Dear blog, I miss you...

Yes I really do.

What I mean is I miss the communicating with all of you! I haven't forgotten you friends, and I hope you have forgotten me! I have been dying to pop in but have been so tied up- with Etsy, with life, with a number of family events.

Not been up to much in my spare time apart from filling orders (thank you customers), and only found a minute or two to do other things. I finally photographed these peonies properly from my garden last year, something I've been meaning to do for a while. I never understood people that kept dried flowers before, but know I'm doing it myself!



For some reason, dead flowers have become so moving to me....

...with these, I know it's the Rothko like colours, black on maroon: intense and mysterious all at once.

The same flower, freshly plucked...a different stage of life. It almost jars my senses.

I'm re-planning my packaging (again!!!), maybe I will use these dead peonies somehow.

When I have no time to blog, I think I'll just come and post some pretty pictures here, for a little entertainment!

Hello, I'm busy!

Dear friends-

I'm just poopping in quickly to say hello:) I had lots of things to share, but don't think I'll have time as I have orders to fill. Etsy has been unbelievably kind this weekend to me: a couple of 'Front pages', 'Treasuries' have lead to orders, and I make a point of never ever keeping customers waiting for long, so I'll have my head down. Thank you Etsy and everyone one of you putting my work in the spotlight!

I have a number of you to email back from last week and family I haven't had a moment to call. Just know I'm here, thinking of you all, dying to speak soon! (Thank you Ms A for the envelope stuffed with fun Easter gifts for L & Z!!! You are too sweet! I'm embaressed, I don't even deserve you! Can't wait to see you in London!

Leaving you with a couple of pictures: my local flea market (if you can even call it that) finds...a beautiful metallic glass vase and, I call it 'prickly glass ashtray'. (No I don't smoke).

And here is what will be our new bathroom vanity:

I am still buzzing over this one! We got it for a steal, it was originally something riduculous like $2500, but we got it for a few hundred dollars at a store that's going out of business. Two cracked pieces of glass on the front, but that can all be fixed! I can't wait till our current horrible bathroom goes forever! I never planned to have a fancy bathroom, but I guess the road took a fork in the other direction.

You can all come for a 'pee'....come use our 'loo' as we call it in England!

And this one's for Ms M all the way in beautiful Paris:

Ahh Brighton...that lovely carousel again!

Talk soon:)

PS: Lots of new things in the Etsy store now.

Lovely weekend/Etsy update

Had a lovely weekend, did you? Lot's of cooking, running around, and now possess an amazing, amazing find for the new bathroom we're having done this summer! Cannot wait for the positively sorry 1970's avocado bathroom 'suite' to GO. Dying to share pictures, but said item is wrapped in swathes of cellophane like a mummy in dark garage....I will try and capture some pic.s later this week...I'm still fainting over it!!!

I listing some new pieces in my Etsy store: Over the past couple of days, these three necklaces have made their way there:

Black ball necklace.

Black dahlia necklace

Audrey- white

This last one is reserved for a friend already, but I'm planning on ordering more leather and offering it again as I've already had a number of enquiries about it! So watch out for updates hear if you'd like it:)

My first batch of orders went out, here they all are, all.....FOUR!!!

A little note card...

I'm always mulling over packaging of my jewelry...don't you love the process of unwrapping something beautifully packaged?

Bursting!

After a horrible day yesterday ( I won't go into that one), I am bursting with relief, happiness, excitement all day today...not only a front page rightaway:



(thank you for delivering the news Heidi, Crooked Smooshed!), but 4 sales too!!! I couldn't have dreamed of a better start! Thank you new customers!

It's taken me such a while to list my new pieces that I wondered how on earth I would make myself visible again on Etsy. I owe a big thank you to whomever decided to feature me on the front page- I know those sales are due to that. So thank you, 'whomever'.

I number of people have been contacting me to find out where they can get that gorgeous top in the 'Troika' necklace pic.s: 'Rebecca Talyor', FYI. It's a few season's old though...good luck finding it!

Babette on Heart Handmade!

Yesterday, I was featured on Marichelle's wonderful blog, 'Heart Handmade'! I fought to find time to let you all know, but my day was completely crazy to say the least. So though it's a little belated, here is the link if you want to read 'random facts about me', see my home and workspace! The lovely Melissa, of 'Melissa Loves' who I've had the pleasure of getting to know over the past few months was guest writer at HH, and put the piece together. Thanks bunches Melis! I know that without Melissa championing my work, I would be lost amongst a sea of others!

You'll also find pictures of little pockets of our home there- ummm, the nicer parts, the parts that I de-cluttered before I took pic.s!!! It's always huge fun to see other people's spaces, right?

Here is a picture of Lila's room that I've been slowly decorating (on a strict budget), over the past year or so:





Everything is either from Ikea, salvaged, made by myself, from Ebay, Etsy or a flea market find.

New collection preview

Well, hooray- at last I am ready to preview the new 'Babette' jewelry collection that will be going on sale in my Etsy store sometime this week/next week.
I can't tell you how excited I am to finally let it go! I feel like I've hung onto it for so long, waiting for it to feel like it is complete, perfect, nothing amiss. I've come to the conclusion that nothing I ever do is complete, it is always evolving, changing, morphing into something other. So whilst this goes on sale, my head is full of new ideas.

The photograph of the boys up above has been pinned in my memory the whole time I've been designing, it's haunted me for so many years. I took it almost 20 years ago in Jaiselmer, an unbelievably picturesque, ancient city, magical in the extreme, next to the Thar desert in Radjasthan, India. I feel like I stole the picture of these boys, they weren't expecting it, and I never gave them the time to pose (or look away). Aren't the two of them so damned cool?

Anyway, this image has not only has seeped into my heart, but my work. The boy in the corner wears a long garland of flowers- marigolds, which are used in sacred ceremonies in Hinduism. I strung together my own, and I can't help but feel that they have a unique, spiritual quality of their own....







I will also announce a giveaway soon:)

Birthday girl!

Here's my sweet little birthday girl in daddy's arms...my husband would kill me for this, so it's great he does not read my blog!!! I think she was bewildered by the attention, so he helped her with a smile



We all had a great time: Lots of family, a ton of cooking, me attempting my first bundt cake (below) and chocolate dipped strawberries!

It helped take my mind off the endless bad news we're hear daily...like the story about those desperate people forced to live in tents in CA because they can't find work anymore. I was speechless after seeing their story. And after watching this morning's news, I actually found myself asking my husband out aloud whether our money was safe in a bank or not! I feel like I'm losing faith in all the institutions we are meant to trust.

Birthday party preparations.

We're throwing a little birthday party for Zara, who turned 1 in January, yay!!! A little late for her party, but snowfilled weeks and family being absent kept us from celebrating on time.

I'm in the middle of designing a 'Happy Birthday' banner for the room as I couldn't bare the garish (to my eye's), Disneyfied birthday banners in those generic party stores. I've taken my favorite Liberty of London floral prints and merged them with a dainty font, to make something, sweet, simple and girly without being overly fussy. Won't don't they sell things like this???

Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the printer she climbs all over and pulls apart everyday, still works!



We have streamers and concertina balls suspended from the ceiling, which have been clinging up there for a couple of months!!! I just didn't take any of the decoration down that I put up for the original party date, so we've been eating around the table under a sweet canopy of pink and white...

New collection

Another...

Babette- New collection

Wow, I feel like I've been away for an eternity, and I've missed you all! I have been finishing off, photographing and editing the new pieces of leather jewelry I've been claiming to be working on....And here is one image above- I will try and post more during the week. I have been busy, but I snatched a few minutes to have a look at London Fashion Week, and I just loved the collection by 'Erdem'....made my heart race a bit! I love the doll like silouette and pops of tiny bright flowers.



And I detoured into Neiman Marcus whilst shopping for tights for Lila this weekend and just hovered around the Philip Lim rack until I could feel the store assistant's eye's burning holes into me. (I hate when they do that). I couldn't stop groping the gorgeous fabrics and details in his beautiful clothes. If I looked like one of those 18 year olds with rich dad's credit card, I would just try on all those clothes!


Anyway, I couldn't find pictures of exactly what I saw in the store- but that could be dangerous:)