Stockholm

We got back from Stockholm the weekend before last but, as Lizzie doesn't have a nursery place yet and Christmas orders are revving up, I haven't had time to post about it until now. Stockholm is a thoroughly beautiful city and autumn was the perfect time to visit - not too cold and bursting with colour. Fleetwood Mac were amazing, legendary, wow. It was an emotional gig and I'm so glad I got to see them, that's one ticked off my bucket list*. The rest of the holiday was spent eating extremely rich and expensive food, cycling round parks, drinking beer and visiting the odd museum. We stayed at hotel skeppsholmen on Skeppsholmen (nicknamed the museum island as it houses the museum of modern art and the architecture museum). I could not recommend it more; the island itself is tiny and very picturesque, the hotel chic, well designed and quintessentially Swedish. Here are some photos:

Mid-afternoon pick me up

The Nordic Museum

An exhibition devoted to stripes

Our preferred mode of transport

Tourists

Söder viewed from the ferry

Pretty tree on Djurgården

Outfit details

The fort at the end of Skeppsholmen looking particularly autumnal

Looking up on Gamla Stan 

Museum nerd selfie

The streets of Gamla Stan

My best Stevie shot

Lindsey Buckingham: legend.

*I don't actually have a bucket list

Halloween Hustle 20% off until Sunday

It's that time of year again...witches hats, fake blood and spot inducing make-up. The horror! If you fancy a more subtle approach this Halloween then why not try a Jules and Clem black cat brooch or a set of cat studs like these? And as I'm on holiday next week I'm running a special promotion in my etsy shop - 20% off everything until Sunday! Just use the code RUMOURS2013 at the check out.

The shops will be shut from Monday 21st - Sunday 27th Oct. Happy Halloween kids!

Hello!

We've been back in England and in our new house for about a fortnight now...high time to get back to work... yup, my etsy and folksy shops are open and I am busily preparing for Christmas (i know). But before plunging head first into the festive season, some holiday photos! Crete was just lovely. I would highly recommend it esp. for a family holiday - the Greeks LOVE babies, which sure does make things easier. If you venture off the beaten track a little the rewards are plentiful. We stayed up in the mountains on an olive grove with spectacular views. We walked in the mountains, marveled at frescos and swam in the clear blue sea. I think Elizabeth enjoyed her first holiday although she struggled with the heat and didn't know what to make of the sea. Highlights for her: the pool, playing with other children, affectionate Greeks and the many many stray cats. Highlights for me: reading Hadley Freeman's Be Awesome, eating pastry with every meal (not even joking), drinking beer at lunch-time and playing with E in the pool.

See you next year!

On holiday

Guatemala - our honeymoon and last holiday. This view is going to take some beating.

We are on holiday. Or rather we're moving house and then on holiday. The last few months have been a roller coaster; we found the house of our dreams, lost the house of our dreams and ultimately decided we needed a change. We're leaving the town we've called home for the last year for bigger (and hopefully better) things...Bristol! I am excited to be living a city again, and not just any city, the city I went to university in, the city which is still home to some of my best friends. But before that, a well over-due holiday. We're flying to Crete early next week to stay in a peaceful mountain retreat. Can. Not. Wait.

My shops will be offline from Friday 20th until Friday 4th October - today is the last day I will be taking orders. Repeat: get your orders in today or wait 2 weeks! *Shameless self promotion over*

The Arrowhead Necklace

It's Friday and that can only mean one thing...time for a new product! Welcome The Arrowhead Necklace. Oh yes, I'm still obsessed with all things geometric! This pretty necklace sits just below the collar bone and looks a treat over a shirt or peeping out from behind your autumnal layers. It's priced at £10 and available from my folksy and etsy shops.

Happy weekend! 

 

Introducing The Scallop Necklace

Ta-da! The scallop necklace is available now! It comes in sparkly mirrored gold and silver, or opaque black and white and looks stunning over a collared shirt or dressed down with your favourite t-shirt and skinnies. The scallop necklace is the latest addition to the Jules and Clem geometric collection and is available on both etsy and folksy.

Happy Friday kids!

Black, white and gold: the story of Ophelia Sable Le Blanc

Wow, these photos are simply stunning and the concept behind them even more so. Stylist Marcus Hay and photographer Kat Teutsch have taken the lives of fictional New York eccentrics as inspiration for a series colour trend photos. It's an intriguing concept with beautiful results. The story of Ophelia Sable Le Blanc is my favourite. I love the simplicity of black and white with the shimmer of gold. This was the colour scheme for our wedding and still is the colour scheme for much of the jewellery I design. Basically this is like looking inside my head. Read the story of Ophelia Sable Le Blanc and the other New York eccentrics here.

Photos from here via here

New Etsy Shop!

It's Friday, E's at nursery and I'm at my desk. Happy days! This week I've been busily building my new Etsy store. I'm still a dedicated Folksy seller but I'm starting to see the importance of selling on as many platforms as possible. So, you can now find Jules and Clem on Not on the Highstreet and Dawanda. But I'm most excited about joining Etsy. The site is well designed with a pinterest feel and an interactive community. I'm looking forward to getting involved.

To celebrate I'm offering 20% off all Etsy orders for a week! Just use the discount code ETSY01 at the checkout. BOOM! 

http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JulesandClem 

Happy First Birthday Elizabeth!

In our matching party dresses (unintentional I promise), note the mullet.

Let's gloss over the small fact that I haven't blogged in over 3 months and dive right into the purpose of this post...the little lady is one year old! The months leading up to her first birthday have been packed. She is now at nursery one day a week, she has taken her first steps, had her first proper illness and given her first kiss (to me, oh lucky me!) She's into swimming, going for walks in her pushchair, playing ball and climbing - both under tables and up stairs - and cuddling up to fluffy bunny and panda, her bezzie mates. We threw her a little birthday party to mark the momentous occasion and in true diva style she sulked her way through most of the afternoon and cried when we lit the candle on her birthday cake! Definitely not got the hang of this birthday thing...

Some pics from the last few months and a film of her first (ok, third) steps:

 

And me? The first year of motherhood has been harder than I could have possibly imagined. I'd like to be able to say something profound about what I've learned but really we've just been coping. I made the difficult decision not to return to work. I had always thought I'd quit my job when I had a nipper but when it came to it I realised what I'd be missing - colleagues, London, working in a creative industry, a regular income - and suddenly the decision wasn't black and white. Being a stay-at-home mum is not a barrel of laughs; it is tirelessly domestic, repetitive, frustrating and boring. But it can also be magical and fun and, most of all, what you make it. If I have learned anything then this is it: I have the chance to make a real difference to one little life. Elizabeth's childhood is in my hands and I'm going to make sure it is the best it can possibly be. Having said all that I am still going to work. On Fridays she goes to nursery and I have the whole day to work on Jules and Clem. I have never had a dedicated lump of time to work on my jewellery before and - wow - it is so good. I achieve much more than I could squeeze into a nap time or a tired evening. I am a better mother and happier person for it. Life finally feels like it is settling down into some kind of normality and I like it.

15/52 late again!

"A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2013."

This was taken on our landing, one of the only carpeted areas in our house. We've taken to congregating out here for an early morning 'race'. At each end of the landing is a no go area (our bedroom with holes in the floorboards and the occasional sleeping daddy at one end, and the study stacked high with cardboard boxes begging to be climbed at the other) and now Elizabeth has learned to open doors (not all doors mind, just the doors that don't shut properly in our crappy rented house pfft!) I have to run around after her making sure she doesn't get into too much trouble. Pretending it's a race makes it seem more fun, and she yelps with delight when I catch her which is too cute for words. This is an early morning tradition because by 9am I am generally too knackered to carry on. 

The photo below is a kinda nice version of a face she's been pulling recently. She scrunches up her nose, purses her lips and snorts menacingly. I don't know what it means but it makes me laugh so much that I have trained her to do it on demand. The face does not photograph well though, so to save her any future embarrassment I've captured a smiley version of it. Bless.

14/52 better late than never

"A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Elizabeth and I in Hyde Park last Tuesday (The day with all the sunshine). We met my sister, cruised the park, took in some weird shit at the Serpentine Gallery and stopped for lunch at the Lido cafe. It was the perfect way to spend a rare sunny day.

So it's been a bit quiet round here. I took an impromptu break from blogging. Partly because I needed to focus my energies on making what I'll call 'the return to work decision' (I'm still no closer to reaching a conclusion btw. It seems to be a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. More on that another time), and partly to see what life would be like not blogging, not making jewellery, just being a mum and a housewife homemaker. It's been quite nice actually. My house has never been cleaner. I've finished a couple of books and nearly caught up with Girls. Matt's birthday presents were wrapped with a Martha Stewart level of fineness. I finally got round to opening an ISA (before April 5th - RESULT!). But I have missed it. I've missed writing (which, even though I am terrible at it, is therapeutic and the closest I've ever come to keeping a diary), I've missed taking and editing photos (especially the 52 project), I've missed chatting to other bloggers and having a little bit of creativity beyond artful gift wrapping. So I guess I'm not retiring my blog just yet.

Helen, in answer to your question: the blue coat is actually a quilted boys snow suit from Jasper Conran at Debenhams because why the hell not?

13/52

"A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a patch of blue sky behind Elizabeth's head. It only lasted a few minutes but boy did we make the most of it (with an impromptu visit to the park. That's what you do on bank holidays when you can't go to the pub people). E is riding high on Matt's shoulders in this picture. I remember riding on my dad's shoulders when I was a child and feeling invincible. Reliving your childhood must be one of the best and most unexpected parts of being a parent. I bloody love it!

This week a sleeping angel, this stance, and these curls.

8 months old

Already? I know I sound like a broken record but really? Time is flying, I guess that's what happens when you're on maternity leave and one day drifts into another. Thankfully the troubles of last month are far behind us, this month has been really good. I think she has finally 'settled' or at least she now sleeps for good chunks of time and follows a routine of sorts. I can't tell you how amazing this is, I feel like a new woman.
This is the month Lizzie conquered crawling. She went through the awkward only-able-to-crawl-backwards phase (full of plenty of hilarious stuck-in-a-corner-under-her-cot moments) and then after lots of practice, coaxing and demonstrations started to move confidently forwards. Her main use of crawling? To find an appropriate spot to pull herself up to standing. She loves a good stand. I can leave the room and come back 10 minutes later to find her just standing there with a big grin on her face. Other physical accomplishments this month: pulling herself up to sitting from lying down, clapping and enthusiastic head waggling.
We have a tooth! After 5 months of teething a tooth has finally sprouted on the bottom right side. And it is sharp. I no longer offer up my finger for a chew and there is no way a nipple is going anywhere near her mouth ever again. Eating is going well, we're doing a combination of puree and finger foods. I try and make most stuff from scratch but the odd Ella's kitchen pouch sneaks in - we have a small freezer and I'm a bit lazy - what you gonna do about it?
She is a happy little soul, all smiles and out stretched arms, making friends wherever she goes. She learns the things that make people laugh - a silly face, a head waggle, a funny noise - and then performs them over and over to the delight of her audience. I love her so much. I've been on maternity leave for 9 months now and decisions around my return to work are looming. I've been thinking things through this week (hence lateness of this post and general lack of blogging...sorry) but I haven't reached any conclusions. Motherhood seems to be series of hard decisions and this is the toughest yet.