair of shoes is a must!
• I do recommend walking around, the city is not too huge to do this and you get to see so many things
• Buy or bring a map and or guidebook – we used ours daily, it got us everywhere we wanted to go and also had useful information about attractions, alternative transport and key Dutch phrases.
• The Anne Frank House and Museum is a must see – try and get there as early as you can to  beat the queues!
• Consider a museum card if you are planning on visiting museums – it can save a lot of money.
• Have fun, take in as much as you can and embrace Amsterdam

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Have you been to Amsterdam or are you planning on visiting? I would love to visit again the future and I’d also love to hear your experiences!

Kay x

 

 

Rose Gold Jewellery Collection [Product Share]

 

I have been so excited about releasing a new collection in my Etsy Shop!

Rose Gold Jewellery is so beautiful and elegant; and I was very excited to purchase a selection of findings and charms in this lovely colour.

‘Charming Threadwares’ currently has a selection of necklaces and earrings available, and there will be more products and bracelets becoming available in the upcoming months.

All products can be viewed and purchased by clicking here.

Social Media Links:

Instagram:@charmingthreadwares

Facebook: charmingthreadwares

Book Blog: http://www.turningpages90.wordpress.com

 

 

A Winter Barbecue in January [My 26th Birthday]

I wanted to do something different to celebrate my birthday this year. Usually I don’t really do too much – just a meal out with close friends or something – but I was in the mood to celebrate this time!

I decided to have a birthday barbecue. In January. I have always been a little envious of my friends that enjoy nice barbecues for their summer birthdays, and when I said this to my boyfriend he asked why I didn’t have a barbecue anyway… so we did!

I gave people plenty of warning to wrap up warm, and placed a little box with spare hats, scarves and gloves near the back door in case anyone needed to borrow any (this went down well!) Food was burgers, hot dogs and fries served in cones! Easy food for people to stand and eat – and no washing up for us!

It was a fantastic evening, really cosy outside with lights, candles and everyone snuggling round the patio heater. I’m so grateful for my lovely friends and family who came to celebrate with me!

Scrapbook Layout Share #2

I am back with another layout share – here are a few more layouts from my 2015 scrapbook album.

The birthday layout (above) has been kept quite simple. As I didn’t have any photographs taken on my birthday I decided to have one of my birthday cards as the main focus. This gorgeous cat card is from my grandparents, and I take this sheet out of my scrapbook and read the inside of the card whenever I like.

This wedding layout (above) is from David and Jo’s wedding. Their colour scheme was red, so I decided to honour that when choosing my paper colour. I tried to keep the embellishments quite simple, as well as the lettering.

Along with many others, I was sucked right into the adult colouring phase! I decided to pull a sheet out of my book to keep in my scrapbook – This bird was coloured with pro-markers and I included the hash tag as I often search for Instagram inspiration with this.

This was an experiment with a slightly larger print. One of the reasons why I love this layout is because I took this photograph myself! I love how it turned out.

This layout (above) is for my mum’s 50th birthday barbecue. I absolutely love the background – it gives the whole thing such a bright, happy feel!

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Scrapbook Layout Share – using Like Forever Kit

These layouts were created for my 2015 album.

I think the ‘pop’ layout (below) is possibly my favourite from last year, I love the paper, letters and how lovely the photographs of our friends little girl turned out. (I have blurred out her face, so as to not share her face on the internet).

The layout above was created to remember our friend Jim’s 40th birthday party. It had a wild west theme, and there was an inflatable BB gun range that they hired. I love how these photos have been edited!

This layout (above) is to remember my brother and sister in law’s 40th wedding anniversary. I used the ‘I love you’ washing tape to frame the whole paper, which is an effect I had never tried before.

This wedding layout (above) is another of my favourites. It is made using vellum on a white background – I wanted quite a bit of space left around the picture as well, to really give it a light, airy feel. The little tags with our names on were our table place names! I knew it would be worth keeping them!

I believe I have shared this Toro layout (above) before, but I still wanted to include it in this post. I was experimenting with using a larger print as the main focus of the page. I feel that the view in the photograph gives the whole layout a much deeper feel.

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The layouts above were created using items from a ‘like forever scrapbook kit’. You can view their blog and website here. 

Menorca – Scrapbook Share

A while ago I posted about my trip to Menorca –  I document events and memories by creating scrapbooks. I do both 12 x 12 layouts and project life style layouts. Below are a few images of my Menorca scrapbook layouts.

Menorca – 2015

Travelling is something I never thought I would want to do when I was younger. My only trip abroad as a child had been to France and it was a little bit of bad luck holiday! However, when I began to date my boyfriend (back in 2012) he was keen for us to go on some warm and sunny travels! So I renewed my passport, bought a suitcase and ventured onto an aeroplane for the first time and this is when my love for travel was sealed.

Since then I have been fortunate enough to visit Lanzarote, Amsterdam, Florida and Menorca. I hope to add many new exciting places to that short list. Each time I go to a new place I fall a little in love and I love to make sure we take lots of photographs to remember our experiences. My boyfriend (Andy) is a photographer and loves to take photos everywhere, so I needn’t worry about not having enough of those!

This year I took a DSLR away for myself to play with, and we had a week of exploration, relaxation and photography lessons! I thought I would share some of my favourites with you today. I’m having a bit of a re-vamp with the blog, and decided what content I want to upload. This is my first post on ‘travel’ and ‘photography’.

Menorca is a beautiful island, we had a fantastic week exploring. We flew out in September and the weather was just perfect – not too hot and not at all cold! We hired a car and drove all over the island, exploring different places and finding interesting things to look at. My favourite place was a little harbour town called ‘Fornells’, we visited here twice and I would recomend having a look if you get the chance 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this post!

See my Etsy shop here.

Personalised Wedding Photography Charm

I love creating custom items for people, especially when it is something outside of my normal creating.

My boyfriend is a semi-professional photographer, and does a number of wedding shoots each year. Instead of handing over a disc of images, he decided to give the couple their photos on a memory stick and wanted a little personalisation for it.

We decided to keep the charms quite simple – with the names of the bride and groom and a little bead detailing. I tried a few methods before settling on using letter beads, silver spacer beads and hemp cord. I secured the beads with knots at each end, and strengthened them with a little dab of glue! I’m pretty happy with the result and will be looking forward to making a few more of these when needed!

Caring for Handmade Jewellery

One of the questions I get asked from customers a lot is “how do I care for this jewellery and make it last for a long time?”

I have a few tips for making handmade jewellery withstand the test of time. I create my items with endurance in mind – when I first began making jewellery I ‘test drove’ pieces of jewellery. I would wear them out and about, fiddle with them, wash my hands with them and really see how well they held up. This also allowed me to tweak how I made some things so they were able to be more robust and hard wearing. This was the start of my being able to give a good set of tips for jewellery care.

1) Wear your jewellery with consideration – many delicate pieces of jewellery just won’t stand up to being worn all day everyday – take it off when you shower, or sleep or partake in sport. This will also make your jewellery feel extra special!

2) Keep away from water! Many of the materials used in my jewellery are silver or gold plated and lots of exposure to water will cause them to tarnish quickly. I advice removing your jewellery before washing up, showering and so on.

3) Silver jewellery (plated and sterling) tends to tarnish generally so its good to keep it clean. I use a soft, cotton cloth to wipe over my own pieces of jewellery to remove the dirt that builds up when you wear it. To give it a ‘deeper’ clean, silver cleaning cloths can also be purchased – I recommend using these very carefully for silver plated items.

4) Store away from sunlight – keeping your jewellery (and again silver in particular) in bright sunlight will cause it to tarnish quickly. Keeping it in a box, or in a nicely shaded area will help prevent this.

Why I love Making Jewellery

Jewellery making is a hobby I fell in love with as soon as a picked up some pliers and beads! In this blog post I will be sharing some of the reasons for my love of creating jewellery.

Endless Possibilities – Creative Freedom

I honestly believe that I could never run out of new ideas and inspirations for making jewellery. There is always something new that catches my imagination and the creative possibilities are endless. There is something magical about being able to use any combination of beads, charms, colours, shapes and themes to create beautiful pieces of jewellery.

Personalisation

Being able to make jewellery that will match anything in my wardrobe is fantastic, I will always have all the accessories I need and can add new pieces as frequently as I desire.

I also enjoy designing and making items specifically for my friends and family – they love being able to choose the details of their jewellery as much as I do! One of the pieces I enjoyed making last summer was a beaded necklace for my friend Hazel, which was inspired by her love of Tomb Raider!

Combining Interests

You will be able to see my other interests and hobbies popping up in my jewellery making – I love finding and using charms that relate well to another passion. For example, reading is another one of my favourite hobbies and I have many items that reflect this love – including these popular ‘I love to read’ earrings!

Always Room to Grow

As with many art forms and hobbies, there is always room to grow in skill and talent with jewellery making. In the future I see myself learning how to work more with metals and creating my own findings and charms. I look forward to growing as a maker and a designer.

Jewellery Making is Therapeutic

I find the whole process of jewellery making very therapeutic – from choosing beads and findings, deciding on my designs and actually making up the pieces. I can really allow my mind to wander while I create, and I’m always much calmer after a few hours of jewellery making!